I finally decided that it was time to move to XP
, W2K is OK but has a lot of business and network functionality that I simply don't need and gets in the way. A month ago I was still using ME!
So I went to those nice people at CCL who sold me an OEM XP Home CD for about 46 quid. To qualify for an OEM version you need to get some hardware at the same time, CCL say that even a mouse at 1.99 is sufficient. So, what hardware do I need?
I have 2 Samsung Hard Disks 80Gb PATA and 250GB SATA.
I have 2 Optical drives CD/DVD RAM SATA and CD/DVD ROM PATA
I have a floppy, (you need a floppy to install W2K, install SATA drivers in W2K, flash the ASUS BIOS and to force the 80Gb Samsung to operate in UDMA133 Mode.
I have all the graphics card I need, thank you very much, and a very nice Sony 17" TFT
.
So I had a look at the installed memory, and I have 2x512Mb Kingston ValueRAM timed at 33333. CCL had a 1gb stick of the same RAM (the part number is the same) for £37.
So I bought it.
I am now using nLite to build an XP Boot CD which allows unattended installation, no need to enter all that tedious information about who you are and where you live, and what's your product code etc etc
. You can also not install things that you don't need or want and pre-select which mode all the various services start in.
Everything is backed up to CD or Memory stick, Acronis TrueImage 10 is on order, the SATA Hd is partitioned, formatted and nice and empty. and we are ready to roll.
If you don't hear from me for a few week you know it all went horribly wrong, in which case, a Merry Christmas to all our readers.