I hate Windows
 

It's astounding. Every time I think I'm getting over hating Windows it
makes DAMN SURE I have a complete nightmare of some description.

Today's example follows the continuing exploits of a 2 month old Athlon
64. We have brand name memory, hard drive, motherboard and none of the
tightarse skimping for which I am rightly famous. Installing XP on this
was a complete nightmare until, a number of hours later, I realised you
have to press F6 at the start of the boot process and put in a floppy
disk (a floppy, I ask you) in order to install Windows. Like, of course
you would in 2004.

Shortly after getting the machine built my company had a contractor come
and work for it. He used it for six weeks and it only failed a few
times, costing real genuine money every time. But hey, it's windows,
it's supposed to **** itself right?

So I get it home and swap the video card (my GF6800 had been sitting in
another box while the machine was at work). The machine boots, reckons
it's lost the video card driver and drops a vga one in instead then
stalls. It does the same thing a few more times then stops booting at
all. Safe mode reveals it to have stopped at mup.sys

Anyone here googled for mup.sys? Seen the LEGIONS of people suffering
from this? Read comments from the people who fix PC's for a living and
see this EVERY ****ING DAY? Anybody feel a twinge of understanding for
those saying "I've been trying to fix this for two days"?

So I've tried everything in these damn forums. Forcing the bios to
rebuild ESCI; moving memory chips around; disabling USB; getting the
recovery console up and doing a chkdsk /r ... no joy.

Suse 9.1 boots just fine, BTW.

So maybe it's the motherboard. Maybe it's the SATA drivers I needed to
install. Maybe there's a timing issue on VIA K8thingy chipsets. Maybe
I've been stupid and tried to use windows while the tide was rising on a
full moon. Who ****ing knows? All I know is that as the basis for a
computing device, Windows XP has failed absolutely and completely. For
both business and home. I would quite like to recover the contents of
this drive, but the number of "reinstalling always fixes mup.sys
problems for me" posts seem to indicate that perhaps this is not an
option. We will need to do some more Windows development and
reisntalling XP, Visual studio, a bunch of third party tools and a
couple of dependent libraries is going to take a non-trivial quantity of
time. Not to mention the damn-near certainty that it's going to happen
again. Good job the source code I care about is held on subversion on a
nice reliable Linux box.

What an absolute pile of crap. The only upside to this is that my family
(on both sides) have now seen the light and are buying Macs.

As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this and can suggest a
way of preventing it from happening - I'm all ears. See related post
below...

Dave

Re: I hate Windows
 

"David Preece" <davep@deletethis.zedkep.com> wrote in message
news:2LYkd.971$3U4.84908@news02.tsnz.net...
> It's astounding. Every time I think I'm getting over hating Windows it
> makes DAMN SURE I have a complete nightmare of some description.
>
> Today's example follows the continuing exploits of a 2 month old Athlon
> 64. We have brand name memory, hard drive, motherboard and none of the
> tightarse skimping for which I am rightly famous. Installing XP on this
> was a complete nightmare until, a number of hours later, I realised you
> have to press F6 at the start of the boot process and put in a floppy disk
> (a floppy, I ask you) in order to install Windows. Like, of course you
> would in 2004.
>
> Shortly after getting the machine built my company had a contractor come
> and work for it. He used it for six weeks and it only failed a few times,
> costing real genuine money every time. But hey, it's windows, it's
> supposed to **** itself right?
>
> So I get it home and swap the video card (my GF6800 had been sitting in
> another box while the machine was at work). The machine boots, reckons
> it's lost the video card driver and drops a vga one in instead then
> stalls. It does the same thing a few more times then stops booting at all.
> Safe mode reveals it to have stopped at mup.sys
>
> Anyone here googled for mup.sys? Seen the LEGIONS of people suffering from
> this? Read comments from the people who fix PC's for a living and see this
> EVERY ****ING DAY? Anybody feel a twinge of understanding for those saying
> "I've been trying to fix this for two days"?
>
> So I've tried everything in these damn forums. Forcing the bios to rebuild
> ESCI; moving memory chips around; disabling USB; getting the recovery
> console up and doing a chkdsk /r ... no joy.
>
> Suse 9.1 boots just fine, BTW.
>
> So maybe it's the motherboard. Maybe it's the SATA drivers I needed to
> install. Maybe there's a timing issue on VIA K8thingy chipsets. Maybe I've
> been stupid and tried to use windows while the tide was rising on a full
> moon. Who ****ing knows? All I know is that as the basis for a computing
> device, Windows XP has failed absolutely and completely. For both business
> and home. I would quite like to recover the contents of this drive, but
> the number of "reinstalling always fixes mup.sys problems for me" posts
> seem to indicate that perhaps this is not an option. We will need to do
> some more Windows development and reisntalling XP, Visual studio, a bunch
> of third party tools and a couple of dependent libraries is going to take
> a non-trivial quantity of time. Not to mention the damn-near certainty
> that it's going to happen again. Good job the source code I care about is
> held on subversion on a nice reliable Linux box.
>
> What an absolute pile of crap. The only upside to this is that my family
> (on both sides) have now seen the light and are buying Macs.
>
> As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this and can suggest a way
> of preventing it from happening - I'm all ears. See related post below...
>
> Dave

I've installed XP many many times and never had to use a floppy disk during
the process. I have XP Pro and Home running on three PC's at home, one at
work and can think of another 5 or 6 installations I've done for friends and
not a single one has ever had a single problem. Could I respectfully suggest
that the issue is either you or crap hardware rather than the OS you're
trying to install ?

Re: I hate Windows
 

C9H8O4 wrote:
> Could I respectfully suggest
> that the issue is either you or crap hardware rather than the OS you're
> trying to install ?

You may respectfully suggest it, and indeed I shall take this as such.

I take it then that you've never installed XP on a machine with serial
ATA? And perhaps it is crap hardware. Given the time this has taken, the
two hundred bucks for a new motherboard is beginning to look like a bargain.

Besides, the old one could be the basis for a *monster* Linux box.

Dave

Re: I hate Windows
 

"David Preece" <davep@deletethis.zedkep.com> wrote in message
news:2LYkd.971$3U4.84908@news02.tsnz.net...

> Today's example follows the continuing exploits of a 2 month old Athlon
> 64. We have brand name memory, hard drive, motherboard and none of the
> tightarse skimping for which I am rightly famous. Installing XP on this
> was a complete nightmare until, a number of hours later, I realised you
> have to press F6 at the start of the boot process and put in a floppy
> disk (a floppy, I ask you) in order to install Windows. Like, of course
> you would in 2004.

This has been around since as long as i can recall (certainly on WinNT3.51).
What was required was a mass storage driver - which was obviously supplied
on a separate floppy. FWIW, i have an ASUS P4P800-E which didn't require a
mass storage driver to get it up and running. Like everything, if the
manufacturer hasn't submitted the MSD to be included in the build, then it's
hardly surprising that you would have to install it separately from a
floppy.

BTW, from reading the rest of your thread i don't know why you don't have an
automated build process. They aren't too difficult to setup and can be as
simple as dropping a floppy with a winnt.sif file on it to set all the
parameters. I have used RIS extensively and a PC can be brought up on the
network within half an hour or so - automated, fully patched and ready to
go.

--
Mr Scebe
Losersh always whine about their 'besht'.
Winnersh go home and **** the prom queen".
~Sean Connery in "The Rock"

Re: I hate Windows
 

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 19:28:54 +1300, David Preece wrote:

> It's astounding. Every time I think I'm getting over hating Windows it
> makes DAMN SURE I have a complete nightmare of some description.
>
> Today's example follows the continuing exploits of a 2 month old Athlon
> 64. We have brand name memory, hard drive, motherboard and none of the
> tightarse skimping for which I am rightly famous. Installing XP on this
> was a complete nightmare until, a number of hours later, I realised you
> have to press F6 at the start of the boot process and put in a floppy
> disk (a floppy, I ask you) in order to install Windows. Like, of course
> you would in 2004.

you mean for thoes fancy arse drivers that the XP installer knows nothing
about, yea sure. how else do you think the installer will be able to copy
some files over to that fancy arse raid of yours.

> Shortly after getting the machine built my company had a contractor come
> and work for it. He used it for six weeks and it only failed a few
> times, costing real genuine money every time. But hey, it's windows,
> it's supposed to **** itself right?

when your talking about a BETA operating system - yea.

> Suse 9.1 boots just fine, BTW.

the people who wrote the 64bit version of suse have spent a bit more time
doing it than the people who are *still writing* the code for windows xp
64bit edition

> We will need to do some more Windows development and
> reisntalling XP, Visual studio, a bunch of third party tools and a
> couple of dependent libraries is going to take a non-trivial quantity of
> time.

well when your dealing with a *beta* operating system running *beta*
applications (not sure if vs + your third party tools come in 64bit
flavors), install it - configure it - and image the ****er.

makes sence to me

> Good job the source code I care about is held on subversion on a
> nice reliable Linux box.

good to know your using subversion, myself i have got it on a windows 2003
server box. it is a bit of a bitch trying to get hook-scripts running
(because most of the subversion devs live on the little planet called linux
so windows documentation is **** all at most).

> What an absolute pile of crap. The only upside to this is that my family
> (on both sides) have now seen the light and are buying Macs.

lol - hey got a joke for you

how do you upgrade a Mac? You buy another one

well i found it funny!

> As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this and can suggest a
> way of preventing it from happening - I'm all ears. See related post
> below...
>
> Dave



-------------
Steven H

Re: I hate Windows
 

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 19:28:54 +1300, David Preece wrote:

> As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this and can suggest a
> way of preventing it from happening - I'm all ears. See related post
> below...

As you said "Suse 9.1 boots just fine, BTW". Seems to me to be an answer.

Re: I hate Windows
 

Mr Scebe wrote:
> BTW, from reading the rest of your thread i don't know why you don't have an
> automated build process.

I was hoping to only have to do it once.

Dave

Re: I hate Windows
 

steven wrote:
>>But hey, it's windows,
>>it's supposed to **** itself right?
>
> when your talking about a BETA operating system - yea.

I'm sorry, d'you think I'm using 64 bit XP? Even I'm not that suicidal.

>>Good job the source code I care about is held on subversion on a
>>nice reliable Linux box.
>
> good to know your using subversion, myself i have got it on a windows 2003
> server box. it is a bit of a bitch trying to get hook-scripts running
> (because most of the subversion devs live on the little planet called linux
> so windows documentation is **** all at most).

So, ummmm, use it on Linux - where it belongs?

> lol - hey got a joke for you
>
> how do you upgrade a Mac? You buy another one

Ah, yes. Same way you upgrade a TV. Or mobile phone. Or DVD player. Or
any of a dozen classes of consumer device that actually ****ing work.

>>As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this

I see you didn't have a reply to that bit.

Dave

Re: I hate Windows
 

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 19:42:42 +1300, "C9H8O4"
<taketwo@andcallmeinthemorning.com> wrote:

>"David Preece" <davep@deletethis.zedkep.com> wrote in message
>news:2LYkd.971$3U4.84908@news02.tsnz.net...
>> It's astounding. Every time I think I'm getting over hating Windows it
>> makes DAMN SURE I have a complete nightmare of some description.
>>
>> Today's example follows the continuing exploits of a 2 month old Athlon
>> 64. We have brand name memory, hard drive, motherboard and none of the
>> tightarse skimping for which I am rightly famous. Installing XP on this
>> was a complete nightmare until, a number of hours later, I realised you
>> have to press F6 at the start of the boot process and put in a floppy disk
>> (a floppy, I ask you) in order to install Windows. Like, of course you
>> would in 2004.
>>
>> Shortly after getting the machine built my company had a contractor come
>> and work for it. He used it for six weeks and it only failed a few times,
>> costing real genuine money every time. But hey, it's windows, it's
>> supposed to **** itself right?
>>
>> So I get it home and swap the video card (my GF6800 had been sitting in
>> another box while the machine was at work). The machine boots, reckons
>> it's lost the video card driver and drops a vga one in instead then
>> stalls. It does the same thing a few more times then stops booting at all.
>> Safe mode reveals it to have stopped at mup.sys
>>
>> Anyone here googled for mup.sys? Seen the LEGIONS of people suffering from
>> this? Read comments from the people who fix PC's for a living and see this
>> EVERY ****ING DAY? Anybody feel a twinge of understanding for those saying
>> "I've been trying to fix this for two days"?
>>
>> So I've tried everything in these damn forums. Forcing the bios to rebuild
>> ESCI; moving memory chips around; disabling USB; getting the recovery
>> console up and doing a chkdsk /r ... no joy.
>>
>> Suse 9.1 boots just fine, BTW.
>>
>> So maybe it's the motherboard. Maybe it's the SATA drivers I needed to
>> install. Maybe there's a timing issue on VIA K8thingy chipsets. Maybe I've
>> been stupid and tried to use windows while the tide was rising on a full
>> moon. Who ****ing knows? All I know is that as the basis for a computing
>> device, Windows XP has failed absolutely and completely. For both business
>> and home. I would quite like to recover the contents of this drive, but
>> the number of "reinstalling always fixes mup.sys problems for me" posts
>> seem to indicate that perhaps this is not an option. We will need to do
>> some more Windows development and reisntalling XP, Visual studio, a bunch
>> of third party tools and a couple of dependent libraries is going to take
>> a non-trivial quantity of time. Not to mention the damn-near certainty
>> that it's going to happen again. Good job the source code I care about is
>> held on subversion on a nice reliable Linux box.
>>
>> What an absolute pile of crap. The only upside to this is that my family
>> (on both sides) have now seen the light and are buying Macs.
>>
>> As an aside, if anyone *does* know what causes this and can suggest a way
>> of preventing it from happening - I'm all ears. See related post below...
>>
>> Dave
>
>I've installed XP many many times and never had to use a floppy disk during
>the process. I have XP Pro and Home running on three PC's at home, one at
>work and can think of another 5 or 6 installations I've done for friends and
>not a single one has ever had a single problem. Could I respectfully suggest
>that the issue is either you or crap hardware rather than the OS you're
>trying to install ?
>



He stated the Problem, its the utter Crap VIA thing..

XP Has to use the Floppy to Install IDE/STATA Drivers..

Re: I hate Windows
 

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:14:16 +1300, "Mr Scebe" <Mr_Scebe@nowhere.com>
wrote:
>
>I have used RIS extensively and a PC can be brought up on the
>network within half an hour or so - automated, fully patched and ready to
>go.
>
Apart from the fact that I've never before met anyone who got RIS to
work - it always fails at the "Hit F12" stage, it's not a practical
solution for two or three PCs.

Cheers,

Cliff