[Am-info] Uninstalling Win XP (long)

[Bill Forrest]

Thanks for the info., Jeff. And also to everyone else, thanks. I'm
totally turned off to XP because of Micro$oft's intrusiveness and also
how they restrict the amount of installs on XP. I don't want to "lease"
from Micro$oft. So I'd rather run '98 or try to get my hands on 2000.

Bill

--- Jeff Wasel <jeff@wasel.com> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
> 
> First, you might want to call AlienWare and see if they provide 2000
> as an
> option. I still see plenty of laptops on sale with 2000, so it
> wouldn't be
> an alien (couldn't resist) concept to those guys. They may be running
> an XP
> special in the store, wherein the sales guys get spiffed for selling
> XP over
> Win 2000. I can't fault 2000 for a laptop install. I did an
> after-market
> install on a Sony Vaio (it came with Windows ME) and I have had zero
> crashes
> over the last couple of years, and I am a serious power user. It is
> extremely reliable; as much as I loathe M$, they got it right with
> 2000. Use
> opera or Netscape for a browser, along with Black Ice for a firewall
> (I'm
> sure the list has other ideas as well), and you'll eliminate the
> majority of
> the security faults. Frankly a lot of them are due to laziness on
> both the
> part of M$ and SA's; I have never had a virus, nor been hacked;
> periodically
> use "Shields-up" https://grc.com/intro.htm (Steve Gibson's site -
> he's a
> character, but this is a useful place to keep your system tuned-
> there are
> many others - again the list will help). I've used a lot of laptops
> with 98,
> and it is still dicey, but it will suffice. It depends on what you
> will be
> using your machine for.
> 
> Depending on how geeky you are, you might try Linux. Geoffrey (from
> the
> am-info list) and I swapped mail several years back ('97ish) about
> using
> Linux on a laptop. I ran into driver issues and never finished the
> u/g.
> However, given the maturity of Linux, particularly in driver support,
> this
> is an option as well. Where you will most likely hit road blocks is
> in the
> modem driver and USB support. I recently built a box using the latest
> SUSE
> release, and they were lacking in Netgear USB support for my wireless
> LAN.
> 
> If you must use '98, the first thing I would do is inventory ALL the
> peripherals (Sound card, Ethernet adapter, modem, DVD/CD, etc.),
> using the
> hardware device detection in XP. If you don't want to even look at
> XP, the
> box should list all this as well. Also, you can usually find this on
> your
> system vendor's site in the tech support area where they list the
> hard core
> technical data for the geek contingent.
> 
> Make sure you use the part number and model number on the data plate,
> usually on the bottom of the machine. Don't rely on the model number
> that's
> part of the machine's marketed name. They're usually different, and
> this
> will hose you if you get the wrong set of drivers. Laptops use
> marketing
> part numbers more as a product family ID than for anything
> technically
> useful. The key thing is that you can make sure you can get Win98
> drivers
> for all those peripherals. This tends to be the toughest part of a
> laptop
> u/g. Once you have the drivers sorted out, store the drivers on an
> alternate
> machine or CD - just so they're accessible come the time Win98 starts
> asking
> for them in the "device driver not found" iteration of your new
> install.
> 
>  I've used laptops a lot, so I'm happy to help in anyway I can in
> your
> install u/g process.
> 
> Good luck, and shoot me mail if you need any more help...
> 
> Jeff Wasel
> jeff@wasel.com
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: am-info-admin@venice.essential.org
> [mailto:am-info-admin@venice.essential.org]On Behalf Of Bill Forrest
> Sent: 04 September 2002 01:05
> To: Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO
> Subject: [Am-info] Uninstalling Win XP
> 
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is a little off topic but I have a simple (I think) question:
> I'm
> going to buy a new laptop this week but I don't want to run XP on it.
> Can anyone tell me how to reformat the hard drive to load Win98? 
> Also
> will this cause a configuration problem for the hardware.  I'm going
> to
> buy an AlienWare Area 51m.  Thanks in advance for your input.
> 
> Bill Forrest
> 
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