[thechat] winXP vs. win2000

[rudy]

> I've been on Win2K Pro for nearly two years and I love not having to
> reboot my machine for months (unless I'm installing new software)
> as opposed to Win 95/98/ME etc.
>
> It's solid, stable, and proven. Go for it!

not so solid that it can withstand nimda

last thursday nimda got loose in my win2kpro machine, the one the kids and i
use to surf the net -- couldn't see any email attachment had come in lately,
so it must've been a bad, bad site

the first problem was that i kept getting bsod's with
driver_irql_not_less_or_equal

then i noticed something was updating all sorts of html files, adding
javascript at the end which would pop up, at location 6000,6000, a
readme.eml file which it also added to every subdirectory

got a nimda cleaner from symantec, ran it, removed five hundred or so copies
of the virus, rebooted, breathed a sigh of relief -- until another bsod

time to reinstall windows -- at least that part was painless

now to reconnect to the internet

i called rogers cable, and learned something brand new -- you gotta
reinstall drivers

"what are drivers?"

(i shit you not -- this shows my level of hardware/software expertise)

rogers said i had to open up the back of the machine, to find out what kind
of nic i had

"nic?"

so i called dell, and spoke to a *very* patient support rep, who told me
where on the machine i needed to look to find my customer tag number
(without which they won't help you)

having verified that i was still on the 1-year support plan (by two weeks!
whew!) she not only told me my machine didn't have a nic on the board, but
also how to reinstall my video and memory drivers (see, i would've never
known to do that)

turns out my cable modem plugs into an ethernet adaptor which plugs into a
usb port

dell tells me to reinstall the ethernet adaptor driver

i never throw anything away, and i still have the floppy that came with the
ethernet adaptor, so i load that and find three files -- a readme (which is
for win98, even though the box has a label on it that says it works for
win2000), some kind of .inf file, and some kind of .sys file

none of which work when i double-click it (except the readme, but it
didn't say much)

call rogers again

they say call linksys

linksys says you have to unplug it first, reboot, plug it in again

this is called "plug and pray"

now i have to go to control panel add hardware, and wait until i see a
screen that says "have disk"

this will install the drivers off the floppy

[sigh]

okay, obviously, for the two or three of you who are still reading this far,
i did finally manage to get everything more or less back to normal, but i
have one question -- i've been using pc's since the mid-80's, and
HOW COME I STILL DON'T KNOW THIS SHIT??

i can **really** empathise with people who are afraid to download and
install a new browser

the stress level, when you're dealing with something you know very little
about, is quite high

yeah, maybe i should know hardware/software, but i don't


next time, i'll be off the 1-year service plan, so i'm hoping spinhead and i
are still on good terms...

i'm gonna need him


rudy