/dev/blog

Installing Windows XP Professional was very demanding. When people ask why I listen to death metal remind me to send them a link to this article.

1. Boot to CD
2. Format partitions
3. I don’t give it permission to write over GRUB’s MBR, but it assumes I won’t be using anything else
4. Set the time and various network settings
5. Enter product key
6. Reenter product key
7. Boot to HDD
8. Get a rather amusing error message when I open IE
9. Activate Windows over the internet
10. Windows refuses to activate over the internet for no reason, but I get a 1-800 number
11. Spend ten minutes arguing with voice recognition software
12. The software also can’t help me, so I get forwarded to a human being
13. Elevator music
14. Some guy in India picks up the phone and I beg for permission to use the software
15. Have my gender insulted by being called “Ma’am”, but at least he was being proper
16. Patch Windows
17. Reboot
18. Patch Windows to SP2
19. Reboot
20. Patch Windows some more
21. Reboot
22. Install drivers
23. Reboot
24. Install (a real) firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-adware programs
25. Reboot
26. Install software
27. Patch software

And people say installing Linux is difficult, installing Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 for the most part was automated.

1. Boot to CD
2. Format partitions
3. Set the time and user accounts up
4. Boot to HDD
5. sudo apt-get update
6. sudo apt-get upgrade
7. sudo apt-get install software
8. Restart X and allow the new Nvidia video driver to take affect

Windows is the only OS that I know of that is designed to knowingly screw you over. But at least I can sleep easily tonight knowing that Windows Genuine Advantage and DRM is keeping me safe from, well, myself.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 21st, 2006 at 1:01 am and is filed under Linux, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.