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View Full Version : Linux Noob joining the ranks


jggimi
16th March 2003, 18:44
This tale of Msoft "woe" may be very familiar....

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The "family" PC was running Windows ME for quite a long time. For months, now, it wouldn't shut down, which exposed integrity issues and upset my wife. It would restart, so I'd shut it down by powering off as the BIOS was reloading.

Finally, enough was enough. I spent 4 hours testing things in MSCONFIG, and determined, finally, that a Static VXD was to blame. The Static VXD was "vredir.vxd" -- a microsoft module. No updates to it since the base WME release. I extracted it again from the CD, and the problem remained. Turning off Windows Networking (needed at home with other PCs) or disabling the VXD was the only "fix." No hits in Msoft's KDBase.

Backed up, then reinstalled WME on top of existing WME. IE6 would not install (as IE6 was there before reinstall, which overlayed IE5). Restored from backup. Tried to uninstall IE6. De-installed, but Windows Explorer would no longer start.

Tried to install WME on top of now broken WME. No good. Scraped disk clean, installed anew. (Grrr...)

Began installing fixes from Msoft. After installing all 18 or so ciritical fixes, (with all the reboots that entails), went into recommended fixes.

And broke WME again.

A recommended fix from Msoft, Q273017, which is supposed to "fix" possible shutdown problems, will cause them if you have Windows Networking. And, you cannot back out this "fix."

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As of this morning, the family PC is dual boot. I've now got WME (for apps like kids games that require DirectShow) in one partition, and SuSE Linux 8.1 with KDE in the other.

Wish me luck!

TactX
16th March 2003, 20:13
Good luck :D

Joe999
16th March 2003, 23:21
Yikes, and people say it's Linux that's not user friendly! You might want to try taking a look at wine and winex for the kids games. I seem to recall someone mentioning a couple months back that one of his preschoolers favorite program had suddenly started working with wine.

jggimi
16th March 2003, 23:48
I've got wine running for a few of my wife's games, already. But my 6-year old took one look at the GUI and got even more upset ... she wants the operating environment she's used to. And I'll have to keep WME around for a while longer, as I still use the PC for video capture.