March 2006
Beginner
239 pages
7h 36m
English
Content preview from Fixing Windows XP AnnoyancesBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 6. Setup and Hardware
Installing and setting up an operating system is akin to dental surgery (without anesthesia), sitting in traffic on a hot day (without A/C), or cleaning the cat litter box (without—never mind). Surprisingly, and to Microsoft’s credit, Windows XP’s installation and hardware detection procedures are a lot better than those of previous versions of Windows. However, they’re a long way from being effortless.
Hassling with Microsoft’s registration system, dealing with restore CDs, sorting out drivers, and worse are still unenviable tasks, but once you know how to deal with these annoyances you can make Windows run more smoothly…at least, until the next version of the operating system comes out!
SET UP
Boot with the Windows CD
THE ANNOYANCE: My PC got hit with a pretty nasty virus, and the damage was so severe that I had to wipe my hard disk clean (see “Wipe Your Hard Disk Clean”). Now I’m trying to reinstall Windows, but my PC won’t boot off the CD. How else can I install this thing?
THE FIX: Normally, you’re supposed to install (or reinstall) Windows from within Windows. With Windows running, pop the CD into your drive, and Setup should start automatically. This is the method of choice if you’re upgrading to a newer version of Windows or simply reinstalling your existing version to fix some problems, since Setup is able to preserve your settings (desktop icons, colors, etc.), as well as installed applications and data.
Note
On some modern PCs, you can press ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.