or, A Tale of Two Operating Systems
...in which Peter faces software droppings from the Beast of Redmond and reflects on how much easier things are on his Mac...
First OS: Mac OS 10.2
After my return from Italy, I noticed my Powerbook G4 acting a little strangely (possibly because of a compact-flash-card-removal-induced kernel panic whilst on the trip). Thus, I decided to reinstall Mac OS 10.2. This essentially involved three steps:
1. Back up my user data and preferences.
2. Re-install the operating system and apply all the software updates.
3. Restore my user data.
Backing up my data was trivial - I plugged in a firewire drive and copied my ~pwang folder into it with a single drag-and-drop. Also, since most Mac applications don't install fragments of themselves all over your hard drive, they are entirely self-contained inside their own folders in the Applications folder; backing up my applications was a simple matter of highlighting all the applications and copying them to the firewire drive as well.
Then, I re-installed the operating system, applied all the software updates (required about 2 or 3 reboots), and copied back my applications. I also copied back my user data, and upon one final reboot, I was back up and running. My screen saver, desktop, iPhoto, iTunes, MS Office, etc. preferences were all there, and my machine looked the same as before the reinstall.
Second OS: Windows 2000 SP4
Last week, the Internet was clogged and thrashed by several worms and virii. Since these only affect Windows machines, I decided I should make sure my Windows 2000 machine was up-to-date on the patches. Thus, I launched Internet Explorer, went to www.windowsupdate.com, downloaded and installed the patches (took 2 or 3 reboots), and felt much better...
...until I tried to burn a CD. I realized that my CDRW and DVD drives had both disappeared. I launched Device Manager, and sure enough, they both had yellow exclamation points on their icons. Apparently these devices were not working properly because "Windows cannot load the drivers required". I clicked on "Re-install driver" and opted to download new drivers from WindowsUpdate (I double checked and the drivers in question were generic CD and DVD drivers). The reinstall completes, and I am informed that "The driver for this device is now installed, but may not work correctly. This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required (Code 31)." Lovely.
Next I try uninstalling the devices and rebooting, hoping that Windows will try to re-install them and get the driver crap right. I do this, but after a reboot and a few more attempts are updating the drivers, I still have no working CD drives.
Finally, in a fit of desperation, I remember that there is a "Repair" option on the Windows 2000 install CD. I insert the CD, reboot, and select the repair option. (This is proof that the CD drive is not broken - thank God Microsoft didn't write the BIOS.) The Windows 2000 automatic repair did its thing and rebooted my machine. I double-clicked "My Computer". Still no CD drives.
Of course, Windows Repair somehow managed to reset a bunch of stuff with drivers and and registered applications and crap, so all of the sudden 4 or 5 Windows Installer dialogs pop open, informing me that the system can't find the installer files for various applications, and would I please select another location for them, or press Cancel. Oh, and if I press cancel, these applications (some of which I installed years ago) might not work. What?!
I do my best, but most of the installer .MSI files are located - haha - on application installation CDs, which - guess what - require a working CD drive. One of the applications that has magically ceased working is Microsoft Office. So not only am I up a creek without a paddle, I am also apparently without a boat, and without any steel underwear to protect my fragile anus from being raped some more by Microsoft. I think I will have to re-install Windows 2000 in order to make all this work. Of course, that means losing all of my preferences and going through a laborious re-install of all my applications.
My name is Peter Wang. I'm a system administrator, and as soon as I get enough money, I'm buying a Mac.
Posted by Peter at August 25, 2003 08:47 AMHi, my name is Peter Wang and I am a unix system administrator.
This link did the thing for me :-)
http://www.thatcomputerguy.us/forum/read.php?TID=356
The steps you took attempting to correct your problem were not necessary. The problem lies not with drivers but rather with the Windows registry and something that appears to be involved with Roxio EZ CD Creator and DirectCD. A fault of Windows for reporting errors incorrectly or a sloppy un/install by Roxio? We may never know.
Find the relevant topic with quick and easy solutions in the Roxio knowledge base at http://www.roxio.com/en/support/kb/ecdc/eez000005.jhtml
Happy hunting all.
Thanks for the links - I stand corrected. I should have known that uninstalling a userland application (EZ CD Creator) would clobber device drivers or leave my system in such a state that I have to manually edit registry keys just to get my CD drives to be *recognized* by the OS. (And not just any reg keys - but the hideous HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ControlClass\{4D36E96F-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} style of regkeys).
New moral of this lesson: use Nero.
I like Macs because you can run YellowDog linux on them quite easily. That way you can use a 2 or 3 button mouse.