[plug] Off-topic: Windows 98 head-butt saga

[Leon Brooks]

Today's Microsoft debacle (next time somebody complains about Linux
being hard to configure I'll feed them a crushed Win98 CD):

0) The task: install Win98 on an AMD-K6-II-350 machine and copy across
some stuff from the previous Aptiva machine which had died.

1) Install Win98 on machine. Twice. No, three times.

2) Install drivers for everything.

3) Plug in a bog-standard 3C509 Etherlink-III ISA network card to xfer
files.

4) Win98 fails to find 3C509.

5) Insist, by overriding detection process. Win98 half-installs 3C509
drivers, dies.

6) Deinstall 3C509 drivers. Re-install by manual override. Set up
routing, so called, and other networking details. System Devices list
shows 3C509 working happily, only difficulty being no bytes interested
in travelling down wire.

7) Plug drive from Aptiva in as secondary/slave. Drive refuses to share
IDE buss with CD. Swap cable, install as primary/slave. Copy all user
files across.

8) Get called away (late Friday) to play Don Quixote with the Family
Court and an oscillating lawyer, so deliver machine to customer,
explaining setup is incomplete.

9) Over the next few hours, customer makes approx 30 'phone calls to
boss about machine, manages to unplug CD drive's data cable and
half-unplug the 3C509 which I'd attempted

10) On Monday, attempt to set up scanner, boring HP 5xxx parallel port
job. No drivers under Win98 that I can find, Win95 drivers won't work
under Win98. Oh, well, browse the net to get them.

11) Big funny. Internal modem (WinModem style POS, as it turns out)
won't see dialtone. Disable dialtone detection.

12) Internal modem locks machine up. Totally. Doorbell time.

13) Fiddle with every concievable modem setting, reboot a dozen or so
times in process, no joy. Much pressing of doorbell. Get another
(external) modem.

14) Test ext modem under HyperTerminal. No worries. Can dial out,
connect, not the least trouble with dialtone.

15) Dial out using Win98. "No response from modem." Try HyperTerminal.
"Can't open modem on COM1." Some experimentation and reboots later, it
becomes clear that HT will talk as much and often as I like, until I try
using Win98 dialut software, which fails consistently.

15A) At this point, customer relates that he tried Win98 on Aptiva,
could never get much working, gave up.

15B) Ring boss, get monologue on non-virtues of Win98, instructed to
bring machine back to shop.

16) New machine now back in shop, Win95 being installed.

17) BTW, Aptiva speakers have 3.5mm coaxial power lead which draws 12V
DC straight from the Aptiva box (naturally, no polarity marked anywhere
on Aptiva, lead or speakers). I'm going to have to get soldering iron
out and re-work an old, dead, CPU fan to get power for the speakers.
Yay! )-:

"Your mother was a hippo!" (for Terry Pratchett readers (Interesting
Times)) -- thud!

-- 
"Of course the Universe hates you. You're working to reduce chaos by
expending a lot of energy to do your job. Thus, you're contributing to
the
eventual heat death of the universe, and it's just protecting itself
from
you."               -- John Batzel