Re: OT: W2K et al

["Patricia M. Godfrey" PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:
 The XP SP2 EULA is unambiguous:

"14. SOFTWARE TRANSFER. Internal. You may move the Software to a different
Workstation Computer. 
Hmm, that's what I thought. That was certainly the case with 9x. But
someone recently called to my attention a brouhaha in the blogsphere,
where Redomnd was insisting that if you installed a new mobo you had to
get a new copy of XP, and the techies were having fits. (That's where
the quote about the opsys's being the "heart and soul" of the PC came
from.) Perhaps that only applies to OEM'd copies that come with PCs?
What you may not realize is that it's not so much the disk that you own, it's
the *key*. If you have a retail key, you can install with a completely
different disk than the one you purchased.
Absolutely. I have twice found PCs at the curb on trash day that proved
to be in working order and to have installed copies of 98 on them. In
both cases I got the install key out of the Registry, then wiped the
drive, partitioned it, and reinstalled from my own CD. I also once found
a copy of the little booklet with the install key on it for 98 SE at a
garage sale (50 cents, IIRC). Needless to say, I bought it, and that
copy is now running on one of my machines.

> if I had a new machine, I would go for the most recent
version of Windows, <
Except that this isn't a new machine but an underpowered three-year-old
hand-me-down. Not to mention that I LOATHE the GUI on XP. Yes, I've set
it to "classic look" or whatever they call it in my user setup on the
new box, but it still reeks on ice, IMO.
I've been reading up on W2K, and like what I'm seeing. One concern,
however, is networking protocols. The office network (for reasons known
only to the tech guy who set it up) has every protocol known bound to
the NICs. That includes IPX/SPX (or something like that; I can never
remember the exact alphabet soup). Once before I tried to bring an NT
(4) box into that network and couldn't, because NT didn't include that
protocol. My sources imply that W2K doesn't either. If so, I won't be
able to network this machine unless they get the tech guy in to redo the
bindings. (I could do it myself, but I once mucked up a printer
connection--though sheer forgetfulness--and now the editor won't trust
me to do anything beyond backup on the machines the editors use.) It's
not fatal: I could create a separate network for the two machines I
mostly use; there's even a spare hub. But that means going back to
sneaker net when I have to transfer files to the other PCs.

Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx