WINDOWS Media Player 11!

[nick]

Chris

 

Whats the motherboard? Can probably solve the problem fairly easy if you can tell me that, but need to look up details.

[corydoras]

Hi Chris

 

As you have a legit copy then you should have no problem getting good old MicroShite to give you a new authorisation code (or whatever they call it) just go through the process with them, using the online system and when they say it is not authentic or whatever phone them on the freephone number provided.

 

I've done it a couple of times, and to be honest if you wish to remain enslaved to MS it's probably the best thing to do.

 

Alternatively you could save yourself a lot of grief and come over to the dark side

 

Linux has come a long way from the days when you needed to be a real anorak to use it. It's not perfect (just much closer to it than anything that ever came out of Redmond!) It is FREE, which I reckon is a much better price than whatever XP is now, and can do anything that XP can - often better and many times easier too.

 

Did I mention it's free? And that applies to most any software you want to run too. If you really really really want to you can even run Microsoft apps on it.

 

Download a Live CD image and give it a go, you'll never know if you like it until you try it. If you deceide to give it a go and want any help post on here and I'll do what I can.

I am a big fan of Linux, but I would still not recommend it for the general user. It certainly cannot do anything that XP can do.

 

Linux is only FREE if you place no value on your time.

 

Want to watch DVD's on your Laptop? Easy on XP. With Linux you'll have to play around with Xine, Videolan and Ogle. Even then you probably wont have support for menus or even chapter selection.

Automatically detect and connect to WLANS, Linux can't do that.

If you want to use wireless networking with WPA, forget it. It can be done, but its too hard for the average user.

If you want to use Photoshop you are stuffed. Yes you could use WINE to run it, but its too much like hard work. You could try The Gimp but in my humble opinion the Gimp sucks, its like using a castrated version of Photoshop 4.

The last time I installed Linux on my laptop (I think it was FC4) it did not even have a basic MP3 player.

Got a DV camcorder and want to edit video on your machine? You only have one choice on Linux and it's a croc of crap called Kino. Adobe Premier Elements it is not.

Want to connect your Bluetooth mobile phone to your PC and swap files, contacts, backup your phone to your PC? Bonne chance mon ami!

 

 

But hey, if you want to play with Apache, PHP, SMTP MTAs, POP3 Servers, Linux is King.

 

I could go on and on, but hey I think I have made my point and la vie c'est trop court!

Edited January 12, 2007 by corydoras

[nick]

usually takes me about 40 monutes to get XP installed, and about 20 minutes to get linux (ubuntu) installed, including what I consider the absolute basics - Firefox, Thunderbird and Office (open office!).

 

DVD's out of the box OK

WLAN Absolutlley no problem - well ok had to tell it my password

Photoshop would never use it with Linux - Gimp does lots of stuff very well

MP3 out of the box

DV editing - never tried

Blue tooth phone - well I use my phone for making calls

 

Everything that can be done in XP quickly and easily and freely I find just as easy on linux, and I don't have to jump through stupid hoops put in my way by Billy Boy

Edited January 12, 2007 by nick

[nick]

and if I really needed windows I would use either 98 or 2k, never bloated XP

[corydoras]

and if I really needed windows I would use either 98 or 2k, never bloated XP

WLAN with wpa? not crappy WEP?

MP3 out of the box, I should bleedin well hope so. My first linux system was redhat 5 or 6 and it did mp3 fine, but not FC4 it does not even have the mp3 libraries.

 

I too mostly use my phone just to make calls, but nice to be able to back up the whole thing to my PC from time to time.

 

But hey I am mostly with you on this. If all you want is firefox, thunderbird, and open office then linux is fine. If you have just spent nearly a grand on a nice new laptop, most of the hardware in it is not going to be supported under linux without loads of fiddling.

 

Windows 98 is a dog of a system, a malware authors paradise, it should never have been released. The differences between win2k and xp are minimal.

 

I run XP on my laptop. It is an old Vaio with only 256MB RAM (it can't take any more) and a 750MHz PIII. I use mostly Firefox, Thunderbird and Office 2003 (but not very often. I could easily use Open Office, but why bother if you have a copy of the real thing.

 

BUT I won't give up DV editing, easy bluetooth connectivity, access to my firewire hard disks and photoshop just so I can save myself 20 minutes on an OS install.

 

BTW if you are using Ubuntu, do you know what DVD software it comes with?