I've been mentioning on different occasions that I'd re-organise my computer systems at home, and last weekend was the planned time for doing so. The plan was to take the "best" (read less old) bits from the 2 computers I had, and put them togther, and then install a dual boot system with windows and a linux distro. This is the Windows tale….

1. I got all the parts put together quite fast. I had a problem with the CD-rom cuz I did not have the user manual (doh), so I didn't know how to put the switches. I figured it out after having installed windows on a wrong setup, which made it into the C: drive.
2. Knowing that I had the correct hardware setup I started with a fresh windows installation. (My windows cd is an XP sp1 cd)
3. It installed with 6 hardware drivers missing
4. I installed the modem driver
5. Downloaded a firewall and installed it
6. After a reboot XP acted strange, all sorts of windows pop up, and when checking the firewall had 400 attacks in less than 5 minutes. So I figured that some of the attacks had gone through my firewall. I installed a virus check, and all of my windows32 folder was worms or trojan horses. I decided to re-install and drive to Uni to download and burn firewall and virus software on a safe system.
7. Got back and installed everything. The system was still under attack, but it seemed to keep it out. (No strange effects, and virus control hasn't shown any viruses!)
8. I tried to find the missing 5 drivers, but as my hardware is old (and of unknown heritage), I do not have them for XP only 98, me and 2000. I started to search for them, put couldn't find them
9. In the end I signed up at driveragent.com for $30 where they in 5 minutes found the drivers I needed, and I intalled them.

Section 1 took a Saturday afternoon.

Sections 2-9 took from 10AM to 11PM Sunday, due to several XP installation attemps as my XP cd was a bit dodgy and didn't work everytime. I couldn't find a new XP cd except for a sp2 cd which didn't accept my authentication code. Apparently sp2 and sp1 have different code systems, and I would only want a genuine Windows on my computer.

All hardware drivers were working, but I still hadn't got my email up and running. I got that the next evening!

The next challenge is the Linux challenge. I'll report back…