W7 update screws usb.......

[Suff]

I must admit that after 20 years of dabbling in Linux it has never stopped being bleeding edge and like running with scissors. Whilst the driver situation has been significantly relieved, there are still a lot of geeks around who think that if you can't compile and link your own driver then load it by hand you have no business using Linux. Sadly if your hardware depends on a boneheaded geek like that and you don't have the skills (or the time or the inclination), then Linux is a bust.

The whole lack of an immersive installation environment just drives me nuts. I left DOS behind a very LONG time ago and even Windows 3.0 would give Linux a run for it's money in terms of application installation and organisation. I do like Ubunto for some things but I also just want to beat it to a bloody pulp every time I have to use it. My most common thought being "did you really have to be so bloody obtuse?"

I think I'm too invested in MS technologies now. Not that I don't know and can't install other OS' like IBM AIX, or Sun Solaris, I'm just of the opinion they you wouldn't want to unless you had a burning and overriding reason for doing so.

If Mint works for you, have you considered doing it the other way round and running W7 under Mint to provide the few things which don't work under it?

That might be a better compromise because the virtualised ports are more likely to work and if you get this kind of borked issue with USB, you can remove the ports and add them again. This gives it a totally new hardware entry and all the prior drivers are left on the old ports you have removed.

Just a thought from the arsenal of tools and techniques I use to manage the, mostly unruly, Windows installations.

[Workingman]

W7 as a VM in Mint..... well there's a thing!

[Suff]

Lots of Linux guys do it for the stuff you just can't get otherwise.

[Workingman]

Well what torture this has turned out to be!

Being a bit impatient I borrowed a usb CD/DVD drive to do a clan install of W7... and that is when things got silly. The recovery process started freezing, but in different places and with different messages: crc error, insert Disk 2 when D2 was already running, not enough disk space... on a 750Gig HDD! and on it went.

Eventually I decided to format the HDD from usb in BIOS. My first shot was Dban Boot and Nuke, but it kept telling me there was no media to format! Eh! I know there is a HDD, I looked. Next was Gparted and this found everything. So before I started I though to do a disc check, and what a shock that was! Bad sectors here there and everywhere. I sorted those and then went on to format the whole drive in NTFS.

Reinstalling W7 now went like a breeze until it came to finalising the installation when I discovered that CD4 was damaged..... aghh! Nothing for it but to do a reformat and see if Acer will help me out with some working discs.

Until then I am using Linux Zorin as my OS and am getting to like it... a lot. It has found and talks to my printer, phones, tablet, mp3 players, TV tuner, just about everything, and it comes loaded with all sorts of software (all removable if not needed). Time to play.

[Suff]

Yep windows gives the most bizarre messages when the boot drive is corrupted.

[Suff]

I see that Zorin is a “Windows Alike” variant of Linux. But, in the end, it runs on Gnome rather than KDE. KDE is the real windows skinning IDE, Gnome was really for Mac addicts. I wonder how that is working out?

Windows7? Are you invested in the Acer build or would a general one do? I have Technet builds for that. If you wanted to go VirtualBox on Linux I could give you XPSP3 and W7 media and keys to keep.

Also, I have a thought for you, which is that I can give you the relevant (I hope), W7 media and you could extract it to the C drive you’re installing to. When the Acer install media fails to extract a file you could point it to the general media. It would be bad if it’s Acer Generic, but if not then this might work. You’d have to open and extract the WIM file to do it.

Just some thoughts.

Personally I’m ruminating over trying again with the Microsoft Hyper-V command line server (free), to get Microsoft VM’s running. VMWare are making it more and more difficult for me to get their ESXi product installed and updated. I’m having a real issue with the generic network driver on ESXi6 which works perfectly on ESXi5.5.

I must admit that I’ve found my system requirements have fallen since I went virtual on a host rather than virtualising on my desktop. I used to have several machines and a few desktop virtual machines running. Now I have one Virtual server host at home (when my backup is away with me), which is simply a 6 core AMD desktop. All my functional machines run on that and when I need to work on them I just open up a console. Doesn’t work for sound as VMWare haven‘t wanted to do that, I’d need to RDP for that. But it works perfectly for all the visual computing stuff.

[Workingman]

Zorin, and Mint Cinnamon, are good, don't get me wrong, but they are not Windows!

There is a plethora of software for both doing much the same as Win progs, but, again, they are not the same. And it is years since I used a UNIX terminal.

Problem for me with my voluntary work is that most people are on W7 or W8.1 and those OSes are what I need. The tablet has W8.1, but the laptop.......?

I tried Acer and they wanted £51 for discs, then their out of warranty dept wanted £21 to do a remote fix. When I told him I had no installation to fix because of the reloading issues it kind of stumped him.

I eventually downloaded a W7 Home premium .iso and went with that via a usb install. It needed activating and when I put the product key from my Acer sticker in the box it did the job. I now have a dual-boot system of W7 and Zorin, so all is well and Dandy.

I am now downloading and installing all my old Win progs, and I could be here a while as yet. Such is life.

It is just one of those things. For the work I want to do W7 is an absolute must. On the other hand, Officeware and browserware are subjective, but I have the main ones.

Anyway, thanks for the help and suggestions. I am and will get there.... I do have plenty of time on my hands.

[Suff]

Anyway, thanks for the help and suggestions. I am and will get there.... I do have plenty of time on my hands.

Glad you got it sorted. Linux is synonymous with "running with scissors" in my lexicon and the community really doesn't even seem to understand what the whole issue with that is.

Good luck with keeping it all working. I've had some fairly rough USB issues over time and it's so annoying.