Hasta la vista

Yesterday I downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP. I really did want to like Vista...I'm not one of those people that complains about everything Microsoft does. In fact I thought Vista's user interface was nice and I'm going to miss the little spinny blue halo that the pointer turns into when the OS writes checks that the hardware can't cache...man that was a terrible pun. Though really not much worse than the pun in the title of this post, which LL made up, thank you very much.

Despite the nice interface and the shiny halo, Vista had been a giant pain. It didn't run some applications that I need for school, and much (much, much) worse than that, it crashed on me all the time. I even got the occasional BSD, which I'd hoped was a thing of the past. I'm probably going to wait a year or two before I look at Vista again.

The process of downgrading was a bit tumultuous...some people think that I'm a "computer guy," but that's completely false. Assuming I can fix a computer is like assuming that a guy who makes propellers can fly a plane. I'm especially leery of performing surgery on my own laptop. I feel like I'm never going to get it working perfectly (btw, people who do like to take their computers apart always end up with some pieced together Dell-enstein that requires perpetual maintenance...strikingly reminiscent of 1980's shade-tree mechanics, who, despite knowing "a whole lot" about cars, never seem to have one working reliably...actually, continuing that analogy, I want to own the computer equivalent of a Honda Accord). Reluctantly, I had to dig into the whole process yesterday and learn a bunch of stuff that I hope to forget soon. I'm not going to explain it because it's boring. Well, actually it was a little fun for me because I'm nerdy, but I don't want to relive it by writing about the whole thing, and no one would read it if I did.

Oh...but I DO want to put in a plug for nlite. This really handy, free piece of software lets you create a windows installation disk with drivers already added. Using nlite, I made my own windows installer that would recognize my hard drive in AHCI mode instead of ATA mode...similar to what this guy did (except I have a Dell, not a Toshiba). I liked nlite enough to send the developer $7 (I can't decide if that's a little low or not...I think most people probably never send the guy any money since you can download it for free. I just wanted so send him a few bucks since he saved me some time).

After slogging through the technical aspects of the installation (I no longer have ANY big yellow question marks in my device manager...a sure sign of success!), I had to activate Windows XP. I read online that you do this by calling customer support to get a product key, so I call them I did.

First I got an automated gal who I refused to speak back to. I don't mind phone menus operated by touchtone, I just hate the voice recognition stuff. I remained resolutely silent through all the "I'm sorry, I didn't understand your response" stuff until she said "...or just press 1" -- well thank you! See, I don't mind pressing 1. I don't mind the menu. I understand your need to funnel calls to the right people. Just don't make me sit in my quiet cube and shout ridiculous commands into the phone! I followed this process and got a product key(!), but, due to the way the process went, I am sure that the license I have is not what I should have (I'm pretty sure they think I have a site license for Stanford, not a personal license). I want to follow the rules and get the right kind of key.

So...eventually I talked to a guy in India who was something of an upgrade to Robo-gal, but my needs were just outside the standard activation process (I even tried to reverse engineer his questioning sequence in a way that would lead us where we needed to go, but I failed badly). The problem is that my system was working perfectly. It was impossible to explain this subtlety...that nothing was broken and I just wanted to make sure my product key was for Clay Daigle's personal use and not part of some site license for Stanford or anything like that. My favorite part of the exchange was this:

SupportGuy: What do you see on your screen right now?
Me: A big green field.
SupportGuy: A what?
Me: A big green field. There are some clouds behind it.
SupportGuy: A big green what?
Me: Field. Like a pasture.
SupportGuy: I'm sorry. I can't understand you.
Me: Would you like me to click the Start button? Maybe that would move us along.
SupportGuy: Please click on the Start button...

If you think that conversation led to a successful conclusion, you are an idiot. After that, I was told to call some licensing people at a different phone number. This time I talked to a woman who I'm almost certain was in the U.S. (in any case, she wasn't constrained by a script). She was also very nice and told me I needed to enter my old Vista key in the Windows XP license window (she didn't know how to "undo" the previous key that I got, but I'll figure that out).

What I ultimately decided was that Microsoft doesn't care at all about my copy of XP. I was really just trying to do the right thing and make sure that I was using a personal license that I owned, but most of the people I talked to couldn't figure out why I was calling when everything was already working. I will say that now my conscience is clear about the whole thing, which was the main purpose behind it all.

On the bright side, I now have a completely working computer with an OS that I'm happy with. Yay! Now I can get back to work.