Should I Update XP?

Personally, I wouldn't seek to 'hack' into any updates, simply because I don't trust M$ not to install something intended to cause problems. We bought XP in good faith. For M$ now, to seek to undermine it in any way is not just poor business practice, it's dishonest.

I've heard, (read) talk that M$ plans to offer an update which will eliminate the need to register XP. If that does come about, then it will, at least, remove that issue.

I have to agree with Elizabeth here, XP doesn't need any updating. Security is better provided by thrid part products, Avast, Zone Alarm, Kaspersky's to name a few. It is now a stable OS, having been thoroughly updated, it is now a functioning product, which it should have been at the start.

I have W7 on a second drive and occasionally switch over. It is slower. The continual updates, many of which are of no concern to me, are utterly annoying. While I have managed to turn off a few of the unnecessary services, I can't at this time, risk turning off too many, simply because I don't know what M$ or others, may do in the future. COM+ is an example, of a major resource hungry service.

 

However the updates for POSReady 2009 are meant to block insecurities in that OS (what's more some of those updates even post April are listed as for POSReady and Windows XP). Remember, you can obtain paid support for post-support updates, and these would be the patches you'd actually get.

Microsoft would create a customer relations nightmare if they were to fudge updates to break XP. I wouldn't take their advice on not updating XP using the patch. That's fear mongering that's no different from their saying NOT to use the OS. But thinking that Microsoft will intentionally screw with updates to sabotage XP users, that's bordering on conspiracy...lol.

 

@koolx: here is how to burn to a flash drive

Courtesy of Jose Ibarra:
Anywho, to make a Hiren's boot CD, do this

I am going to recommend you use Hiren's boot CD (it will also go on a USB drive).

This is good for you because it has many more tools on it that on the XP Recovery Console CD, does not care about your Administrator passwords and you will not have to futz around in your BIOS if any afflicted system has SATA drives - Hiren's can deal with that.

You will have a whole bunch of cool tools that you don't have in the XP Recovery Console... a registry editor, password resetter, and a desktop that looks like Windows XP so you will feel comfortable maneuvering.

You can also easily copy your personal data (documents, images, music.) to an external drive.

From a working system, first download Hiren's Boot CD from here (it is a substantial download but worth it):

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ (look near the bottom of the page, do not click on any ads).
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/burning/
Instructions

Unzip the Hiren's to some folder where you can find it. There is a Hiren's.BootCD..iso in there that you are going to need next.

Hiren's has instructions to make a bootable USB that you can use, but it requires you to first burn the .iso to a CD and some other steps, so I suggest another way...

Download RUFUS 1.20 from here (read some stuff on the page so you can know more about it):

http://rufus.akeo.ie/

I will caution you to be careful that you don't accidentally format any of your hard drives - be sure your USB stick is in and know what the drive letter is! This part always makes me a little nervous, so be careful.

Launch RUFUS and all the defaults should be okay, for the Device, choose your USB drive letter, Quick format, FAT32, label it if you want to and in the Format options box, click the little icon that looks like a CD and a window will open. Navigate that dialogue to point to the folder that contains the Hiren's.BootCD.15.iso that you unzipped earlier and the box should change to say ISO image (RUFUS understands the Hiren's ISO file).

Double check you have the right Device selected in the top (NOT you HDD) Click Start, acknowledge the warning and let it finish (it will take a little while) as it copies the files. The Hiren's ISO is also good size.

When RUFUS is done, it will say 'DONE' in the bottom.

Put the USB stick in the afflicted machine and reset/reboot and press whatever key you need to press to get to a boot menu where you can select the USB as the first boot device (that is F11 for me). If you don't see a boot menu choice, you will have to adjust your BIOS to boot from the USB first instead of the HDD.

When the Hiren's menu comes up, choose the Mini XP Mode and it will start loading (slowly from a USB drive) and eventually you should see a Windowsy looking desktop. You should recognize that part and feel comfortable, but it is not your desktop - it is the Hiren's desktop!

Remember: You did not boot on your hard disk - you booted into the Hiren's desktop

====================

go here for rufus:

http://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/

I tried one of the later versions and 1.2 works better on xp

for the os, it will be the same procedure, just use the iso image of your os instead of the iso image of hiren's.

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Hey Liz.. I got a slight problem with this. At the boot screen I selected the USB drive to boot first at start up. As a test, I put in my flash drive with linux on it in the USB slot to see if it would boot to linux. Sadly, the laptop booted from the hard drive instead.

At this point, I think my only option is to make a clone on another hard drive using an IDE cable converter, unless you know of a way to fix this.

One more thing. I am restricted from modifying my BIOS. Thats how Gateway set up my laptop as factory settings. Is there a way to bypass this restriction and tweak the BIOS?

Thank you a million times so far for helping me angel. I await your reply.

 

You are not modifying the bios, you are changing the boot sequence

did you press F2 at startup??

did you see the message "press any key to start ,,,,,,"

you want it to boot to usb first or it will automatically start with harddrive.

What makes you think you are restricted from entering the bios??

see the following page:

https://panam.gateway.com/s/Mobile/SHARED/FAQs/1008255su18.shtml

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the bios is only restricted if the user has set it this way NOT the factory.

 

ALSO:

see here:

http://panam.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/M210/1008255faq31.shtml

according to the above site you have to press F10 to get boot options,

first try F2 and if you do not see a boot sequence then try the F10

also insure that the usb device is inserted before restarting.

 

Like I said before, I made 'Removable Devices' the first device to boot from. I moved it to the top of the boot sequence list. But it boots directly to the hard drive instead.

I'm not saying that I'm restricted from entering the BIOS. I'm saying that certain settings are hidden in the BIOS from the average user. I want to get to these hidden settings.

 

If you are admin then there should be NO settings not adjustable by the user.

I will have to do some more research to see why it is not booting from a usb, how many usb ports do you have??

have you tried a different port??

http://www.windowspasswordsreset.co...w-to-set-computer-to-boot-from-usb-drive.html

http://lifehacker.com/5991848/how-to-boot-from-a-cd-or-usb-drive-on-any-pc

please read above on booting from a usb device.

did you follow this order, REMEMBER to save your changes before exiting the bios

1) Turn off your PC
2) Plug in USB bootable device
3) Go to BIOS
4) Set Boot device priority to 1st removable
5) Open option "Hard Disk Drives" and set Removable to be the 1st and HDD 2nd drive
This work only if USB is pluged in before PC start UP and BIOS can see yours USB. Now when I have no Flash drive in, bios show only HDD as 1st and no option to change.
6) Save and exit BIOS

==============
ALSO: are you sure that the flash drive is bootable?? you have to burn it to the flash drive, not just copy

 

I followed the instructions by the letter of the link you posted (even if this is stuff I knew already). I have 3 USB ports and tried all of them. None of them worked.

Yes, the flash drive is bootable. I used a Universal USB Installer specifically for linux. Its an executable file that lets you "burn" a linux distro like, LinuxMint, as an ISO onto the flash drive. But again, my laptop won't let me do this. I don't think the BIOS detects my pen drive.

Also, is there a way to unlock the hidden settings in my BIOS? I want to tweak my system even further.

 

http://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/in...ck-hidden-settings-overclocking-more-0132292/

you can try the above to unlock hidden bios settings, I can not vouch for this as I do not have any hidden settings in my bios, and to truth be told yours is the first I have heard of this.

-----------

as for the usb, if you can get ahold of a different brand of thumb drive and burn the iso image to the different flash drive and try this, I read in one of the threads I was researching that some motherboards will only work with some flash drives and not others.

I have a pny and a sandisk cruzer and they both work on my dell.

============

insert your pen drive and check device manager, does it show up under drives??

does it show up in My computer???

go to start and right click on My computer and choose manage and then choose disk management, does it show up here???

 

Hi Elizabeth. When I looked up my pen drive in My Computer, I get a message that says:

"The Disk Management Console failed to connect to the remote computer because the disk managment remoting service is not in the windows firewall exception list. add the disk mangement remoting service (dmremote.exe) to the windows firewall exception list and try again".

But when I boing up Windows Firewall, I'm not able to access the security settings section. I scroll down nall the way to the bottom but the window is cut off below "Manage sceurity settings for". I've attached a pic so you can see. Please look and let me know.. Thank you!

 

Elizabeth, I kind of fixed it. But I'm still unable to see anything below "Manage sceurity settings for".

However, I was able to add 'dmremote.exe' to the exceptions list in windows firewall by bringing up Windows Firewall through, firewall.cpl in the run command. But now I get a new error. Windows Firewall now asks to add RPC port (TCP port 135) to the exceptions list. How exactly do I do that?

 

on the exceptions page of the firewall dialog box, there is a button in the middle to Add Port, this is where you would add that.

see the link below, the instructions for the program is not the one you are on but it does show you how to add port 135

https://www.swyx.com/products/support/knowledge-base/artikel-details/swyxknowledge/kb2891.html

===========

as for not seeing the entire box, what is the resolution on the screen?? it seems like you have vga enabled which makes everything large.

 

Liz, I fixed it. I'm able to see my pen drive in My Computer. I fixed it by enabling the Logical Disk Management service which I had turned off. Do you think thats the reason my computer couldnt boot from the USB?

Also, you posted a link to a webpage that shows how to reveal hidden settings in the BIOS. The website had this link showing a list of BIOS tools to flash the BIOS:

https://www.bios-mods.com/downloads/

My BIOS is Phoonix. But in that list there are 3 Phoenix BIOS flash tools. Which is the right one for me to download? Below is my BIOS info. Please let me know. Thank you!

BIOS, Version, Date:
Phoenix W320.F08, 6/6/2005

 

Okay, I am not sure which one you need, but you can read about each one in the following links to search pages for each of the three.

Also, have included a search page for gateway bios issues

So you have plenty of reading to do. This is getting a little too technical for me, as I have not ever had to do anything with bios except change the boot sequence every now and then.

https://www.google.com/#q=Phoenix+Bios+editor

https://www.google.com/#q=Phoenix+crisis+tool

https://www.google.com/#q=phoenix+winphlash

=========

https://www.google.com/#q=how+to+flash+the+bios+on+a+gateway+laptop

====

 

Ok, thank you so much elizabeth for all of your time and help. I am reading up on those as we speak. Again, thank you for everything! And excuse me for taking up a lot of your time as well.

 

no problem, that is what I try to do is help, no matter how long it takes

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