jrf2027

What kind of disc is this? System builder OEM? Royalty OEM (Dell, HP, most other larger computer companies)? Full retail? If it's a system builder OEM disk, the product key should have been affixed to the machine when it was built. I would venture a guess that it would probably pass activation, but that doesn't mean the product key hasn't been used before. If it's a royalty OEM, the product key is useless. They can't be sold separately from the machine it originally shipped with. I find it quite amazing when these fly-by-night "electronics expos" come to town and some shady character has a table full of royalty OEM XP installation disks for $20 each; they don't like me too much when I tell them that they can't sell them! If it is a full retail disk, it will also probably pass activation, but once again, it doesn't mean that the product key hasn't been used before.

Unless your laptop came with an XP license from the OEM (generally evidenced by an OEM sticker affixed to the machine), you're not licensed for an OEM installation.

submix8c is correct. Netflix uses Silverlight. As long as you can run Silverlight, you should be able to run Netflix. However, I have no experience with Silverlight on Windows 2000, so why don't you test it and let us know?

If you want to preserve the Dell OEM preactivation for XP Home, you need to do a couple things: As a preliminary matter, your XP Home source CD will need to be an OEM CD, as opposed to a retail CD. If you still have the Dell OEM CD, it has all the files you already need and you don't need to do anything more than insert the CD and run it. However, if you don't have the Dell OEM CD, but have another manufacturer's OEM CD, you can make your own Dell OEM CD in the following manner: First, use a tool like the Magical Jellybean Keyfinder (http://www.magicaljellybean.com/) or Speccy (http://www.piriform.com/speccy) to retrieve the Dell OEM product key for XP Home on a preactivated machine. As far as I know, Dell has used the same product key since XP was released in 2001; however, you should use whatever product key is already on the machine. You will then insert this key into your winnt.sif file in the I386 folder in your XP Home source. Second, run the following script on a preactivated machine to retrieve four files you will need to copy to your I386 folder in your XP Home source: attrib -s %SystemRoot%\system32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}\OEMBIOS.CAT makecab %SystemRoot%\system32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}\OEMBIOS.CAT attrib +s %SystemRoot%\system32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}\OEMBIOS.CAT makecab %SystemRoot%\system32\OEMBIOS.BIN makecab %SystemRoot%\system32\OEMBIOS.DAT makecab %SystemRoot%\system32\OEMBIOS.SIG Copy this script, paste it into Notepad, and name it OEMFiles.cmd. When you run the script, the files will automatically copy to whatever directory OEMFiles.cmd is in; therefore, I usually put OEMFiles.cmd in its own folder before running it. Simply run the script, then copy the four files in your I386 folder in your source. If you need a primer on making your own custom XP CD, look here: MSFN's Unattended Windows Guide EDIT: As for Vista preactivation, it's even easier, and you don't even need an OEM source - just follow orev's guide using his VistaABR tool: http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore Supposedly this may work with 7 as well, but I haven't used it yet with 7.

I'm working on an older (July 2004) Dell Dimension 2400 for my parents, with an Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor (part 80532, according to Dell's System Information page). CPU-z reports rated FSB of 533 MHz, one core, one thread. I've previously upgraded the RAM to 2 GB. The OS is in desperate need of a refresh - I haven't done a fresh installation since 2006. I plan on upgrading the hard drive and possibly the video card; right now it's just using onboard video (Intel 82845). Has anybody else installed Win 7 on a similar vintage system? Is it worth it? I know how to trim down the processes, etc. to the basics - my Win 7 notebook has only 30 processes running at idle. Or do I just reinstall XP again? (Yes, I know that XP will likely run better, I just want to know if anybody has any experience with Win 7 on a similar system.)

As long as the actual machine name is sony, that is the correct syntax. If you're unsure of the machine name, you could try using the IP address of the machine - I don't know if it will work, though. I also have KIS 2010 on my machines - I have to head out for a while, but when I get back I'll play around with devcon a little more to see what I can find out on accessing another machine.

OK getting confused with all the <> and in help file it has [<... do i need to use these brackets? Yes and No. If your machine's name is desktop, you would type m:\\desktop , not m:\\<desktop>. And if you want to put the file at C:\List.txt, you just type C:\List.txt. However, in the find * > portion of the command, you do need to use the > , as this will redirect the output to a text file so you can more easily read it. My apologies - I should have used something else to delineate the variables.

Give this a try: devcon -m:\\<machine> find * > <YourPath>\List.txt where <machine> is the name of your black screen computer, and <YourPath> is a path you designate to output the results from the find command. EDIT: Just thought of something else. You may need to start the black screen computer in "safe mode with networking" instead of normally, if you get any error messages from devcon.

I was just going to suggest trying it over a network...didn't realize until after I posted that even "safe mode with command prompt" requires some level of GUI. I've been living la vida Linux a bit too much and forgot that Windows doesn't have an equivalent to "init 1".

I'm not running Vista any more so I can't guarantee this will work, but it looks promising... Since you already know how to boot into safe mode, have you tried booting into safe mode with command prompt? If so, do you get a command prompt, or is the screen still black? If you can get a command prompt, you may be able to re-enable the video through the command line. I found this website that discusses how to enable a device from the command line in XP; however, I downloaded the tool and tested it on my Win7 machine and the 32-bit version of the tool does run under 7; if it runs under 7, it might run under Vista. http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-1886-enabl...he-command-line Let us know if this works for you.

If you're starting the installation from a currently working Windows installation, I've read that you can copy the contents of the Windows 7 installation media to the hard drive and run the installation from there (haven't done it myself though). You could use Daemon Tools to mount the ISO, or you can just use WinRAR to extract the files from the ISO. If you are intending to start the installation from a clean boot, and not start it from within Windows, you could, I think, copy the files from the Win 7 installation media to a partition, mark that partition as active and bootable (you could probably use Gparted to do this, based on your info I assume you've heard of it before ), and you should be able to start the installation from there. This is essentially the same thing that is done when you create a USB key, except you'd be doing it on your hard drive. If you're familiar with grub, you may even be able to use it to boot into the partition without having to set the partition as active and bootable. My personal preference, though, is the USB key - it cuts the installation time on most systems to 15 minutes or less. Is there some particular reason you can't or don't want to use either a DVD or a USB key?