W2k on eBay etc

[poachedeggs]

I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.
I've seen that there are still apparently some copies of W2k around,
but wonder if they are to some extent counterfeit or otherwise
useless. Some on eBay are described as 'full' editions but still in
the picture I can see the word Upgrade on the box. Some are upgrades
to W95/98 and some NT4. Are these Upgrade copies completely useless if
you haven't got Windows 98/95/NT on first or is there some Microsoft-
enabled convenience like the one that allows clean installs with
Windows 7 Upgrade DVDs? I do actually have a legit copy of Windows 95
but possibly it wouldn't work on this relatively new pc anyway as a
springboard to the upgrade. My hope was to put a little 20gb hard
drive in with Windows 2000 on for occasional Windows faffing and this
mp3 player. I know it's no longer supported with Updates etc and don't
intend to go online with it.

Thanks.

[Skywise]

poachedeggs <poach...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in news:fdbfe073-695b-4609-
8523-c3e...@c1g2000yql.googlegroups.com:

> I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
> with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.

Not exactly an answer to your question, but then I'm wondering if
you're asking the right question.

Are there no MP3 players available for linux? And why would you
need drivers for software?

But then you mention Creative, which makes me think of Creative
Labs and their Sound Blaster cards, which would need drivers.

So is the problem the need for mp3 player software under linux,
or the need for linux drivers for your sound card?

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

[Bob CP]

On 9/24/2011 6:59 PM, Skywise wrote:
> poachedeggs<poach...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in news:fdbfe073-695b-4609-
> 8523-c3e...@c1g2000yql.googlegroups.com:
>
>> I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
>> with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.
>
> Not exactly an answer to your question, but then I'm wondering if
> you're asking the right question.
>
> Are there no MP3 players available for linux? And why would you
> need drivers for software?
>
> But then you mention Creative, which makes me think of Creative
> Labs and their Sound Blaster cards, which would need drivers.
>
> So is the problem the need for mp3 player software under linux,
> or the need for linux drivers for your sound card?
>
> Brian

Probably a third requirement: The ability to "see" his MP3 player in a
file manager, so that (s)he can upload files to the player. Some
players don't show up as a drive without a special driver.

[poachedeggs]

On Sep 25, 11:55 am, Bob CP <ctcboa...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 9/24/2011 6:59 PM, Skywise wrote:
>
>
>
>
>

> > poachedeggs<poachede...@hotmail.co.uk>  wrote in news:fdbfe073-695b-4609-
> > 8523-c3e71c63f...@c1g2000yql.googlegroups.com:

>
> >> I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
> >> with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.
>
> > Not exactly an answer to your question, but then I'm wondering if
> > you're asking the right question.
>
> > Are there no MP3 players available for linux? And why would you
> > need drivers for software?
>
> > But then you mention Creative, which makes me think of Creative
> > Labs and their Sound Blaster cards, which would need drivers.
>
> > So is the problem the need for mp3 player software under linux,
> > or the need for linux drivers for your sound card?
>
> > Brian
>
> Probably a third requirement: The ability to "see" his MP3 player in a
> file manager, so that (s)he can upload files to the player.  Some
> players don't show up as a drive without a special driver.

Yep, that's it. This machine, a Creative Zen Micro, doesn't show up
like an external hard drive like some players can. Bit of a nuisance.
There is some Linux stuff that is/was once meant to work, but it seems
that there is some 'dependency hell' involved with some packages not
maintained or incompatible etc.

So if anyone can fill me in about Windows 2000 so I don't gamble,
that's be great.

[Bob CP]

On 9/25/2011 4:17 PM, poachedeggs wrote:
> On Sep 25, 11:55 am, Bob CP<ctcboa...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> On 9/24/2011 6:59 PM, Skywise wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> poachedeggs<poachede...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in news:fdbfe073-695b-4609-
>>> 8523-c3e71c63f...@c1g2000yql.googlegroups.com:
>>
>>>> I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
>>>> with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.

...>> Probably a third requirement: The ability to "see" his MP3 player in a

>> file manager, so that (s)he can upload files to the player. Some
>> players don't show up as a drive without a special driver.
>
> Yep, that's it. This machine, a Creative Zen Micro, doesn't show up
> like an external hard drive like some players can. Bit of a nuisance.
> There is some Linux stuff that is/was once meant to work, but it seems
> that there is some 'dependency hell' involved with some packages not
> maintained or incompatible etc.
>
> So if anyone can fill me in about Windows 2000 so I don't gamble,
> that's be great.

Not free, but you might try the Total Commander file manager
(http://ghisler.com. If you can't access the player directly through
Network Neighborhood, there's a TC plug-in that might work.
http://www.ghisler.com/plugins.htm#filesys
The trial works for a month, but TC is not free. On the other hand,
it's the most valuable program I own because it does soooo much natively.

[Johny B Good]

On Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:45:10 +0100, poachedeggs
<poach...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could do
> with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.
> I've seen that there are still apparently some copies of W2k around,
> but wonder if they are to some extent counterfeit or otherwise
> useless. Some on eBay are described as 'full' editions but still in
> the picture I can see the word Upgrade on the box. Some are upgrades
> to W95/98 and some NT4. Are these Upgrade copies completely useless if
> you haven't got Windows 98/95/NT on first or is there some Microsoft-
> enabled convenience like the one that allows clean installs with
> Windows 7 Upgrade DVDs? I do actually have a legit copy of Windows 95

For as long as I can remember, upgrade versions (IME, from win95 and up)
will allow you to do a clean install provided you have the install media
for the OS version that qualified for the upgrade. The installer would ask
you insert the appropriate media (floppies or CD) used by the older
qualifying OS, then continue the installation process once the media had
been verified.

> but possibly it wouldn't work on this relatively new pc anyway as a
> springboard to the upgrade. My hope was to put a little 20gb hard
> drive in with Windows 2000 on for occasional Windows faffing and this
> mp3 player. I know it's no longer supported with Updates etc and don't
> intend to go online with it.

If your PC is blessed with 1GB or more of ram, that's going to be a
showstopper right there as far as win95OSR2 is concerned. If it's possible
to temporarliy reduce the ram to less than 1GB, you could go that way if
you wished but there isn't any real need. Win98SE isn't afflicted by that
RAM size bug, BTW.

The best way to install win2kSP4 or winXP on a machine that's normally
used to run Linux is to install virtualization software and install
windows onto a virtual machine. It saves all that hassle of dual or
multi-booting (as in the "Where do you want to crash today? choice to be
made at boot up - a paraphrasing of a Microsoft advertising slogan).

Apart from simplifying your boot menu choice to only 1 OS, Virtualisation
allows you to treat a windows install as "Just another throw away app"
with no need for the AV shite so necessary when it's the primary OS since
you can do all your browsing or downloading in the host OS environment.

I've been experimenting with Ubuntu 10.04LTS for the last 6 months or so
off and on. I've got it installed on the work bench test rig which is
based on a cheap (Asrock) MoBo with a Phenom X2 250 3GHz dual core
processor and a couple of GB of DDR2 ram fitted, not exactly bleedin' edge
parts when they were purchased over a year ago.

Initially, I installed the OS onto a spare 80GB Western Digital IDE drive
(now upgraded to a WD 320GB SATA drive) and downloaded and installed
Oracle VM VirtualBox. When you create a virtual machine optimsed for the
particular OS you want to install (Linux, BSD, MacOS etc) the Windows OS
option gives you a list of windows versions that range all the way from
windows 3.1 right through to windows 7 (64bit).

I've installed win2kSP4 into a VM and find the performance surprisingly
quick (even to the extent of playable performance out of the Quake2 and
Unreal games I installed to test the 3D performance of the Oracle graphics
driver).

Whether this would be an effective solution to your problem, the need to
install a windows USB device driver, depends on how well the USB support
is implemented in the VM. As it happens, I'm about to test that very
feature in a virtualised winXP environment to play with a film scanner
that can't be installed under win2k (but will in a standard winXP setup).

If you fancy going the VM route, I can post the result of that exercise
sometime within the next few days.


--
Regards JB Good

[Frank]

I have Win 2000 sp3 CD with product key and manual with an upgrade to
sp4. This is an OEM version, but not counterfeit or useless and should
work in any machine..

If you are interested in buying let me know.

Regards,

Peter

[Johny B Good]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:46:43 +0100, Johny B Good <inv...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

Follow up:

====snip====

>
> I've installed win2kSP4 into a VM and find the performance
> surprisingly quick (even to the extent of playable performance out of
> the Quake2 and Unreal games I installed to test the 3D performance of
> the Oracle graphics driver).
>
> Whether this would be an effective solution to your problem, the need
> to install a windows USB device driver, depends on how well the USB
> support is implemented in the VM. As it happens, I'm about to test that
> very feature in a virtualised winXP environment to play with a film
> scanner that can't be installed under win2k (but will in a standard
> winXP setup).
>
> If you fancy going the VM route, I can post the result of that
> exercise sometime within the next few days.
>

Sorry to be so late reporting back but I can tell you that Oracle's VM
usb support seems to work just fine. That film scanner works with the
virtualised winXP installation so I'd expect the same would apply to your
mp3 player.

HTH & HAND

--
Regards JB Good

[Orson Cart]

poachedeggs <poach...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>I mostly use Linux Mint 11 now but I have an mp3 player that could
>do
>with Windows 2000 or XP as Creative never made later drivers for it.
>I've seen that there are still apparently some copies of W2k around,
>but wonder if they are to some extent counterfeit or otherwise
>useless. Some on eBay are described as 'full' editions but still in
>the picture I can see the word Upgrade on the box. Some are upgrades
>to W95/98 and some NT4. Are these Upgrade copies completely useless

There are tons of people selling XP on ebait, describing them as full
when they are OEM.
Either idiots or swindlers.