Hi all,

I've taken my first steps with Vista (wished I never had, but I bought a new notebook which doesn't allow me to install XP on it anymore )

I'm now trying to do something very simple, and which I've done a thousand times on XP: share a map and try to access it. Only this time I try to access it on the Vista machine.

I can share the map. I've learned that I need to add a user 'everybody' into the security tab, or the Vista machine won't even see the share. When I create the 'everybody' user, I can see the share, and the files is the share. (read only)

Now, when I try to copy the files from the share to the Vista PC, I get the message that I'm not authorised to do that. I also cannot play any files over the network from within that share (probably the same problem)

But what is causing this? I'm completely lost!
Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks!

In addition to setting the permissions on the *share*, you also have to set permissions on the *files and folders* themselves.

I've got to ask: how exactly does your new laptop expressly prevent you from installing XP on it? The only explanation I've been able to come up with is that you only had a recovery disk from an old computer instead of a real install CD...

I have two problems with Vista (not on my machine, I'm still on XP MCE):
- poor driver support: my mother-in-law's computer is always blue-screening and I can't tell why. There's no heat problems, the memory tests fine, everything looks in order, but it blue-screens alot.
- networking: I can't STAND the new networking area of the control panel. It's infuriating!

I'm sure there's more, but I've not installed it on my own machine...

What exactly do you mean by that? (I'm sure I'm missing the obvious here...)

This new laptop does not come with ATA100 drives anymore, but with SATA drives. This should not be a problem, if the XP setup disks had any SATA drivers included. Now the XP cd just boots, and when the menu comes up where the disks can be partitioned, I get an error message saying there are no harddisk inside this computer.
Usually this problem can be overcome by setting a compatibility mode in the bios (this is always the case with any normal desktop motherboard I've known so far), but the bios of this laptop is *so* limited, basically anything more than setting the boot order and/or an administrative password is not possible.

I think I'll try a difference approach though: I'll remove one of the disks from the laptop, connect it to a desktop pc and setup XP until the first reboot from there. Then I'll try putting the HD back in the laptop, and hopefully it'll boot then an continue the installation process.

I'm sure I'll stumble onto other problems as I go along then (like finding the adequate drivers for all the components... HP does not supply them anymore for XP, can you believe that?)


Strange... most likely a driver conflict, but I know it's pretty hard to find out which one...

Tell me about it! I think it's absolutely incredible Microsoft managed to release a product which seems almost incompatible with its own previous software. I mean, even simple things like the Workgroup name have been named differently. This is not so much of a problem, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have cussed a lot because they didn't notice this at first. Why change this???

My advice: DON'T! I sure won't! The absolute worst part is that it's a resource hog. I mean, this is a 2.5 Ghz dual core with 3GB of RAM laptop, and it runs sloooooooow! Come on! With that kind of processing power, performance should be through the roof! But it feels like all I've been doing while (trying to) install(ing) it is looking at an hour glass and waiting. It's absolutely maddening! Have you already tried to install SP1 onto a Vista machine ? If now, you're in for a lot of fun: how about an HOUR and a HALF just to do that?!

They said Windows ME was the worst Microsoft ever released? My money's on Vista: a lot of bloat, no added functionality compared to XP and slow as hell. Add the fact that a lot of 'older' programs (_and_ hardware because of the lack of updated drivers - hey, buy the new version!) have troubles running on it and you've got an instant recipe for disaster.

This OS will never run on my PC. It's just too much frustration and no added value all bottled up in one product. There's just nothing to gain!
Just like with Microsoft ME a couple of years ago, I'll sit it out and see what Windows 7 will be like.

Now, to get XP running on this laptop...

Surely you just need to download the XP drivers for your SATA interface and supply them at install time. Assuming you have a floppy drive of course...

Or you can use the drivers and the XP install to create a new slipstream install with the drivers included.

I have one Vista machine now and while mixed, my experiences aren't as bad as most people's seem to be. There are definitely some puzzling user interface changes. But performance and stability have been fine for me. The only real negative side is the base memory usage, which appears to be a good 400-500MB higher than a typical XP box.

I definitely haven't seen the sluggish performance described by other people. Although admittedly it is being used mainly for doing Vista testing of some software I am working on.

Correct, that's what I though. But this laptop, like most other new laptops I know, does not come with a floppy drive anymore. So I tried it with a USB floppy drive. Doesn't work, the OS does not recognise it, so it can't access it after having pressed F6.

It's also not real easy to find SATA drivers for an Intel chipset (Intel 965 in this case). I thought I found _something_ that should work, but I'm still not entirely sure. Not that it matters, because I can't access the files anyway since the floppy drive won't work.


I thought about that, but I've never done this before. My Xp installation CD is also still an SP1 version. But I fear that, if I immediately include the SATA drivers onto the CD (the only way I can see this can be done is by including SP2, right?), my registration key will not be accepted anymore (even though I assure you it is genuine... but I've had this happen to me in the past)

Ok, that didn't work. I get a bluescreen after the first two seconds of booting into XP.

Perhaps that slipstreaming idea is better after all. Do you know of a easy how to? And maybe also where I can find these SATA drivers?

The new easier way of creating a slipstream CD is to use nLite:

http://www.rekatech.co.uk/nLiteslip.htm

I don't think that page covers adding new drivers though.

Paul Thurrott's Supersite has a Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 2 page. It even shows you how to create a bootable CD with it.

Maximum PC has a page that shows you how to include RAID drivers, so the SATA drivers should be the same. It's a bit complicated, though, and I'm sure there's an easier way, so Google is your friend.

This won't invalidate your product code, provided you use the same edition of Windows to create the CD (i.e. Retail vs OEM vs volume-licensed).

Oh, and the USB floppy drive support is done by the BIOS, at least during initial setup, so see if there's a setting you need to tweak.

Personally, I'd do the slipstream thing, mainly because you'll need to support bigger disks and arcane bits of chipset (particularly USB bits and bobs), and I'm not sure that SP1 includes that support. Also, you'll want to install SP2 after you've installed anyway. This way's quicker.

Thanks heaps guys... I'll get to it! (and keep you updated)

Ok, update.

I've slipstreamed a SP2 CD with nLite. I've added SP2, all the available hotfixes, and thousands of drivers with the helps of DriverPacks.net. This added more than 500MB to the installation CD (actually, it's a DVD now...).
The result was... the same! The notebook still does not see any harddisks available in the system.

I'm getting desperate here. <sob>

You don't mention adding the SATA driver for your chipset. Or are you just hoping it was in the set from DriverPacks.net ?

The driver is in the packs. Unfortunately (from what I've read online), this approach does not seem to work. You need the F6, enter driver approach.

I've actually succeeded in loading this driver onto a floppy, using a usb floppy drive, having the driver recognised AND used, right up to the point where the pc starts formatting the harddisk.

...and then the system asks for the 'storage driver' on the A: floppy again... which by then has become inaccessible (I guess the USB support has dropped at that point). Aaaargh!

I don't know how it is with SATA, but when I had to move a drive with Windows installed from one machine to another one, I managed that without blue-screening by removing the chipset-specific IDE driver and just leave the Primary and Secondary IDE driver.

Stig

Windows does seem to have regressed in this area over the years. I'm sure I remember Windows 95 cheerily telling me "Windows has found new hardware: Motherboard" and just getting on with it.

Peter

That is a big problem with MS Windows these past few years -- lack of included device drivers, or the need to find/add tons of missing ones after a basic install.

Fortunately, O/S installation is a relatively rare task, one would hope. So the extra time spent there is relatively unimportant.

Success!!

With the help of nLite, I managed to created an installation CD with SP2 sreamelined into it and the only needed SATA driver. I managed to get XP installed now.

Now remains that other challence: finding XP drivers for all components ('cause HP does not provide any)

I swear I'll never ever ever EVER buy HP again!

All true, though surely in this case it is more down the combination of:

- the hardware in question not existing when this version of Windows was released
- the laptop in question not having a floppy drive
- this version of Windows not having useful support for adding drivers at install time via USB connected devices

?

Yep. Vista allows you to provide drivers on a USB stick.

Linux is good in this regard -- you download a new ISO and it'll have support for your new hardware. Unfortunately, Microsoft don't make up-to-date ISO files available for Windows (even if you're an MSDN subscriber). Given the amount of grief that activation causes people, you'd think they trusted it to keep a simple ISO safe from piracy.

They do put slipstreamed discs online for MSDN, so I could go grab an XP SP2 install iso from there, and I'd expect to see SP3 ones soon. The main issue seems to be Microsoft doesn't release service packs often enough, and when they do, they don't tuck in all the drivers that they could.

I'd really like to see a 6-9 month max cycle on service packs. Installing XP SP2 fresh still requires over a hundred patches to be applied. Sure, hotfixes can also be slipstreamed most of the time, but a single service pack is much easier to deal with.

I know you've managed to downgrade to XP at this point. But just for completeness' sake (and in case you ran into this same problem under XP), I wanted to answer this question.

In Windows, there are two levels of protection for files on a shared drive.

There are the permissions you set for the share itself. This controls who can connect to that share across the network, and what the base level of access is when they connect. This is set from the properties panel of the SHARE. For instance, if you create a share called Wilma and set Fred's permissions on that share to read-only, and set Barney's permission on that share to read-write, then Fred is sad because he can only watch what Barney does to Wilma.

Then there are permissions on the hard disk's files and folders themselves. Those are set by right-clicking on a given file or folder and getting properties then selecting the SECURITY tab. These are more granular than the SHARE level of security, and can frequently conflict with what you've set for the security of the share. For instance, if Wilma has sub-folders named TORSO and HEAD, you can set Barney and Fred's permissions on those folders to read-only and read-write, respectively. Keep in mind that no matter what you set the file permissions on those folders, Fred still has only read-only access to the SHARE so that's still the most he can do. And even though Barney has read-write access to the share, if a folder or file isn't tagged so that Barney has write access, he'll still be given "permission denied" when he tries to do something other than look at Wilma's body parts.

I think this is a bigger issue in Vista than it was in XP because by default, they have beefed up security on individual files and folders across the board. There's actually a pretty big Vista annoyance where I can't even browse the folder tree from the root of C:\ and get to my personal files and folders in my User folder without getting permission denied. I have to go in and recursively update the permissions on my user folder before I can do that.

Thanks for that Tony, very informative!

Also, for completeness, I managed to completely install the notebook. This was pretty hard since HP only supplied Vista drivers. But with a bit of puzzling, I managed to find every driver I needed.

This feels sooooooooo much better!
Thanks for your help all!
(BTW, this installation took a total of no less than 18 hours. This must be a personal record!)