Bye bye 2000, Hello XP

07:15.31 - Saturday 15th September 2007   (Link to This Entry)

Another month passes, another format of the big machine. This time I've upgraded to Windows XP - something I swore I'd hold off from doing as long as possible.

It came about because I had to do some video editing and K was using Pinnacle Studio to great effect. I bought version 11 and found to my initial dismay that it was XP and Vista only. After weighing my options I figured it wasn't going to kill me to finally ditch Windows 2000, and ordered the XP OEM CD from eBuyer.

Installation went well, as expected, though I personally disliked having to activate my copy of Windows as soon as it was installed. My first action was to get rid of the standard XP interface and go back to the Windows Classic style I was used to - everything else I think I can live with.

I confess I did cheat somewhat in getting Apache, PHP and MySQL installed and working. I simply made a backup of my existing folders (complete with MySQL data) and config files and, after installing so as to get the services running correctly, I simply copied the folders back over, pausing only to drop php.ini and the hosts file into their respective folders. Total install time, 10 minutes.

All that is left to do now is to upgrade the videocard drivers and find the WinTV install disc, then set up the system to my own preferences.