One heck of a frustrating Windows Install

October 08, 2007 @ 12:08 am- from Hood River, Oregon

I'm reformatting my old machine, putting the original Windows Media Center Edition onto this machine so I can sell it. This has been one of the most nightmarish Windows installs I can remember.

First off I installed from the MSDN CDs which are have multiple options on it. So I picked Media Center 2005 and that seemed to work, but nowhere does it actually say Media Center Edition. All the prompts, all the dialogs everything says XP Pro, and so when I got to the form that asks to put the license key in I put in my license key that is associated with the machine. It didn't work...

So I'm thinking it must be because this isn't actually the right install and I throw that out, download the two CDs explicitly from MSDN. Same routine and again the key doesn't work. So finally I said screw it and got my MSDN key for MC and used that instead and that did work. So I'm not sure why my Dell key wouldn't work and the MSDN one would - surely the keys must be usable on the same version?

Anyway - next I got a prompt to insert disk two which i did. But it couldn't find the second disk even though it's in the drive. It was looking for IExplore somewhere buried in Disk 2 but apparently there's something missing because I simply couldn't find the file. Eventually I skipped - bad idea. The install went through but the installation ended up with all sort of weird problems. None of the services auto-start (even though they're marked for it) a number of drivers fail to install etc.

So now I'm really annoyed. Yet another install this time directly from the MSDN CDs and this install finally goes smoothly. It still burps at the second disk, but this time I can just change the disk number and the install goes on smoothly from the DVD. This time no issues. Everything comes up properly all the drivers install... I'm done, right...

After a few more driver installations and downloads from Dell I check the version number and it says:

Windows Media Center *2002* SP 2

WTF? 2002? I supposedly installed WMC 2005? Now what? Nowhere anywhere is there a hint exactly what version is installed and to be honest I don't know if it really matters, but I suspect that's why the install key didn't work correctly. It's not actually the same version of Windows.

I guess it doesn't matter - the machine's up and running. It's XP SP2 - something. How obtuse can you get though to hide the fact that this is Media Center? It took another half an hour to patch the machine to all the latest patches from Microsoft. While this was just all kind of going on in the background the whole process took something like 5 hours. I'm barely going to get that back from selling the machine.

Grumble, grumble...

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# re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by AndyJ October 08, 2007 @ 1:37 am

"So I'm not sure why my Dell key wouldn't work and the MSDN one would - surely the keys must be usable on the same version?"

It'd be nice, but unfortunately Volume License, OEM and Retail keys are not interchangeable. You need the specific media for that key, and in the case of Dell it'll probably just install with out even needing the key.

There are two solutions if you don't have the media, you can phone up Dell and see if you can get replacement media or see if theres an unaltered copy on a torrent site. I'm not 100% sure of the legality of getting replacement media off a torrent site, but since you do have a legitimate license I'd hope it's OK.

re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by John October 08, 2007 @ 1:50 am

Ah the old days of Windows XP.....
The product key itself will determine whether to install XP pro, media centre or tablet edition.
Essentially its almost a hack for it to ask for the 2nd disk, from memory its very obsure message also. I'm sure it was for this reason that media centre 2005 was never available for installation non-OEM. Best bet would have been the orginal Dell restore CDs, but who keeps those...
John.

re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by Rick Strahl October 08, 2007 @ 2:45 am

I actually have the Dell CDs - at home in Hawaii <g>. The reason for all this is so I don't have to lug the computer back there with me actually. I want to get rid of it beforehand...

Thanks for the feedback and verifying that I'm not just going crazy with the CD keys.

You know it's funny running XP again - even if it's just for an install - after all this time of running Vista (going on two years now). It feels so klunky, so harsh...

re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by Bertrand Le Roy October 08, 2007 @ 11:57 am

ah, but XP Media Center is a weird beast. Remember how it was an OEM only OS? That probably explains a lot. I have pretty bad memories myself of self-hosting MCE at home. We had to install XP pro then more or less patch it, which looks like what you experienced. What OEM used to do was of course just image it as they do for all OS's so they only do that once, but that explains why the MCE team apparently didn't go through all that's needed to build a solid setup experience. Vista makes it so much easier because MC is finally part of the mainstream OS...

re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by Nicholas October 08, 2007 @ 3:22 pm

Since I do a lot of computer repair, I actually have to keep a seperate copy of "retail" and "OEM" discs for Windows re-installation. Dell's Windows installation disks don't need you to enter a product key at all (it's embedded in the motherboard somehow.) And the product keys cannot be manually entered via Microsoft's retail/MSDN discs. Lame, yes. I have found many of my OEM discs via BitTorrent networks, since they usually want to charge you for them.

I swear, Microsoft/Dell/etc. should just give away the ISOs to their products after you provide a valid key. But alas..

re: One heck of a frustrating Windows Install
by Rob October 09, 2007 @ 4:05 pm

Just one more example of why I'm leaving the Windows world for good to work on the LAMP stack and Macs.