I've Gotta Client

edited October 2004 in Software
I have a possible client for this weekend.
It's really for free but it's good practice to
treat him like a client.
He's 40 years old and just transferred from
one division of Siemens to another. He's
gotten a new laptop with XP Pro. At his
last meeting with his old boss she told him
to just keep the old laptop with Windows
2000. It's full of security stuff he wants to
get rid of.
New Client wrote:
THW GUYS AT WORK THINK I CAN LOAD UP MY OLD LAPTOP WITH XP AND THAT WILL RID ME OF ALL THE SECURITY SOFTWARE..I'LL TRY IT OUT THIS WEEKEND. LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SPARED FROM IVAN THE TERRIBLE!
I told him No. I reccomended that he use
Partition Magic to shrink his C: partition
and add a new partition and save a disk
image of his current system on the extra
partition first. I have offered to help him
with his project this weekend and IM him
on his main computer while he's trying to
do it.
Any body think of any good suggestions?
Thump
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Comments

  • Thump wrote:
    I have a possible client for this weekend.
    It's really for free but it's good practice to
    treat him like a client.

    Exactly. I wouldn't mind working with you, I dont' think ;)
    Thump wrote:
    He's 40 years old and just transferred from
    one division of Siemens to another. He's
    gotten a new laptop with XP Pro. At his
    last meeting with his old boss she told him
    to just keep the old laptop with Windows
    2000. It's full of security stuff he wants to
    get rid of.
    New Client wrote:
    THW GUYS AT WORK THINK I CAN LOAD UP MY OLD LAPTOP WITH XP AND THAT WILL RID ME OF ALL THE SECURITY SOFTWARE..I'LL TRY IT OUT THIS WEEKEND. LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SPARED FROM IVAN THE TERRIBLE!
    I told him No. I reccomended that he use
    Partition Magic to shrink his C: partition
    and add a new partition and save a disk
    image of his current system on the extra
    partition first. I have offered to help him
    with his project this weekend and IM him
    on his main computer while he's trying to
    do it. His skill is about beginner even
    though he's had computers for a few years,
    and he's set in his ways.
    Any body think of any good suggestions?
    Thump

    If he has to machines, as you seem to indicate, I'd make the image and store it on the other machine incase something screws up. As to removing the security software, OK. I'd recommend some things to install and show him how to use, but you probably don't want to here them/already know what I'm going to say.

    And tell him (However you think best) that typing in CAPS when talking to someone is BAD manners!

    -Q
  • Q wrote:
    Exactly. I wouldn't mind working with you, I dont' think ;)
    That's great Q !
    His machines do not communicate and the laptop has no burner
    so I thought a partition on the same hard drive.
    Q wrote:
    I'd recommend some things to install and show him how to use, but you probably don't want to here them/already know what I'm going to say.
    Yeah but we wouldn't do any good. I was never able to get him
    to get Netscape for the composer. Anything else?
    Q wrote:
    And tell him (However you think best) that typing in CAPS when talking to someone is BAD manners!
    Uh, he knows that Q and I'm the only one he does that for
    'cause he knows I can't see good. I don't think I'll mention it.
    He's fine with everyone else.
    Thump
  • Thump wrote:
    Uh, he knows that Q and I'm the only one he does that for 'cause he knows I can't see good. I don't think I'll mention it.
    He's fine with everyone else. Thump

    ARRGH! That's the SECOND time that I sunk myself over... Arrgh!

    I was thinking more along the lines of Spybot, SpywareBlaster...

    -Q
  • edited September 2004
    Yeah that's good but I just got him to install AdAware
    'cause he couldn't get to some pages but went some
    other place when he tried. That fixed it so he might
    not get anything else. I'll bring it up with him anyhow
    even if he's too busy this weekend. Do you think
    we can figure out how to turn off whatever the
    security is? Once we have a protected disk image
    we can fail and try again.
    Thump
  • How do you mean, "whatever security there is" ?

    -Q
  • edited September 2004
    It was especially set up by Siemens as his work
    laptop and they put I don't know what all on it.
    I wish I really just had it from him for a little while
    and see if it shows what it is. If it's just a call
    home thing then that'd be alright if it got stolen.
    He doesn't seem to know but is sure there's some
    kind of Siemens usual security set up.

    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • Is it possible to wipe it out and install XP or 2000 fresh?

    -Q
  • I'm sure it's possible but have no idea how hard it'd be to get
    drivers for it. We could try after we get the disk image on
    another partition I think but I'd rather use an upgrade if
    we could uninstall whatever's there. If he had it here I'd
    save it on my external hard drive but he's not. If he tried
    and failed he'd be stuck the way he was going to do it.
    He never took care of it and had to hand it over to Siemen's
    tech place so he's got no restore disk or anything.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • I'd just try a rfmt. Most of it will be auto detected, and for the rest of the drivers you can run WinU, look at the laptop manufacturer's site, or visit www.driverguide.com.
  • If your using Windows XP, 99% of all hardware is compatable and is detected apon install.

    Just Reformat, isntall XP and your set
  • 2000 would probably work pretty well, also.
  • I'd just try a rfmt. Most of it will be auto detected, and for the rest of the drivers you can run WinU, look at the laptop manufacturer's site, or visit www.driverguide.com.
    No not without a disk image. I've got a HP with an Asus
    motherboard but Asus says if it doesn't have certen
    numbers they didn't make it and Windows XP won't
    run on a clean install. This could really have some
    weird stuff in it. I won't feel safe without a backup.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • Looks like you are doing a good job Thump!
  • edited September 2004
    Q wrote:

    Exactly. I wouldn't mind working with you, I dont' think ;)


    -Q
    Well Q I'm afraid I'm losing a client. I told him someone had
    volunteered to help and was extremely knowledgeable about
    Windows 2000. He said he'd have to mull it over. He said he
    didn't have his Norton Ghost anymore and I said I'll e-mail it
    to you. I told him he
    needed to download Winrar and I think that made it worse.
    Oh well. It's so easy to scare off a potential client.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • Thump wrote:
    It's so easy to scare off a potential client.

    Especially if they don't know too much, or what/however you indicated earlier.

    -Q
  • edited September 2004
    Q wrote:
    Thump wrote:
    It's so easy to scare off a potential client.

    Especially if they don't know too much, or what/however you indicated earlier.

    -Q
    Yeah he doesn't know anything about it. He had to turn it in to the
    tech department when they said they wanted to update or something.
    They didn't want him to work on it and he hasn't.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • Sad to hear the loss, but (I hope) there are others.

    -Q
  • Well we're on if I can figure it out. Our client wrote:
    "As far as the secuirty, one of the biggest probs I see is when I log into windows during initial boot, it has me put in a login,password, and a domain..I can't get in without this domain number. Oh well, me,you and the forum guys will figure it out.."

    I knew he didn't have any floppys and would have to get some.
    But now I expect he won't have Winrar. Maybe I could zip them.
    I need to get them to him before the end of hie workday.
    Thump
  • The domain thing is because it's been setup to authenticate with one. You should be able to login locally (EG. Don't enter a domain), and run the Users and Passwords control panel. Set it to not requre a username to login and it will autologin, I hope.

    -Q
  • in the box where is says domain ther should be two options, the domain and <computer name>
  • Update:
    Rock wrote:
    Thumper..Thanks for the downloads but I can't open these..I will try to locate a free reader later. The networking engineer here wants to try and get rid of the security parameters next week and that may fix my problem without the need for these steps. If not, then I'll continue on.
    Later
    Well he just comes and goes. I told him to get the floppys anyway
    and that he still needed a disk image because he had no restore
    disk and couldn't turn it in to the tech department to be worked on
    anymore.

    Thump
  • Rock wrote:
    I downloaded them as is to 3 seperate floppys..Let me know if you locate a good free reader for these rascals.
    I did.
    Rock wrote:
    I'll send this email to my hotmail and access from the old laptop when I get the chance (hopefully this weekend). I'll download the software and unzip those files then we'll continue on..
    Later
    And we did.
    Rock wrote:
    I'm home now and I extracted the 3 files..I did go ahead and double click the ghost to look at it and it gave me a text file error saying ghost can't run on NT based systems and I had to go into DOS. Maybe I did something out of order but this don't look good..
    rock
    I told him that was fine. It would boot to dos.
    Rock wrote:
    I ALREADY HAVE WINDOWS MESSENGER ON MY PC.. MY CONTACT NAME IS MY HOTMAIL EMAIL ADDRESS.
    I said oh shit. I deleted my Windows Messenger
    this morning 'cause it was spying on me.
    He's was having family time tonight and I'm
    sure he and his wife were watching a movie.
    That's the wrapup for now.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • OK. My client said he was busy today. He has decided to call me
    and let me talk him through the next stage. I thought it was high
    noon but it's 11:00. I'll be using my other machine to run the
    same thing he's trying to run up to a certain stage. I've finally
    gotten him to agree to a repartition and make a disk image
    before he does anything else
    This advice extends out to everyone.
    The tech guy from where he works now said he might be able to
    remove the security perameters but his was different in his
    department and he would really would like to see it.
    I will abort at the first sign of danger. It's Partition Magic against
    the Siemens security. Step one in the morning - will it boot to
    the floppy? If so what will we see when we first get to see the
    partition tables? I better go to bed so I can help that early.
    guzzle.gif
    Thump
  • More like Thump aux WinBoards v. Siemens.

    You'd think that they'd've known enough to disable floppy booting, but some co.s (O)ITs are NOT the smartest.

    -Q
  • Not only company's... schools are notorious for stuff like that.
  • Hmm, none I've been to, nor the company that I've use laptops from...

    -Q
  • on a couple of machines at my school theyd forgotten to password protect the BIOS...... FOOLS!! lol
  • None @ H have any protections...

    -Q
  • fortunatly theres no one smart ebough at my school to know what a BIOS is let alone get into 1....
  • Well we just spent about 30 minutes trying to make the
    Partition Magic floppys. He said it had autoexec.bat on
    there but after it failed to boot he looked again and it
    didn't. He hung up and is trying to see if he can get the
    floppys fixed himself now that he understands what has
    to be there. He'll call back when he's done. I wish I
    was there, I'd be done by now. I took him through
    the first one, drilled down to the files and clicked edit,
    select all and copied them to the floppy and now the
    files are gone. Oh well
    Thump
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