Restoring the eSlate...

If I knew what I was letting myself in for, I might not have tried to restore the eSlate to its pristine, straight-from-the-factory condition, i.e., with Windows installed.

The unit booted off of the restore disk and when I selected the option for restoring Windows with a hard-disk format, all sorts of messages broke loose on the screen - none of them good - topped off by the announcement that Windows was ready to fly.

Not bloody likely.

Memory stirred, and I recalled there was an fdisk command that wiped the Master Boot Record, which is where the Linux loader resided. (The command is 'fdisk /mbr'.)

That done, the restore again tanked, so I then selected the option to boot off of the CD, after which I deleted the Linux partitions using fdisk and created a new DOS partition.

So far, no biggie. On the next try, the unit formatted the hard drive and proceeded to restore Windows 98.

Upon coming alive, Windows detected my network card, copied the required files, and hung.

This was a portent of what was to come during a long, long evening.

I redid the restore and paid close attention to what was going on when files were being copied for the network card. Everything went well, this time.

Next step: install Office. I exhumed my Office CD and put it in the drive. The AutoStart feature did its thing, and when I selected "Install," the appropriate program started, and hung. In fact, the screen-blanker kicked in while I was waiting for something to happen, albeit after a very short time.

Ctrl-Alt-Del succeeded in allowing me to kill the install program. I tried again. Same results. I rebooted the machine. Ran the install. It runs, and then tells me it's an upgrade, and that I'll need to have the previous version somewhere on the disk for the upgrade to work. Grrr.

So, I go back into my collection of junk and emerge with my old, old Office 95 (v. 4.3) CD. I put it in the drive and install it. It goes well. I then replace the Office 95 CD with the Office 97 CD. The install runs, finds the previous version and asks if I want to delete the previous version, recommending that I do so.

I say yes. The previous version is erased and the install program hangs.

About this time, I am getting ideas that maybe I should (a) get my head examined before deciding to do stuff like this, and (b) do something about the screen blanking out every minute or so, which is beginning to annoy me.

I reboot, bring up Control Panel, then Power. The dialog box tells me that when the unit is connected to the wall (which it is), everything is supposed to stay on all the time. I reboot (getting good at that), then press F2 to enter the CMOS setup, and tab over to Power Management, which is turned on with a vengeance. I turn it off and continue to reboot.

I reinstall Office 95, and run the Office 97 installer, reminding myself that one workable definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting to get different results. Of course, the definition was not written by anyone who knows people who work a lot with software. As it turns out, the install process proceeds smoothly. However, I start to notice Very Bad Behavior.

The MyComputer folder doesn't work. I can double-click it, and it opens, but nothing is displayed and the window does not respond to either mouse or keyboard actions (except for Crtl-Alt-Del followed by End Task). Then suddenly, nothing on my desktop will respond to the mouse, including the Start button or the Shutdown button on the dialog box brought up by Ctrl-Alt-Del. This requires me to reset the machine using the Big Red Switch (which on the eSlate is small and gray, but again...).

After several iterations of this, I go into \WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS and reinstall Windows (I mean, that's the traditional cure for what ails you, right?)

After the install, everything seems to work pretty well. I start up Internet Explorer, noticing that one of the Office installs - probably Office 97 - has left an icon on my desktop to set up Explorer version 3.03.

This becomes important to me quickly, as the more current version (5.0?) of Internet Explorer hangs as soon as I touch my keyboard, resulting in the system becoming completely unresponsive, until I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and End Task. After which the next task in line becomes completely unresponsive. I suspect strongly that installation of the previous IE version screwed up a DLL somewhere (which is a big argument in favor of the protection system that Windows 2000 has in place for system files).

I reboot, fire up IE - which seems to work as long as I don't use the keyboard - and then use my mouse to get to the Mozilla web site by clicking on a series of links, which reminded me of the notion that you are only seven people removed from knowing anyone else in the world. (I wonder what the number is for the Net, if you don't count search engines that relentlessly hammer the number down to two? But I digress...).

Anyway... I get to the Mozilla site and start the download of the latest/greatest 0.9.3 version. While that's going on, I start to move things from my desktop to the eSlate and from the VAIO to the eSlate, in preparation for taking the eSlate down to Houston and using it there for work.

Eventually, I decide I've done all I could do. The Mozilla download is about 30% done with I go hit the sack, wa-a-ay past my usual bedtime.

All I can say is, it's a good thing I decided to do this yesterday, rather than on Monday, the day before I have to leave for Texas.

Cheers...