I remember from a NEC service centre staff that the machine cannot use other HDD, the machine will not run if it found that the serial no of the HDD is not the original one. At first I do not remember this and tried a lot of options.
I want to upgrade my NEC Versa VX to run XP, I used a new HDD with NTFS, then boot the machine with a XP Home CD, the NB return a message saying that a Hibernation Partition was not found, I suspect it is because the Bios of the NB was trying to create such a partition on the HDD but failed due to NTFS, I tried using a FAT32 HDD, the same message appear and even with the recovery disk, the same message appear. May be I shall give up the idea of running XP on the NEC Versa VX. Is it a waste of time?
At first I was frustrated when the USB Network Adapter driver software ask for the file net7.cab from Window 89 CD, I do not have the disk and cannot not buy it from nearby computer shop. Then I found that the Recovery CD installed the Windows installation files (the Windows Cabinet file) to the folder "C:\Windows\Options\Cabs"
The following website is helpful regarding solving this problem:
http://www.easydesksoftware.com/recovery.htm
I tried to set up Windows 98 on new HDD with the NEC supplied recovery disc but failed, the machine said the primary slave cd-rom was not detected, was it the HDD problem or the CD-ROM is damaged?
Also, the USB port in the NEC Versa VX cannot read from USB card reader, I found that the BIOS has disabled the USB port.
The CD-ROM has no problem readuibg rte D-Link driver disk. So the CD-ROM should has no problem.
The Linksys and Eagletec PCMCIA wireless network card has no problem on the Asus NB, so the problem should be due to slot failure on the NEC NB.
Although MS said Windows 98 will not be supported, I still can download update from MS website thru "Windows Updates".
Some error message appear when 98 is booting up, I don't want to re-install 98!
I re-install Windows 98 using NEC recovery disc, it take about 60 minutes. After the set up, I installed the D-Link software, during the installation process, it said it need IE 5.5. I go ahead with the installation and set up IE 6 after the D-Link software.
The connection wizard confused me, make me think that the connection was failed, but then I go to "Microsoft Update" site and the connection seems ok.
Windows SEa (SP2.1a)
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The next decision I need to make is whether to install the unofficial sp2.1a.
After reading this site, I decide not to install sp2.1a:
http://www.softpedia.com/progViewOpinions/Unofficial-Windows-SE-Service-Pack-9065,.html
I have problems after installed SP2.1a, DOS start up screen shown error message concerning the following some *.VSD files, I don't know whether it was caused by sp2.1a but I better stay away from it.
DirectX 9.0c
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Shall I install it?
After I installed it, IE6 cannot connect to the network but then it was okay.
Avast
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The antivirus software is too resource-intensive for my NEC Versa VX, the machine was slowed down a lot after it was installed, the set up program cannot even started. I have to uninstall it. May be I shall find a light-weight anti-virus software for the machine.
Irfanview
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According to the follwing site, there are problems using irfanview 4.22 or 4.23 with the latest exif.dll (2008-dec-14), the thumbnails application crashes when selecting thumbnails:
http://en.irfanview-forum.de/vb/showthread.php?t=3560
It also said version 4.1 is more stable so I installed that version
Printer Driver
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HP printer driver was also installed for 948c, the installation program did not ended normally but it work after re-login.
Media Player Classic
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Media Player Classic, KMPlayer and K-Lite all cannot be installed on NEC Versa VX with Windows 98.
Shadow Copy
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Shadow Copy can be installed on Windows but it need a server to work:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb405951.aspx
"To use Shadow Copies of Shared Folders on a client computer running a version of Windows earlier than Windows XP, you must install the shadow copy client software on both the client running the earlier version of Windows, and the server running Windows Server 2003."
