r/windowsxp

Hey guys, I have a question I'm hoping somebody can help me out here.

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 9400 or E1705, It's pretty much turn key but it does need some TLC, a hard drive and a battery.

I installed a HDD with a preloaded copy of Windows Media center Edition 2005 that matches the service sticker on the bottom of the machine.

It runs fine and I was able to get some of the drivers installed, but I'm having trouble with the audio. Can't seem to get any sound drivers to load (more on that later)

I figured it'd be a good idea to start with a fresh install, so I grabbed my HP Compaq branded Windows XP MCE 2005 disk That has never let me down, I set up BIOS to boot from the disk, but I cannot get the machine to boot from any disk. I verified that the drive works as it can read CDs when its running on OS.

But each time I attempt to get at the boot from a media installation CD, it skips straight over it and into OS.

I tried a USB powered dvd drive, same results.. like it waits for a CD to load but then skips it and go straight to the OS. I tried to reset all the settings in the BIOS to default settings and I still get the same results

what can I do?

(For that audio driver issue, I cannot get it to load a proper driver from the Dell website or from the weird Microsoft UAA bus controller or whatever it is at my SDI drivers CD discovered,

I had audio come out of it after that, but it prompted me to restart immediately and it even played the logging off sound, but it never came back.. I tried to reinstall those drivers, deleted them, etc.. but nothing worked so far)

Should I just go get a blank hard drive and try it? Is there a setting in a BIOS that needs to be looked? is Dell very finicky or picky on what software you install? How screwed am I here?

I was really looking forward to this machine and the seller does not accept any returns.

Am I the only person on here who disables Luna and always defaults to classic theme? Back in the day, I did this to save local resources, but to this day, and even running under a VM, I always disable Luna.

I don't think Luna looks bad. I just think it's pointless and makes navigating the OS less accurate. I don't understand why Classic Theme was converted into yet another graphic skin under Windows 7, or that no newer mainstream version of Windows has the basic vector-based classic theme anymore.

That dang uxtheme patch and WindowsBlinds; I had a bunch of clients who would screw with applying themes until the UI broke completely, or just wouldn't appear after a reboot anymore. I don't think I charged enough to fix that either, because had a couple of instances of people re-applying the hack, trying to apply a previous theme they thought was safe, and bam - same issue. You could forget upgrading to a new service pack afterward too.

That's a big part of the reason why I liked XP. It showed off what an OS could do with extra resources, but you could still make the OS get out of the way if performance and utility were the focus. That hasn't really been true of any OS since.

Hey, I was working on an XP Laptop HP Pavilion that's had its windows 32 file deleted. I've been trying to reinstall for a while, but just now got to this point where I formatted and downloaded an XP ISO. It was working great until it closed for the second part of the set when it would open a selection screen for a split second then go straight to the same file32 could not be found. If I press r on the screen before it goes to the file32 error, it will stay. I can choose Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Unidentified operating System on Drive U both lead to an open bracket in the top left that doesn't do anything until I press a button which reboots the system to the beginning. It also lets me press F8 for advanced options, but when I try to boot in safe mode or boot in safe mode with command prompt from what google told me it stops 1/3 of the way through the screen saying it doesn't have file32. I went to the BIOS screen and tried to look at the hard drive and it failed the test. I looked and it says I need to run commands from the prompt that I can't access.

I'm at a dead end. The install stopped halfway through and keeps taking me to the file32 error screen. I don't know how to continue the second step of install. Please let me know if you have a fix. Thanks.

Edit: Deleted the data on the USB and redownloaded continuing to the partition screen. It died and when it came on I disabled the Sata HD before letting it boot. I don’t know what happened or why but it’s working now. Thanks!

Honestly was one of the best parts of XP. Having those lil widgets locked onto your screen. I had the memo pad and sys info.

I know I can replicate it with HWInfo etc but it was different when the functionality was baked in.

I have a copy of windows xp professional 64 bit which I recently installed with no issues, expect fit doesn't detect the audio drivers installed.

PC specs:-

Intel Core 2 quad q9650

2gb of ddr2 ram

Amd hd 4890

Asus p5w ph deluxe motherboard​​​​​

I have downloaded the correct motherboard drivers from the website for 64 bit windows xp. The realtek audio drivers install but it doesn't get detected. I have downloaded the audio drivers from realtek website as well with no luck. Any ideas what it could be it where I can get different drivers from? ​

Hello all! Has anyone been able to get Steam working correctly without OCAPI? It's causing serious issues with my drivers so I cannot use it. I have gotten the old client to kinda work but the content servers are unreachable so can't start any games even transferred as they want to auto update.