I’m probably right of the bell curve on tech for a man of my age. Oh, I don’t run Linux. Nor do I spend any more time than is entirely necessary on the command line. I don’t write code, nor build routers. But I can tinker on the margins, and am capable of Googling with the best of them.
So, anyway, SNO gifted me a first-person shooter up by the name of Battlefield 3. He likes it better than the Call of Duty series what’s out there on the street. Heightened realism, fewer mad hackers shooting through walls and such. Not really my thing, you know. But a nice gift. Given the season, and so on.
We tried to install it on the Boot Camp partition of my 2009 iMac. But it required Windows 7, don’t you know. Which I had been running XP, and I don’t typically surf the net from that side. And we are behind a firewall. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
A trivial thing to upload a new version of Windows, you’d think. Downloaded the 64-bit version, since that allows the machine to fully access the core machine’s available RAM. But the XP variant was 32-bit, and it would have none.
So I downloaded the 32-bit variant, hoping for the best. A hope frustrated in the event. Through multiple attempts at upgrading XP to 7, I was told that I didn’t have the correct permissions, etc. Plus, there was a need to back-up our legacy system files and documents. Maybe boot from a USB device.
So we tripped it the light fantastic hither and thither, acquiring a 16 GB thumb drive for the boot device, changing permissions. Enduring tedious downloads. Also bought a nifty network drive to back up our everything to a personal cloud, like. Set us back around $350 between the one thing and the next. Which was no great shakes, after all. I was going to do the Windows 7 upgrade in any event, and needed some back-up storage, just in case.
Countless restarts later, I am $350 poorer and no closer to the dream of playing a game that was gifted to me, costing perhaps $40. The network was interrupted half-way through a 120GB, nine hour transfer of system files and settings, requiring us to start afresh. All of the various support fora are largely silent on my own misfortunes.
It’s a happy thing, I think, that I do not keep ball peen hammers, far less 20-pound sledges close to hand.
For I’m that close to going it the beserker, just now.
Might go to the Apple Store at the mall (arrive early) and ask them to do it…..
Lex:
If the need ever arises, I have a really nifty one hand sledge which you may use. Airmail’s advise is likely better to take, however.
Paul
A Cop comes upon a man hitting himself repeatedly in the head with a hammer.
The Cop asks him why he is hitting himself ? The man answers, ” It feels so good when I stop.”
This is why when I arrive at similar situations, ( plumbing, masonry, computer repair, etc.), I reach into my pocket and take as many pieces of green paper as needed and say the necessary words, ” Here kind man, please fix my problem…”
I hear you Lex, I tried to load Linux on a laptop. That laptop is now doing yeoman service as a paperweight or small boat anchor, as required.
You have my sympathies, Lex!
…and I just went 10 rounds with a M&S program at work built for XP through (ack) Vista, but wouldn’t yo know it, the new machines only came with Windows7 and we discovered the fun of managing not one but two program files subdirectories for the install (re-installed) as we’re running it in 64-bit configuration.
w/r, SJS
In fall 2010 I took a GIS course and part of the requirements was to download a program from the Trimble Navigation website and run it.
I tried it on every computer I have, but it wouldn’t run. So I emailed the instructor with the bad news. He emailed Trimble who responded it runs only on XP and earlier. My oldest system had Vista.
At the office we have stuff that runs only on 32 bit versions of Windoze. It’s a pain to keep up with.
Lex, I think it highly worthwhile to consider a new machine. I run Win7 64 on a Dell with a AMD 4 core CPU, and 6 Gb RAM. It’s acceptable. Win7 would not have been acceptable at all on the XP hardware. My wife has a Dell XPS 8300 with the Intel I7 and 8 Gb RAM Nice. And there is the bit about much better graphic cards and HDMI PC to Monitor or at least DVI, which if you’re gaming is also worthwhile.
fwiw. Good luck.
I usually just tell the network engineer that works for me to do it for me. Did you try that?
Last year we did a network refresh and replaced about 100 workstations. One the new ones we put Win 7 x 64 and the 64 bit version of Office Pro, to be ahead of the curve rather than way behind for once. Don’t you know that many of our add ins and misc. programs didn’t like Office 2010 64 bit so we ripped it out and put in the 32 bit.
And a lot of little misc programs we use bark at the 64 bit OS.
From now one I’m staying behind the bleeding edge.
Now, about that ball peen hammer/20 pound sledge…I need one or the other since I took apart the hammer assembly thingy from my 30 y/o Glenfield 70c .22 to see why the firing pin was not striking the rim of the rimfire cartridge. Now I have a baggie full of little parts and no idea how to put them back together, let alone make them fire the darn gun.
You think you have a gun problem? My Star PD has a round in the chamber and I can’t get the slide to move! I reckon I could unload it through the muzzle, if there were a safe place to do that around here. I am confident that wouldn’t burst the gun, but might well break it. Any ideas, folks?
JTG – Do NOT try to shoot the round out! The breech may not be locked up.
*** Remember you are dealing with a loaded weapon! ***
1. You will need to find a bench or flat surface where you can catch a corner of the muzzle end of the slide without interfering with the barrel.
2. Muzzle faces down – remember, this is a loaded weapon!. Hold the slide with one hand, and give the backstrap of the grip a firm smack with your other hand or a rubber mallet if necessary. This will probably do it, unless you tried to force the slide closed. (Anyone remember the stupid forward assist on the M-16 series?)
3. It the round ejects, you’re done. The other option is the extractor gives up and the slide opens, but the round is still stuck. If so, lock the slide back.
4. Carefully field strip the pistol.
5. Clamp the barrel in a padded vice. Remember you now need to stay clear of both ends of the barrel! With a wooden dowel tap (do not hammer) the bullet, while watching the case. You want to avoid driving the bullet back into the case. As long as the case is backing out you’re good.
6. If the case is not backing out you can try prying it out gently as you now have access to the extractor groove. With patience you will get the round out.
In my experience a stuck round in a pistol is usually caused by reloads where the bullet is not seated deep enough. The bullet engages the rifling before the breech is locked up. In rifles it’s usually the case length is too long, and the case mouth starts to engage the throat of the bore, again before the breech fully locks. I’ve also seen an early Springfield XD-9 where the chamber tolerance was so tight that it would not accept reloads that were fired in another pistol – even with full length small base resizing the case would swell too much.
You can email me at ngpogue at mac dot com if you have any questions.
Judging from previous behavior of this piece I don’t think it’s an ammo problem. The thing was pretty old and loose when I got it, back in the nineties, and would sometimes take some jerking on the slide to pull it back. There is something not quite right about the piece, which is why I got the other one. This one really needs to see the ‘smith for geriatric care, which is why I got the other one. The PD is such a neat piece, though, I’d like to try and re-juvenate it. At the very least it needs a new recoil spring and buffer.
The cartridge in it is a brand-new Win 185-grain Silvertip. I’ll try your first suggestion some time I am sure the hoplophobic housemate is not around.
Long ago I resolved/realized that my time was worth some semi-significant amount, enough in any case to quit trying to do OS upgrades (which are always vexacious) and instead just recognize that a newer OS implies the need concurrently of a new machine as well. Just go for it, as I’ll probably order enough AR stuff through the Amazon link on your site this year to cover it anyways-
Daryle (and all) youtube is your friend in trying to figure out how to do/undo and reassemble all kinds of stuff. For inst:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCLMTbc6mls
Just type “Glenfield 70c .22 ” into the youtube browser and see what comes up-
This was my greatest discovery this year, bar none-
I was able to find the exploded view diagram the other day. That will help some. I also found some photos on other sites that will help a little. The video you linked to will help as it has some close ups of the assembly that I disassembled. I just have to find the time to putz around with it.
Thanks for the tip.
Been there. Recently. Like yesterday. Time to get son#3 the geek squad alum….
Once you achieve success, no matter how you judge that, you will then discover a plethora of things that used to work just fine on XP and even Vista that will, mysteriously, no longer work on W7. Upon the expenditure of countless hours trying to “fix” that, you will find on the requisite manufacturers’ websites a simple message stating that there are no driver updates to support said devices on W7. Return to store. Buy new stuff. Don’t ask me how I know.
Have both games you mentioned, but bought a PS3 to put them on. I’m pure Mac now, never look back, my days of Linux/Winblows/all others are done, too old for that. Besides my tv’s bigger than my iMac…:)
At least with Win7 one can install FSX Accelerator with the Hornet, modified by freeware ‘Sludge‘ (found at same forum below) to use freeware FCLP v.2 Missions and soon to be (now in beta) ‘vLSO‘ (virtual LSO grades carrier approaches): http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=4915.0
I have a Mac as the main computer and a rarely used PC to the left side which does the dirty work when a Mac will not do. Takes up a lot of room but it is easier that way.
And by the way; The Number Three of the Oakland Raiders back in ’69 was my favorite player!
Would you be interested in buying an autograph? Mine are just $19.95 but for a friend of Lex I can go as low as $9.95. Still too high? It’s yours for $3.50 and postage!
PS – I was horrified when they gave #3 to Jeff George but now they gave it to a guy named Carson? Sheesh. No respect anymore. LOL
Lex, on a related subject (which I’ve been meaning to ask you about for weeks but never saw the appropriate opportunity), what amongst you and your serious military aviator cohorts is regarded as the best commercial PC flight sim? I don’t have much time to play computer games with a 4 and 2 year old, but I own a copy of “MiG Alley” which must now be close to 15 years old. I used to enjoy playing it sometimes just for giggles but wish I knew of a definitive flight sim to fly my favorite Warbirds and perhaps dabble in semi-realistic missile fire…
And on a related note, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being poor, 10 excellent) just how realistic are the modern jet sims?
?
I know you don’t want my opinion but let me tell you this: at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum they have a simulator where you sit in a little compartment that actually rolls upside down! If I can ever find out where to get it one of those is going in my man cave. Electricity prices be damned.
Personally, both my favorite military flight sims are OLD.
Janes F/A-18 was great, with a good carrier environment.
Falcon 4.0 Allied Force was better, but of course, no carrier environment. It should run pretty well on a newer machine. But be warned, it has an extremely steep learning curve, and finding a DTF manual is almost impossible.
Unless you have more then 4GB of RAM, 64 bit Win7 isn’t going to do you much good, and even if you do, BF3 isn’t a 64 bit app (very few Win apps are) so is still limited to 2GB of usable memory for the game. I’d be more worried about your video card and if it’s up to the job of running BF3.
My last Mac support job was on OS9, so not sure how much I can help with Boot Camp, but if you’d like some help on the Win7 side, drop me a line.
Since I do this for a living, I had to weigh in.
Windows on a MAC looks really cool and no one has got the dual boot stuff down better than Apple, but I would avoid if at all possible. It is like the Catholics and Protestants in Olde England, they CAN mix but sometimes it gets bloody. I would also try to avoid using a “work” laptop for playing games. The oposite is OK though, a gaming computer works just fine for email, spreadsheets and web browsing.
I can’t understand dropping less than 8G of ram in a computer these days. It’s cheap, and the computer can use every bit it can get.
Matter of fact I just built my Dad and Uncle systems for under $800 that have a 6 core AMD chip at 2.4Ghz, 8G of ram, a solid state boot drive at 60G, a regular storage drive at 1.5Tb, and a DVD Burner, all running Windows 7 Home Premium. The video card is on the puny side because neither of them actually game, but a good, not great, video card is only about $250 and you could be up and running for about $850 (maybe less with year end closeout sales).
Permit this old man to offer a tip.
Call in your grandson on a consulting gig.
Works most everytime.
Happy New Year.
Personally I go for the Son-in-Law option of the same basic play. Were I in our host’s difficulty I might go with the suitor of daughter variant.
Daryle La Monica… All this talk about taking things apart and gaily tossing segments and sections into boxes takes me back to my long-ago youth, when I worked at the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The car my first husband and I owned was a ten year old Chevrolet with oh-so-many miles on it. It decided one cold March day to cross its little legs and not run, nope never again. The Institute had quite a large garage for their vehicles, and one work slot had a grease pit as well. When I told my tale of woe to my boss, he said that we could sometimes use one of the work slots if we were neat about it. So my husband decided that the valves needed regrinding and all would be well. He went to work one cold morning in the Institute garage.
I was very naive and trusting in those days, so I assumed that he knew what he was doing. I went into my office, and Hugh went to work taking down the engine. At the end of the day, I went out hoping to find our tired little Chevy running again. But no. My husband had taken down the engine and dumped parts indiscriminately into cardboard boxes, with no numbering of parts, no sketches to help with reassembly after the valves were ground. What a disaster. I went back into the computer project building and told my boss what had happened. At the end of my sorry tale, he pulled out a copy of Motors Auto Repair Manual from the bookshelf above his desk and handed it to me with a sweet smile. “You have my sympathy,” he said with that sweet smile even wider, “but we all do our own auto repairs here. The Chevy section starts on page 56.”
The next day, I took a half day’s vacation time and decided that my impractical artist husband would never get the darn car back together again after we got the valves ground. Since we lived seventeen miles away from Princeton, I was going to have to do the reassembly myself.
My memory is mercifully vague about the details at this point. I laid all the parts out on the wooden bench and began playing the match game. It was bloody cold in the garage, so I knew I’d better figure things out fast, before my fingers fell off. Looking back, I’m not sure how the heck I managed it, but after a few false starts and mistakes I managed to get it back together pretty much the way it belonged. It was a 1940 model Chevy sedan, and really not very complicated, I’ve been told. But I decided that this guidance I received was of heavenly origin. I can report that the car ran pretty much like a spotted ape afterward, too, and I was ridiculously proud of myself.
On the other hand, my artist husband was a little bit cranky. I wonder why.
Marianne
Heh! And Giggle! I like a sensible woman, who is rare and valuable. (There is something about that in Proverbs.) You remind me of my Mom, who ruined me for most women, by being very good at all kinds of things, and also very good-looking. I tellya, teh wimminz these days are a sorry lot.
Any story that starts: “…when I worked at the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study….” has got my undivided attention! +3.14159…..
or +2.71828….^1.144729…
The first rule of FightClub is: Don’t evah, evah upgrade from One major version of an OS to another major version. Clean install everytime baby. Why import your problems from one system to another?
You are still backing up your XP to the local network storage doohickey? And it is taking that long than your machines are connecting slow. If the drive allows it to be hooked up by USB that will be much quicker copying files as a local disk rather than across the wire..
Do the Win7 32bit install. Sorry I can’t reach through the interwebs and do it for you as I have done countless (not in Boot Camp).
Funny thing is I run my OSX in a virtual machine on my Win7 system. Run both at the same time…
I gave three no-OS Dell laptops for Christmas. Bought three each System Builder Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) and a 3 pack of MS Office 2010 Home and Student.
Thought for sure I’d have driver issues and the family prepared for heavy rolls (from me!). I happened to pour a nice glass of 18 year old Bourbon to ease the burden.
Turns out the only glitch encountered was a small switch on the side of the frame that powered the network radio. Shudda RTFM. Once that was discovered, I was finished from start to finish in less than 3 hours. Piece of cake!
game was $59.99….but who’s asking at this point? nice write up. I live at the “how can we do that” boundary layer forsmall biz. have spent a buck or two and an hour or a hundred in a similar frame of mind over the years. alas, I left the light in the late 80s when the head Admirals declared “thou shalt not use Macs!” so much for my HyperCard program to do all admin and training….on the ships.
Ok… I am both a computer geek and a previous fan of EA’s “Battlefield” series. The original Battlefield 1942 game and its add-ons was a nice first-person shooter. One of the neat innovations was the ability to control any vehicles in the battlespace and employ them. Previously, you could either deal in a theater in which everyone had a similar vehicle or everyone was an infantryman. Now, soldiers on the ground had to deal with aircraft straffing them and naval ships bombarding the shores.
Battlefield Vietnam wasn’t too bad either. The biggest problem was employing high speed jets on a map scaled to infantry battle. And yes, it had to be high speed jets, because kids playing a video game wouldn’t believe in something like the A-1 Skyraider being used in a war after WW II.
I look forward to the release of Battlefield 2 in 2005. I had built a powerful computer from the chassis up. It could run any program short of a simulation of atomic particle reactions. Alas, it didn’t matter what operating system I was using. It didn’t matter that I had the latest processor. EA wouldn’t allow me to install the game I just purchased for $40 until I purchased the newest video cards that came out a few months previously. Of course, those cards cost over $100, and parents across the country reluctantly purchased a game they foolishly thought would only cost them $40.
I take no issue with EA’s right to do whatever they wish with their product. But personally, I’ve decided that their Battlefield product line doesn’t require my patronage. If I feel the desire to log in and create carnage in the virtual world of a first person shooter; I play Team Fortress 2, which is free to download and play from Steam. It even works running on a MacOS.
Yes, I’m embarrassed that I know any of the above information and that I feel any need to admit this knowledge here.
Build new computer every 3 years or so. Buy new hard drive each time and fresh install Win OS, then I use old OS drive as new storage drive.
Precludes all the permissions stuff. If you get the game up and running, it’ll run best on fast video card, say AMD 6850. $150 right there. Those video cards use much power, so new power supply – $75 minimum for good quality. Modern games need much horsepower, and unless you have purpose built game computer, video games are better played on a game console. For help on work arounds on OS install, maximumpc.com has many an idea. It is still WINTEL, though, so no guarantee. Wish I were there to give it a go, as I enjoy the command line and when the computer misbehaves. Reformatting and starting over is challenging fun. del *.*
Build new computer every 3 years or so. Buy new hard drive each time and fresh install Win OS, then I use old OS drive as new storage drive.
Exactly.
I just discovered that I can run a Dos emulator so i can play the 1986 classic sub hunt game “Gato” and I rather play that than just about anything else. Stick figure enemy ships and all.
I have no advice.
Have a nice day.
One last thought if you look at new hardware. SSD’s – Solid State Disk Drives. Much faster. Do not defrag them often though as memory can only be written to so many times. Certainly enough times, but why waste it by chugging data around from one hemisphere to the other just for kicks.
My friend downstairs works for a local newpaper here in New Jersey. He’s their IT guy, general trouble shooter, and book keeper. (a small newpaper but with an excellent web page; http://www.goleader.com by-the-way) They’ve been running XP for years on all their office computers and use Adobe to build their paper. He just bought their first Win-7 machine with lots of speed, memory and huge hard drive. So far, only minor problems and the boss likes it!
Don’t wait until the wheels fall off before you go shopping. You can run them side-by-side until you learn the ropes.
I have some great friends, close friends, who are IT experts. I have them on speed dial. I figure I don’t need the knowledge if they have it and are will to help out a girl in need…
SPENT ALL CHRISTMAS EVE AND DAY FIGHTING MALWARE!!!!
I don’t use anything so primitive as a hammer a hot loaded .45acp is better….
I love the smell of gunpowder and burning wiring in the morning..
12-gauge would be more devastating and arguably more satisfying. Beware, though, you might have to explain to people with badges.
I feel your pain. I off-loaded Windows XP on my game rig for Windows 7 64-bit purely in anticipation. My games that ran fine under XP suck rocks under Win7. BF3, which I did all this for, plays quite nicely if I don’t mind the lag that a 128Kbps connection gives. Which, it’s either that or move, so I live with it.
Hit me via e-mail, I’ll give you my username and the group name. We can always use a team player who knows it’s about the mission rather than the personal stats. It would also help greatly to have another player our age in the game, purely so there’s another opportunity to make the little one-shot-wonders living in the mom’s basement have a need to check six.
Those kids and their darned reflexes anyway.
– Max
If using Win7 PRO or above the ‘Windows XP Mode’ won’t help with games (unless desperate I guess) but will help with older programs – not able to run on Vista or Win7. Especially for hardware device drivers WXPM has resuscitated my now very old WinXP USB scanner. It worketh good in Win7 Pro (64 or 32bits) WXPM.
Up until a coupla years ago, when it finally died (Off! Hats!) I was running Win95 on an HP Pentium I box which spent some time by the side of the road before I got it.
This box here was spec’d by the Sweety, who also loaded Ubuntu on it for me. She doesn’t trust me with Free BSD, which she uses. Hell, she’s still Root on this machine, not trusting me to diddle around under the hood. Suits me; I never do any actual computing with it, just reading and bitching on the Web.
I sympathize with your situation. What you are trying to do is pretty advanced – I’m not surprised it has been difficult. I’ll be hoping you get it worked out. But can I just say the thrill that went through my heart early in the reading when I saw this, “…and am capable of Googling with the best of them.”
Oh I wish more people were in this boat. I was doing some “tech support” for friends a couple days ago. I’m sitting at their desktop computer, following some instructions to set things up – he’s behind me on the couch with his brand new iPad. He asks, “How do I turn on cookies?”
I don’t know a thing about apple. Right in front of him I google “safari turn on cookies” and proceed to read him a step by step. He looks at me amazed and says, “I’m sure glad you know how to do all this stuff.” It was all I could do to keep my head slap as a purely mental exercise.
I’ll leave you with this – http://xkcd.com/627/
Speaking of flight sims..may I bring to your attention Sturmovik 1946? $10 on Steam.
I’ll ask “The Thing” a tiny guy called Masklin left me to look after, if only I can remember where I put it. That’s how I solve most of my software problems.
I always hate the smarmy reply you get from the IT people… “Oh, you didn’t know that wasn’t compatible?”
Arrrrgggghh!
I enjoy computers. I enjoy the interwebs. But cripes, if cars ran like computers, none of us would ever get to work.
You obviously didn’t google enough to know to never upgrade from XP to Win7. Wipe the XP and do a clean install. Even better, create a new partition for Win7, which is nothing more than late-model Vista.
As for buying Win7, don’t buy retail. Get an OEM System Builder Pack, fancy name for the copies that computer makers load on new machines, for half the price of retail. I think I got mine from Newegg.
I stuck to 32-bit when loading Win7 because so many, many, many applications just don’t work in the 64-bit environment.
YMMV.
My Geek told me_”Do not go 64 bit. for 7- you will never have another older software that you can use…”
As long as I can I will use Vista on the laptop and XP on the
home computer…
Barn door closing well after the horses have left, but I’ve been using VMware Fusion instead of Bootcamp. It allows you to set up separate virtual machines for Linux, Windoze, etc. That way you don’t risk blowing up your old environment trying to upgrade. I’ve stayed with XP for Windows compatibility since Vista was trash and I haven’t needed anything more, but then the only game I ever play is X-Plane which runs native on the Mac. Any more games are for Xbox – why bother building a computer for them?
My suspicion is that SNO is getting revenge for you not buying him that Porsche he wanted for his 13th birthday….
I got tired of dealing with all of this a few years ago. So I talked the wife into buying me a PS3 for Christmas a couple of years ago. I now sneak off to my media room to play Battlefield 3, Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare, etc. whenever I get a couple of hours. Hate playing with young kids though.
As for Flight Sims – my favorite of all time was F-15 Strike Eagle III. Best ever but can’t get it to run anymore. Of course the Falcon 4 series was extremely good as well but nobody is developing flight sims anymore because people just don’t want to play them. I always thought the ultimate online experience would be to play Driver / RIO as a team against other Driver / Rio teams but nobody ever developed it. Oh well, back to 1st person shooters on PS3 – which only cost about $199 buy the way…
…get a good book…suggest December 1941…and read it. Best
That’s why we gets the big, big money, Lex.
BTW: it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Look up “microsoft safe boot” sometime, and be afraid.
Recommendation: Go borrow the old Xbox that the neighbor’s kids are using for a door stop, then go to your local used game store and get a copy of Crimson Skies. A whole lotta fun for about $10 expended. (even cheaper than getting a sledge hammer)