recently i tried to setup windowsXP for my parents...

and i didnt have a CLUE !

most of the windows2k drivers were not compatable with windowsXP
especially my windows modem (motorola sm56)

so i went to motorola's home-page, used the search function to find the drivers page,
located the SAME driver that works under 2k, but clicked the windowsXP link instead of 2K.

downloaded the driver, booted XP.
XP said that the driver had been digitally sgned by MS's compatability team,
both windows and myself agreed that the driver was a match for my modem...
product ID's matched and everything.

the installation went fine, it said i needed to reboot (whats all that about?)
on rebooting...... "ERROR CODE 10"

so i look up error code 10.... and error code 10 means.....[quote]This device could not be started because it is not plugged it, or is not functioning correctly[/quote[

what the H3LL !!!

when my windows modem didnt work in linux, i got a REAL error message....
compile error variable type mismatch in serial_core.c line 1073 included from whaterver.h

with an error message like that i was able to correct the error, and boom, i fixed it...

but with the error message.. "Dude.... it dont work" well.... what can you do ?

LOL, why are they even reporting a error that says your machine is not plugged in?, if it weren't plugged in then it would be at the error in the first place ...

almost as bad as some errors that say your mouse is broken and wont work, and they still ask you to click "ok"

lol... when it said not plugged in... i think its refering to the modem not being sat in the pci slot :p

but it IS a stupid error message.
error messages should guve clues as to what is wrong so the user can fix it.. not state the obviouse...

that would be like having a light on your cars dash board that lights up to remind you that you are not sat in the drivers seat..... just incase you try going through the motions and wonder where the pedals have gone, and why the steering feels lighter.

Uh... once you start it, you're already an expert. Unless you like hacking the registry or changing files in you %systemroot% file, there ain't much else for you to do.

You know, this is the most important difference between Linux and windows. When everything is OK, then they are both user-friendly desktop OSes with lots of applications. But when something goes wrong, then you can do almost nothing in windows, while in Linux you can spend almost infinite long times searching for a solution, which is very likely to exist somewhere.

So, as a windows user, you can only hope that M$ has done its work well, so that no problems occur. As a Linux user, you also hope that no problems occur, but IF they occur, then there's even more hope: you can hope that you are able to fix the problem (and in a simple/quick way)