Jump to content

The Life and Times of Unclesocks


Tripredacus

Recommended Posts

So I wonder what the heck is up with Starter... I didn't think I'd be able to run a VM inside it, let alone Vista... What are the limitations of Starter besides changing the wallpaper?

  • No Aero theme (means no taskbar peek, etc)
  • No multiple user switching - one one can be logged on at any one time
  • No multimon support
  • No DVD playback support out of the box (you can install a 3rd party codec, of course)

You also don't have things like domain support, streaming media support, or XP Mode or Media Center, but I figure those are obvious. Given that there's no real overhead difference between Starter and at least Home Premium, I'm not entirely sure why you'd run 7 Starter unless it came with a netbook (in which case it'd make some sense).

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Correct me if I am wrong but the Starter limitation is Hardware-Assisted VT which really only affects Microsoft Virtual PC. You can still use any third party Virtual Machine software that supports software based emulation. VMware, Virtual Box, QEMU probably will all work just fine.

Just a cleverness from the PR dept, if they can confuse people into thinking VMware will not run on it, they earned their donut for the day.

Edited by MrJinje
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I wonder what the heck is up with Starter... I didn't think I'd be able to run a VM inside it, let alone Vista... What are the limitations of Starter besides changing the wallpaper?

  • No Aero theme (means no taskbar peek, etc)
  • No multiple user switching - one one can be logged on at any one time
  • No multimon support
  • No DVD playback support out of the box (you can install a 3rd party codec, of course)

You also don't have things like domain support, streaming media support, or XP Mode or Media Center, but I figure those are obvious. Given that there's no real overhead difference between Starter and at least Home Premium, I'm not entirely sure why you'd run 7 Starter unless it came with a netbook (in which case it'd make some sense).

That's actually interesting about multi-mon. I was able to use "twin-view" on this netbook already. I had that turned on when I was installing Vista in the VM because a monitor is larger and easier to read. Of course, this was done solely using the built-in external monitor function key on the keyboard.

And no, it did not come with Starter. I installed it myself. Unfortunately, that 10k license thing with Starter is the only reason why I have not installed it anywhere else. I had to at least verify it worked on the netbook just in case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I wonder what the heck is up with Starter... I didn't think I'd be able to run a VM inside it, let alone Vista... What are the limitations of Starter besides changing the wallpaper?
Network shares too I beleve, you can't share a DIR with Starter "out of the box".
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I wonder what the heck is up with Starter... I didn't think I'd be able to run a VM inside it, let alone Vista... What are the limitations of Starter besides changing the wallpaper?

Network shares too I beleve, you can't share a DIR with Starter "out of the box".

Nope, that's not true either. I can share a folder just fine. It has the context options of "Share With" Nobody (default), Homegroup (read) and Homegroup (read/write). If I do a properties of a folder, I can see Sharing tabs and Security tabs, which look the same as it does in 7 Pro and Vista. In fact, I've already used this ability and done network transfers of files.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope, that's not true either. I can share a folder just fine. It has the context options of "Share With" Nobody (default), Homegroup (read) and Homegroup (read/write). If I do a properties of a folder, I can see Sharing tabs and Security tabs, which look the same as it does in 7 Pro and Vista. In fact, I've already used this ability and done network transfers of files.
Hmm, that's strange, ACER net/note-books that came in could not share out of the box, they must have disabled it some where else.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I got bored with Starter on Wind so I formatted it and installed Windows 7 Pro x86. And somehow it is actually running Aero! Man this thing never ceases to surprise me. Just imagine what it could have done had I actually decided to put Windows 98 on it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

98 copies of Windblow$, or the actual OS? I don't really get it, but anyway, Windows 2000 Advanced Server is still fun -- or no?!?? :)

I probably have more than 98 copies of Windows floating around here... No I could think about using Windows 2000 again, but all these computers need to be relatively up to date, as far as OSes go. Then again, I don't have the time for that either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

I typically do not update this too much regarding hardware changes or interesting stories. I should actually go and take out the systems I do not have any more. Anyways, Uncle Socks was the idea for this thread so here we go!

7Server and Uncle Socks have been off for a few weeks because they weren't needed. Well I've been working with my lackey on a new project, mostly discussion of, how to bring back the old Linux imaging via WDS idea. Well we got to the point where we wanted to try some things out. The original project hit the shed because I couldn't get WDS and AD to work together to pre-qualify systems to boot into the Linux bootrom vs WDSNBSP. Because I am fairly confident on my ability to recreate WDS servers, as well as the stability of our existing systems, I did not see a reason why we can't just convert 7Server to natively use the Linux bootrom.

But things are not so easy just like that. So I had pressed the power button on Uncle Socks but it did not turn on! I took the system out and tried another PSU. The computer would then boot. Great! I say, except that the chassis it is in is severely EOL to the point where finding a replacement PSU to fit the custom form factor would be impossible. So I went on a journey into the warehouse and found a 5 bay chassis that would fit the board and a new PSU. I also was able to find a brand new motherboard layout sticker to put inside the new case.

I started rebuilding it at about 9am, went into a meeting for 1:30 and then was able to finish it in about 30 minutes. So with the meeting in the middle, it felt like it took 4 hours to rebuild it! I also went and got the label maker to print 2 new "Uncle Socks" and "Chinese Warlord" stickers for the front of the new system. As far as labels go, all I need to do now is get a new Asset Tag printed for it, but that will have to wait until next week.

Next, I go hook it all back up to the KVM and turn it on. The system boots! It gets up to the "configuring network" part of Windows and I realise that since it has the Infrastructure FSMO, it is probably looking for the 7Server. Hit the switch and (unlock) turn on 7Server. It boots, sees all the ram, has a healthy RAID5 and boots into Windows. I log into the system, then switch back over to...

Uncle Socks is not on anymore. Go press the power button, the motherboard makes a wacky beep... Thermal Errors! Oh no! Try to go into the BIOS and system powers off. Everythings plugged in. I had a (real) builder look at it, seems fine.

Its lunch time now, so after wards I will see what else I can do to make it work.

Uncle Socks will live again!

Update: The CPU paste was all old and crumbly. In the process of reseating the fan, I busted the pins. So a fan replacement fixed it.

Edited by Tripredacus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

It's the end of an era friends! In the middle of last week (sometime past last Thursday, no joke) the company I work for announced that it was closing up shop. All of the systems listed in this thread are located there. I am still technically employed, but on a day-to-day basis. As a result of this event, the future of these systems are in serious question! Seeing how I will not be working there much longer, I will eventually roll my personal systems into this thread when I get a chance.

Let the funeral commence!

Decommissioned today:

- Uncle Socks

- Lioncash

- Lockercheck

Everything else is in limbo at the moment.

:(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

So did the company you worked for come back to life as well, or did you acquire Uncle Socks when it shut down? And butwhy.com does not seem to exist, so I assume that is an internal domain name? Just curious.

Cheers and Regards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...