XP Warning (not really but you can laugh at me)

[Falken]

So I got a legal copy of XP (what can I say I have connections) and upgraded my Win98SE system to XP.

Everything went fine until I managed to royally screw up my system.

I switched the keyboard driver to from the default to what I thought was the right one. It wasn't. I realized too late that I had picked the USB version of keyboard. Now the keyboard doesn't work at all in windows. I couldn't login because windoze wouldn't recognized the keyboard.

I tried to fix it by reinstalling XP but when it got the the point where you put in the code I found that it was still using the wrong driver.

After a bunch of pissing about I got on my Win2K computer to look for a solution on the net. I found that F8 still works and it gives you an option to restore to last good setup but I found that I had screwed that up when I tried to reinstall XP.

Now here I am trying to save as much stuff as I can using the command prompt and a win98 boot disk so I can do a format and a clean install. Its 0200 here so I'm not going to bite the bullet until later tomorrow so if anybody can help me out I'd love it. I don't mind have to do a clean install, I was going to do one later this week anyway but it would save my butt a lot of trouble trying to figure out if its c:\progra~1\newfol~1\newfol~3 I really want or some other darn thing


So here's my words of warning. I know some of have you said them before and I know I've said them before but if something is working just fine as it is ...... Just leave it ALONE.

[Greebe]

Best advise is, never ever ever do anything MAJOR to your system late at night, when you're tired or under the influence


You're excused this time (BUT DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!!! hehe)

Hope you get it fixed straight away

[Gurm]

Yeah, I find it extremely disturbing that MS includes the option to change the keyboard driver, and also includes what LOOKS like a better keyboard driver (for example, one might think "hey, it has a driver for my natural keyboard Pro, maybe it'll use all those buttons then without intellitype installed!), but then that driver hoses your system.

Two thoughts:

1. Why not purchase a $5 ps2->usb keyboard converter? If that's not an option where you live, I could loan you mine...

2. Don't do that any more.

- Gurm

[Guru]

Re: XP Warning (not really but you can laugh at me)

Originally posted by Falken
So I got a legal copy of XP (what can I say I have connections) and upgraded my Win98SE system to XP.

Hmm wh did your "conections" not give you the oem preinstalation kit? You should be able to fix the problem with it.( not 100% sure of this!)

[Gurm]

Guru - nice thought, but... if you change the keyboard driver and make it unworkable, you're reinstalling. D'oh!

- Gurm

[Falken]

Re: Re: XP Warning (not really but you can laugh at me)

Originally posted by Guru


Hmm wh did your "conections" not give you the oem preinstalation kit? You should be able to fix the problem with it.( not 100% sure of this!)

I got permission from my boss to install an unlimited licence version we got at work at home so that I might "play" with it at home. That way (I reasoned to him), when it comes time to upgrade the systems at work (if the powers that be decide to I mean why not they paid for it the dummies) I'll know what to do and obviously what not to do.

[Wombat]

Gurm, I didn't think that he could just slap that adapter on. I thought that the peripheral had to have USB logic on-board.

[Gurm]

Wombat - nah. My old Natural Keyboard Elite came with one of those... I mean, MAYBE it had USB logic in it, but I kinda doubt it.

- Gurm

[Grail]

Time to add my name to the list to be laughed at...

I pulled a similar stunt on XP as well. Put KB driver as USB version of my keyboard and rebooted when it told me to. Surprise surprise, I couldn't log into my account(In my genius, I password protect my admin account as well as my power user account)
I managed to save my install by using the On-Screen Keyboard from my GF's account. I wasn't certain if it would work(4 accounts and only my GF's account didnt' have a password protected account), but WinXP actually saves what is typed on the OSK(Ctrl+C) after you switch users and allows you to paste that into your password box.
You might be able to fix your install in a similar fashion.