Getting it connected to my LAN and getting Windows set up was really very smooth and easy, given that the homegroup and the LAN are already set up. It got an IP from Railgun, my hub, which is running DHCP. So what am I waiting for now?

It's installing a huge bunch of HP applications. I have no idea what they are; it isn't telling me. But it's taken five minutes so far.

Ah! It's done!

But now I'm seeing a blue screen and nothing else. Wonder what it's doing?

Setting up the Homegroup was very nice. I told it it was a Home LAN, and it went out and looked around and found Alcyone. It told me to ask Steven on Alcyone to open the "homegroup" applet in the control panel, so Steven did that, and found the 12-character gobbledegook password for the home group.

HP's setup just begged me to turn on Norton Internet Security. No fucking way.

It also told me I wasn't connected to the internet. So how in hell did it contact Alcyone? Maybe it didn't use TCP/IP for that.

UPDATE: What in hell is Arcsoft Total Media Suite? Do I want it? (Sampleware that I have to pay for later if I start using it?)

UPDATE: Job 1: set up a quick launch bar. Why did Microsoft get rid of that, anyway? Directory is:

C:\Users\Steven\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

And, by gum, it's already there. That's weird.

UPDATE: Jesus Christ, IE comes with a lot of cruft installed. bing bar, Norton bar...

UPDATE: IE is decrufted. Now to tell it to stop displaying fancy-schmancy windows. (If I wanted a Mac, I'd buy a Mac.)

UPDATE: In the "Personalization" applet, change to the "Windows Classic" theme.

UPDATE: Uninstall Norton Internet Security. And reboot. (Bastards!)

Arcturus's display had a distinct yellowish tinge to it. Merope has the same kind of display (LED backlight) as Alcyone, a beautiful blue-white.

UPDATE: According to the uninstall directory, there's one hell of a lot of stuff on here. I seem to have Winzip, for instance. Probably sample-ware, and anyway I prefer 7-zip, which is free.

What in hell are Cisco EAP-FAST, Cisco LEAP, and Cisco PEAP? googling...

UPDATE: Some sort of non-standard wireless authentication stuff. "If you're not using wireless, you can remove them." Off they go.

Oh, and a quick detour: turn off all the sounds.

UPDATE: Before I go any further, it's time to install Microsoft Security Essentials.(I'm cheating. I am putting this link up using Acyone. Then I can access it from Merope. Copying a URL from one side of my desk to the other, via Texas.)

UPDATE: That's interesting. Merope's task manager shows four CPUs. Are the i3 cores hyperthreaded?

UPDATE: And now to visit Windows Update. Oh joy.

UPDATE: AutoUpdate is currently enabled. gotta turn that off. And then gotta tell the security center that I really mean it and don't want it to bitch at me about it.

Good Lord. 42 important updates and 16 optional updates. I think it's time for a nap.

UPDATE: I just did some googling, and the i3 cores are hyperthreaded. Now I really wish uTorrent was multithreaded!

UPDATE: You know, with all the gawdawful shit that comes loaded in one of these, it's almost enough to make me go buy a Win7 install disk, wipe the drive, and start from scratch. When you install Windows that way, it's almost entirely clean. But it would be a couple hundred bucks.

HP included their own security manager. I have no idea what it's doing, but from the look of it I really don't want it. So far it's popped up twice unexpectedly and asked me to turn it on -- and that, my friends, is more than enough to get it killed.

Looks like I need to install Autoruns. But it'll have to wait until Windows Update is finished.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 11:31 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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