Vista question

[LinuxRandal]

I received my new laptop/netbook hybrid yesterday. I've been booting it into the built in Linux mode, haven't booted Vista yet. I may keep Vista or I may try to get the Vista/XP refund, as I haven't decided yet (two Windows programs interest me, and one may not work well with Wine).

I am wondering if they have made Vista, so I can remotely mount a cd/dvd drive, since this doesn't have one? (make software installation easier)

Thanks

[crokett]

Does your new hybrid have a USB port? Or a network interface? Either one of those will work. Network interface would require another PC though.

[LinuxRandal]

Does your new hybrid have a USB port? Or a network interface? Either one of those will work. Network interface would require another PC though.

I don't have any USB cd/dvd drives, but do have a nix based network (hence me asking about remote mounting). So remote mounting/installing is now capable in Vista?

Thanks

[JoeyGee]

two Windows programs interest me, and one may not work well with Wine.

FWIW, I find I work MUCH better with wine. With beer, I am unstoppable.

[crokett]

I don't have any USB cd/dvd drives, but do have a nix based network (hence me asking about remote mounting). So remote mounting/installing is now capable in Vista?

Thanks

Uhhmm... installing what? The OS or installing software? Remote installation of software has been there since Windows 3.11. Just share the CD/DVD drive as a network drive and attach to it from Vista. To attach Windows to a *nix based network you will either need Samba or similar or NFS for Windows. I've no idea if NFS is supported on Vista.

[LinuxRandal]

The only software in Windows (not the OS) I ever tried to remotely install was games. That was my entire base of experience, other then a driver, which I normally copied into a section of the drive, and was part of its backup software (just in case).

Last time I tried remotely installing a game was in 98se and it was a no go. So it has been a while.

[sparkeyjames]

Remotely installing something that uses CD based copy protection may not be possible. At work I routinely install software from a CD in one computers shared CD drive to another linked via the network. Most of the high end software I have at work either has a hardware dongle or remote network based installation activation. I have also copied entire CD's to a hard drive then set a share and navigated there with windows networking and installed a program from the shared directory. Vista is a Microsoft opsys therefor is has cifs/smb networking. Mounting in Microsoft parlance is mapping a network drive.

Also CD/DVD RW drives in USB enabled enclosures are not all that expensive. You might even find slimline ones meant for laptops. This makes them even more portable.

[kevinsa]

If you're just looking to access a CD and don't want to buy a USB cdrom drive, you shouldn't have any problem mounting it under linux and sharing the mount point via Samba. If you have another windows machine you want to share it from then it's a no brainer, just share the CD drive on the windows machine.

How far removed from the Windows world are you? Do you know how to "Map a network drive?" I'm being dragged into the Linux world at work now. I've become the sysadmin for our 20+ CentOS web servers despite my relative lack of Linux knowledge. As long as they run nobody complains and with Linux, they just seem to run.

[Kristofor]

The system won't see it as a native CD drive if you're connecting to a SMB share, but that's not a problem most of the time. You can always make an ISO image and mount that (which appears as a native drive) but that won't address hardware protection schemes.

You say that you're mostly interested in games, and now it seems like an online registration key is the most common form of protection.

For the titles that still use various flavors of hardware copy protection it generally checks at run time not install. Even then it doesn't take much effort to find that these titles are ALWAYS hacked and the protection defeated. You are technically breaking the law (DMCA) to defeat this protection even when you own the title. But I think it's well intentioned civil disobedience. If they ever arrest you I'll write a letter to my senator supporting your cause.

[LinuxRandal]

It is basically for a game. No other Windows machine here, although I might be able to use a friends. I would have hoped it would have been past that point and more towards commercial networking software, like installing MS service pack cd's over a network.

A couple of years back, I even looked for a network based case, that could hold a network cd/dvd drive, and a couple of hard drives, that I could rip and mount iso's to. (been spoiled by some of what I have done in Linux).

It is a catch 22, as they put on copy protection and want people to buy high end pc's for gaming. My high end (not really current now) pc's are servers, that I use as my desktop.

Windows always seemed to have more issues. I have an old 400 megahertz box, with an old 40gb drive, that I still have setup as a Samba server, on Suse 9.0 (intranet only), in case I need to read a floppy drive for some reason.

[khf314]

Vista on a Netbook?

I would not try to run Vista on netbooks; they generally don't have enough firepower to run Vista. Recommend you go back to XP unless you have the horses (P4 2.4 Mhz, 1 GB Ram) to run Vista. Ignore MS recommendations on minimum system requirements, they are a joke!

[LinuxRandal]

I would not try to run Vista on netbooks; they generally don't have enough firepower to run Vista. Recommend you go back to XP unless you have the horses (P4 2.4 Mhz, 1 GB Ram) to run Vista. Ignore MS recommendations on minimum system requirements, they are a joke!

It came with Vista Business on it. 1.6 gig Atom (comparable to a 1.6 mobile pentium from about 4 years ago), 2gb ram and a 320gb hard drive. It runs it fine for the game I play on it. Vista also has much better battery management (average tested on this machine, one hour difference). I am impressed with it. (not enough to go installing Windows on my non play machine though).