Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fyodor_ who wrote (19535)	11/18/2000 12:07:05 PM
From: Dan3	Respond to of 275872

Re: Ideally, you would then be able to select which programs to restore It's worse than that, if you do an "all" restore, you replace registry keys that are associated with the hardware of the old machine - so programs no longer work and the machine may not even boot. Most of the keys for a given program are in a few subtrees that could be exported then imported, but some are entries in subtrees that are shared with many other programs - some of which are hardware dependent. It is very difficult to just move over a program without running its install routine to perform the necessary registry updates. The industry seems to be moving towards software protection using keys that are generated at install time and validated over the internet (or through a FAX). We are now seeing this from Microsoft, and have been seeing it from other vendors for years. The parameters that are used to generate these keys are such that a different key is usually necessary for each install. What this means is that you can't just reinstall the OS or the applications - you have to get a new key generated by the vendor after each install (or "upgrade" of the system). And the vendors can make those new keys difficult to get. With plug and play now in Win2K and 98/ME, it is often possible to move the boot drive to a new machine (thus keeping the same software keys) and have it manage to boot then find the appropriate drivers, but often afterwards there are problems with chipset, disk controller, and i/o port drivers that aren't updated. Even if that move is successful, your new machine is now dependent upon an older, slower, less reliable boot drive. If you mirror that drive to a new disk before or after, at least the hardware is now as new as the rest of the machine, but the effort involved is starting to add up. The software companies could make such moves easier, but that goes against their interests. They probably feel that if you're going to pay the hardware companies for a new machine, you should buy new software from them too. I think that a lot of the pundits who talk about throw away PCs are missing the fact that PCs are now almost living things. After a year of two with a user a PC has become an individual that has "learned" a great deal in order to become a useful assistant to its user or users. A new PC is a blank slate that must be "trained" - and the training required can be extensive. Certainly there is a place for "throw away" PCs used mainly for web access, but the traditional PC is more and more an essential part every business and every household. The "training" of these PCs gets more extensive every year and more people are learning that once they have their PC doing what they want it to do, moving to a new one is like moving to a new home or office - a time consuming, risk-ridden nightmare. As more people learn this lesson, more people will want to be sure that whatever they buy, both for home and office, will be able to serve them for a long time before they will need to "move". I think we're beginning to see this in the marketplace, where low end systems aren't doing quite as well as expected while net appliances, and mid-range to high end systems are doing somewhat better. Regards, Dan PS - I think that your suggestion for a program that ports applications from an old machine to a new one is a great idea. It might be difficult to write and maintain, but if you managed to create such a program, I think it would be very marketable. It's a worthy idea and you should consider seeking out some startup capital. Good luck and let us know when you've made you first Billion! :-)