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General => Computers / Internet => Topic started by: DolphinGarden on August 11, 2007, 12:18:30

Title: No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: DolphinGarden on August 11, 2007, 12:18:30
My OH brought home from a work colleague, a small device, about the size of a bar of chocolate. She says there's a Japanese soap opera on it. I plugged it into the USB slot and it downloaded the appropriate software.

since then, nothing. I can't even find the file or folder or where the software has been saved to. Or the drive doesn't show up. We plugged in a memory stick and it showed up as an E:drive but nothing for 'this' device.

my pc is Windows ME and went to the Real Player website just incase. It says you need XP or Vista for the latest version. Don't know if this is neccessary even.

Does anyone have any idea of what is happening or how it can be rectified?

ta much
Title: Re: No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: Larkshall on August 11, 2007, 18:00:26
Unfortunately a computer with Windows ME is getting rather long in the tooth now. Owners are running hard to stand still. The industry is always updating in order to sell you new equipment. Software firms have to rewrite their programs to keep up. Microsoft is the one that forces updates by not supporting the older systems. It's all done to make money.

To avoid the rat race I have now changed to GNU/Linux (Ubuntu v7.04), they do updates but they are all free, so they don't have any incentive for updating (and only update when it is necessary). A vast amount of software is available which is also free. If you could learn a new system, your machine would work OK with Ubuntu. I used Windows for over ten years before I changed, but I did have experience of two other systems before that. I have been using computers for over twenty years.
Title: Re: No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: DolphinGarden on August 11, 2007, 22:40:37
Ah,

thank you for such a clear reply. I will have to break the bad news to she who must be obeyed. Pity.

I am going to hang on to  this machine till the last possible moment. I may get to skip XP and go straight to Vista  with a new machine, here's hoping anyway.

With sadness, I realise my pc is like an abacus at this stage!!! I understand the co's trying to sell you new stuff by not supporting the old software. Such is life, I suppose.

About six months ago I picked up an Ubuntu cd/dvd but haven't been confident enough to stick it in the machine.....
many thanks again.
DG.
Title: Re: No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: Larkshall on August 12, 2007, 21:27:19
If you have a live CD of Ubuntu you can experiment with it, as when you run that it will not install unless you tell it to. It's worth trying, the best version so far is v7.04 Feisty Fawn. The one you have is probably V6.10 Edgy EFT, that's not as good as v7.04.
Title: Ubuntu/ No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: DolphinGarden on September 19, 2007, 13:27:18
Larkshall, yeah, it took me till yesterday to find the cd. It's 6.06 LTS.

I'll look around and see if I can get a more up to date version. Thanks for your help.
Title: Re: No sign of life from a USB attachment to the PC
Post by: steveuk on September 22, 2007, 20:53:01
Hi regarding Vista, be carefull , i found so many bugs with it, and a lot of things there are no updates for. I play Flight simulator 2004 , have epson printer, and few othe things, and they weren compatable, so i gone back to xp.

just be aware of Vista, check you can get updates