On Monday November 26, 2007 I purchased a used Dell OptiPlex GX280 that is essentially a clone of my desktop PC at work. This blog is for notes about that system. I'll be making these notes with an eye to creating a "Windows Best Practices" guide.
Newegg.com had a memory deal, so I ordered two 1GB RAM chips. They're here. I'll install them this weekend. That will make the 1GB RAM chip currently in there surplus. I'll either sell it or find a home for it.
This morning I squeezed the single NTFS partition spanning the entire 160GB hard drive down to 24GB using ntfsresize (on the System Rescue CD). About 9GB is currently used, some of which is data transferred from the old PC.
My intention is to eventually reserve 40GB for my NTFS partition. An interim step will be to use ntfsclone to copy the 16G partition on the old PC to my external USB hard drive, and then restore that 16GB partition to a second partition on the GX280.
After I've retrieved everything I need from that second partition, I'll delete it and use ntfsresize to expand the NTFS partition to 40GB.
AOL software installed painlessly. A few of the other applications are in place. So far no full virus scan, nor have I re-partitioned the hard drive. As time permits I'll finish the software installation, defragment the hard drive, back up the installation, and re-partition the hard drive to make room for Linux.
I'm going to create a separate blog page to document migrating user data from our old PC to this new one.
Updated the BIOS this morning. No problems.
The first time I powered up the GX280 it told me it couldn't find the hard disk, and that it had a keyboard error. I knew it had a hard disk because I'd opened the case for a cursory inspection. The keyboard error was obvious because I only had an AT keyboard with a PS2 adapter, no USB keyboard.
I had to go to my storage shed anyway and I thought I had a keyboard there that might be either/or PS2/USB. Not there; perhaps it's at Bob's. Anyway, on the way home I passed a Best Buy, so I stopped and bought an adapter to connect a PS2 keyboard and a PS2 mouse to a single USB port. No joy.
The adapter works, by the way, because I took it to work and tried it out on my desktop PC, so I could borrow the USB keyboard and mouse to bring home and test the GX280. It must not work at home because of the dual step from AT to PS2 to USB.
Fired up the GX280 with the USB keyboard and mouse, and the keyboard error went away, but it still couldn't find the hard disk. I went into BIOS Setup and got no clues. I booted the System Rescue CD and got no clues. Then I opened the box and took a careful look, and found the SATA data cable disconnected from the drive. I connected it and powered up the GX280 and all is well!
WinXP Pro is installed and seems fairly up to date. There is the hidden Administrator user and a visible Admin user. Both have administrator privileges and neither has a password. I'll run RockXP and see if the product key matches the COA.
No yellow question marks in Device Manager, so it would seem that all the necessary drivers are properly installed. On first glance it appears that the optical device is a CD-RW with no DVD capability. The 1GB of RAM is provided by a single DIMM with a second DIMM slot available. And if I count correctly, there are a total of eight USB 2.0 ports, two on the front and six on the back.
The GX280 is coming to me with a fresh install of Windows XP Professional. Before I connect the PC to any network I'll install a virus scanner. If possible, I'll download current virus definitions from the Internet using another PC and transfer them to the GX280 using a USB flash drive. Once the virus scanner is installed and as up to date as possible, I'll run a full virus scan on the hard drive.
Run Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs to see it the manufacturer has blessed you with any trial offers or other nonsense. Remove anything that offends you.
Ultimately this will be a multi-boot PC running Linux (probably more than one distribution) in addition to WinXP. This is as good a time as any to shrink the NTFS partition to 40GB to leave plenty of room for Linux.
Boot the System Rescue CD.
...
Reboot WinXP
Once I have a clean scan, I'll use the Device Manager to see if I'm missing the ethernet driver. If I am, I'll download it from the Internet using another PC and install it. Once the ethernet driver is functional I can connect to the Internet.
In my case this will just involve connecting the GX280 ethernet port to an available port on my home router. But it's a very good idea to install and test your ISP software in case your router ever dies. If the router dies and you can't connect to the Internet because you don't have your ISP software installed, and you can't find the CD, you're in a bit of a pickle, because you have no way to download that software (Catch 22, don't ya know?).
The first order of business will be to use Microsoft Update to get Windows up to date. This typically takes a few rounds of downloading updates, restarting the PC, and so on.
Once Windows is up to date, I'll use the Device Manager to determine if any device drivers are missing, and download and install drivers as necessary.
Although IE is not my browser of choice, on a PC running Windows it's important to have IE fully functional.
Since my SO will be the primary user of this PC under Windows, and since she's an AOL user, this is a necessary step.
First install applications that are generally useful to anyone.
Then install applications that are specific to what I do with a PC.
Finally, install applications that are employer-specific.
Now that everything has been installed and configured, we'll defragment the hard drive to optimize performance. This isn't as important with NTFS as it was with earlier FAT filesystems, but it's still good practice, and this is an obvious point at which to do it.
Before we declare WinXP ready to go, we'll once again disconnect the PC from any network and run a full virus scan.
At this point we have a clean and stable Windows system. Let's back up the system in a way that will allow us to start over from this point should disaster strike.
XP always has a built-in Administrator user with full rights and privileges. So far, everything we have done has been done as the Administrator user.
Now it's time to create user accounts for everyone who will use this PC. These all will be restricted accounts, and all will be password protected. There will be only one Administrator account on this PC, and it will be necessary to log into that account to do updates or install or remove software. Any inconvenience is worth the added protection against shooting oneself in the foot.