The Last Box

The last box might as well have died last Saturday.  It's the last computer in our small office of 20 that's still running Microsoft Windows.  While the rest have been linux-ified, (some after being rendered untrustworthy by malwares), the last one has been churning on for a couple of years, trying and failing to update during shutdowns, but otherwise left to its own lifeline.

Last Saturday, it refused to boot up.  It's not the dead like nothing's turning on, but it was in a zombie state, trapped in dying and living in an infinite loop of failing to even get a second into booting Windows.  Unfortunately, it's not going to be as easy as a reformat.  The only reason that we still have a Windows computer in our office is that it runs Autodesk Inventor, which we use for drafting and project plumbing design and layout.  What this meant was that my weekend was booked.  I had to get it up and running come Monday.

How did it go?  First, I tried the Windows Repair option using the OEM CD.  It got to detect the previous installation.  It copied the original Windows files that are sure to work.  And then after 15 minutes or so, I got to the Detecting Device part.  Suddenly, the mouse and keyboard stopped working.  The system was now asking me to insert an Nvidia NForce driver installation CD.  That was the trap.

First, I have thrown all my driver CDs away already, being too used to modern Linux installations in which hardware just worked automatically.  Next, the mouse and keyboard don't even work.  It looks like it turned off the USB subsystem while waiting for the motherboard drivers.  I can't cancel the prompt or even browse for the files needed in the hard disk.  The only interface left was me ejecting and loading the CD drive.  So, that was a failure.

It looks like I needed a really fresh installation after all.  Ok.  No problem about that except for my worries with the licensing and activation of Inventor, which I have no experience yet.  It was a good number of hours of installing Windows XP yet again, and the cyclical downloading updates, restarting, and downloading updates, and restarting again and again.  I got to the old Windows installation routine from 3 years ago, installing our a basic software set which includes 7-Zip, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Adobe Acrobat Reader, MS Security Essentials.  And then the behemoth of Autodesk Inventor 2008.  (We're still using an old version because we decided not to renew subscription until perhaps the software can run in our primary OS, which isn't Windows after all.)

I found out activating Inventor was a problem.  I couldn't figure out how to input the correct serial number of the installation.  Upon running Inventor, it automatically directs me to activate over the internet.  But to activate, it first needs the correct serial number so it can generate a proper Request Code.  It was a chicken and egg bug, it seems.

Fortunately, after some meditation and a bit of RTFM, I found my solution.  I only had to copy the license files from the previous partition to the new partition.  It was that simple after all.  I got it to running state, applied 3 sets of service packs for Inventor and Autocad Mechanical, and I could now rest easy.  At least till the time I upgrade to the next hardware or software.

So there was the last box.  It went down but it refused to die.  I don't have high hopes of seeing Inventor for Linux see the light of day.  (We might try Varicad first, or some other more linux friendly CAD software.)   Till then, it will just have to live and survive.