Media Direct Autoboot (Vostro 1500)

An old Vostro 1500 boots up Media Direct whenever
power is applied, after being off for a few
months.

It can't be persuaded to boot XP with any
combination of fn keys, power buttons, or
anything.

Taking out the HD to get to fn key options, the
BIOS seems okay. Even date and time are correct.

Now I'm trying an install of XP on a new HD, just
to prevent there being any Media Direct to boot.
We'll see how that goes.

It boots okay from the XP DVD and is now
formatting the HD.

Since we use these things as CPU servers, they'll
run 24/7 when we run them, so powering up on power
applied isn't a problem. We just want to get to
XP.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

It seems to work (albeit always powered on) with the new HD and XP pro installed.

However I need the updates to XP SP3 from the version on the install DVD,
and IE6 can't display the windows update page.

How do I get past this to get the updates?
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Ron Hardin wrote in
:

It seems to work (albeit always powered on) with the new HD and XP pro
installed.

It's the Dell MBR that triggers MediaDirect, so would have also worked if
you had replaced the Dell MBR with an ordinary XP MBR (e.g., via
"fixmbr" command or any similar technique).


However I need the updates to XP SP3 from the version on the install
DVD, and IE6 can't display the windows update page.

How do I get past this to get the updates?

I'd use an offline updater like WSUS Offline
(http://www.wsusoffline.net/docs/). Support for 32-bit XP seems to have
been dropped in v9.3, so download v9.2.1 or earlier from the WSUS
download page.

Drag the "wsusoffline" folder from the zipfile onto an external USB
drive. From any working Windows machine, launch the folder's
updategenerator.exe file, tick XP on the [Legacy products] tab, and
[Start] to download all XP updates to the external drive.

Afterward, attach the external drive to the XP machine to be updated, and
launch the wsusoffline\client\updateinstaller.exe file to update the XP
machine.

dg1261 wrote:
It's the Dell MBR that triggers MediaDirect, so would have also worked if
you had replaced the Dell MBR with an ordinary XP MBR (e.g., via
"fixmbr" command or any similar technique)

That's interesting, I didn't know about that. However, I can't get to
anything but media direct with the old HD installed. There's no
place to type "fixmbr" into.


However I need the updates to XP SP3 from the version on the install
DVD, and IE6 can't display the windows update page.

How do I get past this to get the updates?

I'd use an offline updater like WSUS Offline
(http://www.wsusoffline.net/docs/). Support for 32-bit XP seems to have
been dropped in v9.3, so download v9.2.1 or earlier from the WSUS
download page.

Drag the "wsusoffline" folder from the zipfile onto an external USB
drive. From any working Windows machine, launch the folder's
updategenerator.exe file, tick XP on the [Legacy products] tab, and
[Start] to download all XP updates to the external drive.

Afterward, attach the external drive to the XP machine to be updated, and
launch the wsusoffline\client\updateinstaller.exe file to update the XP
machine.

That's good information, thanks. I may try it. The question would
be can I trust this site not to wrap stuff in adware or malware.

In which case I'm better off just running the system on the bare old SP3.
It's connected to the internet but not used for anything but the local
machine network. We don't use it for browsing at all, just as a cpu server.

All this is a recent change by Microsoft Update, which used to work with
the SP3 IE6.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Ron Hardin wrote in
:

That's good information, thanks. I may try it. The question would
be can I trust this site not to wrap stuff in adware or malware.


Not a hint of adware or bundleware anywhere in sight. It doesn't even
install anything, it's a standalone, no-install utility. Basically, it's
just a gui front end that queues and calls a series of batch scripts.

In fact, I wasn't sure of which version dropped XP support, so for my
previous reply I downloaded several versions to recheck, unzipped each
one, launched each to see which included XP, then deleted the unzipped
folders.

There are a few offline updaters floating around, but this is the only
one I've used so is the one I'm most familiar with. My understanding is
others may allow you to choose between some and all (important and
optional) updates while this one only does the important updates... but
that's what I prefer, anyway.

I keep a USB drive in my bag that has downloaded onto it the offline
updates for all Windows versions from 2000 to 8.1 and Office versions
2000-2013. It's proven to be the easiest way to update customers'
computers without wasting time with slow internet connections. I run
updategenerator.exe every 3-4 months to keep it moderately up to date.

(Aside: I use Avast antivirus, but I need to temporarily disable Avast
while updategenerator is downloading because Avast will slow the download
of one particular windows cabinet file, wsusscn2.cab, to a crawl.)

dg1261 wrote:

Ron Hardin wrote in
:

That's good information, thanks. I may try it. The question would
be can I trust this site not to wrap stuff in adware or malware.

Not a hint of adware or bundleware anywhere in sight. It doesn't even
install anything, it's a standalone, no-install utility. Basically, it's
just a gui front end that queues and calls a series of batch scripts.

In fact, I wasn't sure of which version dropped XP support, so for my
previous reply I downloaded several versions to recheck, unzipped each
one, launched each to see which included XP, then deleted the unzipped
folders.

There are a few offline updaters floating around, but this is the only
one I've used so is the one I'm most familiar with. My understanding is
others may allow you to choose between some and all (important and
optional) updates while this one only does the important updates... but
that's what I prefer, anyway.

I keep a USB drive in my bag that has downloaded onto it the offline
updates for all Windows versions from 2000 to 8.1 and Office versions
2000-2013. It's proven to be the easiest way to update customers'
computers without wasting time with slow internet connections. I run
updategenerator.exe every 3-4 months to keep it moderately up to date.

(Aside: I use Avast antivirus, but I need to temporarily disable Avast
while updategenerator is downloading because Avast will slow the download
of one particular windows cabinet file, wsusscn2.cab, to a crawl.)

Thanks for the site endorsement. It sounds good.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

dg1261 wrote:
I'd use an offline updater like WSUS Offline
(http://www.wsusoffline.net/docs/). Support for 32-bit XP seems to have
been dropped in v9.3, so download v9.2.1 or earlier from the WSUS
download page.


The only XP mentioned seems to be XP / server 2003 64 bit. Is this what I go for?
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Ron Hardin wrote:

dg1261 wrote:
I'd use an offline updater like WSUS Offline
(http://www.wsusoffline.net/docs/). Support for 32-bit XP seems to have
been dropped in v9.3, so download v9.2.1 or earlier from the WSUS
download page.

The only XP mentioned seems to be XP / server 2003 64 bit. Is this what I go for?
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Oh I see, I have to go to the legacy tab.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Ron Hardin wrote:
Oh I see, I have to go to the legacy tab.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Wsusoffline seems to have worked as suggested.

Most important, it installed ie8.

After all the 150 or so updates, I went to microsoft update with the new ie8 and it
found a half dozen more real ones, I presume the ones added in May 2014 to fix an
immediate day 0 bug that turned up.

Also genuine advantage (which passed) and the malicious software removal file for
September.

Thanks.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Glad to hear it worked for you. I find it a handy resource to keep tucked
away on a USB drive.