Advise on test machine

[Magnum]

I have setup my old P-3 with XP Pro as a test machine to be used
to test hardware that I want to sell/give away.

Any advice on being efficient about it?

For example, if XP doesn't have drivers for it, should eye burn them to a disk to sell with the hardware as a service to my customer?

[dedndave]

there are hundreds of updates for XP - only a few that are actually hardware related, though
the only update i can think of that might be considered critical is for SATA drives (KB941715)
that update is included in service pack 3
but - if you have no SATA drive, you don't need it
and, then, it seems to matter only if defragmenting
sounds like the machine is old enough (pre-SATA)

[Magnum]

You misunderstood.

I am referring to packaging the driver with the device I am selling.(XP comes with many drivers for hardware, but not all.)

Andy

[dedndave]

well - that wouldn't hurt
i am trying to imagine what hardware that will run in a P3 machine that xp doesn't support, though   :P
if you don't give them the drivers, at least give them a website to find them
of course, if it's a NIC or other internet connection device, you may want to give it to them   :lol

[Magnum]

well - that wouldn't hurt
i am trying to imagine what hardware that will run in a P3 machine that xp doesn't support, though   :P
if you don't give them the drivers, at least give them a website to find them
of course, if it's a NIC or other internet connection device, you may want to give it to them   :lol

I found a DVD player that XP Pro had no drivers for and the player was made in 2000?

[dedndave]

how unusual   :bg
some other driver would probably work if you can fool XP into thinking it is the other type
but, always best to have the right stuff

[MichaelW]

AFAIK, for non-standard hardware it's up to the hardware people to provide drivers to Microsoft and to carry out all of the certification, to Microsoft specs. No certified drivers = no Windows support. One possible explanation for no drivers is that the DVD player is actually an OEM reject that was supposed to be scrapped.

[Magnum]

The drive was making a hum, so I decided to throw it away.

Maybe the sound was normal, but I didn't want to spend tracking down the driver etc.

Even if it was working properly, I would not like the sound and assume my customer wouldn't either.

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   A friend of mine upgraded his system at work from Win
2000 to Win XP, and his DVD writer was lost due to no
drivers.  Ended up getting another drive.  I think he had
other problems as well.  The RAM drve software no longer
worked, and something else maybe.  We had other problems
at the time and someone said XP would be a fix for those.  Oh
yeah.

Regards,

Steve N.