Mac Mini 'hacking', First time on Windows 11 ...and also reinstalling Windows 7

 

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Tried the whole shebang on Minux (Mac Mini running Linux Lite) and it worked, so it seems the problem is with the RPi.

Honestly, everything I've ever tried to do with RPis has just failed, and\or has been too long-winded with too many hoops to jump through to be worth it.

On the subject of little computers, today I tried first boot of the Trigkey G4 system, which despite ‘only’ having a Celeron N100 processor is possibly the most powerful PC I've ever had…

Booted up good and went through my first time setting up a fresh Win11 machine; it's much the same as Win10, but you need to do an extra step to setup a local account rather than a Microsoft account:

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account

(don't forget to only visit tomshardware with an adblocker; it's an ad-ridden cesspit)

Win11 is quite annoying, even moreso than Win10: taskbar items CAN'T have labels. Fucking idiots. (UPDATE, Jan 2025: this is fixed when updating Win11)

I'm contemplating getting the Win11 image from their website as a backup, and installing Win10 instead.

Or should I bite the bullet like I did moving from 7 to 10…? I mean, I'll HAVE to get used to it one day when Win10 support ends. Perhaps by then though, Win12 will be out and I can ignore Win11 like I did Vista & Win8…?

The computer is lightning fast though, and plays 4K youtube videos with no problems (I think? Not sure my monitor can support 4K. Or that my eyes can even tell the difference…)

Also today I booted up the ol’ T60 to check what processor it had …and it failed to boot. Seems the CMOS battery has died, and taken the system down with it. I bodged in a new battery by heat shrinking the old terminals (prised off the old battery) onto a normal CR2032. Seems to work…?

Still won't boot, and the two HDDs that are labelled as having bootable Win10 installations on them for TeeSixty also don't work.

Tried reimaging the SSD with a Macrium Reflect image of Win7, which seemed to go ok, but had same boot failure.

Tried installing Win10 from USB: success! So TeeSixty isn't dead.

Tried installing Win7 from USB: also success!

…didn't fancy going through installing everything onto a fresh Win7 install (lazy…) so tried MR image restore again, hoping all this had ‘cleared’ the previous issue.

No dice. That setup seems utterly borked, though I don't know why the MR backup also won't work when imaged. Weird.

Time to install Win7. Again.

Initially tried “repairing” from the Win7 USB, but during the process Windows tells me:

“A required CD\DVD drive device driver is missing.”

Why the shit is that required if I'm not using the CD drive to install…? Plonkers.

Anyway, back to a completely fresh install.

During messing with these two computers I was also fiddling with the HP ProBook laptop which is having a weird time with its DVD drive port: it's not recognising devices plugged in there, be it an optical drive or HDD in adaptor caddy. It’s weird because the optical drive gets power (the button opens it, and closing the drive makes it spin up) but it doesn’t appear at all in windows.

Just gonna do without an extra drive; a 500gb SSD should be plenty!

Back to the TeeSixty:

Installed Windows 7:

Always Ultimate. Obvs. (But have you spotted my mistake yet…? I didn't. Obvs.)

Went ok, as it did before, but on Windows updates wouldn't do anything at all.

I thought it might be activation, and sure enough, Windows wasn't activated. I think I'd previously installed it using a pre-cracked ISO, but, tragically, that USB seems to have died…

Anyway, I have a key for Win7 Enterprise, so went back to install Windows AGAIN.

…at that point I noticed that I'd previously installed the x86 version instead of x64, which might explain the update fail (or that could just be the lack of activation).

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Holy zark, that was A LOT of hoop-jumping.

Activation wouldn't work with the Enterprise key, so I called the automated service, who sent me a text with a link to a website where you have to input FORTY-EIGHT numbers from your computer and it then spits out ANOTHER forty-eight numbers for your to input into your computer.

Activation worked though!

Update still wouldn't… because there appears to be no internet, which is why the activation failed. Fuck's sake; what fresh horror is this. It's connected to the WiFi, but won't send or receive anything.

I tried using DriverPackSolutions 16 to install missing drivers, and it certainly installed some, but it didn’t help the internet situation.