The fickled finger of fate has poked me in the eye again, and thus another Zen Master beckons to me to learn.
I was completely set on converting my HP Special Edition L2005US Lance Armstrong Livestrong laptop computer into a complete Ubuntu system. A major obstacle had been eliminated. My Broadcom wireless network card was now flashed with compatibility via Ubuntu’s hardware manager and my Canon PIXMA MP150 printer became compatible. Until today, the laptop was a dual-boot system with Ubuntu as the default and Windows Vista, which is necessary for my Quicken home and business files and professional programs not yet made for use in a Linux operating system.
For the past week, since my last post, I’ve experienced some very slow Ubuntu wireless network connection, at times not even able to connect to a single web address. Rebooting into Windows Vista resulted in the reliable and fast cable Internet connection I’ve consistently experienced in this system. A second nagging problem is apparently still not resolved in Ubuntu. That is reliable use of the Synaptics touchpad with a laptop keyboard. When typing text, the cursor jumps to another line and space…while in mid-typing. In contacting fellow users on Ubuntu forums, it is apparent that the bug still exists. None of the suggested fixes has worked.
Today, after several failed attempts to create fixes to the above two problems, I…once again…decided to remove Ubuntu from my hard drive, and restore my second partion to a second NTFS logical drive. What I did discover, along the way, is that the previous method of restoring a Windows Master Boot Record does not apply in Windows Vista. When one installs Ubuntu as the second operating system alongside a Windows Vista system, Ubuntu creates a boot-up menu called GRUB. By default, Ubuntu will start in 30 seconds, unless I click on Windows Vista from the menu.
If one decides to remove Ubuntu from the hard drives, you must first repair the Master Boot Record to allow Windows Vista to boot at startup. In order to repair the MBR (Master Boot Record), Windows is booted from the operating system DVD, then click on REPAIR YOUR COMPUTER, then click on Command Prompt. At the command prompt, type bootrec.exe /FixMbr/ It should say operation complete, or something like that. Then type “exit” and restart the computer. Windows Vista will now boot up, without any boot menu or Ubuntu as an option. After Windows Vista has booted up, click on the Start button, right-click on COMPUTER, and choose manage. From the manage console choose drive management. You will see your Windows partition, and two non-descript partions. These two partitions are the Ubuntu root and swap partitions. Right-click on each of them, and choose Delete Volume. The two blank partitions will become one. At that point, you can right-click on the blank partition and choose Format. After the partition is formatted, you will have deleted any hint of Ubuntu or whatever else was on the partition. Your system is now fully restored to a single-boot Windows Vista system.
There is no escaping the fact that Windows Vista is very superior operating system. In Internet and network functions, software compatibility, ability to use Microsoft Office’s FrontPage web editor, by far and away the easiest creative instrument for web page editing and publishing, even for those with no HTML knowledge or experience. It’s a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor AND the FrontPage extensions allow one to make a change on one page that will ripple through relevant links to that change, appropriately and quickly, throughout the entire website.
Each venture away from Windows toward Ubuntu and other Linux distributions makes me appreciative that there are cooperative projects bringing operating systems and software to the developing world. These operating systems are improving quickly. Yet, each venture away from Windows brings me back to it, realizing how dependent we are, and how much many of us want, a universal operating system that works and performs efficiently, and does the things that we want to do with our computers. Windows is still it. Vista is a greatly improved product that is much more user friendly than previous versions, and with many built-in management tools to ensure that it operates smoothly with the least amount of technical problems and interruptions.
Windows Vista Home Basic on my HP Special Edition L2005US Lance Armstrong Livestrong notebook. I added memory to bring it up to 2 gigs RAM, installed a fast 7200 rpm 80 gig hard drive and replaced the DVD burner with a Samsung DVDRW/CDRW burner. Ubuntu will reappear from time to time, but for now, it is a single boot Windows system. My desktop is dual boot with Ubuntu as the default operating system.
The best of both worlds, commercial and cooperative.
Amen.
MH
