Very Computer

Here's a head scratcher for you...

I had swapped out the NICs between the win2k box and the MDK box b/c the
win2k NIC was a 10/100MBs and the MDK box only had a 10MBs in it.

So I pulled out the cards and did the swap.  With both, the changes were
recognized and the cards were setup.  Of course Win2K prompted me for the
driver disk and required a reboot.  The Linux box used available drivers
and booted right up with no further action on my part needed after telling
it to set it up.

Well, I tried to get online with the Win box and couldn't. Checked the
settings with an ipconfig /all and saw something rather odd. According to
the output, I had *two* NIC cards, one with an autoconfigured IP and one
with the correct static lan settings. Hmmm...

Well, I went into Network Properties and I see only one icon for the LAN,
but it has a different name (Local Area Connection #2).  Very strange. So
I go through and try to setup the static settings in the TCP/IP
properties.  Now, when I click ok, I get a *-gram telling me that this
IP address is already in use by another disabled hidden resource and would
I like to pick another?  WTF?!?  Click no...settings forced through now.

So here's the thing.  Even though Windows recognized that I had added a
new NIC in the same location that I pulled the other one from, it still
kept all the information and settings for the old NIC, and was considerate
enough to hide it from me.  The card isn't even listed in Hardware
Manager, but the info is still in there somewhere.

I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows has it
hidden somewhere.  I will probably have to go digging around in the
registry to pull it out.

My point is, why would Windows do that?  Linux didn't do that at all, I
was prompted that this hardware is no longer there and would I like to
remove it's configuration, select "Yes", and then it found the new card
and I was prompted would I like to set it up, select "Yes", done.

I'm not looking for advice on this, I will hash it out. I just wanted to
point out that little disparity.  Especially for people who for some
reason think that Windows is such a user friendly and "intuitive" OS over
Linux.

Not this time.

--
rapskat  -  6:25am  up 14 days, 16:09,  5 users,  load average: 0.28, 0.28, 0.18
drop the hot to mail me

You look through tinted windows and only see the closed Gates beyond them

  [Snip]

Quote:

> I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows has it
> hidden somewhere.  I will probably have to go digging around in the
> registry to pull it out.

  [Snip]

Been there, done that.  Try, from least to most desparate:

(A) Device Manager, "View" -> "Show Hidden Devices"
(B) Control Panel, "Add/Remove Hardware", "Next", "Uninstall/Unplug",
    "Next", "Show Hidden Devices"
(C) Fire up RegEdit and prod around underneath
    "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services".  Searching for
    the name of the driver isn't a bad start.
(D) Hire someone experienced in exorcisms, and stand back when your
    computer's monitor starts doing 360's and spitting Blue Pea Soup of
    Death.
(E) Low-yield nuclear device.  Some reassembly required.

Needless to say, it's very easily for any of these to render your Win2K
install unbootable, so be judicious and careful.

--
Chronos Tachyon
http://chronos.dyndns.org/ -- WWED?
Guardian of Eristic Paraphernalia
Gatekeeper of the Region of Thud
  5:47am  up 58 days,  6:02,  1 user,  load average: 0.36, 0.31, 0.29

Thu, 09 May 2002 at 12:50 GMT, peering quizzically at his shoes,

Quote:> I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows
> has it hidden somewhere. I will probably have to go digging around
> in the registry to pull it out.

Put the old card back, remove driver, remove card. Might work.

hth,

     /Johan

--
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.      Perth ---> *
  1:12pm  up 3 days, 18:50,  1 user,  load average: 1.39, 1.51, 1.31
$ cat /dev/bollocks                      Registered Linux user #261729
leverage sticky platforms

That's because there still isn't a cleanup to uninstall drivers
for network cards.

You will see this same situation in XP.

Quote:> Well, I went into Network Properties and I see only one icon for the LAN,
> but it has a different name (Local Area Connection #2).  Very strange. So
> I go through and try to setup the static settings in the TCP/IP
> properties.  Now, when I click ok, I get a *-gram telling me that this
> IP address is already in use by another disabled hidden resource and would
> I like to pick another?  WTF?!?  Click no...settings forced through now.

> So here's the thing.  Even though Windows recognized that I had added a
> new NIC in the same location that I pulled the other one from, it still
> kept all the information and settings for the old NIC, and was considerate
> enough to hide it from me.  The card isn't even listed in Hardware
> Manager, but the info is still in there somewhere.

> I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows has it
> hidden somewhere.  I will probably have to go digging around in the
> registry to pull it out.

> My point is, why would Windows do that?  Linux didn't do that at all, I
> was prompted that this hardware is no longer there and would I like to
> remove it's configuration, select "Yes", and then it found the new card
> and I was prompted would I like to set it up, select "Yes", done.

> I'm not looking for advice on this, I will hash it out. I just wanted to
> point out that little disparity.  Especially for people who for some
> reason think that Windows is such a user friendly and "intuitive" OS over
> Linux.

> Not this time.

You'd have to regedit the drivers for the card out.

How you do that is you reboot the machine with an install disk,
and re-install windows.

Charlie

Reminds me of the time I had a NIC go out and got to see how each OS
dealt with it.  (This was at a LAN party, naturally :)

The NIC dies.  Trying to boot into wintendo - it freezes on the flash
screen.  I reboot into safe mode, go into system properties, and
disable the NIC card.  It now boots, but sees the NIC and I have to
stop the box from plug and playing me out of a system.

Boot into Linux.  Kudzu comes up, tells me the NIC is not responding.
Asks me if it should ignore the card from now on, just ignore the card
this time, or try to load the drivers anyway.  I tell it to ignore the
card and boot up, playing some solo games until we can make a trip to
wal-mart to replace the NIC.

Linux does seem to take care of hardware better then windows.  There
are still issues, paticularly with USB, winmodems, and winprinters,
but that's from Billy G. not playing fair.  I plan on updating my
kernel soon to see if I can get my USB stuff to roll.  I have a real
modem and found drivers for my winprinter.

1) Remove new card
2) Boot
3) Remove driver for new card.
4) Shutdown
5) Install old card
6) Boot.
7) Set up old card again.
8) Shut down.
9) Remove old card.
10) Boot.
11) Remove driver for old card.
12) Shut down.
13) Install new card.
14) Boot.
15) Install driver for new card.
16) Set up new card.
17) Reboot.

--
| May I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, |
|  the strength to change the things I cannot accept, and the   |
|    cunning to hide the bodies of those who got in my way.     |

Thu, 09 May 2002 at 16:27 GMT, peering quizzically at his shoes,

Okay, so I used to work for Reader's Digest..

Quote:> 1) Remove new card
> 2) Boot
> 3) Remove driver for new card.

<snip>

Quote:> 9) Remove old card.
> 10) Boot.
> 11) Remove driver for old card.

<snip>

Quote:> 17) Reboot.

18) Drink heavily.

I'd swap 1) and 3), and 9) and 11) as well, or he'll be in the same
fix as he is now. That is, XP all dressed up and no hardware to drive.

cheers,

     /Johan

--
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.      Perth ---> *
  5:01pm  up 3 days, 22:40,  1 user,  load average: 1.54, 1.44, 1.27
$ cat /dev/bollocks                      Registered Linux user #261729
aggregate e-business channels

nice, not having to reboot, eh ?!?

Quote:> Well, I tried to get online with the Win box and couldn't. Checked the
> settings with an ipconfig /all and saw something rather odd. According to
> the output, I had *two* NIC cards, one with an autoconfigured IP and one
> with the correct static lan settings. Hmmm...

you know, here's another reason to add why win dows
is so brain-dead. if you swap out one modem for another
(on the same serial cable), win will detect the new
modem, but not remove deactive the original).  it seems
that win ONLY detects new stuff, but doesnt do any
simple fuzzy logic: "duh, if a new modem is detected on
the SAME physical line as was the first modem, maybe
i should disable the first modem", duh

Quote:> Well, I went into Network Properties and I see only one icon for the LAN,
> but it has a different name (Local Area Connection #2).  Very strange. So
> I go through and try to setup the static settings in the TCP/IP
> properties.  Now, when I click ok, I get a *-gram telling me that this
> IP address is already in use by another disabled hidden resource and would
> I like to pick another?  WTF?!?  Click no...settings forced through now.

hehehe - completely brain dead

Quote:> So here's the thing.  Even though Windows recognized that I had added a
> new NIC in the same location that I pulled the other one from, it still
> kept all the information and settings for the old NIC, and was considerate
> enough to hide it from me.  The card isn't even listed in Hardware
> Manager, but the info is still in there somewhere.

but that's a problem that will [potentially] cause some
conflict. (which i alluded to earlier).

Quote:> I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows has it
> hidden somewhere.  I will probably have to go digging around in the
> registry to pull it out.

> My point is, why would Windows do that?  Linux didn't do that at all, I

like i said a couple of times before - win dows is brain dead

--
+==================================
| M i c h a e l  J.  T o b l e r
| Authorship: "Inside Linux" ...
| "C++ Unleashed" ... "C++ How-To"
| Motocycling, Surfing, Skydiving
+==================================

and they say that win dows is average-user-friendly

BWA HAHAHHAHAHHAHHA

--
+==================================
| M i c h a e l  J.  T o b l e r
| Authorship: "Inside Linux" ...
| "C++ Unleashed" ... "C++ How-To"
| Motocycling, Surfing, Skydiving
+==================================

Yes, this is so that a hot pluggable NIC (for instance, a PCMCIA card) keeps
it's settings when you plug it back in.

So Windows is too dumb to automatically recognise hot-pluggable NICS? It
treats PCMCIA and PCI slots exactly the same?

Since Windows insists on having separate device drivers for NICs with
compatible chipsets but different model numbers, wouldn't it have been
smart enough to recognise a hot-swappable card?

That's...disgraceful.

Mart

--
There'll be no prisoners taken when the day is done
No flag or uniform ever stopped a bullet from a gun
        -- Gary Moore - Out in the Fields

PCI allows hot plugging as well, though not all implementations of PCI
chipsets support it.

Quote:> Since Windows insists on having separate device drivers for NICs with
> compatible chipsets but different model numbers, wouldn't it have been
> smart enough to recognise a hot-swappable card?

Different NIC manufacturers may provide different features in their drivers,
thus two cards with the same NIC chipset might require different drivers to
take full advantage of each card.

Just about any card can be hot swappable though.

That wasn't the point, and you know that.

Quote:>> Since Windows insists on having separate device drivers for NICs with
>> compatible chipsets but different model numbers, wouldn't it have been
>> smart enough to recognise a hot-swappable card?

> Different NIC manufacturers may provide different features in their
> drivers, thus two cards with the same NIC chipset might require
> different drivers to take full advantage of each card.

In that case the chipsets are not compatible. 3Com's 905 series are all
compatible, despite having different capabilities (One known exception:
the 905C-TX had some hardware timings changed). Yet Windows drivers are
insufficiently generic to handle a common driver for all models. Linux
does that just fine.

That points to a flaw in the Windows driver model.

Quote:> Just about any card can be hot swappable though.

Yeah so? What's wrong with having the driver indicate hot-swappability to
the OS, so that Windows knows not to remove the config when the card is no
longer around?

That way you can just always let Windows remove config info *unless* the
*driver* prohibits that.

What's difficult about that?

Mart

--
There'll be no prisoners taken when the day is done
No flag or uniform ever stopped a bullet from a gun
        -- Gary Moore - Out in the Fields

My God!

This is a jest, eh?

Even winders(TM) can not be this brain dead.

--
Regards, Joe
GNU/Linux user # 225822

quick way to get rid of the second driver
boot into windows safe mode go into device mangler^H^H^H^Heger
right click on the driver that listed for the old nic
click on uninstall

Quote:> So here's the thing.  Even though Windows recognized that I had added a
> new NIC in the same location that I pulled the other one from, it still
> kept all the information and settings for the old NIC, and was considerate
> enough to hide it from me.  The card isn't even listed in Hardware
> Manager, but the info is still in there somewhere.

it should be when you boot into safe mode ...
there called ghost devices .... basicly they
keep there settings so that if you EVER put the
card back into the system it will remeber it's settings
course they forgot to set it so that it doesn't interfer
with the current new hardware

Quote:> I want to of course get rid of that redundant NIC info, but Windows has it
> hidden somewhere.  I will probably have to go digging around in the
> registry to pull it out.

> My point is, why would Windows do that?  Linux didn't do that at all, I
> was prompted that this hardware is no longer there and would I like to
> remove it's configuration, select "Yes", and then it found the new card
> and I was prompted would I like to set it up, select "Yes", done.

> I'm not looking for advice on this, I will hash it out. I just wanted to
> point out that little disparity.  Especially for people who for some
> reason think that Windows is such a user friendly and "intuitive" OS over
> Linux.

> Not this time.

sad part ... I"m not a windows expert ... but I've had to do this
for customers because this happened to them ... and no manufacture
mentions that you might wanna uninstall the old device drivers before
removing the old device and installing the device