Author: Jigglypuff
This Pavilion is most special than the others that we can document, due to it's method of recovery and the also tidbits of the install itself. It is more reminiscent of the Omnibook's way of recovery, although the only other disc we have available so far, the Omnibook XE2, has a corrupted image. However, the most intriguing thing to note about the recovery, is the MINI.CAB located within the TOOLS folder. This is the Mini Windows 3.1 environment that is used when running the setup off of a Windows 98 disc while in a MS-DOS interface.
According to this excerpt from MAIN.BAT:
if not exist %CD_LETTER%\recover\%MODEL%.tag goto wcd%DULNG% cls echo ..... extract /y /e /l %SRDISK1%\ %CD_LETTER%\tools\mini.cab > nul cls echo .......... copy %CD_LETTER%\tools\apps\*.* %SRDISK1% > NUL cls echo .................. set PATH=%PATH%;%CD_LETTER%\tools\s2d call %CD_LETTER%\tools\s2d\def_size.bat HIBER TRSH cls echo ..................*
So let us just hit Continue, and go to Advanced. Since, we aren't emulating this on a Phoenix BIOS and as such will bring us incompatibilities since it'll by default try to configure a Save2Disk partition then fail miserably. Alright, yeah nice like that.
Now we have this error. Great, but it isn't the end of the world as it can be caused for two reasons. The most simple, if it's already cracked and the User Supplied partition number set at 1 is just to run Fixed Disk Setup (FDisk). Else, If it's instead at 2, then you will have to change a line in SWIDINST.BAT located within \RECOVER[IMAGE NAME]\INSTALL\ to configure it at 1. Here is the line to replace, and what to replace it with.
IF "%Part_Arg%"=="C_ONLY" SET Part_Arg=2 ---------------------------------- IF "%Part_Arg%"=='C_ONLY" SET Part_Arg=1
And now running the utility as supposed to, I am now greeted with this. If it complains about the password being incorrect, you may need to add a parameter set for FORCEMODEL within INIT.BAT located inside the same directory as SWIDINST.BAT to accept the right password. In our case, it is BLARTI so we will add this line. SET FORCEMODEL=BLARTI
Now we're asked for the next disc. Surprisingly enough, the second disc also contains these files and can be boot from so it is your choice if you also want to amend these changes to there as well.
If you get this, just try again. It's likely you just pressed the button to continue too quick upon inserting the second disc.
Upon completion, you will get this screen. Nice, guess all we have to do now is press Ctrl+Alt+Del, of course after heading it's advice of removing the disc since as mentioned before it's still bootable.
This has an interestingly custom bootscreen, here is that from me changing it's extension from a SYS to a BMP.
Of course, also how it looks within the virtual machine. Nothing interesting happens beyond this point, other than driver installation. If you find a dialogue asking for a restart despite not configuring a driver beforehand, you likely should do as it says.
Awesome, we're at the Out of Box Experience. Interestingly there is no Victor, but instead regular ol' Merlin. Yes, we totally did buy a Hewlett-Packard Co. computer with Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition. You are so welcome.
Seems all straight forward, just proceeding to the next screen with only needing to stop to change the time zone from Pacific to Eastern and accepting the license agreements. Although there is some interestingly custom dialogue for the registration screen.
Including for the confirmation on if you would like to skip said registration. But, there would be so many screengrabs if I were to go over every single option. So, yeah we're pretty much done here.
Firstly, does not seem to adopt the Utopian sounds like other HP Pavilions; instead using the default that came with Windows ME. There is a slight problem however, the mouse is totally wrecked
No worries, for it seems that we just need to uninstall this nuisance of a program, most likely to bring interaction with the front-facing buttons (conveniently named One-Touch Buttons) that would've came with this particular laptop. But since we don't have that and it is just causing us problems, well we'll just get rid of that through Safe Mode.
Well clicking Next on that dialogue opens up a little "e-center" on the top right with presumably dead links. Cool stuff, I guess.
The HP Notebook Registration just seems to be the same, except it will ask if you want to be reminded through notifications or by printing some paper. If you tell it to print the paper and then that you were able to print it successfully despite likely just canceling it, it'll erase the icon and show.. Hmm, a little gift box in red wrapping paper and a yellow stripe.
But it firstly tells us we need to connect the internet, okay. I'll just click on that generic little icon and oh wow, they totally changed this up. Likely to give the choice for people to sign up for internet access through them. But yeah nah, I'm currently using LAN. And selecting that, just pushes me to what I was expecting.
And having to restart after realizing my virtualization software was taking into account the wrong network adapter, it seems nothing special. Just opens up a browser window, to a site which is likely of course dead.
The only other interesting thing I'd say exists here, is the HP Notebook Introduction. Other than some bundled programs not specific to this particular disc, of course. Should I explore it, maybe?
Or better yet, let you guys do so? As it is an included program, it is available as an installer under \HP\PROGRAMS\DEMO, as I will provide here in a zip for your enjoyment.
hp_pavilion_notebook_introduction.zip
And that concludes this review. Now I send forth into your mind, the "Goodbye" from the older AOL clients.
