Monday, 18 August 2003, 0:12:44 EDT

So it seems that Microsoft and Sony revel in being completely too large to do anything right.

Rewind about three years Christmas time. I bought this lovely little jewel: NW-MS7. One year later the battery died. The real kick in the nuts is that this is the last model they made which does not have "user replacable" batteries. I spent two damn years trying to find some place that would replace the dead as fuck battery. Finally one of my room mates said, "Oh, my uncle could do that. His shop is a SONY authorized service center." Well hot diggity damn! I get to use my walkman again (this thing is great for going out to town and not having to hear eveyone's annoying ass little kids).

So, today John brings my walkman back from Agusta with a brand-damn-new battery in it and the mother-fucker works. Yippie!

I spent the rest of the day trying to get some sort of system up and running that will allow me to actually put audio on the memory stick [this is where Microsoft comes in]. The second [hard] kick to the balls is that this model only works with Windows 98. Not Windows 95. Not Windows 2000. And, most assuredly, not Windows XP. "Noooo problem," I said to myself, "I'll just install Windows 98 in VMWare and be happy." WRONG! After I got Windows 98 and the OpenMG software installed in VMWare and got the two to recognize my walkman I find out that VMWare has a known bug, number 1541 so it says, that prevents the OpenMG software from copying audio cds into the ARTRAC3 format my walkman requires.

Well bend me over and put it where you like.

Attempt number one being a resounding failure I put a new harddrive in my laptop and loaded XP on it [I was under the impression that the OpenMG 2.0 disc I have would work with XP and the N(o)W(ork)-MS7]. After I had XP installed I found out that I have to have the Windows 2000 patch applied to my walkman in order to use it under XP. If you scroll down to the seventh link on the above linked page you will see that I actually have to ship my walkman off for around fifteen days to get this "free" firmware upgrade done.

Attempt number two: FAIL.

So, now I loaded Windows 98 on my laptop. Nvidia does not provide GeForce 2Go drivers for Windows and Dell does not have drivers available for Window 98.

Attempt number three: FAIL. Can you see where this is going?

After all of this I check back with a post I had made to vmware.for-linux.experimental on news.vmware.com asking if anyone knew of a way around the bug. It seems that if you use ide-scsi for your cdrom instead of straight up ide access you should be able to disable VMWare's legacy cdrom support and it will work. Ok, that's cool, a simple kernel recompile and I should be in business. Well, evidently not. VMWare still did not see the cdrom as a generic SCSI device.

"FINE! I have a real SCSI cd device. I'll just use it [even though the damn thing won't rip audio outside of a virtual machine]." HOT DAMN! It ripped the first track of the cd I wanted to "import". Not only did it rip the track but when I put it on my memory stick and played it with my walkman there was actually *gasp* audio.

"Sweet fancy moses! I may just be able to use this thing again."

Would I be ranting if that were true?

So it seems that VMWare took to NOT liking my SCSI cdrom after the first track was a success and will not rip cds. Basically, I have to ship my precious (<- thick sarcasm) walkman to Pensyl-fucking-vania and have it upgraded before I can use the god damn thing.

Did I mention that the battery is $30?

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