More lessons learned...

Well, the POS worked fine on Saturday, but it would not work this morning (Monday).

I Mapquested Intuit headquarters and let the air out of the tires of every car in the parking lot. I am going to continue to do this daily until they release a version of software that actually works.

OK, I actually did not do that. I was going to put something harsher in that fictitious statement than the air in the tires thing, but I was concerned about Homeland Security taking me seriously.

Anyway, I reinstalled Windows XP, but did the 'Repair' Windows option.
I then reinstalled all the BIOS information for my motherboard, as well as all of the device drivers. I did not have the motherboard software here, so I opened up the computer to look. It would seem that the manufacturer data is on the opposite side of the motherboard (the non-visible side). I thought about taking the computer apart and removing the motherboard to get the model number. Instead, I logged into my www.Newegg.com account and reviewed my order history. Right there it was, all beautiful and everything...

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JSRTL 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Single-Core Processor - Retail

LITE-ON Beige 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2MB Cache ATAPI / E-IDE Combo Drive - OEM

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

Antec Minuet 300 Black/Silver Steel / Plastic MicroATX Slim Case Computer Case 300W ATX12V Power Supply - Retail

BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

GVISION P15BX-AB-459G Black 15" LCD Touchscreen Monitor 250 cd/m2 500:1 Built in Speakers 0.297mm Pixel Pitch - Retail

I Googled the manufacturer and model number for the motherboard, found the web page for equipment support downloads, and obtained all the BIOS and driver information I needed.

I also installed antivirus, touch screen monitor software/drivers, etc...

I finally got around to installing QB Pro, and it would not work. I reinstalled it, and it would not work.

Back to square one. I reformatted the hard drive, and then reinstalled Windows as if it were a brand new computer build, and a brand new hard drive.

I repeated all of the steps above. This time, QBPro started and I was able to restore our company data from my USB flash drive.

I am now going to install QB POS. I am pretty sure that P.O.S no longer stands for Point of Sale. Use your imagination and you'll see where I'm headed with that...

So anyway, new lessons learned for you small business owners:

1. If you have to fix your software installation, don't monkey around with the "Repair the Installation" options. Go aggressive and wipe the hard drive first. Be sure to transfer any files or information to an external HDD first, or burn them to CD or DVD. That includes your My Documents folder, and more importantly, your My Music folder. If you have spent hours and hours burning MP3's from your 1980's CD collection, you don't want to lose all of that. Wipe the hard drive, or if you want, buy a new hard drive (they are fairly cheap these days).

2. When you build a computer, or if you buy one already built, take the time to find out what components are installed. Download the drivers for all of the components. Keep them onsite because you will need them if you do a full Windows install.

3. Don't actually Mapquest the headquarters location for Intuit. The temptation to actually go there and go crazy might be too much for you.

---Note to Homeland Security - I'm not actually going to go Postal---