Thinking....don't do it on your own.

[tenzilkem]

A customer felt the need to reload windows before calling in....the downside, he did reload the OS, but as the system came with a utility partition to reload windows, he deleted that wonderful partition, and now has no cd to load drivers. I am so happy folks believe they have the ability to fix their computers, but when we make it so you dont have to use cds, please dear god call in to your computer tech support company to help out with these things. The dude deleted his utility partition as well that contained the ability to run diags on a system without a cd.

Thanks for making my job that much hard you bloody idiot.

[Geek King]

This is why you always find the disks for the system before doing anything that might hose the operating system. I hate this new trend of not giving the owner an actual physical copy of the Operating System.

[Department stores *sigh*]

heh i wish i had another copy. im running on 3 years with no reformat

o well no one to blame but myself

[Seanette]

We're oh-so-eagerly "looking forward" to a system rebuild on my computer as soon as the hard drive we bought from a E-Bay seller arrives (my registry is so screwed up the system refuses to admit I have either the CD-RW/DVD-ROM or DVD-burn drives usable). What we're planning is to do the physical install of the drive (probably moving my current C: drive to D:, taking out the existing D: (very small drive that's being used for Windows swap file)), then installing programs (including OS) from either CD or installer files and moving data files, such as documents, MP3s, pictures, e-mail archives, etc. This is probably going to burn most of our weekend (DH does hardware, I can for the most part do all the software installs, but might need input from him at some points, he being much more expert than I). Ugh. It's going to be a chore and a half, but does need to happen.

[Seanette]

heh i wish i had another copy. im running on 3 years with no reformat

o well no one to blame but myself

You might be surprised at what you can find on E-Bay (which is where I got my Windows install CD).

[MadMike]

I hate this new trend of not giving the owner an actual physical copy of the Operating System.

Yet another reason to build my own damn machine.

I often end up fixing machines for friends and family, and the one time, I wasn't even aware of this annoying trend. My one friend had given me a machine to fix, and had given me all the discs as I had asked. But I couldn't find the disc with the OS on it. I asked her about it, and she was sure she had given me everything. She said she'd go home and look, but no go. I eventually ended up just installing my own copy, and taking care of the activation by... "questionable" means, not realizing that any copy would do, as long as you had a valid product key, which was on the side of the machine.

Shortly after I finished and gave the machine back, I found out that some companies were not providing CDs with the OS anymore, and that it was quite possible that the reason she couldn't find it was because there wasn't one.

Fucking Dell!

[protege]

Fucking Compaq too!

They don't, or at least they didn't when I bought my last OEM machine, give you a copy of the OS. What they would do, is put everything onto a "System Restore Disk." Soooo if you tweaked the OS, and uninstalled all the spyware crap...as soon as you used that disk, it would all come back and you'd have to do it again.

Rather than deal with that again...I built my own machine. No spyware/shopping crap to deal with, just XP

[pbmods]

This is why if you don't know what it is, for goodness sake don't delete it!

[tenzilkem]

for the customer who wants documentation and cds sent thats no problem if you dont want to use the image restore, but for some silly reason they need to call and ask for em rather than the disks being sent out immediately.

[Apallo]

for the customer who wants documentation and cds sent thats no problem if you don't want to use the image restore, but for some silly reason they need to call and ask for em rather than the disks being sent out immediately.

Not just that, but some companies (Dell and sometimes HP) actually charge you to send the freakin disks out. You can usually get em to send out the disk for free with a lot of effort (becoming our own worst nightmare, the SC), but that effort should never even need to be exerted. Custom built PC's are the way to go IMHO, but sometimes aren't practical, especially when you're building one for someone, because there's no real warranties, other than "if it breaks, I'll fix it".

[MadMike]

Custom built PC's are the way to go IMHO, but sometimes aren't practical, especially when you're building one for someone, because there's no real warranties, other than "if it breaks, I'll fix it".

Also, you're probably not going to be able to build one as cheap as those cheapo ones that are coming out lately. No one seems to want to pay a little more for something of better quality, they just want it cheap, even if it turns out to be a piece of junk.

Last time my ex's parents were looking to get a new computer, I offered to build one for them. But I started pricing parts, and found out that I wouldn't be able to build anything as cheap as that Dell they were looking at, although I was doing pretty well until I had to add in an OS. I knew it would be a waste of time to try to explain that what I could build would be better, so I told them to just go ahead and buy the Dell.

Of course, it ran like crap, because it had XP installed, and only 128MB of RAM. Don't get me wrong, it will run, just kind of sluggishly. I suggested they buy some additional memory, and they swore up and down they weren't spending another dime on the thing. But they quickly got tired of how slow the thing was running, and finally caved in. I think it has a total of 384 now, and it runs a lot better.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Yet another reason to build my own damn machine.

I often end up fixing machines for friends and family, and the one time, I wasn't even aware of this annoying trend. My one friend had given me a machine to fix, and had given me all the discs as I had asked. But I couldn't find the disc with the OS on it. I asked her about it, and she was sure she had given me everything. She said she'd go home and look, but no go. I eventually ended up just installing my own copy, and taking care of the activation by... "questionable" means, not realizing that any copy would do, as long as you had a valid product key, which was on the side of the machine.

Shortly after I finished and gave the machine back, I found out that some companies were not providing CDs with the OS anymore, and that it was quite possible that the reason she couldn't find it was because there wasn't one.

Fucking Dell!

I discovered that back in June when I got my current laptop. Sure, I can hit Function, F11 and reformat the drive, but what to do if the hard drive dies and has to be replaced?

I'm basically up the creek without a paddle.

[HawaiianShirts]

Shortly after I finished and gave the machine back, I found out that some companies were not providing CDs with the OS anymore, and that it was quite possible that the reason she couldn't find it was because there wasn't one.

It's not just Dell any more. It's just about everybody, though I think Toshiba still includes some form of recovery disc. That's why I tell all of my customers about it. "There are no restore or recovery discs included. Somebody's cutting corners at the manufacturer's. If you don't have us create them as part of one of our security and set-up packages, then making them on your own is one of the first things you'll want to do."

[Gurndigarn]

It's not just Dell any more. It's just about everybody, though I think Toshiba still includes some form of recovery disc.

Apple still includes a system restore disk. Of course, not having the windows logo anywhere would freak some people out.

[rvdammit]

It's not just Dell any more. It's just about everybody, though I think Toshiba still includes some form of recovery disc. That's why I tell all of my customers about it. "There are no restore or recovery discs included. Somebody's cutting corners at the manufacturer's. If you don't have us create them as part of one of our security and set-up packages, then making them on your own is one of the first things you'll want to do."

From what I remember it's not the manufacturers it's Microshaft. The OEM licensing for these companies includes a restriction on suppling the OS.