General Windows Questions

[wagegoth]

I was gifted with a laptop. Yea!

Now the questions. It's a Dell, and was apparently purchased without the Windows XP disks. I want to reformat it to clear it out and load my own software. If I do, can I then register it under my name with Microsoft? Will Windows still work?

Help.

Thanks, everyone.

[Der Cute]

If you don't have the recovery disks, do you have your own operating system?

Has that OS been used/ is it being used currently on another computer?

What OS are you planning on using?

Cutenoob

[Mr. Rude]

First thing to do would be to DL the drivers specific to your rig & burn those off. Then, sniff around & find an install disk for your COA *cough.....torrent.....cough*

If you need help...PM me

[sld72382]

Call Dell and asks for the OS Reinstall CD and the "resource" (driver) CD. A lot cheaper than buying an OS off the shelf!

[Mr. Rager!]

Burn the recovery disks yourself. It's not hard.

In the Dells that we sell, they've already partitioned the harddrive and labeled it "recovery" something or other. Make sure you're burning them on DVD+R disks.

A hell of a lot cheaper than going through dell.

More often than not anymore, computers are coming without the recovery disks.

[wagegoth]

Thanks for all the help, everyone. It's great knowing I have reliable help online.

I did find out that I can purchase XP Home through my job for $64, so I'll do that anyway, just for backup. It's a reasonable price and then I'll have the disks in my name, on hand. Besides, the more Dell software crap I can peel off that laptop the better.

Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Rude. Having been through recovery hell, I will find the driver downloads first and burn them before reformatting. I have them for my desktop, but I hadn't thought to do that for this computer.

Fashion Lad, I'll look for the recovery partition and see what I can find. Here's hoping the drivers are there.

[Der Cute]

Just goto Dell.com and type in the service tag for Lappy...its on the bottom of the machine, and dl everything

Oh, it's nice you can get a discounted thing from work too! Can you get Office? Smart to have.

Cutenoob

[wagegoth]

Thanks, Cutenoob. That's going to make everything a lot easier.

I have Office 2003, and I can load it on up to 3 computers, so I'm set there.

Just need to get everything done. I still haven't hooked up my wireless router at home. It's been a month. It will get done.

[patiokitty]

I'd suggest calling Dell for assistance - they often have the OS on a separate, hidden partition and they need to walk you through accessing it in order to reformat. HP used to do the same thing...Acer does it now (as I found out with my 5 month old Acer).