first, i would hang up on her: she was looking for a reasn to bring it back.
second - i would give her the number to microsoft's tech support, or the pc manufacturer, in other words, dont dam the river, just re-direct it.
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first, i would hang up on her: she was looking for a reasn to bring it back.
second - i would give her the number to microsoft's tech support, or the pc manufacturer, in other words, dont dam the river, just re-direct it.
I understand the whole privacy deal but I can't stand those recovery cd's. I have so many friends that unknowingly buy one of those mainstream systems and find out later that it's almost impossible for them (average users) to upgrade their hardware. If they change anything major (videocard, soundcard, modem, etc..), they have to save the old crap in case they need to reload windows. Plus, with the locked bios, you can't get rid of the stupid splsh screens and you can't tweak your system.
I have noticed that a few companies at least seperate their OS recovery cd and their software cd so that you don't have to deal with all the junk. Thank goodness for small miracles!
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Why won't this protection guy leave me alone? And who made him a General anyway?!?
Agreed, restore CD's suck. But is a person within the law to use a friend's full version or upgrade CD with your own registration #'s to avoid the OEM software trash?
Well if it goes out of a SHOP It needs to go out with a copy of the OS.. Pre Load or Whatever.. If used system. It still needs it. If you got it ( Purchase of used equipment ) with it great. If not provide it with it as sale price. John
2 machines and 4 more beers, dos it really matter we still win anyway.. We get Paid for Ingorance, Stupidy, Bad hardware they tried to install... WE Always WIN... John
Not sure if anyone posted this info, but the new Compaqs, the 5000 series and above, all ship with recovery CDs that aren't recovery cds at all. They're merely Floppy images on bootable CD that basically activates the restore partition plainly located on drive "D". So, if Jr. or Ms. Shmukenfuss decide to delete ANY files on the "D" (We know those customers that delete ANYTHING because they're so paranoid about HD shrinkage), then the HD can never be recovered...unless you send it to Compaq for a hefty restore charge. CHA$$CHING!
You heard right folks! Restore on a partition of the HD you're paying for, so when the HD sticker says 15gig, they're actually going to get 11.5 gig useable. The 1.44meg size CD that is shipped looks for a valid restore partition. So, if the HD goes south or you get a boot virus, you're already gonna kiss it. You have NO hard copy of a restore, yet alone Windows98 or even drivers hidden in the CD (like before - hidden zips).
This goes for the new 1700 Compaq lappies too... and if ANYTHING is out of order on the D, say G'bye.
Now, I don't wanna get on a rant here, but the basic reason is this - Most of the computer buying public is as uneducated as a 6 year old, and don't check this out or care. Keep putting the prizes in the box, they'll eat the meat even if it's dog.
It's an outrage, but... Hey, does anyone realize you can register as MS OEM and buy hard copies of 98 with licence for under $60/ea?? The original poster should look into this if he's selling white-boxes. That's what's so cool about buying a non-brand name!
Of course that's my opinion, I could be wrong. - D. Miller.
-Sckott
Cut and dry you have to buy a retail version of any software to do what you feel with it ... look at the modems in those OEM systems most have crap, you have to buy a decent one to get the real power out .. i know some people will say mine works great ok nice but most still are junk ...
so as far as anything you might as well buy the real thing and make a cd of your drivers (video, sound, etc..) so then if you want to upgrade or drop all the preloaded software you will be able to ..
but then leads to the question where do you find those drivers ...
simple answer **** Windrivers ***
Hey Guys,
I've not posted here before, but I wnated to offer my strategy on how to deal with customers griping about the lack of a W98 CD. My response is usually that Compaq/IBM/HP does it this way to make it easier for the customer. Quote "In the event you have a system crash, or an irrecoverable virus attack, you can simply put in the recovery CD and let the system resotre itself to it's condition the day you bought it. If you had only a W98 cd, you would have to restore the OS, then manually install all the drivers for your devices like the video card, sound card, network card, etc., as Windows does not always pick up those devices. What the recovery CD is, in fact, is your liscenced copy of W98, all device driver files and all of your applications that came with the computer on one convenient, self-executing CD. You are, however, responsible to back up all of your important files, addresses and programs."
That usually shuts them up.
Darren.
I think its bull. If I buy a system with one licensee to an op system I should be permitted to transfer this to a newer PC when the time comes, and not have to pay for an additional copy. If Microsloth wants to minimize piracy maybe they should reevaluate how their Bloatware is priced.
And the penguin shall set you free.
I worked tech support for one of those companies. We used Drive Image SE (DISE) to store the backup. The HDD was split up (you ordered a 20 gig, you'd get a 15 gig with a 5 gig backup) We got a few complaints about it, but mostly people calling asking where it is. We'd find out they either repartitioned the drive or deleted the backup files (bad move). We'd have to tell them that they were S.O.L.Quote:
Originally posted by theBeast:
Here's their press release on the subject:
As of May 23, some systems manufactured by [manufacturer] will ship without the standard Windows CD. Instead, the Windows operating system file backups will be placed on a special partition on the Hard Drive. This is part of a new Microsoft worldwide policy intiative designed to reduce piracy and improve customer satisfaction.
[Manufacturer] has decided to continue shipping the Operating System files on an external recovery CD manufactured by [manufacturer].
The worst is when some peopletried to run the backup, it would give a "cannot unlock a locked drive' error.
When dise runs, it quickly repartitions the primary DOS partition, and sometimes it'll give you that error message after it deletes that partition, but didn't re-create it yet. So, then people think they're smart, and reboot, then do the notorious format C: (since there is no pri dos partition, giess what the C drive was!).
Several of our techs did that accidently, also..
I like the recovery CD better than this option, but this way was cheaper for our company to do (yes, they were about as cheap as you could get!)
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Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?
Quote:
Originally posted by theBeast:
Actually, on our pricing sheets, it DOES say, "Windows 98 manual & Recovery CD". She was upset that she couldn't take the CD, and upgrade her daughters' computers to Windows 98.
Then you should have replied "That is illegal, would you like me to report you to the FBI?" (Noone knows the SPA).
That usually got them very quite very quickly.
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Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?
I'm personally not a huge fan of recovery CDs myself, especially when you're talking big-name recovery CDs, like Compaq, or IBM. Also, because I change system parts more than I change my underwear, I would never choose to buy a system with a recovery CD. However, 99% of our customers won't upgrade their systems.
If I had been the customer, in this case, I would have asked the retailer, "Is it possible to get this with a full version of Windows, rather than the recovery CD?"
As a retailer, I would have blown a call to the manufacturer, and they probably would have said, "Sure, no problem! We'll make you a custom system" (we're on very good terms with the manufacturer, since we're one of their largest customers).
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***the Beast
- Fate drove me here...then told me to get out of the car...
What pisses me off about the restore cds is not that they are pc bios locked, but the damb things always have so much other crap on them. I always build my computers, 1, because i get what I want in them, and 2, I don't want all that extra CRAP that all these large companies think i want. Have you seen what compaqs, emachines, HP's, NEC's, Micron's, IBM's, Toshibas, Sony's, and any i missed, come with on them??? I work my weekend job as a tech for a large retailer, and i see all that crap, people bitch about it, a lot. I have no problem with limmiting the CD to that computer, I understsand the companies and microsoft are covering there holes. But they should not force the customer to have all that crap on the machine, it can take a long time to clean that all up, and some of it you can't get rid of. OH YEAH, Compaq, for quite some time, stopped shipping there machines with CD's at all, they just put the restore on the HD on a back hidden partition, and if you needed the CD, you had to call them up and Order it, thats not right. I do agree that the systems should be advertised as comming with locked restore cds, not full liscensed copies of win??XX whatever.
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We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.
It has been my experience that these recovery cds rarely have the windows cabs/drivers stored in an accessible format, so when we have prebuilts come in with bios locked recovery cds, we usually give the customer a burned cd with all the windows cabs on it. That, way, they can restore the system completely, if necessary, or just do some updates/upgrades which will only require the cabs on the burned disc. All we are doing is providing the customer with a LEGAL backup of the software they licensed. As far as I know, that is still perfectly legal, and it usually avoids this whole mess.
Hey guys, I don't know if thos system was bios locked or not, but My friend bought a Compaq Presario last month and ALREADY fried the hdd. I simply went over their, reformatted the hdd, and installed Windows Me ( The PC originally came with Win98 ). The hdd also had the system restore partition on it, which I also deleted. After formatting and installing Me, his system now runs faster and he hasn't screwed it up. Yet.