When you buy Microsoft Windows, you don't really get it (Vanity)

Self | 4/18/2007 | Self

[DuncanWaring]

That makes sense...

[vigilante2]

I hope Bill Gates hires me to put a new roof on his house. I’m going to leave holes everywhere. When he calls me to complain that his roof is leaking I’m going to send him a bunch of patches with instructions on how to install them!

[TChris]

What I’ve always done is make a copy of an original MSFT installation CD from someone with an MSDN subscription.

Ever since XP, those discs require a product key to install too. And the product key from the OEM computer won't work. They actually have the CDs coded to the manufacturer who sold the computer, and the product key must match.

I tried to install our company's Volume Licensed XP Pro onto a workstation, using the HP product key on the computer, and it rejected the key as invalid. I had to use the Volume License key.

How can MS think it's good business practice to make so many of their users, particularly the technically savvy ones, absolutely loathe them? Does that help revenue?

[Raymann]

I build my own computers so this is never a problem for me but a friend in a similar rut asked me for help once.

Now I’m not sure this is legal or not but I searched online to find out where in the Windows registry the Windows serial number is located.

Now for the questionable part: We both used XP Professional so I simply cloned him my disk and gave him HIS own serial, which he bought, for him to use.

He got his reinstall going no problem...and without all the bloated software that comes with restore cd’s.

[TommyDale]

There is probably a hidden partition on the hard drive called
PQSERVICE or something equivalent that has all the restore capability. Do some research and learn how to create your own CD, complete with Service Packs and updates.

[TomGuy]

Most PC manufacturers do not include the disks any more. That has been policy for a few years now.

I, too, bought an Acer a couple of months ago. When I started it up, it made a DVD back up disk. That would restore the operating system, should I ever need it.

---

Your Acer should have a WinXP Media Center authorization number on the back side.

My Acer came with XP Home installed. I had previously bought XP disk for my regular PC a year previous. I think that disk with the Acer authorization number would work, should I ever need to install from scratch.

==

I would recommend that you find a generic copy of XP Media Center. (Try the torrents, for example). Make a bootable copy and keep it. If you ever need to reinstall, use the disk with the ACER authorization number. That should work. And, since you ‘own’ the ACER authorization number, the XP Media Center disk would not be an ‘illegal’ copy.

[DB]

I don’t believe that has anything to do with MS (could be wrong).

Every Dell I’ve purchased came with the OS installation CD. I have a new one with Vista sitting in a box downstairs that I haven’t opened yet - it may be different, don’t know yet...

BUT, virtually all of the major PC vendors give you a mirror of the installation on a isolated partition on the hard drive - which I hate - for all the obvious reasons. Both HP and IBM have done this for a very long time.

[Fresh Wind]

What kind of disks does one get with a Mac?

[jude24]

Ever since XP, those discs require a product key to install too. And the product key from the OEM computer won't work. They actually have the CDs coded to the manufacturer who sold the computer, and the product key must match.

Interesting. Worked for me - and it worked when I got fed up, switched to a Mac, and installed it via BootCamp. Took a phone call to transfer the license to this machine, but it worked like a charm.

[discostu]

Sounds like Acer took the cheap way out. There are different OEM licenses with MS, some of which allow the company to provide a disk some don’t. Which license a company choses to buy isn’t really MS’s fault, I suppose you could ding them some for having a diskless license available for OEMs to purchase.

[dubie]

The new HP notebooks that we are buying fo our business dont even come with a CD at all. Just a picture of one. They have a recovery partition that you can rebuild the OS from. But what is the whole disk dies? Do they just send out a new drive with the OS preloaded???

[Thrusher]

How difficult is it to build your own computer from scratch? How techno-savvy do you have to be?

[mnehring]

I am officially with you... My hard drive just recently stopped working... Now, I have to buy a recover disk and a new hard drive, lost all data, and I have to reconfigure.

[ASOC]

I suspect it is even worse for home users

“The Backup utility is not included in the default installation of Windows XP Home Edition. The Backup icon is not present on the Start menu in Windows XP Home Edition, nor is Backup listed in Add Remove Programs for Windows XP Home edition.

This article describes how to install Backup, which is included on the CD-ROM in the Valueadd folder. To use Backup, you have to install it manually.”

Cnet can come to the rescue
http://www.download.com/Backup/3150-2242_4-0.html

[jude24]

System restore... but for the most part, a Mac System restore CD is more like a blank OS CD than the OEM bloatware.

[aft_lizard]

Your issue is not with MS but with the manufacturer, next time choose one that provides the media with your PC, or build it yourself.

[Calvin Locke]

Way back when, in the DOS days, MS gave great licensing deals to all mfgs if they included MS-DOS on all machines, thereby blocking any other OS from easily being sold on a PC. Ergo, MSDOS became the defacto OS.

That's not to say you couldn't install, say, DRDOS, on a machine, but you'd have to go find it and buy it yourself.

[weegee]

And even when you buy it you don’t own it. You can’t sell it used even if you uninstall it from your own computer.

Ebay will kill your auction even if it is sealed if you are not an authorized vendor.

Just wait until RIAA starts calling music albums “CD-ROMs” that you buy a license to use. Breaking the seal is acceptance of their conditions and they could keep you from selling used CDs.

[aft_lizard]

Yep those little statements you must click tro proceed on just about every piece of software known to man, even for Linux and Apple says you are being allowed to use it, but its still theirs.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Hope you like that half your hard disk is partitioned for on-disk recovery, leaving you with only half the space you paid for for your actual use. Hope you like the FAT32 operating system partition on your Windows XP computer. Hope you like the long list of bloated services and applications the OEM pre-loaded on your computer, 'cuz they're baaaaack!

Nope, don't like any of these. For this reason, I keep a boot disk of XP around, updated with the latest hotfixes and service packs from the version I bought several years ago. When I buy a new laptop, I boot from my own XP disk, wipe everything on the hard drive, define my own partitions, and do a clean installation. I suggest that everyone else do the same.