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

Self | 4/18/2007 | Self

[Golden Eagle]

I actually prefer the vendor-configured Windows on laptops since so many laptop drivers can be unique to the OEM and difficult and/or time consuming to install manually on a fresh load. If you’re worried about unnecessary bloat remove it from Add/Remove then dig deeper with something like Hijack This. In the end you’ll normally save time and actually have a smoother running system.

[Publius6961]

Just curious.

How long exactly have you been a Microsoft "expert"?

This is not new behavior for Microsoft, you know.

My next box, sitting in the corner, will be a Linux system, for when XP is no longer supported.

I have paid for four XP "home" operating systems. I have the original CDs. Never used them. I *ahem* got an XP "pro" CD which I can reinstall as many times as I need to. Problem solved.

[N3WBI3]

It turns out that a manufacturer selling computers with Windows on them doesn't actually have to provide Windows, except as it's configured from their factory. They don't have to include the Windows CD you may have thought you paid for with your new system.

Of course you dont 'get windows'. MS charges much more for a windows CD than the OEM edition you paid for its been that way with every pc desktop I have ever purchased. If you want windows go buy a computer with no os and a windows CD.

[TChris]

How long exactly have you been a Microsoft "expert"?

This is not new behavior for Microsoft, you know.

I've been using MS operating systems since MS-DOS 3.3. I am A+, Network + and MCSE certified. I installed and maintain fifteen Windows servers, Win2000 and 2003, and help support about 120 Windows 2000 desktop, workstation and notebook clients.

I program, though I don't consider myself to be an expert programmer, more of an advanced amateur. I mostly develop in C++ and some HTML.

I also build computers, and have done so since MS-DOS 5.0 / Windows 3.1. I've built literally hundreds of machines. One of the last PCs I built was an XP MCE 2005 machine, and I provided the CD to the buyer, like always.

The combination of the fact that I hadn't bought a commercially built PC since my first one, DOS 5 / Win 3.1 on a 386, and that all the commercially-built business computers I've worked with, servers, notebooks, desktops and workstations, still DO come with Windows CDs, and that I always provide the installation media with every computer I build, it adds up to this: I had not, until buying my second ever commercially built PC a few weeks ago, ever run across this practice.

I knew that newer machines frequently came with a system restore partition, and that you could burn that image onto your own media. But I also (mis)understood that the actual Windows installation media was available, if for a modest fee.

It never even occurred to me that a manufacturer would think of selling a PC without the option of ever obtaining the O/S installation media! That's just nuts, in my opinion. At the very least, it's not very good customer service. You need the Windows install CD to do some things.

We use Norton Ghost to image our client machines, and it's an invaluable tool. Having an image saves a lot of time for problems that just can't be readily solved another way. But those system images aren't a replacement for the Windows media. They're complimentary, and I consider both to be critical.

If Dell still provides the installation media with all their machines, I'm going back to Dell if I ever buy another PC. I'm recommending Dell to anyone who won't buy a PC from me. And if the user isn't interested in gaming on their PC, I'll seriously try to steer them to Linux from now on.