21 Sep
2003
21 Sep
'03
3:40 a.m.
In this day and age, it's really lame when a
company requires you to
order a CD to get your hands on the drivers you need because of
"licensing restrictions". It's even more lame when you try to enter your
ZIP code to order the CD and the website comes back telling you that
you've entered and invalid ZIP code (for any ZIP code entered).
No kidding... my windows machine (the only machine I have running windows)
recently ate itself and got so corrupted that I could no longer boot. I
have backups of my own stuff, but needed to re-install W/ME. I pulled out
the Recovery CD and booted it, expecting it to do something. Lo and
behold it did nothing. I tried it several times, no joy.
I called up Compaq (HP) support about it and ultimately found out that the
recovery CD requires a partition on the machine to be usable (I knew it
was there and had never touched it myself, but apparently it was too
corrupted for the Recovery CD to use). I was totally blown away by the
fact that I have a valid license for W/ME, but due to some lame decisions
on either Compaq's part, or requirements for M$, no copy of Windows on a
CD comes with my machine.
So, I had to spend more money (only $18, but it is the principle of the
thing) to get what they call the 'quickrestore' CD set.
So I get that, and use it to restore the disk to from-factory condition
(here's another gripe -- the 'from factory' condition requires the W/ME
partition to be most of the disk, with the 2nd partition being an extended
partition into which some recovery files are placed. Since it forces this
and apparently checks for it, I don't see a way of partitioning the disk
such that I can also have Linux).
... where was I ...
Oh yeah... now the machine is in 'from-factory' condition, and I have to
go through the welcome and setup screens to get to use it. But, the
welcome screen doesn't display properly. Parts of it overlay other parts
in such a way that I cannot read questions, find buttons to be clicked on,
or field names to fill in a registration form.
I remember this happening when I first got the machine, and a call to
customer support eventually solved it, but since it is several years out
of warrantee now, I cannot go that route (without paying for another
year's support).
I've been using the email support option, but so far all the suggestions
(from a support center in India) have not resolved the problem. In fact,
they have done little more than suggest I do the same things I've already
done... I'm up to 'quick-restoring' the machine 5 times now.
Personally, I'd like to see all companies who play such games be the
target of a class action suit which would require them to supply to all
original purchasers of computer systems true copies of the software which
was 'factory installed', and for which the customer supposedly has a
license.
And if M$ has had anything to do with making them do it, then they should
be included in the suit.
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | email: mbg at world.std.com |
| Member of Technical Staff | megan at savaje.com |
| SavaJe Technologies, Inc. | (s/ at /@/) |
| 100 Apollo Drive | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Chelmsford, MA 01824 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (978) 256 6521 (DEC '77-'98) | required." - mbg KB1FCA |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+