Thursday, May 20, 2004
Pay us sucker.
Apparently, many PC manufacturers aren't including Windows XP cd's or recovery cd's with the computers they sell which have Windows XP pre-installed. Is this some kind of conspiracy with Microsoft? Do they figure that people can't pirate winXP if they don't have a cd? How do they expect people to recover from a crash? Do they seriously think that WinXP is so stable that it'll never need to be re-installed or "recovered"?
I figure that it is some kind of conspiracy - they probably get some royalties from BestBuy (and other service centers) whey they charge people $65 to re-install it. You can get the OEM version with a fresh new CD and CD-Key for like $120 (still a rip-off) if you buy a harddrive.
My cousin Liz called me tonight because her computer refuses to boot into WinXP(not even safe mode), saying that some system file is missing or corrupted, then it gives a location that looks more like a registry key than a file location. She finally found a WinXP cd somewhere, but her only option short of re-installing the whole thing is to manually replace the file with the recovery console which she is not currently capable of doing by herself. BestBuy will reinstall it for her for $65, but that doesn't include backing up her data (which will undoubtedly be erased by their recovery process). They want another $80 some to do the backup and that only covers up to 7 Gb - Any more than that and she'll have to pay even more.
Windows XP may crash less than older versions (I doubt that), but it's much more of a headache when it does. And I think that it all has to do with Microsoft's paranoia about people pirating it. Of course people are going to pirate it... people will pirate it no matter what steps they take to prevent it... so why make it more of a pain for the rest of us (and legitimate users too).
Of course I don't use any MS products anymore myself, but I still hear plety of cries for help from people who do.
My advice is to learn to use any unix variant (linux, freeBSD, openBSD, netBSD, Mac OS X, etc) and avoid MS at any cost. I think that it would be possible to get linux setup (by a service tech) so that the home user doesn't ever have to worry about configuration, recovery, drivers or software installation.
I figure that it is some kind of conspiracy - they probably get some royalties from BestBuy (and other service centers) whey they charge people $65 to re-install it. You can get the OEM version with a fresh new CD and CD-Key for like $120 (still a rip-off) if you buy a harddrive.
My cousin Liz called me tonight because her computer refuses to boot into WinXP(not even safe mode), saying that some system file is missing or corrupted, then it gives a location that looks more like a registry key than a file location. She finally found a WinXP cd somewhere, but her only option short of re-installing the whole thing is to manually replace the file with the recovery console which she is not currently capable of doing by herself. BestBuy will reinstall it for her for $65, but that doesn't include backing up her data (which will undoubtedly be erased by their recovery process). They want another $80 some to do the backup and that only covers up to 7 Gb - Any more than that and she'll have to pay even more.
Windows XP may crash less than older versions (I doubt that), but it's much more of a headache when it does. And I think that it all has to do with Microsoft's paranoia about people pirating it. Of course people are going to pirate it... people will pirate it no matter what steps they take to prevent it... so why make it more of a pain for the rest of us (and legitimate users too).
Of course I don't use any MS products anymore myself, but I still hear plety of cries for help from people who do.
My advice is to learn to use any unix variant (linux, freeBSD, openBSD, netBSD, Mac OS X, etc) and avoid MS at any cost. I think that it would be possible to get linux setup (by a service tech) so that the home user doesn't ever have to worry about configuration, recovery, drivers or software installation.
