So the new laptop I “had” to buy for work arrived today. And I’m already annoyed with Dell. I don’t want your stupid McAfee Free Trial and I’m especially pissed off that you hid the ability to uninstall that crap from the average user. I really don’t want your freaking Dell Support Center Spyware giving me “helpful” popups every five minutes. And I really hate all the shit on the toolbar that amounts to little more than a litany of unwanted advertising.
/rant
You know how to fix it? (Add/remove programs, msconfig, services.msc, spybot etc… etc… etc… Or just reload the OS assuming you got an OS Cd.) Have ya seen the new Mac commercial that addresses this? It’s pretty funny IMHO.
The Dell Support thing on my laptop can be changed to not startup on Windows boot, and if I disable all the channels it’s listening to, it becomes disabled.
Yeah I know how to fix it. I’m just pissed that I have to. On my iBook the only thing I had to change out of the box was the touchpad sensitivity. Every time I’ve every gotten a Dell it’s been an annoyance to strip out all the crap I don’t want. When my folks get a new computer it’s a solid two hours of fixing for me to undo all the free trial crap they sign on for because of the adware that comes on all Dells.
I’ve got nobody to blame but myself, but it’s hard to beat Dell’s prices.
2 hours to fix it on a dell, vs. $600 to not have it on an iBook. I don’t know about you, but even during my day job, I don’t get paid $300/hr.
But, it’s real easy to beat their “service.” Good luck and I hope you never have to call Bangalore. ;-)
I own the most retarded Dell desktop EVER… one of those first-gen P4’s that only takes that ridiculously expensive RAM. And as much as I hate myself for buying a computer that requires that stupid RAM and as much as I hated setting the thing up when it arrived over four years ago, it’s still running like a champ and handles my WoW gaming quite nicely.
Man that was a stupid purchase. It even came with Windows ME. WINDOWS ME!
I still run into lots of 4-5 year old PC’s with 98 or ME on them. They seem to have less problems than XP boxes! Weird.
(Rdram is right up there with betamax, don’t you think?)
As someone who talks to gangbangaloreans every damn day, let me say amen, brother.
Dell’s “system restore” disk is standard XP in my experience and will give you a clean, no nonsense installation. (It is only good for Dell computers, though – I tried using an old Dell disk on a new computer built from random parts in the shed, it wouldn’t validate, and when I called MS the person told me it would probably only validate for the OEM it came with.)
Dell might hand out computers loaded with BS, but they are nice enough to put the BS on a separate “software restore” disk.
Lately, on their website, they charge $10 extra for the OS disk. You know, the one that you already paid for as part of the computer?
Isn’t the OS reinstall on the recovery partition, though? Not as safe as being on CD, but more convenient. I’ve helped troubleshoot many user issues where the PC owner lost his original OS CD.
My XPS M170 from April came with an OS/Restore CD, but my XPS M140, bought three months earlier, did not. The tech explained it’s only standard with some computers. I had to call to have it sent, but it was free. And yes, the adware sucks, but it beats Macs.
Yeah, the restore is on a separate partition now, and it’s a true “restore” disk – it puts the computer back to exactly how it was out of the box, including all the third party stuff.
If you don’t get the OS CD with the system (and you won’t unless you pay for it), you can still call and request one to be sent to you afterward, and you won’t be charged.
The reason they started charging for the disk is that Microsoft charges them an additional licensing fee if they ship 2 copies of the OS with a computer – 1 on the partition and one on CD. They are recouping their cost (plus a premium, I’m sure).
As for Support Center, it duplicates the functions of Windows Update (notification, download, and installation of patches for Windows) plus it checks Dell’s website for updated drivers, BIOS, and firmware that are only available directly from Dell. I would disable it, but it’s worth manually running every couple of months. More often if you have a laptop (frequent important BIOS updates).
Edit: Oh yeah. When you buy their higher-end XPS systems (ie not the lowest level XPS, but any of the others), you should have an option to get a clean Windows install with drivers only. It’s only available on their gamer-level systems, though. HardOCP actually had an interesting article about some of the consumer-friendly support-related changes at Dell in the last few months.
The reason they started charging for the disk is that Microsoft charges them an additional licensing fee if they ship 2 copies of the OS with a computer – 1 on the partition and one on CD.
Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot
Over
That’s what they told us – I assume that it has some basis in fact.
The restore partition thing is pretty new – less than 2 years old, and shortly after they implemented that, they stopped sending OS CDs, supposedly because Microsoft came to them with a bill.
There was a lot of Microsoft/Dell back-and-forth around that time. Dell approached Microsoft with their own bill estimating the expenses incurred due to flaws, bugs, and insecurities in software they bought from Microsoft. At that point, MS and Dell actually launched a joint-support pilot program where we had people from Microsoft on-site assisting us with certain types of troubleshooting we didn’t ordinarily do. Don’t know what came of that.
I just wipe the damn things and start over.
Oh, I wipe 'em too. But this week one of the ladies at work - who has pestered me for buying advice for like 3 months about it - finally got her daughter a “college laptop” from Dell. So, I did the usual thing and wiped it, installed windows, office, anti-spy/vir etc. Gave it back. She comes back the next day, says daughter liked that “dell media experience” that popped up when you hit the “media” wonder-button on the keyboard.
omg. Ok, so I had to figure out how to reload off that partition. The key, BTW, is to shut off one of the dual cores, and shut off native SATA mode on the hard drive, then you can hit Ctrl-F11 and restore it. It uses… ghost 2003, btw.
Yeah, I could start a royal rant on how Norton made a complete piece of shit out of ghost after version 8.3. Nice to see Dell sides with me on that.
Just a thought:
Get the OS restore CD anytime it’s offered.
My company bought a Crap load of Gateways with a “Restore” partition and to say that it’s useless when you really need it would be an understatement! Most of the time, when I get to the point where I need to wipe a user’s machine, the restore partition has been corrupted by whatever nasty the machine is suffering from.
At least with a CD it’s Read-Only…
I always wondered about Dell’s policy on Restore CD’s. You buy a license to use an operating system like Windows. If that machine dies and you want to use the OS on a different machine it says something about it not being an original Dell Machine.
Who cares? I want to use what I bought on a different machine at that point. I bought a license and my Dell is dead. So you go build a new machine and can’t use the Licensed copy of the OS you purchased?
I wonder if that would really hold up in court if anyone had the money ime to challenge it. Any mention a EULA that goes against the law can be considered null and void in most cases.
If your state law states that the original software must accompany the computer on sale, you can actually get a Human on the phone at Dell and tell them that they are violating your state’s law and they’ll send you the CD for free because they have to.
I recently purchased 15 machines from them and informed our Rep that I expected ALL the physical media, PER MACHINE, that would be required to restore the machines back to a pristine condition and I had no plans on paying for it. I now have 15 copies of everything they they want to charge you for locked up in my software cabinet labeled with the machine’s serial numbers.
Chalk one up to the little guy. It was a tiny win but I felt like God for a day… Or at least for a few minutes…
;)
I don’t know anything about the legality of it, but Dell’s Windows installs don’t have to be activated. The agreement with Microsoft is that (if properly installed) their customers don’t have to do that. Instead the OS checks a BIOS flag to verify that it’s a Dell machine, making activation unnecessary.
I don’t know if other OEMs still have to activate or not.