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View Full Version : Dell doesn't ship cd's with purchase



trash
November 10th, 2005, 06:06 PM
I just don't get it so maybe somebody can clarify this.
A friend just got her new Dell dimension 3000, sales person never asked if she needed a modem so she didn't get one but she didn't get the xp install cd either.

I called Dell and asked them to ship the cd's immediately along with another call to get a modem.. next day by Purolator we got the cd's, but the modem will take 7-10 days!

Question is why would Dell not include the cd's when they shipped the machine? I can't see how they would be doing this to save money seeing as they ship by purolator, so what is the purpose? I did ask the person at Dell but of course i didn't get any answer at all.
Maybe somebody here who works at Dell or similar can answer:)

newbie2
November 10th, 2005, 06:14 PM
did you ask them which OS(linux or window$) on the cd's you wanted?

trash
November 10th, 2005, 06:16 PM
Dell only does windows so xp was installed but their policy now is not to ship the cd's unless asked for by the customer... Pretty shady if you ask me.

Brunellus
November 10th, 2005, 06:17 PM
piracy and control. the relevant data are now stored on a separate partition on the hard drive; in gparted you will see it as a FAT32 partition. In the event of windows b0rkage, you boot from that partition to reinstall the other main partition.

If your computer has a CD or DVD burner, you can (one time and one time ONLY) generate a set of recovery disk images from the data on that partition.

Miguel
November 10th, 2005, 06:22 PM
I have a couple of questions:

Is it legal not to send the CD's the customer has paid for?
Does the hda1 partition on my Dell Inspiron actually do anything more than bothering me?
Can I do a true clean Winblow$ install in my laptop without deleting that FAT32 partition?

trash
November 10th, 2005, 06:27 PM
Ya i found that, but lets face it not many newbs are going to get that lol... like my 66 year old grandma friend. Anyway she wants and now has linux installed.

There are going to be a lot of second hand Dell machines out there in a bit with no installation disks.. i guess in the long run it's a good thing ;)

newbie2
November 10th, 2005, 06:29 PM
Dell only does windows so xp was installed but their policy now is not to ship the cd's unless asked for by the customer...
huh?...i think you are wrong...it is only a matter of persistance....the matter here is that Dell is afraid of loosing 'discounts' at micro$oft...that is why :p -->
http://linux.dell.com/blog/
Dell does not officially support running Linux on Dell laptops. However, there are many great "community-supported" resources available to help you get Linux running. These links include:

* Dell's Linux-Portables Community Forum
* The community-supported linux-dell-laptops group
* An external FAQ document
* http://www.linux-laptop.net/dell.html
* http://www.tuxmobil.com/dell.html
http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml

blueturtl
November 10th, 2005, 06:33 PM
I remember our family bought a Compaq Presario around 96-97 that came with Windows 95. We didn't get the Windows install CD, but a Compaq disc image installer CD. This is really nice, with the disc image being preconfigured and all, but there's one major problem: since the hard-disk crashed we had to replace it with a new one. The disc image installer did not work with the new larger hard-disk! In addition to that, the old Windows lisence is still usable on other hardware afterwards, but there will be no way of installing it. There's no need to anymore, but I still have a Windows 95 lisence sitting around without and install disc somewhere deep deep in my drawer...

trash
November 10th, 2005, 06:42 PM
huh?...i think you are wrong...it is only a matter of persistance....the matter here is that Dell is afraid of loosing 'discounts' at micro$oft...that is why :p -->
http://linux.dell.com/blog/
Dell does not officially support running Linux on Dell laptops. However, there are many great "community-supported" resources available to help you get Linux running. These links include:

* Dell's Linux-Portables Community Forum
* The community-supported linux-dell-laptops group
* An external FAQ document
* http://www.linux-laptop.net/dell.html
* http://www.tuxmobil.com/dell.html
http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml

Oh cool, that is new! Anyway I am talking xp;)