Wednesday, May 02

Rant

HP, You Assholes!

I have a new Compaq notebook, the hardware of which is quite good except for the battery life (which sucks) and the trackpad's habit of jumping every so often.  And it was cheap, so I can live with those minor points.

The software is mostly Microsoft, and is as you'd expect.  The delivery of that software, though, is all HP.  New HP, not Old HP. In other words, total crap.

HP is too cheap to provide install CDs with new computers, so they take up 8GB of my 80GB hard disk with a "recovery" partition... something that is really useful if what you are recovering from is a disk failure.*  Because it's a separate partition, you can't recover the space even after you've taken the two hours or so to burn the recovery DVDs (plural).

And because it's so important (because you don't have install disks), it's protected from normal access, so you can't install software from it.  So HP put another 4.5GB of files on your C drive for actually installing from.

Even if you burn the recovery DVDs, you have no options whatsoever on reinstallation; you get the recovery partition back whether you like it or not.  I'd just blow the whole mess away and install standard Windows XP, except that I just replaced the drive with a 160GB model, and the XP install CDs I have are all pre-SP1 and won't recognise it.  I have three valid, unused activation keys, but they're useless.

Now, the one saving grace, I thought, was that HP had generously bundled 30 little games with the system, things like Bejeweled and Insaniquarium.  Nice touch, I thought, even though they're probably paying 20 cents for the lot (if that).

Turns out they are timed demos.  You get 60 minutes of play, then they die.  Yeah, way to go HP.  1.2GB of frigging ads.

Update: It would appear that at some point I had the presence of mind to make an... archival backup... of a certain piece of software to which I already hold multiple licenses.  Yay me.

* This is just an example; the disk didn't actually fail.  It was just full.  Not least because the 80GB disk comes with about 50GB of available space.  So I bought myself a 160GB replacement and a neat little 2.5" USB/eSATA drive case.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:38 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 390 words, total size 2 kb.

1 I don't know of any company that actually sends you the installation CDs anymore. If anyone does... yell it out.  My husband needs a new laptop and I've been stalling because I can't figure out which is the best of the worst picks out there.

Anyhow, it's one of my pet peeves - and I KNOW it's all Microsoft's doing.  One more way for them to try to control what you do with their product once you've legally purchased it.  ARG!!!

Also, I tend to go through each and every "add on" and delete it.  If I want it, I'll go get it for myself. It's so friggin' annoying. 

Posted by: Teresa at Wednesday, May 02 2007 08:59 AM (gsbs5)

2

The Compaq (i.e. HP) laptop I bought a year ago came with a bunch of useful stuff installed such as an antivirus program. Of course, all of them were set to timeout in 30 days, and to nag you constantly to "upgrade" until then (and after then).

And of course the desktop was loaded with icons for other begware and services like AOL. I seem to remember having to spend a couple of hours all told removing stuff I didn't want.

Since it was XP Home, I ended up nuking the partition and installing from an XP-pro installation disk I owned.

But I don't think this experience is unique to HP. I suspect it's like that now no matter whose computer you buy.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, May 02 2007 09:34 AM (+rSRq)

3 As an alternative to your 'archival backup' you could also use your existing system to create a slipstreamed version of your pre-SP1 XP install disk, thereby upgrading it to a SP2 version and happily reinstalling from there.

My ASUS laptop came with far less crapware than any other laptop I've ever seen, but it too had a recovery partition I didn't want. And XP Home which I didn't want either, but couldn't buy it OS-less or with XP Pro to save my life.

So much for the consumer being able to buy what they want.

Bahhh.

Paul

Posted by: Light & Dark at Wednesday, May 02 2007 11:10 AM (r3jFr)

4 This notebook, despite being cheap, came with XP Pro, so once I found my archival backup I could use its existing activation key and all went well.  (It was a end-of-model sale; the replacement model has Vista - and costs $500 more.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, May 02 2007 12:54 PM (PiXy!)

5

Supposedly part of the reason for cheap laptops and desktops is the kickback that manufacturers get from bloatware companies.

After all disk is cheap. Yes ?

What price our collective sanity and time ?

Posted by: Andrew at Wednesday, May 02 2007 01:03 PM (/uGTr)

6 This Dell came with a recovery DVD for Vista (in February or so), but I have not had a chance to use it. So yes, manufacturers still supply CDs. The previous CD from a couple years back had XP Home SP1a, and it turned out to be keyless (does not ask the key). I used it to reinstall XP on a different system. Go Dell, I guess.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Thursday, May 03 2007 02:17 AM (9imyF)

7 In case you wonder why I would want XP, I need it for reverse-engineering.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Thursday, May 03 2007 02:18 AM (9imyF)

8

Dell still ships install CDs with their systems.  Sometimes you have to specify that you want them to include the media when placing the order.  Sometimes you don't.  I don't know why.  Their on-line store is not exactly consistent, which is a little odd, considering it's the only store they have.

And (apparently) little known fact: Dell install CDs appear to check for Dell hardware, and will install without a cd-key, so long as you use a Dell CD on Dell Hardware.

e.g., if you buy a Dell machine with Vista on it and boot from a XP Pro install CD ... XP pro will install without a hitch.

Posted by: bkw at Thursday, May 03 2007 02:48 AM (bRLba)

9

(You can extrapolate the above behaviour to popping XP Pro on a machine with Home or Win98 or ME or, uh, Linux.  Not that you should, of course. 

I've always been under the impression that downgrading to old software if you had a license for the new stuff was OK (or at the least, legally gray).  The other way around -- not so much.)

Posted by: bkw at Thursday, May 03 2007 02:52 AM (bRLba)

10

If you need XP SP2 grab yourself uTorrent and go to bitoogle.com (redirects to a different site, I think its yotoshi).  Just because you downloaded the sofware illegally doesn't mean its illegal (if you have a valid key that you bought, that is). 

I accidentally bought a Dell XPS 1210 (was pricing it and completed the sale--oh well, wanted a new machine anyhow).  I love it.  Gotta go small with laptops; those 17" monsters are useless as portable computers, IMHO.  Upgraded the disk, CPU, video/card, and put 1 gig in it.  Because its the small one you can do all that and still not pay a ton of cash. 

Anyhow, it came with lots of bloat.  I uninstalled all of it, but when I got my free copy of Vista I blew it all away and installed fresh. 

Posted by: McGurk at Thursday, May 03 2007 03:25 AM (Ri74D)

11
Andrew wrote:

What price our collective sanity and time ?

Our whichwhat?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, May 03 2007 04:05 AM (PiXy!)

12

Company I work for buys mostly Gateway Machines and Laptops - they all come with a recovery partition - but I think you can pay a few bucks more ( we do) and get recovery media thrown in.

 

Andrew

Posted by: Another Andrew at Thursday, May 03 2007 01:19 PM (GmBhS)

13 If he just needs SP2, he can download it from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=049c9dbe-3b8e-4f30-8245-9e368d3cdb5a&displaylang=en It asks for validation before install.

Posted by: Rebecca at Friday, May 04 2007 04:21 AM (iTAqF)

14 The problem is that if you are installing on a disk larger than 128GB, you need at least SP1 on the install CD.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, May 04 2007 08:55 AM (PiXy!)

15 My MacBook came with install DVDs.

Posted by: Robert Prior at Friday, May 04 2007 11:52 AM (xlWMS)

16 Nlite is your friend.

Posted by: someone at Friday, May 04 2007 11:37 PM (TXnhk)

17 Ah.  Indeed it would be, had I but known.

Thanks. smile

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, May 05 2007 12:29 AM (PiXy!)

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