ThunderZ
March 18th, 2007, 05:27 AM
I believe the topic has come up at least once about the warranty on new Vista installed OEM PCs. Allow me to relate a recent experience. DISCLAIMER; My experience is in no way meant as anything other then a statement of my semi-indirect experience in one particular case. Yours may vary so please exercise all due caution. My Mother-in-Law recently purchased a new Compaq (HP) Presario w\Vista Home Basic pre-installed. At first she was pleased with the new, though basic, graphics. Formerly ran Win 2k. She even accepted the additional clicking needed for the enhanced security features. But this is where the "fun" ended. Knowing only the most basic functions of a PC she could not understand why her HP printer may not, turned out it was not fully functional with a PC from the same company. Then we found out several games her and her Husband played were not functional either. I contacted the writer of the games. Their reply was "run as Administrator\support is coming\no plans for supporting Vista." This did not always ::) work or please either of them. >:( :'( This lead her, totally unbeknown to me to call MS. Let me just say I am glad I do not work the Help Desk at MS now-a-days. They were of no help and of course laid the blame on the "other" software developers which we all know they will do.
I gave her 3 options that I knew of. 1# No longer play the games and deal with a partially functioning printer. Hoping support for them would eventually come along. 2# Try to return the new PC and pay more $$$ then her old ailing PC is worth to upgrade it. Even though it would still not be at the hardware\performance level her new one is. Or 3# Contact HP\Compaq to see what their EULA stated about changing OS`s on a still under warranty PC. Much to my surprise they stated they had no problems with a change to XP. They did warn her of the need to get new drivers but other then that apologized for the inconvenience, thanked her for purchasing HP\Compaq, and wished her a wonderful day.
I just finished wiping the hdd, installing XP Pro, fully updating it, installing their games and d\l the fully compatible printer driver. I must say it is a snappy performing little machine.
I gave her 3 options that I knew of. 1# No longer play the games and deal with a partially functioning printer. Hoping support for them would eventually come along. 2# Try to return the new PC and pay more $$$ then her old ailing PC is worth to upgrade it. Even though it would still not be at the hardware\performance level her new one is. Or 3# Contact HP\Compaq to see what their EULA stated about changing OS`s on a still under warranty PC. Much to my surprise they stated they had no problems with a change to XP. They did warn her of the need to get new drivers but other then that apologized for the inconvenience, thanked her for purchasing HP\Compaq, and wished her a wonderful day.
I just finished wiping the hdd, installing XP Pro, fully updating it, installing their games and d\l the fully compatible printer driver. I must say it is a snappy performing little machine.