Comments on: OEM System Restore Discs

By: GiM

GiM — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:45:51 +0000

About the OEM version of the operating system, you had paid it very little – special price (less than 50 USD fof XP Pro, less than 25 USD for XP Home) just to be used on that machine. If you have the Recovery CDs, then you will be able to install on the original PC/motherboard and with the apropiate drivers. On any other PC the software started from Recovery CDs will verify even the serial number and will stop to work if it does not corespond.

But you can always have a Retail version (about 150 USD for XP Pro) which will allow you to install 3 times (or how is said from Micro$oft, on the same machine with 3 different hardware incarnations – as you will get only 3 activation codes peared with the 3 hardware combinations)… I want to have 3 lives…

By: GiM

GiM — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:31:27 +0000

Well, if you run an “genuine” IBM machine, and if you did not play with original HDD configuration, then you are able to write the Recovery CDs you need to restore the IBM machine later, even on a new HDD, I gues F11 at boot (I do not have an IBM one) will give you some options like back-up from main partition, run PC Doctor – very good to verify the hardware, re-install the software as factory default – and maybe regain some speed with a new instalation of the operating system, write Restore CDs – if the machine has an CD Writer – any thing from 2 to 8 CDs, and others options, or in Windows from Start menu / All Programs / Think… you will have the same options. As I said, if you did not erase the hidden partition in which with F11 can boot and access this utilities. But if you have already discover it and if you take it for use on other purposes, it was your option…

Certainly this is the situation with HP (and I worked for HP computers technical support for years), and I guess for other big names too.

About the OEM version of the operating system, you had paid it very little – special price (

By: kiko

kiko — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:41:27 +0000

no he didn’t – what’s up with your system not refreshing Chris?

By: kiko

kiko — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:40:33 +0000

geez Chris deleted my comment about all the cd’s I got with my new pc..now I know I’m on the right track

By: kiko

kiko — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 23:13:58 +0000

I just bought a new Dell desktop ( Inspiron 530) – I got a Vista CD ( plain Vista no trialware), plus a cd of all drivers, plus a cd of flatscreen driver plus a cd of Soundblaster driver plus a cd of NVidia video card driver plus a cd of ms Works…plus there was a recovery partition with a quick restore with all the trial crap which I wiped, formatted and added to the OS partition….so if I want I can do a complete restore, add all drivers and go from there with a very clean install…so not everyone is doing it…though a friend just got an HP laptop and got – a laptop – with a recovery partition…better to name names rather than point fingers…to paraphrase..the pointing finger points…and having pointed…moves on…

By: Chris Elrod

Chris Elrod — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:49:25 +0000

I’m not necessarily a hands on guy, but as an owner of a repair store I think it is in the best interest of the consumer to have a restore disk. It would be even better if the restore disk had just the operating system and drivers and have a seperate disk for the programs and give you the option of picking the ones you want. Without the disks what does a customer do when the hard drive fails? They will have to take it in for repair (good for me) but will make it difficult to get the drivers and any full version software that came with the system. You buy the software with the computer and should have the disk as a part of it.