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November 25, 2006
Dear Microsoft, Pt. 2 (My OS has an identitiy crisis)
Dear Microsoft,
Why must you make things so difficult. So I was totally down with Windows XP Media Center once I started using it on a regular basis. I like the remote control for my computer, I loved the DVR functionality (I've seen it done better, but hey...) Then it happened. I had to restore my computer and BAM! Gone! The restore disks I was given by dell restored it to Windows XP Pro... which identified itself as XP Media Center Edition, but was not.
I know that MCE is a variation of Pro. The trouble is, when the computer did this, the system profiler tool (I'm such a Mac dork) essentially said Windows MCE was the OS, but microsoft refused to let me download updates for MCE, because it claimed that my OS was XP Pro.
So now I'm stuck. I have a computer that runs fun for an XP Pro machine... but the things I loved most about it are gone.
So... I called in the geek squad once I lost my marbles trying to explain to my OS that it was having an identity crisis.
The Geek Squad people at Best Buy SUCK. First off, they treated me like average joe who got a virus on his computer from surfing porn sites. I never had a virus on the computer, the problem is the OS... which has so many layers of meaning, but in this instance, it was actually that the OS didn't know what OS it truly was.
I gave the guy the computer, dealt with his snobiness even though I've lead a team of Technology Specialists for my company in the past, just because I was tired of dealing with it.
The idiot tells me I need to update the drivers. I should have know right then what was up and just asked for him to put his USB drive down and back away from my computer slowly. Instead I figured, what the hell, maybe he'll accidently stumble on some unintelligible glitch in my OS.
I should have gone with option A.
$50 later, my computer still is not fixed, and Best Buy refuses to refund me because he managed to regain bluetooth functionality. I didn't even realize bluetooth was impaired. I certainly didn't ask him to repair that. I'm glad he did... but not $50 glad he did. I had the drivers for it on a disk. I could have done that myself.
So here I set, with my limited laptop. = (
Oh yeah... Dell's datasafe harddrives... let's not even go there. When I called Dell about the issue they told me I had one and how to use it. It turns out that, though it is supposed to automatically keep a running image of the PC backed up... The software for this is not factory installed and comes on a separate disk, which I never installed because the disk says right on it that it is supposed to be installed already. When I told this to the lady at dell, she was like, but we sent a mailer out to customer's to explain that it wasn't. I received that mail 4 days after talking to her. phoenominal.
Now, Dell wants me to call Microsoft. I don't want to call those bastards. I'd rather drive up there. They probably woldn't let me through the doors though because I am carrying a Dell laptop, which is essentially a bomb, with it's beautiful battery drama.
Long story short, I called anyway, MS told me to call Dell because they provided me with the wrong drivers on the restore disk, the Dell rep told me that I needed to call MS again. I called Apple. It appears that I can get a $130 discount on a new macbook through my employer. I'm thinking that may be the way to go.
Posted by Decemberice at November 25, 2006 01:20 PM