...I always thought this was a myth....

[elobscuro.livejournal.com]

...and that it was restricted to AOL...

I got a call yesterday from a woman who owns a PC from The Company Wich Must Not Be Named. Asked for a service tag or express service code. She asks, "Do *coughGateway*coughs have service codes?" The situation being, she purchased a *coughGatewaycough*, didn't like the OS, so decided to use the OS reinstall CD from her TCWMNBN to upgrade to XP. Effed it up to hell and gone. Called Microsoft, Microsft told her to call TCWMNBN. In the words of the immortal Jon Stewart, "Whaaaa?"

Comments

[methedras.livejournal.com]

... yeah I'm lost on this one. Heh.

[tmercenary.livejournal.com]

Since I work the company's internal helpdesk, that means we support machines that are company owned, and issued to people for doing "WORK."
Granted, everyone surfs, goofs off and what not. But some people have called asking how to get games/other non company software installed.

Or even better, they try to get help with thier home computer.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

I see your mood listed as drunk... can you repost this when you're sober so we can understand wtf you're talking about? What the hell is tcwmnbn?

[microchip.livejournal.com]

I was about to ask that one!

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

We support Company A.

Customer bought computer from company B.
Customer didn't like OS that came with company B's computer.
Bought OS from Company A.
Frelled it all up, called up MS for support.
MS found out she bought it from Company A, referred them to us, despite having a company B machine. Thus, we cannot support.

Got it?

[jecook]

Love the icon.

I love the look on people's face when I proceed to remove whatever non-company software they've installed (usualy some form of internet games which have come in "free", along with a bunch of adware and spyware) without asking.

It's in the policy book, but people still try.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

ahhh... now i get it. After your clarification I reread the post and it looks like the customer used Dell CDs on a gateway. How the Dell CDs even got past the "For Dell PCs only" screen for the customer to actually do any damage is beyond me. Those CDs are usually locked down pretty tight. MS should have been smart enough to direct her to Gateway instead of Dell. I remeber the days of working Gateway support (scary days), about half of the customers had the recovery CDs. and about 20% of the half who did not have the CDs would ask me if Dell CDs would be ok. These people do not deserve the right to use computers. ugh.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

pshhh for dell's only my ass.

those things are straight-up windows CDs, they just don't usually ask for a COA.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

actually they are image disks and check the bios for manufacturer info.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

The Win98 disks are, and yes they are tied to BIOS(en?). XP, 2K, (ie - non-archaic OSs) are not image disks.

unless your company ordered them that way.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

Are you talking specifically about the Dell CDs? I know Gateway uses both for XP. Also Acer uses image disks for XP.