What the fuck is up with Retail PC's now???

[Imakeholesinu]

Ok, apparently every major retail vendor of PC's (HP, Compaq, Insperion...) has decided to STOP boxing ACTUAL discs with windows on them. Why? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??? I mean seriously. First off, store bought PC's come chaulked full of CRAP software that needs to get removed anyway. Secondly, the average PC user acts like a 2 year old on the internet, which means they are more likely to pick up trojans, malware, spyware and adware, meaning that they usually have to have everything uninstalled and reinstalled about every two months or so.

I'm bitching about this since my friend just bought his parents an HP and the guy sold them one with "A special partition on the drive that acts like the recovery utility." First off, not only does he grasp the concept of this, but this is even beyond me for sheer lack of common sense. If boot sector on drive gets corrupted a) drive won't boot b) no disc to recover c) can't boot recovery partition since boot sector is GONE.

Fucking christ, this is the tech support industry's NIGHTMARE!!!! As users get dumber, so do retail PC manufactures. DON'T PLAY DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL! MAKE THEM COME UP TO YOURS!!!!

I'm going to go cry now.

[Nev]

You shall create a better industry, Barret. It is...your destiny.

(shakes head with cartoony "brurururp" tongue-clicking noise)

Wait, sorry, I was playing FFX. What were you saying?

[Garford]

It has been an industry practice not to package Window installation discs pretty much after XP is out, but not having recovery discs packaged seems kind of odd.

[Kupek]

My Dell laptop came with a copy of XP, so I guess it depends on the vendor.

Then again, I did specifically specify XP Professional.

[SineSwiper]

Specifically specify? Isn't that repetitively redundant?

[Imakeholesinu]

Not as stupidly stupid as it is to not package hard copies of software which you've paid for. The consumer is led to this like a lamb to the slaughter.

[Kupek]

Specifically specify? Isn't that repetitively redundant?

Maybe. Is "specifically ask for" redundant? It means the same thing.

[SineSwiper]

Maybe. Is "specifically ask for" redundant? It means the same thing.

Nah. Specifically means "explicitly set forth; define" and ask means "to put a question to". So, "specifically ask for" means "explicitly set forth in the form of a question".

[Kupek]

Nah. Specifically means "explicitly set forth; define" and ask means "to put a question to". So, "specifically ask for" means "explicitly set forth in the form of a question".

Er, not really. The phrase "ask for" has meaning of its own. You can't just use the definition of "ask" and drop it into the sentence. It basically means "requested." So "specifically ask for" is equivalent to "specifically requested" which is semantically close to "specifically specify." In this case, "specifically" is modifying "specify" to mean that I went out of my way in my selection.

[Oracle]

If the system does not come with Recovery Discs, then it will have a Recovery partition and usually (90% of the time) will have a utility pre-loaded in windows to make actual recovery CDs.

[Imakeholesinu]

Quite frankley the new breed of trojans, malware, and spyware will somehow corrput that new partition, which makes me iffy since you almost ALWAYS have to uninstall and reinstall the current OS in order to get back on track. This, in my opinion only makes it more of a hassel to do this since you do not posses physical discs or actual hard copies of the software which you've paid for.

Fuck retailers.

[SineSwiper]

Quite frankley the new breed of trojans, malware, and spyware will somehow corrput that new partition

Or copies of TurboTax.