[ale] Finding desktops, laptops and hardware in Atlanat

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2006-03-13 at 09:54 -0500, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-13 at 09:50 -0500, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > You would not believe the number of people that can't turn up that
> > restore cd collection when the system punts. I'll grant that the main
> > reason for Dell and the like doing it is so they don't have to provide
> > a
> > CD and thus incur the cost of doing so.
> 
> We just got a used laptop and the user did not have a restore CD.  I'm
> not sure what to do if I ever need to reinstall Windoze.  I have the
> license code as a sticker on the bottom but no media.  My guess is that
> a standard copy of home will not recognize that key.

You are probably correct. The key seems to match certain release groups
of the software. In that situation the laptop maker may sell you a
restore CD (usually not if it's more than 2 years old) or you will need
to buy an OS kit for the laptop. OEM kits cost less (Monarch has them
for $165 XP Pro) than retail kits.

My rule of thumb has always been to wipe the drive of a used machine and
install from scratch anyway. So if the system didn't come with
installation CD's of some kind, it was going to get Linux on it.

> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part