J
Jeffrey Kaplan
I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 I purchased new from Dell 3 or 4 years ago,
I ordered it with Win2K Pro. It has a set of Dell-provided reinstall
disks, including one for the OS.
This computer has been mostly unused for the past two years, since the
reason I got it went away. I would like to start using it again,
mostly offline stuff. However, when attempting to do so, I could not
use it as it would randomly and frequently lose program focus - I'd be
typing away, and suddenly nothing's happening because the application
focus is no longer on the application I want. It was happening too
often and in no pattern for it to be me even accidentally manually
switching program focus. It also happened while just sitting there,
without me even touching it (I could see the program title bar/border
change colors indicating the loss of focus). This and a few other
oddities decided me to just wipe and reinstall from scratch, there was
nothing on the computer I needed.
So I dropped in the OS reinstall CD and ran it. I opted for a clean
install, it asked me for the product key. There are two Windows
product keys, one on the Certificate of Authenticity and a different
key on the MS sticker on the bottom of the laptop, both were rejected.
On the assumption that it may be rejecting it because I was trying this
from a working copy of Win2K, I booted into the disk and had the
installer reformat the drive with NTFS. It churned merrily along for
an hour or so, first reformatting and then installing core files. Then
it asked me for the product key. Both keys were again rejected.
Called Dell. Cust Support (sounded like I got India, not Texas), and
the lady gave me a third key to try. It too, was rejected.
So now I've got a rather unwieldy paperweight because I can't even
finish installing Windows on it because it's rejecting three legal
Windows product keys. Now what? I cannot spend the $245 dollars for
telephone support or even the $99 they charge for email support. For
that price, I could go out and buy a new copy of XP Home.
--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol
"One is foolish, the other frightened." "Telling which one is which,
that's the hard part." (Amb. Delenn and Vir Coto, B5 "Dust To Dust")
I ordered it with Win2K Pro. It has a set of Dell-provided reinstall
disks, including one for the OS.
This computer has been mostly unused for the past two years, since the
reason I got it went away. I would like to start using it again,
mostly offline stuff. However, when attempting to do so, I could not
use it as it would randomly and frequently lose program focus - I'd be
typing away, and suddenly nothing's happening because the application
focus is no longer on the application I want. It was happening too
often and in no pattern for it to be me even accidentally manually
switching program focus. It also happened while just sitting there,
without me even touching it (I could see the program title bar/border
change colors indicating the loss of focus). This and a few other
oddities decided me to just wipe and reinstall from scratch, there was
nothing on the computer I needed.
So I dropped in the OS reinstall CD and ran it. I opted for a clean
install, it asked me for the product key. There are two Windows
product keys, one on the Certificate of Authenticity and a different
key on the MS sticker on the bottom of the laptop, both were rejected.
On the assumption that it may be rejecting it because I was trying this
from a working copy of Win2K, I booted into the disk and had the
installer reformat the drive with NTFS. It churned merrily along for
an hour or so, first reformatting and then installing core files. Then
it asked me for the product key. Both keys were again rejected.
Called Dell. Cust Support (sounded like I got India, not Texas), and
the lady gave me a third key to try. It too, was rejected.
So now I've got a rather unwieldy paperweight because I can't even
finish installing Windows on it because it's rejecting three legal
Windows product keys. Now what? I cannot spend the $245 dollars for
telephone support or even the $99 they charge for email support. For
that price, I could go out and buy a new copy of XP Home.
--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol
"One is foolish, the other frightened." "Telling which one is which,
that's the hard part." (Amb. Delenn and Vir Coto, B5 "Dust To Dust")