[Novalug] Laptop question again.

[Subba Rao]

Thank you to everyone who replied.  I am still (sort of) surprised that there are no CDs to reinstall M$ Windows.  The salesman said it is to beat piracy.  If you create a backup copy of the image, how will that help beating piracy?

I am still leaning towards HP laptops.  They seem to be the only ones with good price/value for a dual HD laptop.

Regards,

Subbarao


Stephan Greene <ks1g04 at gmail.com> wrote: On 3/31/07, Jason <novalug at jasons.us> wrote: I haven't seen any laptop (or desktop, for that matter) come with an OS
CD for several years.  What they usually do is have a partition on the
HDD with the OS on it that you use instead.  It's a PITA.
 

I can't speak for their laptops, but the 3 HP/CPQ desktops we have at home all came with a rescue partition with the full WinXP installation; they also came with software to create install CDs at the user's option.  Finally, you can order installation disks from HP for a nominal sum if the rescue partition gets damaged.  This saves HP/CPQ etc lots of money managing CDs with each system and only irritates those people who don't trust on-system rescue media and feel they shouldn't be paying twice for it.   

The re-install partition or CDs will restore the system to original factory condition (followed by hours of fun downloading several years of patches and reinstalling all your apps and data and delivery of stern lecture to teen #1 on the need to practice "safe computing".  Loss of car priviliges DOES seem to make an impression!).  No idea if/how the policy has changed for Vista, and while I'd expect a salesperson at BB, CC, etc. to know, I would not be surprised if they didn't or had wrong info.  HP's website should have definitive info. 

To the original question re: dual-booting Win/Vista and Linux, it should still be possible to do so without fubar'ing the factory installation.  At a minimum, you could run a CD-based distro to get started, or use VMWare or similar.   


Steve

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Steve Greene  ks1g04 at gmail.com   <kay ess one gee zero four>@gmail.com
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