dell customer service is really pissing me off!!!

[gear head]

i have windows media center on my dell, i've been phoning and orderring xp pro for about a week and a half now, the first disk was corupted the second they sent me microsoft office 2006 third time more wrong disks and today i got no cd just the product key i mean come on, do people know what there doing at this place, so i'm very unhappy right now if it's not the right disk tomorrow when it comes again dell just lost a customer, and i'm sending the computer back and buying a mac this is rediculous, plus i'm waiting for my new external drive to come a firewire pci card and xp pro now

[azwun25]

you don't have to get a mac just don't get a Dell!!! tutt

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by gear head

i have windows media center on my dell, i've been phoning and orderring xp pro for about a week and a half now, the first disk was corupted the second they sent me microsoft office 2006 third time more wrong disks and today i got no cd just the product key i mean come on, do people know what there doing at this place, so i'm very unhappy right now if it's not the right disk tomorrow when it comes again dell just lost a customer, and i'm sending the computer back and buying a mac this is rediculous, plus i'm waiting for my new external drive to come a firewire pci card and xp pro now

I would just use their online customer support line.
Why waste time on the phone.

At laast you didn't spend 3k on a MBP, to have it sitting in the shop for 2 weeks to get repaired, like some people.

[GPl]

Yes, DO NOT CALL THEM. The monkeys on the other end are not going to get it. No matter how many times you explain it tothem, they will still be dancing around the office, jumping up and down on the desks, and not hear a word you say. Go online and make your claim/order. Also make sure you give them a fuuck on the survey.

[theblue1]

I had a similar situation because I did not realize big vendors like Dell do not ship OS disks with their products anymore.

First I called Dell SALES -- since I wanted to buy the disc ($10 or so with purchase of the computer). BIG MISTAKE. Because I called sales -- all I got were people who probably wanted to sell me SYSTEMS and couldn't wait to get rid of me to someone else.

After more than an hour and ten minutes I got a thick accented rep and a connection that was so bad I gave up. Really ticked off, I called Customer Support and realized, quickly, that THAT was where I should have gone in the first place.

BUT it STILL took over over ten minutes just to handle shipping me a simple disk. They DID send it, disk and shipping, for free, next day, so maybe that's what took so long to arrange.

Up until then I'd never had an issue with them -- but I'll never get that hour and a half back, if you know what I mean.

(My only actual problem with a machine was with my first laptop, a refurbished unit that has just been a great machine for three years and which I still love, had a rubber foot fall off somewhere the first day or two. I called them and they FedExed a new one the next business day.) So, while, with the exception of the hour plus spent in phone hell, I've been a satisfied customer (I have to say I really like my machines given the givens -- and as someone who built his previous tower, I'm not all that easy to please) I HAVE had a quite nasty glimpse into that SPECIAL HELL some former Dell customers talk about.

_________________

BTW... if you've already gone ahead with your XP purchase, ignore this -- but this whole business about XP Media Center Edition not being able to do recording would seem to be greatly exaggerated.

You DO have to take out the MCE components from your boot profile -- but that's minor compared to the MOUNTAIN of crapware (offerware, nuisanceware, nagware, systrayware, etc) you have to remove from the default Dell install.

There are a thread or two on it over at Harmony Central but they're down for some overhaul or other again, so, maybe you can google later -- try this google search later, if you want: http://www.google.com/search?q=+wind...US176&filter=0

Anyhow, if you know anything about the PC and software industries, it's not hard to figure why people weren't going to do a bunch of product testing for a late-11th hour niche software release -- EVEN if it got dumped onto a bunch of machines for which it was NOT purposed by discount-seeking vendors like Dell and others.

(MCE was SUPPOSED to only be put on machines that were "MCE ready" -- which meant video i/o, firewire, etc. BUT box vendors took the opportunity to buy (presumably) dumped/discounted copies and stick them on regular old machines, in "defiance" of the MCE-spec.)


ANYHOW, you can't blame the DAW and other publishers and manufacturers for not going through the very expensive testing process for MCE. So what you see are statements like: With some tinkering, you can PROBABLY get our software/hardware working with MCE but we don't promise it, good luck!


As far as I can tell, with the MCE components taken out of the boot profile (and all the offerware/crapware uninstalled, of course), MCE is, at core, very similar/nearly identical to XP Pro SP2 -- with some of the corporate-networking utilities taken out. (No IIS server, no support for MS VPNs, can't log directly/easily into corporate networks.)

The stripped down MCE I have running on my tower has a nearly identical process and RAM usage footprint to the XP Home I have running on my laptop.

It works (seemingly) perfectly with Sonar 5 and a whole slug of VST and DX plugs using either my MOTU 828mkII or an old Echo MIA PCI card.

I've read a lot of people -- people with no actual personal experience or apparent knowledge of the facts -- say, What? They put MCE on your machine? Just go out and buy XP Pro and don't look back.


That's the sucker option, seems to me, if you haven't at least TRIED to get things running.

I just get SO tired of people who don't know WTF they're talking about giving others cut-and-dried advice -- particularly when it's likely to be wrong.

Rant over.

[thenoodle]

Just out of curiosity, why in the world would one call Dell to order Win Xp Pro? Are they selling it for $5 or something? Most retail outfits are selling XP Pro for about the same prices anywhere you look. For example Newegg is somewhere around $182 on up depending on whether you're doing standalone or an updgrade...plus you get a free rc1 of Vista which you can either use or throw away.

I don't know what Dell loads up on their pc's for junkware when they sell them, but it seems to me that for an audio application, you'd want a fresh install of a standalone XP Pro anyway...not an update on top of the sludge that's already on the MCE edition. And for that, why not just buy it somewhere like Newegg, install it fresh, download any drivers peculiar to the Dell machine, ghost the system, and then be finished with it. You could've had all that done by last weekend rather than making yourself angry by sitting on the phone.

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by thenoodle

Just out of curiosity, why in the world would one call Dell to order Win Xp Pro?

Because he'll get it for frew from Dell.

BTW, if you get one of their business level computers (desktop or laptop) it comes with CD's.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Henchman

Because he'll get it for frew from Dell.

BTW, if you get one of their business level computers (desktop or laptop) it comes with CD's.

Is that true, you could exchange it?

Why I think I'll get right on the horn and...

[gear head]

i got another wrong disk today, so i was actaully looking into a mac seems i'm more comfortable with them, but i dunno, i look at the recommended dells on digidesign and i can save a lot of money i'm in canada to, i'm just not sure if my dell is going to run pro tools properly and the guy i work with has a mac, so could we swap files so i can take his work home and mix it, would me having a mac be better i dunno you guys tell me

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by gear head

i got another wrong disk today, so i was actaully looking into a mac seems i'm more comfortable with them, but i dunno, i look at the recommended dells on digidesign and i can save a lot of money i'm in canada to, i'm just not sure if my dell is going to run pro tools properly and the guy i work with has a mac, so could we swap files so i can take his work home and mix it, would me having a mac be better i dunno you guys tell me

Mac or PC makes no difference.
If you set it up properly, they'll both run just fine.
Sessiosn are completely interchangeable.

I just finished setting up my new Dell D820 laptop, and it's running great.

[Dr.Wu]

i never found it necessary to tweak or modify the OS on any of the macs i owned.
Just take it out of the box, install whatever software you wanna run and start working.

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by Dr.Wu

i never found it necessary to tweak or modify the OS on any of the macs i owned.
Just take it out of the box, install whatever software you wanna run and start working.

Funny, becasue I didn't tweak anything either.
What's even funnier is how everyoen talks about how easy it is installing the OS.
Well, you know what, installing the OS is the easy thing. Re-installing all the Apps, plug-ins, softsynths, presets, soundlibraries etc., makes installing ANY OS seem as easy as making a cup of tea.