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Frustration, How Do I Number Thee
By Larry Hendrick | July 16, 2005
I spent the better part of the morning on a task that should have been fairly easy to do. I wanted to take a copy of Windows 2000 Pro and install it on a hard drive I use in a file server here at the house. I needed to connect it to a Windows desktop to make this easier, so I headed to the office. I scrounged an old HP that had a 300MHz Celeron processor, but it booted when plugged in, so it was elected to be the agent to accomplish the task.
I arrived and connected the hard drive to the cable and pushed in the boot disk with the CD ROM drivers. This shouldn’t take to long…I thought. The little HP fired up and booted to the floppy, and I placed the OS disk in the CD drive and using th DOS prompt navigated to the proper folder and typed in the winnt.exe and…
“this disk is for installing on Dell computers only” popped on the screen.
Huh? I’m not going to use it on this HP, but needed it to load it up, but now this.
Well Google turned up a few suggestions and they were not helpful so I made a new set of boot disks from the 2000 Pro CD, thinking that I could do an end run. Floppies done and ready to use the 2000 boot disk (rather than the Win98 I usually use) and as soon as it got past the bios read, the screen filled with a similar message from the floppy. Since I was not loading it on a Dell, it was not going to allow me to install a fully functioning, fully legal, fully bought and paid for copy of Windows 2000 Pro.
This is the first time I have run into this and I am not amused. This OEM copy of the OS cost me just under $200 with a 3.5 year old laptop that now runs a fully functioning, fully legal copy of XP Pro that was provided by the office. The 2000 Pro disk belongs to me and I want to use it, but the archaic rights management of Dell have prevented it. So much for that project (I have only begun to fight!)
Of course, the other computer manufacturers don’t even bother to include a full copy of the OS with their computers. They offer only a recover disk that will reload the computer like it was from the factory.
Oh the frustration of it all…
Topics: Technology |