Lionel, himself
Dell bowed to pressure from customers and dumped its Vista-only policy for consumer PCs by adding Windows XP as operating option on half-a-dozen machines.
“We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings,” Dell said on its Ideas in Action page, a companion to its IdeaStorm site.
IdeaStorm, a site rolled out in February where Dell customers can plead for changes, has been most notable for convincing the Round Rock, Texas company to add Linux as an OS option. The requests for XP started coming a day after IdeaStorm launched.
On Thursday, Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s manager of digital media noted the reversal in another blog entry. “After Tom West’s post that said Dell would offer Windows XP on systems for small business customers, many Direct2Dell readers have commented or sent e-mails asking us to bring back Windows XP for home users as well. Today, we’re doing that.”
The new XP option is available only to U.S. customers. Of course, folks outside the U.S. might wish to send Lionel (lionel_menchaca@dell.com) an email about that?
To bad we can’t ask for a windows 2000 option.
What happened to the idea of asking for no OS to be installed? Perhaps just Dr. DOS just so we know it boots.
LOL – DrDOS – what a great idea!
I do not see what all the fuss is about. I have been buying Dells for years and have every OEM OS disk. I buy a new Dell, format and can legally install any OS I want since I retire the old box.
My brother just bought a Dell with Vista on it. Ther were about four hours of work deleting the junkware they put into it. But with Vista you can get up to four copies of each piece of crap. Take AOL for example, we got rid of the 32 bit version, then the 64 bit version, but it was still there. We found out we had to get rid of the “compatability mode” versions in both 32 and 64 bit flavors. But AOL was just one of many pieces of digital diarea we had to flush……Who the hell uses AOL anyway?
Brian,
While I (and most others) personally don’t have any problem with what you’re doing, I think you’ll find that it’s not _exactly_ legal to do that with OEM versions of Windows (retail versions, sure). An OEM Windows licence is tied to the hardware (ie. motherboard) upon which it’s first installed, and is NOT transferrable to another machine.
Many people do as you do, though, even equating “retirement” of the old machine with “selling it on eBay” — a practice that eBay is currently trying very hard to stamp out.
Dell recently started to deserve some respect. They likely needed to stand vs. MS on this and have some backbone. MS ramming down the Vista on consumers is way too early (example Lockergnome reasons for his Vista abandonment: lack of drivers and software incompatibility; other example are gaming systems, many games choke on the Vista despite good hardware). Hence Dell move makes good sense and I could only wish if MS would learn from it and extend XP offering at least for one more year (ex.1/2009 vs. announced 1/2008).
That photo, is that Eddie Munster all grown up?
It is Eddie Munster.
http://tinyurl.com/36hvvk
They (M$) should have mave a second version of XP, one that integrates the first two service packs and the future third one, plus all that myriad of patches that clog the uninstall folder.
Instead they went the All American car manufacturer style and created an overpriced and overhyped piece of junk.
I’d like to see Dell’s sales data, re: new machines sold with XP vs. Vista. Now _that_ would be interesting.
Chalk me up for an XP purchase. Just bought one last week, and was very happy to see I had an option. Kudos Dell
I am glad to see them offering this choice, I just bought a 17 in. Dell with Vista Preload, and the sky hasnt fallen on me yet. The Horror, The Horror!
The new XP option is available only to U.S. customers.
Not so! It’s available here in Spain and has been so for some time.
I have been around for a while and I do not remember this happening with other new versions of windows. XP is the first windows OS that I have never had to reinstall. I have had to use the go back twice in four years. As long as my applications work on XP I see no benefit in changing. Vista looks to me like it uses more resources and has more DRM. Both of witch in my experence cause unstability.
I asked a sales person IF’ I could get a stripped down version, with Nothing on the machine…
It was told to me, that the Installed software paid for most of the machine, and it would cost MORE without it…
I LAUGHED….
I left, and went home and Built a custom model that Beat the HECK out of the one at the store. For About the same price.
If nothing ELSE, check to see if you can get a BAREBONES/WHITEBOX system fro ANY of these folks…I will bet they WONT sell it that way, and you WONT get any savings IF, they do.
MS $200(OEM is cheaper)
CRAPware – $200(minus)
TRILware – $100(minus)
DEMOware -$50(minus)
Bots/virus/trackers from all the Extra ware…Priceless(esp when you reload the system and need to remove it again, BECUASE the installation INSTALLS IT.)