Black champaign by MS+HP

General Discussion (off topic) Anything and everyt
#1

Hi, all.
Here’s a story I like to share with the community…

I’ve been trying to install XP Pro to my new HP Pavilion a6230l, lately.

…being a self proclaimed “advanced PC user”, I boot the PC with my new XP Pro CD, and start deleting the partition (160GB; as it comes formated in FAT32), and split it in two partition (NTFS).
The XP installation went fine, until… it’s time for the drivers configurations.

So I search for every official CD that came with it.
And found one that labeled as the utilities for HP Pavilion.
So I put it in, and direct the Hardware Manager to search the drivers from that CD…
…and it found NONE!

…OK, then. I thought, maybe it comes in a ZIP container, so I need to do it manually…
To my surprise, there’s only a few folder in it. And as I browse through it, I found out, that the CD only contained multi language conformity usage documents.

I went back to every box the PC’s came with, and start re-searching for additional CD…
…and found 2 blank Lightscribe CDs.

My heart start to pump faster than it should, and it start to push the panic button silently…

…trying to calm my self down, I call the shop where I bought the PC is.
…they said “every single HP product does not come with an additional drivers CD. But if you need the driver, you have to download it manually from HP’s official website…”.
…nearly on my knees, I told the CS “…how can I download the driver, when even the internal Ethernet Card doesn’t get recognize by the system?”
And calmly she replied “Sir, you need to download it from a different computer of course…”

…and that’s just activated my berserk mode to the customer support there…

…after I calm my self, down… I decide to call the HP Center.

…with every robotic operator information, another weird feeling lurking behind my neck…
…the robot operator speaks in Malaysian…
And when I say “Hi” to the customer support there, and start talking in Indonesia’s tongue, the CS cuts me through with “Err… Sir, can you speak in english?” (HUH!? WHAT??)
…confused, I ask the operator “…is this Indonesia’s HP support center?” which she replied “This is HP support center - for South East Asia region, Sir”. (OMG!!! I just make an international call with a local number!!!; the number I dial is a local number. Not an international number!)
…immediately I put the phone in it’s place.

So, I decide to skip going to work, in order to get my PC’s drivers from a nearby net cafe…
Browsing to HP.com, and input my PC’s type, does give me a driver download link result.
And I click it.

…there’s only one list “Microsoft Windows Vista”.
…I scroll to the bottom of the page, re-input my PC’s type, re-search for a global result, everything…
And there’s no XP driver for my PC!!

What in the name of…
How come HP’s does not provide XP’s driver for my new PC???
How come the XP’s driver CD does not come packed with the PC???
…who the hell, needs a CD that explain “the comfort way to deal with your PC” thing???

Later, I found out, that all the drivers are stored at HDD’s root; with no notice or warning what so ever!! And there’s no way you can re-obtain it again.

…and now I’m stuck with their slow replied support forum, and my boss wrath!

God help me.

#2

Oh, that’s some really bad service from HP, drivers should be included. Also for XP, since it’s the most used OS. I build my computer myself, so drivers are included with its hardware.

Cheers,
Ragwing

#3

well i have an ASUS notebook which had Vista on it (by that time it was new), so i quickly realized that this wanna-be-perfect OS isn’t something i want to see every day. So i took my old XP Home install CD (legitimate of course, with these beautiful holographic thingies) but once it loaded the setup - Windows told me to suck a c#ck 'cos i had no SATA drivers. So i googled, found the drivers, nlited them into the Install CD, burnt it (it’s still legitimate! :-))) and tried to install again. This time everything worked, i installed XP Home, installed SP2 and then… Then i found out that my disk has only Vista drivers. Surprisingly, some of these drivers actually worked under XP! Some, but not all. The official ASUS site is absolute ■■■■ (!!! OMG I HATE ASUS SITE!!!), and all i managed to find were these Vista drivers, no XP ones… I downloaded and installed drivers for my Santa-Rosa chipset from Intel site and finally got my wifi working and i suddenly thought - ASUS has similar notebooks with XP and probably same hardware, maybe give it a try? After spending two days on ■■■■■■ ASUS site (download speeds drove me literally crazy) i finally got all my devices working (i had to manually install my graphics card - that is MANUALLY - through device manager i chose the right driver from the list of all known devices)… But now everything works! Anyone still talking about hardware incompatibility problems in Linux? :-))))

#4

Actually, this is my 3rd Core 2 Duo installment.
I built the other 2 (Core 2 Duo; ASUS based) by my self.
…but, since I’m a freelance tech support with a lot of client using HP desktop, so… I though it’s a good practice to have one, and get experience from a live test.
Sadly, this little experiment of mine, backfire and slap me hard this time.

Still… I think it’s not right to not included the CD driver along with every PC’s purchased.
This practice are so familiar with the RIAA; where they create DVD regions and every similar ■■■■ like it.

It is our right, where we want to play the DVD we bought. And that goes with our PC too.
It is our right to have the CD driver for our PC.
…after all, HP’s charge me double the price, then my regular do-it-yourself PC.
…makes me wonder…where all that money goes…
I mean, I can build my own PC’s (with far more superior hardware+extensions than what’s included by HP in Pavilion a6230l) with just $473; while HP sell theirs at $999.
That’s just crazy!

Oh, well…
Gotta live with it.

#5

this is standart policy - if you can do it yourself - you pay less, if you are a dummy and don’t understand a thing in all these jumpers and AGPs - pay money :-)))
DVD regioning is an anti-piracy measure, but since it is not effective and leads only to problems with LEGAL customers - why they still use it?!
same goes to Vista - M$ forces hardware vendors to support only the “new shiny Vista”. I’ve already begun looking at Linux systems some time ago, but after this hemorrhoid with finding XP drivers i am seriously considering to switch to *nix platforms…

#6

Anti-piracy, lol? Anywyas, there’s reigon-free DVD-players nowadays.

It’s strange vendors don’t support Windows XP anymore, as it probably will be around for at least 7 more years.
And as an example, some companies like Realtek still releases AC’97 drivers for Windows 95, which is 13 years old, while some don’t support XP, which is only 7 years old.
Also, Microsoft will support Windows XP until 2014 more years, so why wouldn’t the vendors continue to support XP?
And well, Microsoft would earn a lot from this, as there’s around 360 million using Windows XP (according to Wikipedia it was 400 million in 2006, so I guess it dropped some due to some being converted to Vista and possible other OS’), If 360 million would convert to Vista, they would earn billions, so they have a very good reason to get people to buy Vista.

Cheers,
Ragwing

#7

I think the expression is “you hit the nail on the head” with that one ragwing

Also i think M$ makes about an extra 30$ for supplying a “premium” vista package over the basic home,so guess which one all the computer makers are pushing?

Long live XP

Nice 1 Matty

#8

Today I’ve check HP’s download website for additional drivers for my client.
Which is a 8 months old released Pavilion a6130l.
And guess what? There’s a Linux driver, but none for XP!
I can’t believe things like this happens in this modern day of our lifetime…

I mean… why do you have to miss-lead/guide everyone to the other direction. Sure, they are the giant. But, come on… Computer users are not that stupid.
I love how Melih thinks about his customer; we’re not stupid, and we no how to “make you payback for you’re bad deed” stuff.

…sooner or later, words of this black champaign will spread throughout everyone’s email, IM, blogs, etc; you name it. And when that time is come… uuf, MS & HP will pay it dearly.

Even nowadays we got the beautiful UBUNTU that rivals (beats?) Vista in most department. Packed UBUNTU on a Do-It-Yourself CPU, and you got half priced powerful PC.

What next? How long are they going to manipulate their user?