Comment I was going to ask a similar question (Score 0) 629
I've had the misfortune of dealing with HP computer support twice this past month for 2 seperate incidents, both of which would be funny if they weren't so frustrating (ie had happened to someone else).
In the first case, dealing with a 18 month old computer, HP shipped the wrong set of restore disks. Of course, each set of restore disks is somehow keyed to only work with one specific model, so the disks I have don't work. I call HP support and they happily tell me that it's not their POLICY to replace media after 90 days. Even after trying to reason with them this was their screw up asking if they didn't feel it was ludicrous to expect users to format their drives and totally reinstall the software (all within 90 days) to test recovery disks?
My second call, that I made just this morning was even worse. A company that I support went out and bought 2 new HPs with XP on them. Due to user incompatibility they quickly asked me to remove XP and put win98 on them so they'd be in line with the rest of the network here. I called because 98 wasn't able to identify the onboard soundchip and was (again cheerfully) told that by removing XP I'd voided my warantee and it was no longer their problem.
My question ( did say I had a similar question) was- Isn't this a dangerous trend, that computer manufacturers are starting to regard their product as appliances, with no user servicable software parts?
In the first case, dealing with a 18 month old computer, HP shipped the wrong set of restore disks. Of course, each set of restore disks is somehow keyed to only work with one specific model, so the disks I have don't work. I call HP support and they happily tell me that it's not their POLICY to replace media after 90 days. Even after trying to reason with them this was their screw up asking if they didn't feel it was ludicrous to expect users to format their drives and totally reinstall the software (all within 90 days) to test recovery disks?
My second call, that I made just this morning was even worse. A company that I support went out and bought 2 new HPs with XP on them. Due to user incompatibility they quickly asked me to remove XP and put win98 on them so they'd be in line with the rest of the network here. I called because 98 wasn't able to identify the onboard soundchip and was (again cheerfully) told that by removing XP I'd voided my warantee and it was no longer their problem.
My question ( did say I had a similar question) was- Isn't this a dangerous trend, that computer manufacturers are starting to regard their product as appliances, with no user servicable software parts?
