Posted by Bill's News on 01/12/25 11:39

NFord wrote:
> "Tonester" <none@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:mixGf.16097$vU2.6720@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>>
>> "NFord" <nrfordsbcnwsgrp@REMOVE_THIS_cardsharkgames.com> wrote in
>> message news:fVuGf.4061$rL5.2861@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...

<snip>

>> Not too good! That's not an XP disc, that's a Dell reinstallation
>> CD, not a Windows XP CD. Notice there is no hologram on the front.

>
> Your original post, above, said:
> "If you ever have to reinstall, you're screwed."
>
> The CD says: "use this CD to reinstall the operating
> system." (WinXP).
>
> If the CD reinstalls WinXP, how am I screwed?
> Why do I care if there is a hologram on it?
>
> I'm sure you must have a reason for your statement,
> and I apologize for being slow to grasp it...

For what it's worth: My first PC purchase, after XP came to be,
included an actual MS WinXP HE SP0 disc. It didn't appear to be a
mistake on the part of the VAR, as there was also a driver disk
enclosed.

Subsequent purchases from DELL & Toshiba came with their VAR discs
which are/were customized (contained myriad adverts and trials and a
necessary driver folder) for the specific PC and were respectively SP1
& SP2 versions. On both of these systems I have reinstalled with
either the VAR disk or the MS disk with only subtle differences. And
in the latter case I needed to use the VAR disk to fetch the drivers,
but I did not need to delete as much promotional and useless crap from
the system after installing. The differences seem to relate to
installing SP1 & SP2 on top of the SP0 disk vs. installing only post
SP2 patches on the Toshiba. In the case of the Toshiba VAR SP2 disk,
I'd say the system operates a tad better than the MS SP0 disk with
upgrades from thier site.

Presently this system, a Toshiba P35 laptop, is running on a reinstall
from the VAR disk with all VAR supplied extras deleted.

At least one friend has a recovery disk which she needed to create
herself, from a partition installed by the VAR on the hard drive.
Sadly, there were no obvious instructions that it was necessary to do
this and we only became aware of it when I asked, "where is the disk?"
After burning several "backup" CDs, she's yet to feel the urge to
reinstall.

I doubt very much there is any validity to the paranoia regarding VAR
disks and the presence or absence of laser hologos. But I do
recommend cleaning your system after reinstall from a VAR disk.

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