Dell Computer Corporation Complaint - Customer Service Nightmare - MS Office

Posted by MRM on 2009-07-01:

If all else fails, just download Office 2007 on a torrent website. And while you're visiting a torrent website, get your free copy of Windows 7! And Ken also has good advice!
NOTE: These advice are for educational purposes only.

Posted by Anonymous on 2009-07-01:

You are supposed to create the disks yourself, as part of the setup process. On the dells I use, they not only prompt you to do this, they nag you until you do.

Posted by star1234 on 2009-07-01:

Thanks for the advice....really??? I was supposed to make copies of the porgrams? There was no prompts to do that...AND when I backed up my system for the possible dreaded crash no programs were transferred. The tech who looked at my hard drive in the aftermath said that he could not "mirror" the data. Individual data files could be retrieved, but no programs. There was some kind of special process that Dell installed so that I could copy a program??? Hummm....never heard of it. The techs at Dell said I had a disk sent to me...no mention of copies. Maybe the process changed at some time.

Posted by Anonymous on 2009-07-01:

Actually, you never mentioned the programs. The recovery disk allow you to load up the drive, and return the machine to factory defaults. Thsi will include any freeware that came with the machine when you bought it, but not anything you have installed. You'd have to reinstall those programs. Hopefully, you are a do-bee and back up all your data to an external source, so that would be OK too.

Posted by Soaring Consumer on 2009-07-01:

Do you have the receipt or anything with the license key? If so you could download it from Microsoft's website and then activate it with the key.

Posted by bcd on 2009-07-01:

The instructions direct you to make a set of backup discs before using the computer for the first time.

Posted by PepperElf on 2009-07-01:

bcd is right.

i had that issue with my last compaq laptop. ... the CDs i made were fine except for the last one. i put a label on it incorrectly and then pulled the label off. it pulled off the data!

granted i did get a restore disk from the company after i explained why my own disks wouldn't work.... but it took a good hour on the phone talking to them for it.

Posted by star1234 on 2009-07-01:

I think a big stumbling block for Dell on this one is that they can't just get me a new copy of Office 2003 as 2007 is now the standard. I didn't buy 2007 so they won't cough up for it.

Regarding copying programs onto disks from my computer...can you do that??? I have never been able to copy a program. It doesn't make sense that I could. If I could then I could just make copies and give them to my friends.

Thanks for all the great feedback.

Posted by bcd on 2009-07-02:

No, you should not attempt to copy the installed programs. The instructions direct you to use the supplied disc copy program to make a set of restore discs. This set of restore discs you have created will give you the ability to reinstall the operating system and applications that came with the computer.