Subject: Re: Another: can't *not* buy Win95 on Dell or Gateway
Craig A. Summerhill (craig@cni.org)
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 05:40:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Craig A. Summerhill" <craig@cni.org> Message-Id: <9805040940.AA29580@a.cni.org> Subject: Re: Another: can't *not* buy Win95 on Dell or Gateway To: roundtable@cni.org Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 05:40:15 -0400 (EDT)
Ted Kircher <kircher@realtime.com> wrote:
>
> The reason for this is probably not because of a Microsoft 'monopoly',
> but because a system manufacturer doesn't want to warrent their product
> w/o some operating system running on it which they use to test the
> system prior to shipment. The fact that Dell or Gateway probably only
> support Windows 95 (OS/2?) is a secondary factor.
In the case of Gateway 2000, this is exactly the reason. I've been
told so much by their technical support people (see below). On the
other hand, Ted, don't you think that Microsoft's market penetration has
something to do with the fact that there is no non-Microsoft operating
system that provides a reasonable alternative to support from the
corporation's point of view?
Last time I checked (a few weeks ago) Gateway 2000 offered systems with
Windows 95, including an upgrade to Windows 98 when it ships, or Windows
NT 4.0 Workstation. That was it. At the time we last purchased from
Gateway 2000 (about 18 months ago), I was suprised to see one couldn't
even get a system with Windows NT 4.0 Server on it. It still doesn't
appear as an alternative on their Web site.
I specifically asked the pre-order support person I was talking to about
other operating systems when we purchased four i686/200 machines, and
was informed that loading alternate operating systems on the machine(s)
would void the warranty on the machines. I suppose, if push were to
come to shove, they would honor hardware warranties -- at least to the
point of swapping out components -- if we could demonstrate some
competence in the analysis of the problem. But you can pretty much kiss
off any form of telephone support if you're not using one of the two
"blessed" operating systems. And since vendors like Slackware and Red
Hat don't provide any significant form of technical support for their
Linux products most consumers as well as many small businesses simply
don't have a choice. (e.g. Red Hat provides 30 days of tech support to
address installation questions only -- questions about customization or
configuration are strictly out of bounds. In fact, it is so bad --
Red Hat has just refused to provide us support on a problem that was
created as a result of upgrading their product from version 4.2 to
version 5.0 -- I am considering signing a contract with Sun Microsystems
for Intel Solaris just to get some support.)
The machines we purchased from Gateway were all shipped with Windows NT
4.0 Workstation installed over FAT on the primary IDE drive of each.
Since we were planning on running Linux on a couple of the machines we
purchased, I ended up buying extra IDE drives so that we could setup the
machines with the ability to boot to either Windows NT 4.0 or Linux. We
also formatted one of them with NTFS on the primary IDE drive and
reinstalled Window's NT 4.0 Workstation again on top of NTFS. I was
shocked to discover (the hard way) after four or five months that
Gateway 2000 doesn't even support Windows NT 4.0 if you reformat the
hard drive with NTFS. As it turned out, the Gateway person I was speaking
with was able to help me solve the problem we called about, but when he
discovered that the partition was NTFS he pointed out the configuration
was not supported. Unfortunately for us, that was a catch-22. We had
a 32-bit application that required installation on an NTFS partition in
order to be installed.
> I recently brought a system from a 'hole in the wall' store
I'm sure telephone support is a nightmare for companies like Dell and
Gateway 2000. I know I certainly wouldn't want to have the job. There
are enough problems with these things when you know what internal
components it has. But even worse are the gobs of 'hole in the wall'
configurations out in the world.
Speaking as somebody who purchased for public funded agencies for over
10 years before coming to work for a not-for-profit -- those 'hole in
the wall' deals aren't always that great a bargain. If all you are
about is the bottom line, they look like great bargins. But when
compared based on real technical specifications, they often fail
miserably. The quality of the internal components is often very poor
when you review the specs, if you can even get specs. The state and
university accounting and buying people don't usually understand why
this is, either, in my experience. At least when a consumer buys a
Macintosh or a Sun or a DEC Alpha, they have reasonable assurances about
what they are getting for their money -- and the tech support people
have reasonable assurances regarding the hardware too.
For larger corporate customers, there are third party service providers
who can be contracted to provide post-purchase support. But the reality
for the vast majority of home consumers and small businesses is that
they can't afford subsequent contracting costs just to get support for
their operating system. And based on my experience in having to call
Microsoft every now and then, they certainly aren't spending any of
their profits picking up the slack here either...
The real troubling thing is that I end up using technical support more
today than I did ten years ago. I know a hell of a lot more about
systems than I did then, sure. But system configurations and
applications are getting more complicated, the hardware is a lot more
variable, and networking places new demands on systems in terms of
performance, security, etc. If Microsoft offered a great operating
system that solved a lot of my support problems that would be one thing.
But the truth of the matter is the Windows NT servers we adminster are
the hardest to adminster, are almost impossible to fine-tune from a
performance point of view, and require the most care and feeding to
keep working at all...
--Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer Coalition for Networked Information 21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 Internet: craig@cni.org AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098
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