...Copies of its dodgy software? :-P

Maybe someone should mention that to HP et al...

This is fraud, so I take it the Police will now be prosecuting. This is not the same as someone downloading a dodgy copy, people have been ripped off. Unless of course they knew they were gettign one, then tough.

"Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs."

You mean like the way Office comes with bugger all than a empty DVD box with a bit of paper with a license number on it?

Come on MS, not giving users there own backup discs was a utter pain in the backside when the user themselves wanted to reinstall. And all it ended up doing was getting users running off to Wonky World etc and buying a copy of Office Home & Student on the cheap and using it for there business! The licensing system is a fecked up mess, and needs sorting out!

Trying to explain why that one man shop needs to pay £350 for Office when you have this Home one here for £100 is just insane, and does nothing but make the consumer utterly annoyed, and make the retailer look the bad guy...well until we pass them onto Open Office with a friendly install fee!

Anyhow, good on them for cleaning up some of the scumbag pirates out there :)

>if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it

>should come with proper documentation and backup discs...

When was the last time THEY bough a frigging computer? My Apples came with backup discs, yeah, but my WinXP netbook? No. My Sony laptop? No. My Compaqs? No. Just a stupid sticker on the case and some weird 'make a backup yourself with your own CD's' app.

And as for Documentation - stupid wall chart showing where to stick your mouse and two bits of folded a4 telling you what the START button did. Do they actually have ANY clue?!?

"Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs"

Someone should tell the major OEMs who don't seem to provide the OS on CD anymore, rather on a restore partition. Great, until your drive dies, or u want to use the whole drive or another OS for a while...

"Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs."

What a load of Bull.

I have bought legal copies of computers using Vista from Acer and Dell. (not for me you realise, I use the penguin) No CD provided or even that stupid leaflet from the CD case. Just the Pc and it's sticker, no disks, booklets etc.

When asking where my CD of Vista went, I was told that you don't get one, if you want one you need to use the utility in vista to burn one. This is common business practice.

How is a newbie meant to know that. So please M$ go and tell Acer, laptopsdirect, tesco direct and Dell about this rule.

"The company does offer consumers, but not businesses, a replacement service if they find they've unwittingly bought dodgy software"

O'really?

I suspect that the majority of end users with dodgy Windows buy it "pre installed", same as the legit ones do.

The replacement program appears not to help anyone who's bought a PC with a dodgy copy of Windows, ie it's about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

When a neighbour bought a PC at a fair (NOT my idea) and WGA later said "dodgy, please fix", MS wanted £100 or so for a CD to "fix" it (I made that phone call, not the neighbour). I knew an OEM CD would be cheaper but MS assured me that the CD they supplied would ensure that the existing system passed WGA without a reinstall.

MS had of course lied to me, a reinstall was needed, so my neighbour wasted money on the MS CD, and I wasted time doing the reinstall. Way to win friends and influence people, Bill.

(The original supplier had ceased trading, so no recourse to them).

"We recognise that we weren’t installing Microsoft software correctly"

I must remember that one next time the anti-pirate plod come a sniffing....

"did you download that movie file?"

"perhaps, but I may not have installed my software correctly"

"OK, move along then..."

"Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs."

You what?

When did any volume PC manufacturer last ship documentation and backup discs? It's all online docs and recovery partitions these days.

And a major part of the reason it's recovery partitions rather than Windows install discs is MS pricing policy with the big boys.

Maybe that would have been worth mentioning in the article.

This is good.

When Microsoft tolerate piracy, it harms their competitors. Given the choice of Microsoft Office for £500, Cheap Office for £50 or OpenOffice.org for £0, there is no way John Thomas is going to choose Microsoft. But when Microsoft Office can be had for £0, it becomes much harder to sell a £50 office suite; so the vendors of Cheap Office end up going out of business due to piracy, even without anyone making a single pirate copy of Cheap Office!

I'd really love to see a piracy clampdown against home users, but I bet that's never going to happen. John Thomas is never going to pay £500 for Microsoft Office, and Microsoft know that -- so it's no skin off their nose to let him pirate it. And as long as John Thomas is already used to Word and Excel, any company where he gets a job will buy Microsoft Office rather than a competing product, because "it's what their staff already know".

If most home users had got used to OpenOffice.org, businesses would want that instead. Pirate copies of Office are providing free Office training. Microsoft are doing well out of rampant piracy.

I normally build my own pc's but any machines that I have seen very clearly prompt the user to creat a recovery disk and if they chose to skip past the message and not bother reading it is their mistake not the company that sold the computer , also most companies will provide an xp disc if they are contacted for a fairly low price or an XP disc can be borrowed from a friend as there is no problem doing this as long as people use their own valid license

no matter where people get a PC from if it has windows and the company is legit and reputable it WILL have an XP licence somewhere either stuck to the PC or with documentation

I am really please to see a few companies near me that have been caught by this as I hate it when people tell me that they get a WGA problem and I find that some useless PC shop has installed a dodgy copy of XP even though the OEM license key is stuck to the side of the machine and more often than not it is not even the correct version , ie they have installed media centre or professional when the license is for XP ome

and sorry AC but if people aren't capable to using the MS prompt to change the licence key then they should pass it to a more competent IT guy or read one of the many pages available from google - http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5034890.html

if the version is incorrect then it is unfortunate but in the same way a w98 key doesn't work for Vista it is just tough and maybe you should blame the installer of the pirate copy not MS

"Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs."

HP, Dell, & *every* other major name-brand dealer on the market hasn't given a proper set of restore media in almost a *decade*.

They use online documentation for effectively all their "Help", supposedly so they can keep the docs "as current & accurate as possible", but realistically so they don't spend the few pennies per machine to burn the docs to a disk..

They use "restore partitions" & tell the *USER* to create their own copies of the partition; the Customer has to buy their own media & burn their own recovery disks.

And *IF* they offer restore media at all, they charge extra to get them.

I purchased an HP HDX18, arguably one of the top-of-the-line laptops on the market, and despite the amount I paid for it, there was *zero* restore media included.

A Restore partition yes, but no included back-up disks.

So, MS, unless you're going to demand your OEM's include the media from now on in EVERY system they sell, your advice is completely out of touch with reality.

WE. DON'T. GET. RESTORE. MEDIA. YOU. IDIOTS.

>Microsoft reminds businesses and consumers that if they buy a computer with software pre-loaded it should come with proper documentation and backup discs.

A good while ago, friend bought a PC from NEC, no backup disks, make your own from the backup partition etc etc.

BUT the system did not have a cdr just a cdrom drive!! Its bad enough that they expect you to make your own, it's even worse when they know that you can't !

lol, people should realise that microsoft software is dodgy anyhow regardless of cost . they have spent millions on court cases mostly defending actions brought. so they obviously are feeling the pinch a bit. retailers have no excuse thou for being naive or simply plain criminal smaller outfits do it to offer cheaper deals larger outfits are simply poorly run mostly.

PC has the same problem Piers has. These programs don't work after one use (and where do you back it up to?). When I bought my HP PC 10 years ago, I got a recovery disc AND backups too. Looks like the same thing they did with manuals. Cost cutting at the end user's expense? Surely not.... Here's a novel idea, how about giving folk the discs, have a pre-install Windows (with nothing else on it) and let them put their own stuff on instead?

No doubt the Install and Backup disks will be available, free of charge, at the new Microsoft Stores soon to open near an Apple Store near you!

Snigger.