XP without the CDs

I have just returned from an architects practice who ordered on my advice, a Dell Vostro 200 Desktop with XP Pro pre-installed. (I'll go into why Vostros make the best sense in a future post). Microsoft hates XP these days and wants it to go away. Shame the users feel differently. Like other manufacturers, Dell use a loophole in the Vista License to continue offering XP as a 'downgrade'. They charge a premium for this, though, and you'll get a copy of Vista Business as well - but you can't have everything. Unfortunately, in this case I discovered that although XP comes installed, Dell has stopped shipping the XP installation CD - and, even worse, you don't get an XP license key sticker.

After being told by Dell sales and tech support staff that the sales person who took the telephone order must have “made a mistake”, the next person I reached claimed it didn't matter “because support can re-install XP remotely” (they can't) and finally it is because “Microsoft make us do it”. After a lot of bovine excreta I finally got through to a supervisor in support who knows.“It's a big problem, and we are working on it, should be sorted out soon”. I could the hear the pain in the poor chaps voice.

The missing License key shouldn't matter he pointed out, and that should be true, because Dell XP CDs install on any Dell without asking for a key. But should Windows 'Genuine Advantage' (an advantage only for Microsoft) get things wrong and out of the blue suspect you have a pirated copy, you won't have a key to feed it. Its happened before, and even though Redmond's anti-piracy tool has since improved I wouldn't like to bet on its frequent updates never getting things wrong again.

In the meantime, the supervisor said. if you ask support for the missing media they'll post the CD. So now you know: call before you need it.