Okay, so I have a cousin who recently bought (despite my advice not to) a Toshiba laptop, preloaded with XP Home, from FutureShop. Although I didn't bother to enquirer as to what the final price tag was (in order to save giving myself a stroke), she said that she got it for a good price (which I highly doubt, as any half ass saleperson in the world should be able to read the "sucker" moniker stamped across her forehead) and because it was a demo model. At this point in time I think everyone's alarm bell should be going off (sort of just like Homer's "Dental plan...Lisa needs braces....Dental plan....Lisa needs braces"...Yet, in this case just substitute in "Demo model" and "cousin needs functional laptop").
Installed on the bloody thing were all kinds of lame demos etc. Additionally there were 5 or 6 profiles set up, of which a couple just won't delete properly. Files and drivers seem to be scattered everywhere. There's like a thousand stupid ass services running too, half of which I have no clue as to their function and would have to spend some time at Blackvipers site to figure them out. Her internet connection seems to drop out unexpectedly at random times too.
I have been given the charge of correcting this situation. Personally I would like to return the stupid thing, but that unfortunately is not an option available to me. So, being as it is, I would be far more comfortable by just wiping the drive clean and, starting from a clean slate, properly configure the machine for her.
Problem -> laptop only comes with those Restore CDs, and not the actual XP Home CD. Additionally (but much less of a problem, and really just a hassle then anything else), I would have to download the 3 trillion post SP1 hotfixes for her.
Statement -> I thought I read somewhere a long time ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away) that if you got a Laptop/Desktop preloaded with XP, you could approach the retailer and ask for a legitimate copy of XP and they where obliged to provide access to the original XP discs for you to reinstall the OS.
Question -> Have I been smoking crack again, or is such a possibility exist. I really don't want to ferret every little ghost out of that machine.
Installed on the bloody thing were all kinds of lame demos etc. Additionally there were 5 or 6 profiles set up, of which a couple just won't delete properly. Files and drivers seem to be scattered everywhere. There's like a thousand stupid ass services running too, half of which I have no clue as to their function and would have to spend some time at Blackvipers site to figure them out. Her internet connection seems to drop out unexpectedly at random times too.
I have been given the charge of correcting this situation. Personally I would like to return the stupid thing, but that unfortunately is not an option available to me. So, being as it is, I would be far more comfortable by just wiping the drive clean and, starting from a clean slate, properly configure the machine for her.
Problem -> laptop only comes with those Restore CDs, and not the actual XP Home CD. Additionally (but much less of a problem, and really just a hassle then anything else), I would have to download the 3 trillion post SP1 hotfixes for her.
Statement -> I thought I read somewhere a long time ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away) that if you got a Laptop/Desktop preloaded with XP, you could approach the retailer and ask for a legitimate copy of XP and they where obliged to provide access to the original XP discs for you to reinstall the OS.
Question -> Have I been smoking crack again, or is such a possibility exist. I really don't want to ferret every little ghost out of that machine.
