A friend of mine recently purchased a secondhand computer with Windows Vista installed on it. Thankfully they knew that this was a beta, evaluation version of the software. They were able to remove it and install something else.
Can you imagine, though a total newbie buying a secondhand computer with Vista on it thinking that they’re getting the completed, latest version of the Windows operating system. They’ll get a shock when someone tells them what they’ve actually got.
I’ve also had an elderly couple (clients of mine) who bought a secondhand computer with Win XP on it but didn’t get the OS cd with it. Now that their pc is experiencing problems they don’t have XP to reinstall.
I believe if this came from a computer shop where OEM was what they said you were getting and you did not get proper software then I would be reporting them to BSAA. If you want an ethical IT industry then you have to enforce it when you see it
CD-less installs is becoming more and more common. Although this situation was most likely a pirated copy, the last three computer I have purchased have only included a “restore” CD which only activates a small utility to restore an image from a backup partition (although in my latest laptop, the utility is built in to the BIOS so I dont even need the CD).
I think this is extremely stupid.. what happens if the drive crashes and needs replaced, or a rather nasty virus infects the entire disk?