Well that's a ... fun way to wake up

[beccaelizabeth]

The computer shop called to explain my copy of Windows XP was illegal because there's a sticker that's legally required and it isn't there and they've wiped the drive and can't actually reinstall anything.

!!! !! !

I could find my Windows 98 papers in the My Computer shelf above the computer but nothing for Windows XP. Which isn't very helpful. So there was a conversation where I suggested they could check for stickers before wiping things and they said maybe I had a cracked copy and it would cost £109 new and stop being supported soon anyway and... then I asked where the sticker should be, because I have a computer graveyard of old cases and parts. They said, old case, phew, probable win! So I had to dig in the computer graveyard behind the bed. And, as it turned out, it was instead in the software graveyard behind the DVDs, because nobody had stuck the sticker to anything. So now the Windows 98 is in the graveyard and the XP is in the My Computer and I feel a teensy stupid. Except if such a thing is necessary I really do think they need to check with the user before they go and mess things up. He said he didn't think of it because there's always a sticker. Well, no, actually, not always.

When just woke up I do not well tolerate being told I need to pay them a lot of money and btw am a software pirate. I reran the conversation in my head and I think it's just of a piece with the computer shop guy being interminably over helpful. He was just explaining all the options the same way he explained all the hardware options yesterday. He didn't mean 'pay us money or we keep your computer broken' he meant 'please find the XP key' but he kept explaining long past that point up the possibility tree. So I guess I been rude.

It's past 11 in the morning, I visited the shop past 10 yesterday, so they could reasonably expect me to be awake. And I have been awake repeatedly, got up for deliveries and... hey, yaays, my Big Finish box of CDs has arrived!

Okay, today has turned into Good again :-)

Comments

[shahar-amar.livejournal.com]

I can't even read half the stickers on the bottom of my laptop anymore. Luckily the Windows one is still ok, but some others are badly smudged/scratched. My old internet cafe/repair shop advised people to take the sticker off the computer casing and put it with the recovery cds and paperwork. So how can this guy at your shop just assume "the sticker is always on the computer"?

[beccaelizabeth]

yeah. makes about that much sense to me too.
I miss the other computer shop. It never had to ask me stuff or tell me numbers.