Today I boot up and a balloon pops up and tells me I have an illegal copy of Windows installed on my computer . I guess Compaq or Staples is ripping off Bill. (not) I will let you know the outcome after I call Microsoft or HP. Stay tuned, as I'm sure it is going to be a good one.
Illegal Vista OS
I desided to call HP / Compaq to see what they say about the illegal Vista OS. After speaking to their computer with pretty good voice recognition I was connected to a very hard to understand low audio speaking young lady. She ask several questions about the computer (that I had to have repeated several times) then took control of the computer. She made several changes & had me reboot the machine. After the reboot I did not receive the message telling of the OS was illegal. She tried to sell me an extended warrenty but I declined the offer as it was $139.00, this was 1/4 the price paid when purchased when new. (too much) I hung up the phone and rebooted again. After opening thr FireFox browser the computer locked up. I had to shut it off with the power button. I restarted and now I am typing this paragraph in NotePad getting ready to send it to the Blog. I will now save it just incase it locks up again. I opened FireFox again and now pasting and typing to the blog. All seems fine so maybe it is fixed. I will tell you I am impressed with HP's customer service as I have called them two time now and they seem to fix the problem and the wait time is short. Till next time - Stay tuned for the next episode of the Vista nightmare !
The saga continues
I was out for one hour but when I returned The balloon was on the screen informing me of the illegal copy of Windows installed on my computer. I called HP again and was told all I had to do was validate Vista. I was given a phone number to Microsoft. I called the 800 number and stayed on hold for about 10 minutes. A fellow with a very hard accent wanted to know my full name, phone number, then my email address. After saying could you repeat that about 20 times I tryed to tell him I wanted to activate Vista. He transferred me to some nice music for a few minutes then came another person I could not understand. I had to go threw the complete thing as before, then he ask what could he help me with today. I told him I just wanted to activate Vista then he told me he would transfer my call so I could do that. BE Bop tones sounded and I was disconnected. I called back and went threw all the name phone number and email address again. I was then transferred to another department that ask all the same questions again. At last I thought I had a young lady that could help me, but no she said she did not do Vista. Enough is enough, I went to the old stand by Google and started searching for my problem. On the second page I found the answer. Another fellow had posted the same problem and below was the answer ! I installed a firewall a few days ago just like he did. It is not compatible with Vista, and when un-installed the problem was fixed.......... I think.... So far. I wasted two hours on the phone and got nowhere with the people that should have had the answers. To end this mess I just want to say I thought the OS Microsoft "ME" was bad, it don't hold a candle to this thing called Vista. Do not load Vista till you are forced into it.