Cavalier Ed
05-05-2001, 02:37 AM
Recently I got a new PC at work, part of a contract bundle, the specs are P3 800, 10Gb HDD, 64MBram and Win ME. A colleague brought to my attention (I do computer support)the fact that when he installed MS office 97 all portions except Access would run. Upon investigation the machine said "there is no license for this application on this machine".
I used the Dell online support options and found that there is a registry fix which comes with the Dell support /reinstall cd. This got the application working fine. This provoked some questions;- why did this error occur? It seems a bit short sighted for any pc manufacturer to have some kind of inbuilt license restriction- they do not know what the end user is intending to intall or use.
Ive never seen this kind of error before and I've built and fixed many machines. Can anyone shed some light on the origin of this problem.
Also some general observations on the dell machines -
we got a good price on them as we bought a batch of them
the case is too small- no empty 5.25 bays for install of extra cd-rw or dvd.
-only one empty 3.5 bay (which is obviously for a zip drive, going by the installed software).
-the psu is only 130Watts not leaving much scope for extra devices anyway.
From day 1, the machine wouldnt write to floppy, further investigation led to the conclusion that the MOBO floppy drive controller was goosed. when I contacted the warranty support I was asked to change the ribbon cable leading from MOBO to floppy. I had already done this and changed the drive, which involved swinging the psu out of the way, all to no avail.This was no problem to me but I wouldnt trust many people (especially corporate pc users!)to open the case of their machine.
The support operative agreed with me that the MOBO was faulty and the next day the "Dell guy" was out to replace it. Good service!! there is always a chance that some will leave the factory with some unseen faults.
On the whole not bad machines for use at work but I wouldnt buy one with my own cash. Any comments ??
I used the Dell online support options and found that there is a registry fix which comes with the Dell support /reinstall cd. This got the application working fine. This provoked some questions;- why did this error occur? It seems a bit short sighted for any pc manufacturer to have some kind of inbuilt license restriction- they do not know what the end user is intending to intall or use.
Ive never seen this kind of error before and I've built and fixed many machines. Can anyone shed some light on the origin of this problem.
Also some general observations on the dell machines -
we got a good price on them as we bought a batch of them
the case is too small- no empty 5.25 bays for install of extra cd-rw or dvd.
-only one empty 3.5 bay (which is obviously for a zip drive, going by the installed software).
-the psu is only 130Watts not leaving much scope for extra devices anyway.
From day 1, the machine wouldnt write to floppy, further investigation led to the conclusion that the MOBO floppy drive controller was goosed. when I contacted the warranty support I was asked to change the ribbon cable leading from MOBO to floppy. I had already done this and changed the drive, which involved swinging the psu out of the way, all to no avail.This was no problem to me but I wouldnt trust many people (especially corporate pc users!)to open the case of their machine.
The support operative agreed with me that the MOBO was faulty and the next day the "Dell guy" was out to replace it. Good service!! there is always a chance that some will leave the factory with some unseen faults.
On the whole not bad machines for use at work but I wouldnt buy one with my own cash. Any comments ??