Open letter to Mr Dell !

OPEN LETTER TO MR. DELL

A real ‘french expérience’ from a frustrated customer…
Reference : Order n° 559332476 - 06 may 2008

Dear Mr Dell,

I would be much honored you took a minute or two to read my very personal french Dell customer experience. May this help you understand that final customer advice frequently lies in very subtle details.

I’ve recently ‘naïvely’ purchased an XPS1330 laptop computer from Dell France; running your only Dell ‘proposed’ OS for that machine : Windows Vista or nothing.

After installing my regular applications on my brand new laptop, I made my mind (quite rapidly though) that some of my top strategic apps would definitely never work on Vista (or at least, at the expense of too much efforts googling, phoning, hot-lining, writing, mailing etc).
I phoned your support team, but the only answer I got was “Dear Mr Nader, every purchaser of a Dell computer should ensure beforehand that the ordered system fulfills his needs”. Gotcha, that’s the rules. Offenders, please pass your way !

You are required to accept Vista, and you’re nothing else than number 1,567,654,111 (forced) Vista sale. No other choice.

Let me tell you, Mr Dell, this is a major customer frustration. I was staying quietly on the Microsoft side, just asking to go at my own pace keeping WinXP, letting others absorb the Vista too many quirks. Did’nt even dare asking you to install Linux on that machine.

Finally, in a desperate move to get my laptop working, I decided to re-install a brand new, fresh and clean Windows XP system (oh, my kind, my beautiful, my faithful Windows XP). This was of course in full disapproval with your tech support that stated…. “Oh non Monsieur, ne faites pas cela, Windows XP n’est pas supporté par Dell sur cette machine”. I translate it for you … “Oh, don’t do that sir, Windows XP is not supported on XPS1330 computers”.
As you already guess; I hate the “Don’t do that”. No problem, one hour later, done it anyway without your official consent. Hard drive reformatted, XP re-installed, all apps working well.

However, success was not complete…. one little sound driver (a thiny thiny one) desperately refused to install. While all others did, yes, you heard me right, I said ALL others (webcam, cd-drive, graphic card, cpu, disk, fingerprint, trackpad, etc…), obtained through internet (but of course, not at Dell that does not support WinXP!) worked damned perfectly right.

Result : no videos, no jokes, no mp3, no dvd’s, no skype, no … , no system beeps, and more and more and more. A single sound driver, just that damned sound driver and my laptop was lacking today’s most important feature : audition ! Don’t tell me you missed it or I won’t believe you ! “.

As a matter of fact, you obviously won :
• one more Vista sale (yes Mr Dell, look at your 4 desk aligned flat screen daily stats – 101.597 Vista sales today, and I’m the 101.598th (even though I trashed it to bin upon delivery, you won’t care– it’s a sale)
• one more enraging customer from so little Dell consideration.

So, Dear Mr Dell, as a final moral to that (what I’d like to be amusing) story, I would very very much like you to explain: “Why have you decided to lockdown your customers to Vista if not in a deliberate Microsoft hand in hand move to increase their marketshare with their new bloated operating system everyone fears”

Oh, I think I got the answer. In France, my pretty poor story is the consequence of what we call “Abus de position dominante”. In english, it translates to “abuse of dominant position” or whatever. (let’s put it simple, this is T.R.U.S.T)… Microsoft have been heavily fined (is heavily enough ?) by the European Commission for such practices. Are your own practices helping Big Bill to bypass these measures ?

By the way, should you know of anybody at Dell or Microsoft happening to own a WinXP Sound card driver running on your XPS1330 machine, please, be nice... email it to me !

Sincerely yours,

Cram Redan

 

dont double post their is no need more it, (Gosh i hate one time ponys).

 

Have you looked at the

Windows XP Install Guide @ M1330

 

I love when people blame Dell for things out of their control.

MS is pulling XP out of the marketplace to force people to use Vista. Anyway have you tried running your programs in compatabilty mode?

 

Agree with the last three posts. If I was dell, I'd reply with a big fat "get a clue".

 

If I were Michael Dell and I received this, I would laugh out loud, and then throw it away.

 

true, but u see, idn't someone called udi or something make drivers for for the dell xps to run on xp. why didn't u use those?

 

Dell DOES still sell systems with XP and it is NOT out of Dells control. They are probably getting a nice big fat check for pushing vista on users who don't want it or don't even know they can't use it. MS is already pushing XP support further so why isn't Dell letting customers choose?

Probably the same reason they export all their support to India, to make money at the customers expense.

 

What don't you like about India ?

And if XP is not supported on m1330, it's not supported..
Gasoil is not supported in my car as well..

 

This is rediculous. They offer open source and Ubuntu installed PCs, and they dont force you keep Vista.


Less QQ

 

It is your right to be frustrated, and it is your right to let Dell know why you are frustrated about their product.

By posting here you are complaining to the world and suggesting you have been wronged by Dell.

I'm not convinced you have.

It's interesting how computers are sometimes treated differently than other consumer electronics. I'm trying to think of an analogy...

I want a new DVD player. I find one made by Acme that plays the latest Periwinkle-Ray DVDs but does not claim to play any of my Blue-Ray collection. I buy it anyway... hoping for the best. I try playing my Blue-Ray DVDs in my new player and they don't work. I call Acme and they say they can't help me and explain the product didn't advertise Blue-Ray.
I am frustrated. I take it upon myself to download the firmware for my old Acme Blue-Ray DVD player and put it in my Acme Periwinkle-Ray DVD player. It almost works, but it won't play any audio. I call Acme but they can't provide a solution for me.

Is Acme the problem?
Is this different that the Dell situation?

I'm not trying to be a jerk. Computers ARE frustrating and rarely "just work".
I think you'll find a lot of technical support and suggestions in these forums to get your problems resolved.

Ion

 

What don't I like about India? Horrible support by people who often lie. Outsourcing jobs which are needed here and the fact it's not possible to get anyone higher than level 1 tier support.

 

To the OP - Dell does offer machines with Windows XP. Selecting one on which XP is not supported was *your* choice. If there is a problem here, it is not on Dell's part.

Secondly, I'm curious to hear which apps you are trying to run that don't work. I'm sure there are some, but I can tell you that I've been running Vista 64-bit for a good year now, and I have just not had that problem.

All things considered, your letter strikes me as just sour grapes (from France, no less ). I think their position is valid - it is the customer's responsibility to ascertain the usability of the product for their intended purposes. They did not hide any facts, and if they choose to limit the available OS options to one on a notebook, that is their prerogative. You have the option of choosing a product from any of their competitors, instead.

 

Unless you buy a Mac! (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

 

In the Words of Maddox.. "If Macs "Just work" then explain www.macfixit.com"

 

Sorry to tell you this, but I'm not afraid of Vista nor do I think it's bloated. It's stable, has excellent 64-bit support, good security, rewritten network stack, DX10 support, huge list of supported hardware, very fast application load times with Superfetch, UI rendering is pushed on the 3D graphics card freeing CPU cycles, Aero Glass...

 

*Puts down reading glasses and leans his back against the chair with his arms folded*... After reading his deliberately answered letter... I have nothing else to say but,

99% of the time why a computer gets screwed up is because 99% of the time the user himself is a screw up. So there you have it.

 

LMAO. ROFL LMAO.

no but i still stand corrected that a customer has his or her rights to complain if something just doesn't turn out right - but i not afraid of vista. So get used to it. But macs? Please... there are problems with it as bad as vista/ Go figure.

 

*takes it all*....*freedom of expression* *sigh*

 

A little cheese to go with the French wine?

Do you not have return rights? I knew I was going to have issues with Vista so did lots of homework but no, you should not have too, it should just work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good one Lucanesti!

In the Words of Maddox.. "If Macs "Just work" then explain www.macfixit.com"

One of my favorite Mac hangouts over the years..

 

Letters like this is why Dell probably tossing most straight into the trash can without reading them.

 

well he got a point. I mean dell does force you to buy windows ! maybe you dont even want windows but you like linux or what so ever ? there should be a law that makes it forbidden to force people to buy/get certain software with computers they buy.

How do you think the introduction of vista would have gone if all pc's sold were blanco and didnt get vista ? i think bill wouldn't have even sold a third of how much he sold now of vista !

 

Do these drivers not work?
Link to Sigmatel drivers for XP on Dell site

 

While a computer without an OS sounds interesting how is Dell supposed to help support your hardware?

The whole OS issue here is like asking for ford to sell you a 2008 mustang with a left over 2002 engine in it.

 

ok first i was sceptic of vista myself. i did a new clean install of vista and after turning off uac and indexing.....it is absolutely amazing. it is the smoothest os ive ver seen.. play dx with crysis amazingly. and as for the "open source" who the heck wants frekin linux on theyre system..ive used it it is absolutlely worthless a pieceof trash...just my 2 cents...dude get over your fears and use vista its not bad ata all.