Experience with customer care...

I called last night to get my laptop serviced because the front right speaker stopped working (DV7-4173us with beats audio).

I was using Linux on this machine when it stopped working. I installed Windows just to make sure it was not a kernel driver issue and the issue remained.

I call in and they tell me I need to install the original Windows 7 that came with my machine (I had a retail copy and did a fresh "clean" install). The gentleman from India(?) told me that I would have to purchase the original copy of Windows and this would fix my issues.

I have been working on computers for many many years (since DOS) and have never heard that one version of Windows would be and better then another within the same type of Windows (IE 7). He argued with me for a bit, I remained calm and refused to buy another copy of Windows as I feel I didn't need to purchase a CD full of nagware and bloat to fix my issues, I had already had all the drivers and whatnot I may have needed to make the laptop work fine.

He then made the mistake of transferring me to a customer survey person (whom was introducing himself as a supervisor).

When I was asked if I was happy with the result of the call of course I said no. I told the guy I did not buy a copy of Windows when I bought this laptop from HP, what I was buying was hardware made by HP (and of course others) that came with a 1 year warranty for the hardware and that it should not matter what OS I run on this machine as they should honor the warranty just the same as this is hardware and clearly not software.

He continued to argue the points of OEM Windows vs retail Windows which was all things I knew. Needless to say, I won and they are sending me a box (this was bought in November).

I have used HP products for years! The thing that bothers me about this is if someone like my mother had called, they would have suckered into purchasing a recovery CD (I had to get pretty loud to prove some points).

Needless to say, this has left a bad taste in my mouth and my wife needs a new laptop and I guess it won't come from HP (as I intended it to be).

Just irks me!