Operating System CD included?

Operating System CD:

I heard from my friend that Lenovo never provide Operating System or recovery CD. I know that window vista is pre-installed in the machine, but no software for the vista.

Is it true?
I know that most laptop manufacturer, such as Dell provides one.

Window is not stable unlike Mac, so I need to reinstall the machine time to time.

I am considering either R-500 or T-500

Any comment is appreciated.

Thanks

 

So why not get a mac and run windows through bootcamp?

 

just get a mac, since you're afraid of some unstability.

you WILL eventually get some errors and you prob dont want that right?

thats what apples are for

 

Vista is far more stable post SP1. You make your own recovery discs. Most OEMs don't include discs anymore.

You shouldn't get a mac for "stability." You should get a mac for the OS if you actually want to use the OS for the OS's sake.

 

It is not. Some of the Dell Business Class notebooks come with Windows discs, but most Dell notebooks do not. If you can find a Vista or XP disc you certainly can do a clean install. You'd have a valid COA.

I have a Mac. I personally don't find to be more stable than Windows, even Vista.

 

As others have said, many companies are not giving the discs out and same with the Thinnkpads. With the Thinkpads, you make the discs yourself. There is a hidden partition on the harddrive that is shipped. You use a program that is installed on your machine that copies the contents of this partition to CDs or DVD(your choice). Then you can use these discs you created to restore, or basically bring back the machine to factory defaults.

 

Dell provides OS.

I asked the representative online. Inspiron 1510 comes with recovery operating system CD/DVD.

 

Okay...well maybe they do in canada. As far as I know in the US you have to request it specifically.

 

Even within Lenovo there is some variation.

The x200s I bought preconfigured from a reseller came with XP preinstalled and Vista recovery dvds.

I burned my owned XP recovery dvds from the hidden partition. Then I used the Lenovo-supplied Vista dvds to install Vista.

 

The top sellers might come with discs then.

 

Would all the Mac trolls please go back to the Apple subforum?

@dbtrojantest11:
I don't know (will in a day or two) whether Lenovo provides an OS optical disc with the computer, that doesn't really matter. You can just use blank CDs or DVDs to burn recovery media for yourself.

As for reinstalling, you will find that with any OS (even Mac OS X) you will find yourself reinstalling it if you aren't capable of keeping it clean. If you keep installing programs, you're bound to install some which don't cleanly uninstall.

If you mean no software preinstalled, that is true. You have to pay more to get preinstalled software. However, you can get free replacements for most of those programs. For example, you can replace Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org, Photoshop with GIMP, Outlook with Thunderbird, and Norton or McAfee AntiVirus with AVG.

 

two things apples are good for:

knowing which button to press when babes in internet cafes ask questions (most have macs)

os with c compiler. no hassles installing one

 

For a while there, Lenovo was offering a custom install with Rescue and Recovery, which you could later burn a set of recovery discs to mirror the install. For some reason unbeknown to me they stopped offering it. It's too bad. It seemed like a good option since they don't offer a Windows disc. Maybe to many support calls for it.

 

For a fuller description of the Thinkpad recover disc issue, see here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=315029

Very true.

Also very true. I did the same thing with my T500.

An interesting thing, though, when I installed Vista via the discs I had to send away to Lenovo for (it is mentioned in the thread posted at the top of the page) it did not my default install all of the apps that come installed on a machine when you first receive it.

It had to go to the hard drive itself and manually install all the programs, both made by Lenovo and 3rd party software. I guess this could have good and bad sides, but unless you knew this is what was happening it could cause a bit of confusion.