Dell complaints

losmurfs · Apprentice Dellhater Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 6

I think in the very least Dell should A: Tell you that the OS is 32-bit, and B: Give you the option to purchase a 64-bit OS preinstalled. Example, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition comes in two versions, 32-bit and 64-bit. One might assume that when they buy an E521 with an AMD 64 that they are getting the 64-bit version of the OS but in reality they are getting the 32-bit version and they have to pay $239 extra to get the 64-bit version even though Microsoft sells both versions for the same price and ships you the 64-bit version free of charge if you purchase the 32-bit retail version.
http://www.ihatedell.net/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic,p,32124.html#32124
http://delle521.blogspot.com/

diashto · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:33 pm Post subject:

Okay.. not to nitpick... but your boss bought you an $800 "workstation?"

98% of the people who would buy that particular box wouldnt give two shits which version of Vista it came with, so long as it had the pretty translucent windows.

I looked over the list of applications on your blog.. your apache link is wrong (links to the PHPx64 site), and there's no reason why you couldnt run the 64bit native versions of what's available in linux, and use Vista/XP in a VMWare session for your IE/Firefox testing, etc.

losmurfs · Apprentice Dellhater Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 6

The 64-bit PHP link links to a page that then has links to different 64-bit builds of apache that can use the 64-bit PHP. Yes, I could use linux, I'm using Kubuntu on my E310, but my boss wants me to be familiar with Windows Vista in order to facilitate customer support.

diashto · Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject:

So you only have to be familiar with the user-end of Vista?

aaaaaaaand since 99% of the Vista installations are goign to be 32bit... where's the problem again?

losmurfs · Apprentice Dellhater Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 6

Since I am going to have to use it, I might as well use the best version. Walking a user through the steps to perform a task are the same on the 32-bit version vs the 64-bit version. But when using the 32-bit version I can run out of memory even though I have plenty of free hard disk space. In the 64-bit version, I would never run out of memory because all the apps that I use that could possibly run out of memory in the 32-bit OS have 64-bit versions that for what I use them for would never approach the limits of the 64-bit OS.

gkarris · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject:

A 32-bit OS for a 64-bit computer, that sounds useful...

Mele20 · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:29 pm Post subject:

It does seem weird that Dell would not even ask/offer 64bit. Anyone moving to Vista should be getting the 64bit. I'm going to move to XP 64bit eventually because this Dell I have can't use more than 2GB RAM and that is such a piddly amount as to be ridiculous.

KE7EHA · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:

Personally, I am not going to 64 bit any time soon. It seems as if, relatively speaking, few programs run using a full 64 bit word natively. MOst use a 32 bit word, as the majority of the somuters out there still run natively using a 32 bit word.

Personally, I would like to see Dell doing what Microsoft does with the busniess/ultimate Vista, which is to have both the 32 and the 64 bit versions of the program on the same disk. This way, you let the customer decide what word they want to use, not decide for them.
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