Following up on my earlier post about how Dell and HP make it difficult for customers to get a real Windows CD with their new PC…
I went back and read a post I put together back in February (Everything you always wanted to know about Windows Product Activation), and found a few relevant details. If you buy a new PC with Windows preinstalled from your local white-box builder, he or she is required to give you a CD, a product key, and a certificate of authenticity. But if the PC maker is a Royalty OEM – a category that includes the 20 largest PC makers in the world, such as Dell, HP, Sony, and IBM – the requirements are different:
Royalty OEMs receive a ‘golden master’ copy of Windows from Microsoft. The royalty OEM may customize Windows as described in the OPK, their license agreement, or a signed addendum… These OEMs obtain all customized media, end-user manuals, and bulk quantities of COA stickers from MS authorized replicators.
Royalty OEMs may provide recovery media for each computer, and that media must be protected so that it can be used only on that particular computer. Both printed books and any recovery media display the OEM name and branding.
The big companies get to play by a different set of rules, and the customers sometimes come out on the short end of the stick. If you’re thinking of buying a new PC running Windows, make sure it comes with a real CD, not some bogus recovery disk or partition. The CD is a crucial troubleshooting and repair tool; when (not if) you have a disk failure or another type of emergency that requires you to repair Windows, you’ll need that CD.
Ed Bott 
But if Microsoft places important system recovery tools on the install CD, why allow OEMs to skimp on this?
I’ve just read it and found out that it’s only for U.S. Since I got my computer form HP, I tried to make a copy of the recovery onto a CD. It stopped after the second CD was made. I needed 7 CDs for it. I tried to do it again and it said I couldn’t process any further.I got ahold of HP and they said I could get it from them but it would cost me and the only way to pay for it was by credit card, of which I don’t have one. So Sad
I will not be buying anything else for HP.
David Nadeau, your a moron, who would have known you couldnt put more than 700mb on a blank cdr(or more with overburning)? maybe you need a good dose of common sense.
Well I’m having an issue with HP and trying to get the correct Recovery Media for an old, 2001, laptop my cousin owns. She just uses it for e-mailing, nothing big, and ended up with a virus. Now this is the first time she’s had to do a system restore and incidentally found that the recovery media is not for her system, confirmed by HP their parts department. However they have discontinued the production of the recovery media, which I understand, but will not provide her with a Windows XP Home edition CD. This is the OS that came pre-installed with the system and she has the cd-key stuck to the bottom of the laptop, so I don’t understand the issue. They’re saying she will have to go out and purchase a retail version of Windows even though they admit it was their mistake by including the wrong media. Any suggestions on how I can get HP to give us the Microsoft OS?