Fuck Dell Computers. When the battery wore out it lost the boot disk. Windows 7 came installed, so I don't have the disk. I called Dell "support", and talked to some foreign jerkoff I could barely understand. He said I could buy a new computer, or buy Windows 7 (for $184, according to kickoff), or I could pay a Dell tech $89 to come to my house to install boot disk files. I see Windows 7 pro for about $75 lots of places. FUCK DELL. Never buying one again. Did I mention FUCK DELL?
I'm not the only one I know who had part of their computer miraculously fail no more than a week after the warranty expired. They wouldn't even talk to me about it on the phone because I wasn't under warranty... Dell is really good at doing BAD business. All we can do is ensure that we never give dell another penny.
You can install OS on a Mac over the internet. Hold down CMD+R while you boot and you get the choice to do so. If you have your stuff backed up with time machine to an external drive, you can trivially get your computer and software back to the way it was. Nice and handy way to replace a hard disk or if you hose your OS. I don't do windows.
20 months per computer..that's what I call endurance! Most Costco.com computers are Dell. A month ago avoid Dell, I paid sales tax to Amazon for a Lenovo desktop and a 42" monitor at Best Buy. Those Dells are ug-lee. My online search went a lot longer to avoid them.