Chat with the Dell Support
I had a more than 2 hours chat the Dell support, trying to figure out a way to recover Windows XP installation, in case we’ll want it back after trying Vista ;). The confusion started because our system, a Dimension 5150, did not come with any CDs, and we also don’t have an OS Recovery CD software which builds an XP installation CD from the hidden partition. It turns out that there is (or there was) a Media Reduction Initiative in which the CDs are sent free of charge only to customers who request them. It didn’t work well probably because a recent post on the support forum says that We recently changed our policy and will be shipping media on all systems going forward. Same post says the date is probably October 18th.
