I recently purchased a used Acer Travelmate C302XCI with the hard drive wiped
clean and no software discs. I contacted Acer Support to purchase the
recovery discs. Per Acer they refuse to supply any "rcovery discs" for
products shipped prior to Jan 2006 (this being the case with this Acer). If I
am able to obtain a recovery disc for this particular model from another user
will I be able to use "my product key" to install the tablet software and
still be legal?

Martin wrote:

> I recently purchased a used Acer Travelmate C302XCI with the hard
> drive wiped clean and no software discs. I contacted Acer Support
> to purchase the recovery discs. Per Acer they refuse to supply any
> "rcovery discs" for products shipped prior to Jan 2006 (this being
> the case with this Acer).

Really bad.
Did you try to "escalate" the case to a higher level?

> If I am able to obtain a recovery disc
> for this particular model from another user will I be able to use
> "my product key" to install the tablet software and still be legal?

There would not be a *legal* problem. The machine came with a valid
licence bound to the hardware.

The problem would be to get hold of the proper CDs.
It could be that CDs from another manufacturer might work as well. But
the editions of XP TabletPC were manufacturer specific so that the key
printed on the OS-label on your machine might not fit for CDs from a
different manufacturer.The CDs for my HP tc1100 f.e. install without
needing a key. Obviously the install is checking for the hardware.

Rainald

Rainald,
I didn't think their would be a problem regarding the product key issue but
was wanting a little reassurance. Thanks.

I had called Acer on two different occasions (plus a few email support
messeges) with the same response regarding the recovery discs. Both times
with the same result, they won't supply anything shipped prior to 2006. I
will try to "escalate" this to a higher level but I don't expect any positive
result from Acer as I don't think Acer has long term goals in mind regarding
their product or customer.

I have been targeting sellers only of the Acer model that I have. I new the
potential problem / conflict that may occur regarding drivers. While I
haven't been able to secure the recovery discs yet I have had luck with using
the Wacom drivers with XP Pro to enable the tablet functionality recommended
by a Acer travelmate seller that is running XP Pro since he also couldn't
secure recovery discs either.
Since I don't now what functions I may be misssing out on I am just using
Ubuntu 8.04 OS in the mean time until I can get the discs.

"Rainald Taesler" wrote:

> Martin wrote:
>
> > I recently purchased a used Acer Travelmate C302XCI with the hard
> > drive wiped clean and no software discs. I contacted Acer Support
> > to purchase the recovery discs. Per Acer they refuse to supply any
> > "rcovery discs" for products shipped prior to Jan 2006 (this being
> > the case with this Acer).
>
> Really bad.
> Did you try to "escalate" the case to a higher level?
>
> > If I am able to obtain a recovery disc
> > for this particular model from another user will I be able to use
> > "my product key" to install the tablet software and still be legal?
>
> There would not be a *legal* problem. The machine came with a valid
> licence bound to the hardware.
>
> The problem would be to get hold of the proper CDs.
> It could be that CDs from another manufacturer might work as well. But
> the editions of XP TabletPC were manufacturer specific so that the key
> printed on the OS-label on your machine might not fit for CDs from a
> different manufacturer.The CDs for my HP tc1100 f.e. install without
> needing a key. Obviously the install is checking for the hardware.
>
> Rainald
>
>