New Asus laptop from Tesco Lotus

[stereolab]

The novice will either need to see if he can get a refund or just go out and buy Windows. The novice has no one to blame but himself....he was probably thinking how computers are sold in his home country (probably almost always with Windows), figured since the display model probably had Windows on it then that means it comes with Windows, and forget to remember he's now in another country where some things are operate differently. Live and learn.

At some stores, like ITCity, it's common for the sales price to reflect the cost "without" Windows and "with" Windows for those models that do not come with Windows pre-installed by the manufacturer. Personally, I would be leery of having the store install Windows "unless you had actually bought" Windows in a separate package....like you walked into the store and just bought Windows to take home and install yourself. The reason I would be leery is because I wouldn't be confident they are truly installing a "non-pirated" copy or they activate it in some way that won't stick. And the last time I bought a laptop around 20 months ago (no Windows included; only free Ubuntu/Linux) at BananaIT their standard sales package included an offer to install Windows for only Bt500....don't know if that would have been an Evaluation copy or not which I would have later had to pay to activate....and that Bt500 was just labor to install an unactivated copy of Windows onto the computer. Instead, I just bought Win 8.1 separately, took my new laptop and separately procured Win 8.1 package home and installed Win 8.1 myself.

And we all need to remember that Thais are use to just taking their whole computer to a nearby computer shop where they will load up anything your want for a low, low price if you know what I mean to include the OS. Why pay significantly extra for a computer when a person is comfortable using this approach. The next day or earlier they come back and pick up their computer and begin their use of "god knows what lurks beneath" the software they had loaded-up at a fantastically low price.

Problem solved, he went back this morning, spoke with Tesco who advised him what he had bought, he then took it to the IT Mall and had Windows installed. I have just seen his machine and got him online, and everything is now tickety-boo. He will Live and Learn.

[DogNo1]

I suggest upgrading to Win 10 immediately before the HD gets a lot of junk on it. The newest wrinkle in Win 10 is a little arrow in the taskbar that you can click to bring up a list of all of your desktop icons. Very neat! Now if I could just get Office 365 to install. Wasted a whole day on it so far.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'm not so sure that having Thai computer shops install their not legally licensed version of a Windows OS on your PC for 200-500 baht is such a great idea.

The one time I had that happen, after I lost the main hard disk on my PC, the repair shop installed their own Windows version on the new hard disk and it turned out to be an evaluation copy that was only good for 30 days before it started nagging for a product key and would have gradually started losing features thereafter.

I had given the shop my own original Windows OS DVD with the intention that they'd use that version, which was Windows Home, and I'd key in the license key once I got home (I wasn't about to give them access to my Windows license key). But instead they used their own version of Windows Ultimate. And by the time I realized what they'd done, I had to wipe out their entire install, since my license code wouldn't work for an Ultimate install, and reinstall from scratch my own Windows home version in order to activate it with my license key.

Separately, my wife had a low budget Windows laptop that she'd bought thru Banana IT. It had some version of Windows installed, presumably on the cheap, and it had Windows Update turned off/disabled, apparently as a means of avoiding the MS licensing scheme. Thus her PC never would download security updates, virus definitions, etc. As soon as I re-enabled Windows Update on her machine, not realizing what the shop had done, the laptop began showing a black screen desktop and nagging for a valid license key. Ended up taking it back to her shop and having them do whatever they did to set up an ongoing Windows install without a valid license, Thai style.

That's not the way I want to be running my Windows PCs.

[hawksway]

This is quite usual in Thailand as Manufacturers try to keep down the prices of low end laptops. If you want a free operating system for the one you have bought go to www.ubuntu.com and download Ubuntu Linux. it's fast, free comes with Firefox Web Browser, an email client and an enormous amount of other free software from it's on line library. Linux is built on the same base as Apple OSX so it's very fast and stable and almost impossible to catch a virus.

A legal copy of Windows 8.1 should cost about 3,500 Baht in Thailand and Windows10 about 1000.00 Baht more. Windows now has anti virus built in.

Sadly, most join the band of criminals and use pirate software which the computer shops love because that guarantees business for sorting out all the problems which come with it.

[slipperylobster]

(right through customs..no need for them to grab your laptop for forensics). Hide that usb drive in a toothbrush or something.

What size is your toothbrush?

My toothbrush is a portable one...the top pulls out of the bottom. The bottom is a hollow, rectangular piece about 2 inches.

My thumb drive is one of those that is barely half an inch long, and quarter inch wide.

fits perfect. The actual "circuitry" of a flash drive (the circuit board) is the same width as the usb port on your computer.

Not rocket science..nor a problem. tiny ones are available...way smaller than a toothbrush holder.

However, the main point was...you do not need to bring your laptop with pirated windows through customs. Just bring a flash thumb drive. I do not want customs snooping and asking questions (although my laptop is clean ..but has pirated windows). I have a laptop in the USA and one here....I carry my usb flash, put it out of sight, and plug it into either computer for my operating system. It has all my banking files and KeePass (to encrypt passwords)...and encrypted documents.

Edited August 28, 2015 by slipperylobster

[jacko45k]

Who pays for Windows in this day & age? I've been using the same copy of Win 7 for 10 years, installed & reinstalled 100 times on multiple computers; never had a problem.

You did well, it has only been officially released since about 2009, 6 years ago!

[lvr181]

... Apple doesn't force all laptop manufacturers to install their Operating system......

That is a convoluted statement!

Apple is for Apple (and which laptop manufacturers install Apple O/S on their systems?) and MS doesn't force all laptop manufacturers to install their O/S.

[steven100]

nothing wrong with installing Windows OS from IT shops ... 200 baht ... done it a few times.

[h90]

nothing wrong with installing Windows OS from IT shops ... 200 baht ... done it a few times.

Actually when we buy a laptop for the company, we buy with windows license, keep the license locked somewhere and than install windows from a shop, without all the crap-ware.

I am not sure if that is complete legal but as we have the original license it can't be too wrong.

[SheungWan]

The novice will either need to see if he can get a refund or just go out and buy Windows. The novice has no one to blame but himself....he was probably thinking how computers are sold in his home country (probably almost always with Windows), figured since the display model probably had Windows on it then that means it comes with Windows, and forget to remember he's now in another country where some things are operate differently. Live and learn.

At some stores, like ITCity, it's common for the sales price to reflect the cost "without" Windows and "with" Windows for those models that do not come with Windows pre-installed by the manufacturer. Personally, I would be leery of having the store install Windows "unless you had actually bought" Windows in a separate package....like you walked into the store and just bought Windows to take home and install yourself. The reason I would be leery is because I wouldn't be confident they are truly installing a "non-pirated" copy or they activate it in some way that won't stick. And the last time I bought a laptop around 20 months ago (no Windows included; only free Ubuntu/Linux) at BananaIT their standard sales package included an offer to install Windows for only Bt500....don't know if that would have been an Evaluation copy or not which I would have later had to pay to activate....and that Bt500 was just labor to install an unactivated copy of Windows onto the computer. Instead, I just bought Win 8.1 separately, took my new laptop and separately procured Win 8.1 package home and installed Win 8.1 myself.

And we all need to remember that Thais are use to just taking their whole computer to a nearby computer shop where they will load up anything your want for a low, low price if you know what I mean to include the OS. Why pay significantly extra for a computer when a person is comfortable using this approach. The next day or earlier they come back and pick up their computer and begin their use of "god knows what lurks beneath" the software they had loaded-up at a fantastically low price.

Problem solved, he went back this morning, spoke with Tesco who advised him what he had bought, he then took it to the IT Mall and had Windows installed. I have just seen his machine and got him online, and everything is now tickety-boo. He will Live and Learn.

Well done.