I ordered Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 from New Egg. The shipped it to me and I tried to install. The first disk worked as normal, but when a inserted the 2nd disk when prompted to do so, I almost immediately got an error message saying it could not find a file and to enter the correct path of the file.
I tried several more times, put in two new optical drives I had purchased from New Egg, tried on my personal laptop, my work laptop, my homedesktop's two drives, none of them could find the file. I looked at the drive using Windows Explorer and only one folder (CMPNENTS) was found. None of the files needed to load the OS were on the disk. I researched the problem on the internet and described it on a couple of discussion forums. I had several sugggestions that I had a bad disk. One person referred me to an article on this problem on the Microsoft Knowledge Base. That article said I had a bad disk and gave a phone number to call Microsoft for replacement.
I called Microsoft who said that since I had an OEM version, I needed to contact my seller for replacement. I called New Egg, got an RMA and returned it to them. They sent me an email saying that they had tested it and it worked. I said no way, did they really test it? They said they installed it on a machine. I had many questions, like did they install it on a PC without a current OS (the files could already be on their and they redirected the installation to the files currently on the PC). They said, we tested it it worked. We haggled for a few days and they said they were going to return the defective disk to me. I kept posting on a forum, everyone agreed they thought it was the disk and could not believe that New Egg wasn't replacing it. Another person with the same problem posted in reply and said that finally after 3 months, New Egg sent him a copy of Win XP SP1 (he paid for SP2), and the disk worked fine.
During my discussions with New Egg, they said I must have the PC configured incorrectly, everyone on the discussion group thought I had it correct and when I installed Win XP Home, the PC ran great. But I wanted and paid for Win XP MCE 2005. New Egg then said the optical drives must be bad. I tried them on two new optical drives that I had just purchased from New Egg and of course it hadn't worked. I said should I return the for replacement (they didn't answer).
Finally, New Egg said the were shipping the old bad disk back to me. I then sent them a link to the discussion group where users were saying that New Egg was wrong. A couple of hours later I got a new email from New Egg saying that upon receipt of the disks, I should try to install them, make notes of my procedure and the error messages I got, get a new RMA, return the disks to them and they would try to duplicate the problem.
I do not want to wait that long. I ordered and received this product in early November, it is now Dec 20, and this could easily keep going much longer. I don't need the stress. If it doesn't work again, I am going to just call it a loss, new do business with New Egg again, and will post in discussion groups my problem and ask others to refrain from using New Egg.
You guys who are considering using New Egg, please don't.
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