"Our organization purchased a Dell Inspiron 9400 -- the latest and greatest," the reader wrote. "Our organization's policy is to wipe and re-image all systems to prevent any issues from arising, such as Google Desktop which is now standard with Dell systems. Since this is the first 9400 we have, we needed to wipe and rebuild it. As many are aware, you have to request the media when purchasing a system from any major manufacturer any more, and I diligently did this, ordering the software kit that is supposed to include all the software installed on the system. Little did I know that this meant I would only receive selected items and media for a completely different system."

The reader received the Windows XP CD and a Drivers & Utilities CD with the system, and at first he thought everything was fine. "But the Drivers & Utilities CD ended up being for the 9300 series Inspiron and as such did not include any of the correct software or drivers for the 9400. Completely missing were the discs for the MediaDirect application and the Sonic Solutions CD/DVD authoring package."

The reader tried downloading the missing drivers and applications, but ran into problems there too. "The support.dell.com site does include most of the hardware drivers, excluding the Intel SM Bus Controller, but unfortunately there is only an update for Sonic Solutions and a reinstallation/repair tool for MediaDirect, both of which do not work without the original application. Going to technical support, they told me that the driver disc was probably for the 9300 because they did not have the 9400 disc ready when our system shipped, so I would need to work with Dell Customer Care to order it. To their credit, the person I dealt with in Customer Care seemed extremely diligent in digging around to try and find a method to get me either application, but to no avail. After the better part of an hour working with the Customer Care team, she was able to send what she believes will be the Sonic software, but was unable to find a way to send the 2.0 MediaDirect media that will work on the 9400. That's a frustration because MediaDirect's ability to play media without booting the OS was one of the factors in our choosing this system -- we could have easily found a similar system without this feature and paid a lot less."

Several weeks later, the reader was still waiting for any of the software to show up. "So far I have spent about six hours on the phone with Tech Support, Customer Care and my Dell inside sales rep and have little to show for it," the reader wrote. "Everyone that I have dealt with sees the software kit SKU on this order and sees no reason why I did not get full media. In fact, almost everyone I have worked with recommends that I return the system, then reorder and I would 'likely' receive the correct software with the new order. While a return is an option, this system has already gone out on a business trip and won't be back for a couple weeks. Beyond this fact, it is exceptionally wasteful for both my organization and Dell to have a system returned just because the ordered media was not initially delivered. After all of my frustration, it just feels like there is a broken system within Dell. Everyone I have dealt with genuinely seems to want to help, but has been unable to do anything."

Several more hours of work on the reader's part finally managed to get most of the software headed his way. "I finally found someone in Customer Care that was able to ship the Media Direct 2.0 reinstallation CD -- SKU DH371 for anyone that needs this," the reader wrote. "This did allow me to regain the ability to play DVDs/CDs without having to boot to Windows which is exceptional. Unfortunately, we are still unable to use the Dell Media Experience which does the same thing when in Windows (similar to Windows Media Center Edition). I have now spent more hours between my inside sales rep, web chats and calls to Customer Care trying to acquire this software. At this point, I do think I will finally get all of the software if I continue to be tenacious. Unfortunately, it is costing my organization literally days of effort to acquire the software kit that was ordered with the system."

A month after I first heard him, the reader reports he is still waiting for the Dell Media Experience CD, but he has received six different shipments from Dell, much of it incorrect or duplicate items. "As much as I appreciate the effort and flurry of shipments, I can't imagine this has been a cost effective experience for Dell," the reader wrote. " And after my experiences, I strongly doubt someone with a failed hard disk would be able to get their Inspiron 9400 back up and running to the level it shipped since the various pieces of media are near impossible to acquire. After many years experience issues with bleeding edge technology, I am not overly surprised to have issues with this system. I just didn't expect it to be acquiring the media to use it."