it is quite disappointing, but this is normal. unless it is a large
corporate customer that has a standard drive 'image' on file with dell, the
drives come empty. i have never had a tech offer to install any software
for me. what i usually do is temporarily remove the replacement drive and
install it into an identical system in order to clone the drive image to the
new drive.. then return the reinstall the replacement drive and configure it
correctly for the office network. but if you don't have an identical system
in the office it may prove to be more trouble than it is worth to do it this
way. of course you can alternatively rebuild the software image from
scratch using all the disks that were provided with the system.

"Marcio Watanabe" wrote in message
...
I'm an IT consultant, and one of my clients just had a problem with a
hard drive. Since the Optiplex was still under warranty, Dell was
called to replace the drive. Someone came and replaced the drive, but
the computer was left only with a DOS prompt--no software installed.
Is this standard operating procedure for warranty services? Shouldn't
they at least leave a working computer (with Windows XP and Office XP)
as it came from Dell?

--
Marcio Watanabe