When things are going well, then you know you are in trouble. I was nearly complete with my configuration of my M1530 and had most everything installed. I then loaded PGP Whole Disk Encryption. I ran into an installation error and PGP WDE recommended that I uninstall the software and reinstall. I did the uninstall but when I tried to boot, I got the screen asking for my PGP password. I never entered one. In fact, the program never fully installed.

It was getting into he afternoon on Friday and I was worried. I emailed PGP tech Support (they do not list a phone number to call) but figured I would not get a response for a while. The university closed early due to pending inclement weather, so I headed home.

Once I got home I called Dell XPS tech support and got a guy who was helpful, easy to understand, located in Phoenix, and had lots of stories to tell. After minimal troubleshooting he gave me the news I knew was coming…reformat and reinstall the OS. Arrrgh! Off we went. We loaded the Windows Vista DVD and began to repartition the hard drive and install the OS. All was going well and then we tried to install Dell Media Direct 3.5. The software prompted for disk partition information. Uh oh! Yep, the tech confirmed that we should have installed MediaDirect 3.5 first. After I opened the sealed bag containing the disk and the manual, I too saw that is what we needed to do. The instructions pretty much read do A, then B, but first, do C! So, off to reinstall again.

We finally got everything up and running, the XPS Tech Support was top notch—hence why I paid for the XPS machine (but I didn’t think I would need to use so quickly).

Dell has regained my confidence based on their order support and tech support. If they can only get the manufacturing piece of the puzzle fixed they would be 100%.