I'm pleased to read that you have found that my link to
http://www.geocities.com/mangokun/tr...sparentgui.htm has
solved your problem with transparent icons.

Turning to the rest of your post I feel you need to get one or two things
straight. Microsoft own the operating system, be it Win 95, Win Me or XP,
not yourself and not HP. What you have is a licence from Microsoft to use
that operating system on one PC only. In the case of the version of XP
that accompanied your HP PC this is an OEM licensed version and is
permanently tied to the machine on which it was installed when purchased.
Turning to your problem with HP I still believe they are legally obliged
to have provided you with the means of restoring your PC to the state it
was in when first delivered but that, as I have already said, does not
mean that you have to have an XP CD or recovery CD. Many OEMs, Compaq
among them, instead provide an image of the operating system on a second
hidden partition which can then be restored by booting the PC using a
supplied recovery floppy. If HP provided neither a recovery CD nor an
image of the operating system such as I have described or some other means
of restoring the PC then IMO you have a valid claim but not if the hard
disk contained a backup image of the system as delivered.

As for your aim being to put HP out of business all I can say is grow up
and get a life and don't be so silly or misguided although I can
understand your irritation. g Focus on what matters but first check and
make certain of your facts and establish whether you were provided with a
backup or recovery image or not.

I feel that nothing you have mentioned suggests you or anyone else as
having any grounds for a class action regardless of the jurisdiction in
which you live. Especially so since you have already said that HP were
providing free CDs to those who contacted them before some cut off date.

Regards,
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Chuck wrote:

Also, HP shipped this system without any recovery CD.
They did this on a number of systems for awhile
(2002/2003). Their answer was that they posted this on
their tech support site and that I could have received one
at no charge. Since I never went to their tech support
site until recently, I was "past the time alloted" and
would have to purchase one. They stated that HP still
owns the operating system. I've mulled over legal action
but since this would be a small claims case that I would
easily win but have a hard time enforcing, I gave up and
am buying a Dell system. I've also donated my HP printer
to a charity and bought an Epson. This would make a great
class action case! My goal in life now is to put HP out
odf business.