A few months back I entered a re-tweet contest that Microsoft was holding. I know, I know, as a marketer I should cringe at the thought of a re-tweet contest but one of the prizes for this re-tweet contest was an xbox 360, so I caved and took part. Time passed and I heard nothing about anyone winning, and I eventually forgot about it.
On January 25th I got a tweet from a random twitter account with hardly any followers and only a handful of tweets, that were all essentially the same.
I immediately assumed this was a scam, so I alerted Microsoft’s main student twitter account @MS_Student that there was probably a phisher/spammer out there that is trying to capitalize on Microsoft’s re-tweet competition. They were nice enough to reply with a message…
Only to be told a little while later that the account was in fact legit!
So I follow instructions provided by this other @msstudent7 account, I have to fill out a form through a company called ePrize (which after googling appears legit.) I have been waiting for a few weeks for the Netbook to show, and today it finally did.
I buzzed the UPS guy in and signed for what looked like an over-sized beat-up box. Upon bringing it into my kitchen I noticed that the box was from Amazon.com, had a number of old stickers that had been scratched off and writing on the side saying “8 memory sticks” & ”9 travel pouches.” Weird. I continue to inspect the box and the thing is really totally busted… take a look.
The pictures really do not do the level of box destruction justice. I continue to open up the box and find a bunch of padding, with the netbook sitting at the bottom.
I pick the netbook box up, only to find that the box the netbook came in had been previously opened. WTF?
I then boot-up the machine expecting to encounter a set-up wizard, only to find an “admin” account already set-up. I clicked on the admin login and was brought straight to the desktop where this screen was awaiting me…
Here is a nice screen shot…
Anyway, don’t get me wrong Microsoft, I am very happy to have won a (presumably, but kinda wondering) new netbook. It will probably come in handy one of these days when I want to pack light. I just have to say, you run a really sketchy contest.
EDIT: It gets weirder… I just flipped the Eee PC over and noticed that the Windows license sticker is for XP. There is no XP disc (or restore disk) that came with the computer…
UPDATED AGAIN: I just noticed the shipping label… they originally wrote Michael on it then crossed it out and wrote Matthew. They also have a random phone number on there that is not mine.
UPDATED AGAIN: Looks like there is a fully functional, non-trial version of Microsoft Office preloaded on the machine. The computer did not come with any Microsoft Office disc or license as far as I can see.
I have been silently wondering what Microsoft would have sent me if I had won the xbox 360…
that’s real bizarre.
Very, very bizarre.
Hahaha… Honestly I’m really hoping this isn’t the end of the story and they reach back out to you with an update.
I am just curious as to where this box traveled and who set-up the machine… it must have some history!
I am very appreciative to have the new netbook, I hope no one thinks I am not!
Either the economy is hitting MSFT or this contest was run completely by engineers who don’t give a crap about pretty packaging.
this goes beyond pretty packaging and into some whole new realm of crazy
As someone involved in marketing promotions, this contest was just plain medieval-creepy.
The phone number is from ePrize, and the other sticker on the box appears to be addressed to a city where ePrize has offices. Seems like it was ePrize that let MSFT down…
Looks like they hire coders directly from the mailroom.
I bet someone at ePrize swiped the real netbook, had this one on the side, and used the install disks form the real netbook to put a new OS on the one they sent you. That would account for the opened box, crummy packaging, and destroyed genuine windows certification sticker.
In all seriousness, you should reimage that thing. There could be some trojan/backdoor in there ready to phone home your bank account #’s. You could be the stooge of a targeted phishing attack.
I would be very cautious. This could be an extension of the lost USB drive in the restroom phishing. I would not log into any of your accounts with it. I would be suspicious that it is rooted with a keylogger. It may be a good time to replace the hard drive or wipe clean with a fresh Ubuntu Netbook Remix installation.
The safest thing to do is to extract the CD key for both Windows 7, and Office 2007, and use alternative media to reinstall them.
They should happily reinstall.
By best guess is that the reason why the the Netbook box was opened was because Microsoft specified a netbook with Windows 7 and Office 2007 preinstalled. Since the laptop did not come retail with that installed, somebody at ePrize opened it, and installed those.
Clearly the ePrize worker was not aware of sysprep, which is why you say no start-up wizard.
As for the typos and amazon box, I suspect that indicates that ePrize is a tiny say 1-3 man operation, much like most eBay sellers.
It’s obviously just a contest run without consulting M$ Marketing. The lappy will be a freebe that the engineer got at some junket (hence why it’s open etc). That said, I agree with everyone else that you should reimage – I wouldn’t put them past spyware.
@Todd I think Matt’s just obfuscated the sticker
The machine booted and launched straight into an activation process, which succeeded? So, that suggests to me that you’ve got an utterly unsecured wireless network running in your office / house.
[Excuse me, I need to send a couple of porn web-servers to set up next door to you, leeching off your network ... OK, done that.]
I think that’s how these are meant to work, but I’m not sure – I’ve never used a wireless network, and remove the hardware from wireless-enabled machines if I can. I find this somewhat strengthens the security of the wireless networking, as well as making them safe for use on the same site as explosives.
Where to begin. First of all, why were they having a twitter contest? Ok, let’s overlook that.
It seems that a few engineers with an extra netbook lying around decided to give it away as part of a contest. Did they say it would be new?
Also, the license sticker doesn’t really matter in any legal way. It’s up to MS to prove you don’t have a legal copy, not the other way around. If they sent it to you, I wouldn’t worry about the legality of the software on it.
It seems to me that your first assumption, that this contest was being held by Microsoft, was unjustified. The only evidence you have for this is a random twitter account with the name “Microsoft Student.” It sounds more like some intern who wanted to get rid of his old netbook and play a little joke at the same time.
I agree, I’d be really careful with this.
Unless some intern was attempting to prove a point with this contest and decided to market things on their own, this is really fishy.
If ePrize messed up that badly, someone from Microsoft should see this soon (hopefully) and make it right. No discs/COA, full version of Office Enterprise – ye…no.
Be careful, someone may have pre-installed a free rootkit on your machine as well. You should format that thing ASAP.
Kill it (with fire). I wouldn’t let that thing stay in my house (dorm room).
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Seriously. Low level format that drive and clean install. Who knows what lurks within until then…
ePrize, LLC
One ePrize Dr.
Pleasant Ridge, MI 48069
MI Tel. 248-543-6800
Toll Free 877-837-7493
Fax 248-543-3777
You could easily sue Microsoft and get a new laptop.
In theory the OS installed vs the OS license sticker mismatch implies it’s not legal. Given the source you would expect to be ok. Of course to be safe you could just install Ubuntu. I use it on my eee and love it. You would then be legal but it would be bit un-fair to spirit of how you got it.
yes, like itsnotreal mentioned. Format it and at least put linux on it.
forgive me for not reading he comments, but if this is anything like where I used to work… it looks like you “won” a trade-show unit based on your information. They probably had to use it for a demo and then didn’t need it anymore.
Or.. the non-paranoid version: they got the Eee PC as new, from whatever source, and decided to be nice and put Windows 7 and Office on it for you. Doing this without opening the box would take a miracle, so instead they just went ahead and opened it… and even activated it for you. The alternatives being Microsoft giving you a prize with XP on it (gasp) or giving you the media which you could potentially sell on, and you wouldn’t be able to use anyway as there is no disc drive.
Also for the state of the box: I don’t know about you but whenever I get an Amazon delivery I have to pretty much destroy the box to get inside it, so my guess would be this was the only box they could find to ship it on to you as they didn’t have a spangly new box to put it in, and probably thought you would rather have the laptop than wait another two weeks while they ordered some in from their stationery supplier.