The Computer Guys

I brought two Dell desktops to The Computer Guys one month apart because they weren’t working right.  I brought my own copy of Windows 10 for them to install on each machine.

I brought the first one in toward the beginning of September.   I had done a clean install of Windows 10 from an ISO on a flash drive, but after a couple of months, it became unusable.  They said they could fix it by wiping the drive and reinstalling Windows 10, which I gave them on a flash drive.  About two weeks later, I picked it up and asked about a key number for Windows.  He said I wouldn’t need one because they installed their shop copy of Windows.  A little over a month later, I began getting pop-ups telling me that Windows was about to expire, and I should activate it.  I called the store, and was told that I should bring it and leave it because something must have gone wrong, but I didn’t want to do that.  I called the following week and was told that a “weird update” had caused the problem, and he could fix it with a tool in about five minutes.
Even after doing a couple of Chats with Microsoft, I could not get it activated.  They said I had a volume license copy of  Windows 10, and I would have to deal with the shop that installed it.  I brought it to The Computer Guys, and they used their tool to reactivate it in about twenty minutes.
Then the second machine, the one I had brought to them a month later, began giving me the same pop-up message about activating Windows 10.  When I brought this one to them originally, I included my store-bought copy of Windows 10 for them to install.  Once again, they installed their shop copy and said they activated it with my key number.  The key  number I found on the computer was the same as the key number on the other computer, their store number, not the number for the Windows I brought to them.  After a few Chats with Microsoft, I got my key number registered, and Windows 10 should now continue to work.  This saved me another trip to Saugerties.  I’ll have to do another Chat with Microsoft to get the first machine straightened out before the volume license expires again.
So, my complaint is that they did not install the copy of  Windows 10 that I had given them for each machine, and they charged me $285 for two temporary Windows installations.  MS said that the volume license expires, and that’s why I got the message to reactivate it.  This would continue to happen with each machine every month or so.

Firstly, I can't get hold of them but when I get a hold of them, they do great work. Their price is reasonable. In terms of quality of their work, they know what they're doing. They're quite good. They used to be on a national public radio program. I'll use them again. There's nobody else that I could trust.