Author:
Welcome to the Compaq Presario 5440/5441/5460/5465/5451! This is the desktop for it. The specs for the PC depends on which model you choose (this disk supports all of these models). Anyways let's begin.
In the lieu of wallpapers only 1 OEM wallpaper is on here. Its nice...but more would be nice.
Surprisingly Compaq included 2 OEM screensavers with the PC. This is one of them...its pretty nice.
Clicking "Settings" on the wallpaper pops up this neat little dialog telling you that it was made with Macromedia which is well known for the introduction of Flash which now belongs to Adobe. The next screensaver is called "BackWeb" and is pretty weird.
So...this is BackWeb...its pretty weird. Probably made more sense back when Compaq was actually alive or just back in the 90's in general. Let's continue.
So clicking "Presario Treasures" (seen on the desktop) brings you to the OOBE and this dialog pops up. Honestly if you ask me that OOBE looks fucking beautiful...kind of reminds me of XP's. To be honest I never thought OEMs would have you launch OOBE again after the system was setup. Its weird.
So...this is "Compaq Support" which brings up an application which according to the taskbar is the Compaq Organizer. This reminds me a little of Microsoft BOB in a way because it looks like a house and you got applications in the house and you click them. Well...anyways you can see some things like McAfee VirusScan, Compaq Diagnostics, Internet Support and stuff like that.
Now...I don't know about you guys but for me that guy is a bit creepy. Way too creepy if you ask me. This is the Built-In Technician which you would think by the name is an AI bot but nope...its literally like an automatic dialer into Compaq's tech support phone line.
You see "Microsoft Software"...I thought Microsoft supported their own products besides for the OS itself. Very odd...moving on.
Who knew AI's had websites (lol its a joke). It looks like once you fill out all the info and give some information about your problem it runs a diagnostics check on your PC which is pretty nice if you ask me (if it finds an actual problem I'll laugh my ass off).
I'll never understand why saying no forces it to close on you. Its weird.
We've seen this before on previous Compaq's. Its pretty much a standard for 9x Compaq's. If its not on there consider yourself finding a rare one.
So...just like previously it requires a modem to dial in to get somebody to help you however...I did find this while digging real quick. It is very interesting and I wonder what's behind that password dialog. Maybe something special.
Now this is very nice indeed...this is Compaq Diagnostics which is apparently meant for both users and Compaq Technicians to run tests on your PC to make sure everything's running smoothly. Honestly if you ask me this application looks way too advanced for the average user.
In case your curious this is version 2.18 from 1999.
Hilarious...so I checked a box that said "Stop on the first error" and I started it and an error happened instantly. The error makes no sense because its a VM so the drive works fine. I mean if its looking for an actual cable or something like that then its out of luck.
This time I disabled that box and started it and that same error happened but that was the only one...otherwise all the tests succeeded.
I think this application called "System Record" helps let you keep logs of your PC??? Seems odd
As you saw earlier Compaq did include McAfee VirusScan (and it also comes with VShield). The version is 4.0.2 from 1998 and you also get a free serial number (seen in the picture) because McAfee sucks and that's a very old version of McAfee. Let's move on.
Okay so for some reason Compaq bundled Microsoft Works for Windows 95 instead of the one for 98. It might've not been out yet I'm not too sure but I mean 98 would've been more productive. Its not like I'm really complaining too much because including Works in general will cost you some money.
Well that's all for this PC. We'll see you in the next review.