A low-end desktop system released by Dell in 2005, paired with a Pentium 4 and 512MB of RAM with onboard Intel graphics. Typically paired with a 15inch LCD monitor. Nothing really special about the system and there’s a distinct lack of Microsoft Works unless it was included in a separate CD.

Typical Dell desktop background of the era. I remember this was used on the Inspiron 9100 also. Notice the AOL being branded as LOL, not sure if that occurred on the actual system or something that got renamed

Software

Let’s look at the software bundled

McAfee

Dell and McAfee are commonly seen together, and this system was no exception to that. Like Norton, this acts as both the antivirus and the firewall for the system.

McAfee firewall will pop up if a new program tried to connect to the internet or access a network resource.

Dell Support

A utility that pops up whilst your in the middle of a SimCity/Civ session and causes the game to minimize itself, only for Dell Support to prompt you about a rip off offer, then when you try to restore the game it freezes and you have to kill it in task manager and you lose all your unsaved data.

In all fairness its useful for first time computer buyers, bot the occasional popups will get annoying after a while. There is an option to reduce or turn off the alerts.

Google Desktop

A software application that allowed you to search Google from your desktop, and included an indexed desktop search client. This also placed a search box on your taskbar of which will bring results from both the web and files/folders that are local to the PC. This would give a similar experience to the Windows Search feature that was introduced in Windows Vista, although Microsoft would also release Windows Search for Windows XP.

A sidebar included widget-like functionality, similar to Mac OS X Tiger that was released at the time. As its a Google produced, expect it to data mine the hell out of you, I’m sure most people took the time to read the privacy policy.

Core Photo Album 6

Photo management application. This is designed to gather can collect images from an external source, such as a digital camera or an external SD card.

You can edit and apply different effects like sepia, or add a digital frame if you wish, and then export and save or print to a photo printer. Different effects include red-eye removal, which was common on a digital cameras of the time. Alternatives included Microsoft PictureIt, Adobe Photoshop Elements,

This copy was part of a trial, and expires after 60 days of use.

QuickBooks

Some sort of accounting software is designed for small businesses like a high street shops. It makes several mentions of creating business so I’d say it’s for a commercial environment in comparison to Microsoft Money which is more for home/personal use.

This appears to be a full back-office management system since it allows for you to create customer accounts, useful for booking appointments. In this was in functions similar to Microsoft Access

MyDVD LE

I assume this is intended to create DVD discs and backups, but will not function since this technically isn’t a Dell machine.

Musicmatch JUKEBOX

A popular music player and an online digital music store, that was mostly backed by Yahoo. Here you could purchase music to transfer to a supported music player. Alternatively, it can function as a standalone music player, as an alternative to Windows Media Player. MusicMatch was later discontinued in 2006.

AOL

The 9.0 desktop client comes included along with a free internet trial

Sonic CINEPlayer

A DVD player of some sort. However, this will not function in a VM and will inform that its intended for only Dell computers. The full screen interface appears very similar to Windows Media Center.

Roxio Creator LE

CD burning and authoring program that supports the use of burning audio CD’s and can burn ISO disk images.