I bought my 5th and last "from Dell online" PC. Total nightmare! but thats another STORY!
The order took approx. 8 weeks to receive. I do like the Vista although I have had 1 major problem. Maybe your friends problem is like mine. My fault. I fixed it by restoring to an earlier date of my download of a Registry cleaner advertisement. My laptop was slow when the blackout in Fl. happened and I thought it was need of a Dell help. 2 hours on phone with Dell because of slowness and everything they had me do I had done. 2 days later the virus appeared. DO NOT DOWNLOAD REGISTRY CLEANERS! Next I had monaronadona malware. A virus!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaRonaDona#How_to_get_this_virus It took 2 more days and approx. 15 hours for me to fix. Maybe I can help your friend! Going out now, but email me, maybe I can help.