im looking for a computer for my brother and have found afew good deals.. but they all come with windows media center edition 2005 or 2006.

i was asking if they could remove the OS and lower the price, but the two stores i went to both said they cant, because thats the way the manufacturer (HP/amd) sent it to them.

i thought this sort of thing was discussed with the law, in the US or EU or somethign? im in Ont, CA..

i thought they couldnt FORCE you to pay for the OS? the employees told me it was the, like, bundled price, from the manufacturer or whatever.

anyone have any info opposing this? or you think if i emailed HP (or whatever manufacturer) and tell them 'im not going to spend a grand on your product, unless you send me one without an OS and lower the price X dollars'.. anyone think this would work?

Thanks

This was an experiment in the EU.... I don't know if it applies in Canada.

I'm not 100% certain these places ship to Canada, but they probably do:
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.koobox.com/
http://www.system76.com/
http://www.emperorlinux.com/

Hmmm... HP ships computers with FreeDOS preloaded... I don't know how hard it is to get them to actually do this though.

Just build your own PC. You will end up saving much more than the price of the OS.

Building your own system is great, but it actually ends up being a little more expensive. Mainly because proprietary parts are cheaper. My DIY compy was about 200$ more than the Dell I was looking at at the time with the exact same preferences.

Peter is right. Building your own is not cheaper. I put a hardware list together for my last machine and found it on Ebay much cheaper than I could have built it for.

Some of the independant/small shops have great deals too and they won't make you buy an operating system.

Just be aware of hardware and have an idea of what is good and what is not so great.

Building your own may be slightly more expensive, but you also end up with a better machine with the bits you actually want...

Back to the legal and moral issue:
To me, the real issue is in the customer not even realizing that they have a choice. We have been brainwashed to believe that "computer" = "Intel + Windows". Radio shows give all manner of useful tips assuming that you are a Windows user.
Before the current administration pulled the plug, the debate on the MS anti-trust action seemed to focus on MS forcing you to use IE---not on Dell forcing you to use MS.
It seems to me that ANY bundling can be considered restraint of trade, but I am not competent in the law. I would like to believe that the solution lies in education.

I agree with the self builders. All my PC's are self built,(yes OK _apart_ from the laptop) You end up with a better system for your money because you can research and spec the parts yourself,and not waste money on extraneous bits that you don't need.

Having said that, I agree that Microsofts stranglehold on the PC manufacturers is long overdue to be sorted out. If you as a consumer want to by a PC without an OS they should just wipe the HD and not charge you the MS license.

I totally agree... but if you really need to penny-pinch for whatever reason and don't need a customized compy then you'd likely just be better off buying a low-end Dell.
Microsoft is far too large; most users never started using Windows because it was their choice, they started using it because somebody else on a corporate scale made that choice for them. Microsoft pays companies to engineer their hardware specifically for Windows; this is where all those little "built just for Windows" stickers on most hardware come from. This is an unfair and monopolistic practice. On the case of actual computer OEMs, the bundling of Windows could be interpreted as "tying," which the government recognizes (or is supposed to recognize) as an anti-competitive practice.

I wouldn't even be surprised if their agreements with Microsoft give them cheaper rates on the OS by stipulating that they CANNOT sell systems without windows installed.
This is the type of strongarm tactic I've come to expect from MS.

How stupid is it to have a law that sellers can't sell for the price they want? You can go somewhere else if you don't want to pay for it.

However, There is no law like that in the U.S. so they can charge whatever they feel like. You would probably find a better deal going through a small computer building company like Northwest Computers. They will build what you want, and put what you want on it.

Controlling what gets sold at what price is often the SMART policy. Total freedom in the marketplace demands that we also discourage unfair practices--like monopolies.

The social issue--in my view--is that computers and related things are fast becoming a commodity upon which we are dependent. That is just cause for government moving to ensure full access for all citizens. That cause, in turn, is not well served by the de-facto monopoly and restraint of trade that we have now.

Watch closely things like the MIT $100 laptop, the Nokia 770 with an OPEN OS, and Mark Shuttleworth's free SW kiosks. In the limit, the MS business model will collapse of its own weight. If we get a more progressive government one day, that will help the process.

Right on the dot. I honestly couldn't have said it better myself. Beautiful.
I have to wonder when that guy is going to go bankrupt...