and even if someone did, the seller would not be responsable because its the new owners property and the seller did not sugjest an operatiing system.

Seems people have short memories...

Back in the old days about the only software that could damage your computer permanently was the programs that used to try and play music on your floppy drive by spinning up the motor at different frequencies. These days it seems that virtually every device in a computer has some form of nvram that could potentially be corrupted by some errant kernel code/device driver.

I can understand manufacturers taking the line they do.

You can buy a computer with no OS....sometimes, however, it will come in pieces.....

I'd like to have the last word here.....:
In spite of the MS de-facto monopoly--you DO have a choice. Don't like Acer's policy (or the re-seller's)?---go somewhere else.

They do! I was looking for almoast 3 months until I found a seller who had the option of getting the laptop w.out OS on it. It saved me 150 euros in the price by not having Vista Home premium pre installed on it..... and of course no winsh*t logo on the case Ok I still have a webcam a fingerprint reader and a Tvtuner card (as they said would work only with vista) not working under Mandriva.... but maybe the next release of Mandriva will support them....

http://nakedcomputers.org/ - for no OS hardware.

It would be interesting to see what Trading Standards have to say on the issue of invalidating warranties/consumer rights etc.

And between the lines I read that that will not happen with a pre-installed Windows ?

To be honest, I don't think they care the least if we make a silent protest and boycott their products, and I don't think they would notice it on their budgets either. But as a "regular" customer of Acer, I must admit that I perhaps have bought my last product from them. Not as a protest, but I have no intention of using windows on any of my future machines, so why would I buy something were I don't have freedom to run what operating system i wish?

(Perhaps we should give this tip to GNU, but they are probably aware of this already.)

Anyway, I do find this warranty strange. Perhaps when this semester is finished I will actually read the including papers for my AAO and see for my self. This sounds like something that wouldn't be accepted by EU, so if this is the case I will try to contact various bureaus and find out what they think about this behavior. It does sound suspicious and monopolistic.

"they" (as in hardware manufacturers) used to. In fact, you'd have the choice of paying the extra $ and getting the MS-DOS 5.0 (up to 6.22) floppies, or just getting the system bare. Problem was - where did you get your OS from?

I remember magazines where you'd buy the components you wanted. Does anyone else remember getting a 386 and upgrading it to a 387, putting the vendor specific 8MB daughter memory card, a 20MB hdd, and Creative SBPro in it? That's before you'd figure out which OS you were going to run (which invariably meant DOS 6.2 or 6.22 + GEOS or Win3.11 for networks).

The end result was this: when something went wrong the consumer would call Packard Bell, or Compaq, or whomever else couldn't support it. Their techs would have to spend an extra hour+ deciphering each users custom setup and then another hour+ debugging it. Great for those of us who provided 3rd party support and billed by the hour - bad for big businesses who lose money every 15 minutes they have to spend helping someone.

It's a cost savings thing, and to most users it hasn't changed anything. People still look at computers like they're magic toasters where you put in the words and out comes the pr0n or whatever else they happen to be interested. It actually is a real savings for everyone too, because the vendor is going to get a deal from MS on the licenses, and that savings is "passed" to the consumer (ie: you're paying $450 for the system without OS, or $499 w/ windows super-extreme-mountain-dew-edition - that's a savings of $100+ for people who'd buy it individually and then purchase the OS).

And that's the reason why it voids your warranty, too. It costs too much $ to QA and support 1000 variations on 1000 different models with 1000 different options. That's why vendors deprecate models, and software vendors deprecate versions. The support is too costly.

You're reading in things that aren't there. I'm not daft enough to believe that Windows is magically immune to errors of this nature anymore than any other OS is.

OK, the point is why does a PC with Windows has warranty and installing an other OS will void it ?

Because it is a known quantity and also because the existing support technicians (1st and probably 2nd line) will know enough about it to assist - and this means that the cost to the company is low. If they have to support Linux, they will cost more to the support portion of the company. And if you put something like ReactOS on there, they are likely to be utterly screwed when trying to help.

I built my desktop from bits and pieces and never had to consider having Microsloth Winduhs forced into my um, private areas. (You WILL pay us for this, and you WILL enjoy it, yes?) Unfortunately, I'm finding that I don't have this option available to me as I shop for a well-equipped laptop. Since I can't hold my breath until the laptop manufacturers turn blue, I'm going to find a late-model used machine. The lower price seems like a fair tradeoff for the lack of warranty, and the more efficient OS plus lack of antivirus processing burden should allow decent performance with a slower machine.

My logic .. in all of this is... Never purchase an OEM notebook or desktop ever...! I would rather RMA individual parts, and keep image backups of my drives. I used to work for a Hardware company that built there own notebooks and desktops. I have learned from this, and would just buy a notebook barbones kit, and build to my own spec, it really isn't difficult

This is a very nice subject.

Replacing Car engine etc would be like replacing the processor or some other kind of hardware. Which I would agree for that to void the warranty if you don't have the manufacture support behind it. But Changing the Operating system I would say should only void Operating support. But if you reinstall windows the support should continue.

The way they do it these days just allows them to keep total control. That is why I no longer buy pre build computers. I build my from scratch which is very easy. If you want a laptop you can get a barebone laptop and build it to your needs. But building desktops etc you save money. My system cost me roughy $400. 160GB Sata HD, 4GB Ram, Asus MB, sata DVD-rw and a AMD 64x2 5800+ and I got this a little over a year ago. My system runs wonderful.

Dell, HP and all those companies to me are just good for accessories and no more.