My mistake, I'd forgotten the Surface which I think is the computer shown in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz1aul7cR5E

I think users such as the OP have the attitude s/he has due to the warranty restrictions by the manufacturer which only warranty the OS preinstalled on the device and there has never been a prohibition on installing another OS on the computer, even the Surface/

Hey guys, I think we have hijacked the OP's thread. We haven't heard from him since post #9. And to be fair, we're fairly far OT at this stage, interesting though it may be.

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i have experience that some manufacturers restrict their warranty to cases with the original OS. i believe this is so they can limit their training cost by only training support staff on the one OS they pre-install. that way they can deny support if an unfamiliar OS is being used. that's why i try to make a full device image backup, if i can (i always switch to either Linux or BSD). i try to learn the escape to BIOS key before the first time i power up. i have backup copies of most pre-installs in a "never have booted up" state. if i ever need to call them for support, maybe i can run the original OS for them.

In my interventions I talked about the legality and rights of others, but when I see my original question that I wrote I discover that there is a contradiction because my question did not express anything of what I mentioned previously (rights of others ...).

How can I say: Even though I don't know if they really did it.

I admit that I worded my question incorrectly, because I accused people without having information. And I should not use the word still because It's like I mean they have already prevented me from the installation and I just want to know if they still do it.

I should have asked my question like this: do they prohibit the installation of another OS .

I apologize for my bad question.

Microsoft can leverage the technology and the relationship with the hardware vendors to make it interesting or difficult, but they cannot prohibit the installation of other operating systems in any system they do not own.
As long as you have a machine that YOU own, there is nothing they can do to prevent you from installing Linux, BSD, ReactOS, FreeDOS, KolibriOS, or any other operating system that you want and can legally obtain.

Does that answer your question?

M$ goons are often fond of giving "advice" with imperatives. So whereas it's actually advice, it sounds like orders. It's a long time since I listened to M$ advice, but you know the sort of thing: "Always keep your system up to date. "Never install software without the M$ logo to prevent bad things happening." etc.

Then you get people unthinkingly repeating this to you, and you're being 'programmed' by repetition.

The correct answer to your original question is in post 10, that it is legal to install another OS and microsoft does not and has not (to my knowledge) ever prohibited it.

Post 18 and 20 explain what the problem generally is, that the manufacturers only 'support' the preinstalled OS. I believe this is the case with most major manufacturers of home computers.

Since your computer is well beyond the standard 1 year manufacturer warranty, it won't matter. Since Linux can boot from an external drive, many users will install some Linux OS to an external drive so that if they have problems with the hardware, they return it to the manufacturer without the external.

My personal experience with this was the purchase of an HP laptop with W10 preinstalled which malfunctioned 1 month after purchase when I tried to boot and got a message that there was not bootable OS installed. I contacted HP support and went through their standard processes without success and was told to return the computer to HP for a replacement which I eventually received 2 months later. The actual problem was hardware, a connector to the drive on the motherboards. I don't know if they would have refused if they had known there were Linux OS's installed nor do I know if they were aware of this. Would have been simple enough to check with a Linux 'live' usb..

The link below is to the hp.com site but seems to be a user forum which discusses this situation.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...y/td-p/6863038

Business_kid

While I agree with the gist of #21 "Always keep your system up to date" is also pretty much
standard advice from most Linux OS.

Hence, the number of requests for assistance on this forum after an update! :-)

Thank you all for your answers.

Microsoft certainly have not given the same respect back. The license agreements are terminable BOTH ways; either you continue to follow their license agreements or you don't use their software at all.

You'll see the freedom difference when you've been using Linux for a while but that is going to take effort on your part. That is one of the trade-offs in switching to Linux. There are plenty of helpful documents online to read. Here are a few links to start you off with.

https://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/gpl/

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html One example of these type of licenses. There are several types.

https://distrowatch.com/

FYI, dual-booting with Windows is possible. Some of the Linux distros will discover and respect Windows and install along aside with Windows. That is not always possible because Microsoft employed tricks to make this difficult (they used up all of the partitions or fill up the empty space after the main Windows partition). I personally do not recommended dual-booting for newbies. It's better for newbies to download a live Linux distro ISO image, copy it to an USB stick, and boot off it on a Windows computer (live distros are supposed to leave the host computers alone unless you tell it to do otherwise). It is even an better option for newbies to wipe Windows off so you don't have to worry about Windows at all in your learning Linux experience (easier to reinstall Linux if you messed it up and you will as a newbie, lol). Just be sure you have copied important data off your computer before proceeding with any one of these options.

https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/perf...linux-live-cd/ Shred is a little bit easier for newbies to use than using dd (learn dd, too). Read carefully if you decide to follow this webpage. One pass (-n 1) is plenty enough to zero out a hard drive for a new Linux installation.

Good luck!

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Are you allowed to use Linux on your computer? If your parents allow you to, ask them first. LOL

Huh. Even those are farmed out for manufacture by 'generic' third parties. Microsoft may have envisioned the concept, but I still say there's no 'department' within Microsoft that actually spends all its time specifically working on and developing the things....

I could, of course, be wrong! (*shrug*) Some of the truly daft design decisions could ONLY have been dreamt up BY MyCrudSoft...!!


Mike.

Well, as a hardware guy, I can tell you that whoever pays the piper calls the tune, A team could spend 2-3 man years working on a spec, and reporting regularly to some twit in Redmond. He could veto all the team's good ideas and design in sh**. If he passed the Invoices, sh** would have to happen

Micro$oft has a whole line of Laptops and Tablets, I have one of their Laptops.