Amusing and interesting short thing about a punter successfully getting his money: http://www.nomis52.net/?section=comps&page=dell

Epic Win.

That was an eye opener! I used to blindly click a "yes" on all those aggrements and move on, the HP Pavilion laptop I purchased 2 years back came with Vista installed and the next day I removed Vista and installed Linux, I could have asked for a refund there too!

That lucky bloke.

It's generally possible, but a pain in the backside. Getting a Windows refund will let you know how much the OEM paid for it, and it's often an eye-opener how much cheaper the big PC makers get them, even compared to what a small independent OEM would pay let alone the retail price.

I never knew this was "bureaucratically" possible to do...

Anyway... any new PC that gets into my hands, the OS in the HDD lasts less than one hour...

Its extremely rare to find computers without Windows here (the version of Windows is stated in the specs along with cpu and memory !), but 5 years ago I found by accident a Dell Inspiron 1300 series n for sale (new in shop) very cheap. Great notebook that nobody bought for a long time cause it had no Windows, so they priced it at discount just to get rid of it

Came with 256 M ram ( I upgraded to 1024 since) and with Arch and KDE 4 (with all bling enabled) you would't ever think its a 5 year old Celeron M, It beats some way more modern desktops with Windows

The computer came with a FreeDOS instal CD and printed version of the GPL , although marked as "without any OS" on the box. I still dont know why they bothered incuding FreeDOS at all



BTW, You probably know about the Windows hidden recovery partition on many notebooks. I do the same thing with Linux I install : Tiny extra partition for second OS + backups of main root + configs + packages kept in the home partition, so that even if I break my system in the middle of nowhere in an adventure, it is restored in no time to working OS

lol win

It'd be interesting up see what would happen if manufacturers made this much easier, as in one phone call or a web page...
Would there be a high volume? Too bad the bureaucrats in the EU didn't include that option in addition to the "browser choice" ... and personally I'd like both as an option worldwide.

You do get the occasional specialist program that runs only on DOS. An example I came across, in 2008, was control software for a "kappa bridge", a machine for measuring magnetic susceptibility of substances at low temperatures. The software ran on (MS) DOS, and the only way to transfer the data to a modern computer for analysis was by floppy disk.

+1 Gparted liveCD and away we go...

I've always been the type to enjoy having a valid license key for just in case I do reinstall Windows back on my Linux only machines. But not only does he still have a valid key, but he also gets his $77 dollers refunded. I might just buy the Inspiron 15R I'v been wanting tommarow just to try this out for myself...

Why not just do it at the store or place of purchase? If you want windows, then you pay more. That would be the right way to do it.

I know about places that refuse warranty if it does not run Windows. They kinda think you can overclock more in linux or something, or just that their analysis tools require Windows (can't they have something that boots on its own ?)

The article was from 2003. Isn't this topic a bit out of date?