Right.

I'm looking to buy a new PC soon, and the one I'm looking at comes with XP Media Center. I was thinking about leaving XP around, incase I come across an interesting game that can't be wined ( too many of those) and to try and port it over myself, if I can ever become so leet.

Do you think it's worth the bother to call up the OEM and ask for a refund? Or possibly a "down-grade" to home? Yeah, I know, home = crippleware, but like I said, I'll be rarely using it, and then it'd be with QEMU.

And what about the Vista Express upgrades? Do you think there's someone stupid enough to buy one from me on eBay or something? I might be getting it free (or for 30$-40$) and it'd be the home-basic or home-premium, which are like 150$+ for an upgrade. Being able to get rid of it for 100$ would be a boon to me; I get a 700$ PC for 600$.

I read on Slashdot someone got 50$ USD from Dell (with all that crap they send you for free, seems like they did just pay 50$) and that honestly doesn't seem like enough to make it worth it. I'd rather keep it, order Vista, and sell that.

Or should I get rid of XP entirely, and stick with an older release? I was considering 2K, but since almost no games are compatible with it... well... yeah. WINE 0.1 prolly had better support.

Thanks to whoever's reading this,
Cheers,
Joro.

Someone else (in Italy) got 120 euros from Dell, others got nothing, so the refund you can get is highly heterogenous I guess. So maybe you can ask whether they are going to refund you and the amount of it, before taking a decision.

Yeah, I think I'll call them tomorow, and let you all know. TigerDirect.ca sells it for around 140$ (OEM) so 100$ back for it shouldn't be unreasonable, when you consider the amount they get in deals for bundling software, and save by being a preffered MS slave.

If they're going to give me peanuts for it, I'll see if I can "downgrade" it instead, unless the difference is minimal (less than 40$). That's something that frustrates me, if a PC from them is advertised with certain things, you can't bring it down, and in the case of Sempron/Celeron based machines, up in quality.

Also, does media center offer anything better than home? What's the hype about? I'm assuming it's better DVD playability. I don't need blows for that, though. DVDs on free systems is legal in Canada, heck, downloading movies is too!

I hate to bump an old topic, AND double post, but after an extensive running around in circles with Dell's english support, finally switching to french support which is waay better I'd got the following out of them:

Everyone's in denial about refunds.

I mentioned the EULA which says I can get a refund. They said they'd contact me later about it, had to talk to the boss or something. Left my email address, and the chat closed.

I contacted them online prior to that twice about n-series here in Canada. Both were online, one with a called follow-up. First time they simply said "No." and ignored the rest of my questions. Second time said better to call them up. Called, thick accent of sorts, a stern "No", a polite "Thank you" from me, and goodbye, jerks.

As it is, I'm still waiting on that email. Once I get it I'll let you all know whether or not I can get my money back, and how much. Too bad they don't have n-series support.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm

User refund for no Windows option

By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website

A Sheffield man has won a refund from Dell for not installing Microsoft's Windows XP on a laptop he bought from the PC giant.

Freelance programmer Dave Mitchell ordered a Dell laptop on 21 October, and the machine was delivered a few days later.

As Mr Mitchell was planning to run the Linux open source operating system on the machine, he had no need for the copy of Windows XP Home that had been pre-installed.

When he started it for the first time, he clicked the box that said "no" on the Windows licence agreement that asked him to agree to its terms. The text of this agreement states users can get a refund for the "unused products" on their new computer if they get in touch with the machine's manufacturer.

Cash back

Mr Mitchell, who is an active member of the open source community, said he knew that other Linux fans had tried to get refunds in a similar fashion with varying degrees of success.

The origins of this campaign date from 1999 when open source activists in the San Francisco area started campaigning to get refunds for software they had no intention of using.

Every time a computer-maker, such as Dell, sells a PC or laptop they must pay Microsoft for the copy of the Windows operating system installed on it. While many PCs are now sold with a customer's choice of operating system installed, no laptop-makers yet offer the option of anything but Windows, said Mr Mitchell.

To bolster his case, Mr Mitchell shot photographs of every stage of the process that ended with him declining Microsoft's licence terms.

"I had a clear record of what the licence did or did not say," he said.

"I fully intended to take it as far as the small claims court," he said, "just to be bloody-minded."

He then wrote a letter, outlining what he had done, to Dell's Bracknell office and waited for a response. In the letter he did not mention his digital document of the process with photographs.

Dell only offers Windows software on its laptops

"I assumed that would come out when it came to the small claims court," he told the BBC News website.

However, two days later, Dell rang him and told him to expect a refund to his credit card soon after.

"They only took two days to respond," he said. "I was pretty gob-smacked that it was so easy."

The total refund was for £55.23, which Mr Mitchell took to be the value of a pre-installed version of Windows XP Home.

A couple of days after the refund was agreed, an invoice from Dell arrived through the post, which described the refund as "goodwill unspecified".

Although Mr Mitchell has now waived the right to use the copy of Windows XP Home on his laptop, Dell has not asked for the installation disc to be returned.

"I've cost Dell £50, not Microsoft, which is a slightly annoying," said Mr Mitchell. He encouraged other people to try to get a refund and wondered if Dell's policy on which operating systems it offered on laptops would change if enough people tried.

Thanks for the link, but a few things differ:

# He bought the laptop first, I'm asking prior to the purchase
# He's in the UK, I'm in Canada. Sometimes makes a difference. Someone in the US got 50$, someone in Italy got 100Euros
# He's got a laptop. I have yet to see a big OEM sell non-windows laptops.
# He isn't attempting to do like me, and buy a FreeDOS pre-loaded PC. [N-series]

EDIT: sorry if I sounded [enter something here]. I was looking into whether or not I could either downgrade the OS, or remove it entirely, and as of now no one from up here has done it before, so I amn't 100% of how much I'd get back and through what hassle I'd have to go, and hopefully inform people as to whether or not it's worth it. If this topic seems in any ways spamish, feel free to delete it, mods.

I just read somewhere that Dell had established a policy to give refunds on unused Windows SW.
I need to hire a librarian.......

Why are you buying a Dell?

I always find it easier & cheaper to buy the parts & assemble it myself. You get exactly what you want with no Microsoft tax.

bye bye all. 8)

Indeed....I always build my machines. But I never save money.

The discussion relates to those who do not want to build.

I've been looking at TigerDirect (NewEgg doesn't want to open up here, and the local stores are ripoffs for the most part) and buying the pieces from them and building it myself is on-par with Dell's. Problem is, Dell's comes with a possible 50$-150$ refund for an unused copy of windows. Plus, warranties. Very important, because the expression "Shit happens" is more than true in my experience.

If it wasn't for that, and the fact that my parent's wouldn't trust me enough to let me build it ;P, I would build it myself.

Wow. I gotta try that one too! I'm looking for some good linux-laptop, and since I'm not that excellent at building laptops getting refund like that sure would warm my heart.

You may be right about not being able to do it there in Canada, etc, I just remembered the artice when you posted. Clearly, it appears it can be done, it all depends on the hoops you want to jump through.

Frankly, like several in this thread, I just build my own. You don't save as much as you used to be able to, but you get a much better computer for the money.

IGF

The suggestion of building your own PC is valid until it comes to laptops though. I'm having a "discussion" with HP at the moment over this. There are instances of people refunding Windows licences, it just seems to be a case of how tenacious you're willing to be. Dell actually seem to be relatively flexible and Toshiba totally fine with it.

Do I wish I'd not gone with HP now? Starting to think that way.