Some friends recommended to carefully remove the stock drive, replace it with blank drive, and only put the stock drive back in case laptop has a hardware fault.
It was something to do with warranty, which may become void in case stock operating system was wiped. So they just physically deal with it, to keep the license/warranty intact.

I wouldn't have an iceberg's chance in hell of doing that successfully. I don't even know how to open a laptop.

Yes, it's the majority point of view at the moment, because not all shops have the OS requirement. But when/if microsoft builds their own general purpose distribution..
The end users may not have any other choice, if the shop owner says something like; we sell both linux and windows machines, but OS replacement is not supported and voids the warranty.
Then we'll have to do hardware alterations ourselves, or use obsolete machines where warranty is already void.
Just saying what if, I'm not much of a laptop user anyway, and would never buy a machine with an OS drive soldered to the board (that is just evil thing to do).
FWIW most laptops are not glued or soldered (yet), just have to be careful in advance, maybe it'd be worth to see a disassembly video before deciding what to buy.

Oh cmon, have some confidence. Check the manual, many laptops replacing the hard drive is its own compartment with a single screw on the cover. And if your manual doesnt explain it, there's a whole internet you can search for info.

I am willing to bet you would be successful and done in 5 minutes. On the other hand if it requires some disassembly, give it an hour.

Older machines using the 2.5" sata drives usually had a removable cover for access to the drive.
Mine is newer with an nvme M.2 drive and I have to take off the entire bottom cover of the laptop to access the drive which is mounted on the motherboard. Not difficult but has 10 or 12 tiny screws that all have to come out and be put back. Plus the bottom cover has a few points where it snaps into place around the edges.
In about 2 years I have already had to open it up to clean lint out of the fans/air flow paths.

The EULA, which ironically contains the phrases "Your privacy is important to us", followed closely by "...you agree that Microsoft may collect, use and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement (aka.ms/privacy)".

Yes, the [Lack of] "Privacy Statement" is a separate website: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-gb/privacystatement

Under "Personal data we collect", it's necessary to click "Learn more", to see what is actually collected. Then review a long and troubling list...

Just the tip of the iceberg... with a privacy statement that long, you know already that privacy is not the actual objective.

Of course it is!

They create a lot of nothing text so the user decides not to read it and they have the privacy of doing what they want without the user knowing what the actual intent is or what they actually give up. Of course, if you decide you don't like their policy you can always choose not to use the installed OS at all, which seems not an option to most.

One thing MS could try to gain control of the kernel is to go after the 501(c)3 status of The Linux Kernel Organization. Without the tax incentive, license fees would have to be imposed to cover the huge expense of production. Have a read of how this was never imagined, and how vulnerable The Linux Kernel Organization might be. California is always looking for ways to screw good people. https://www.kernel.org/category/about.html

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Sorry my bad for double posting

Pointing out the way the big guys could screw with the little guys is never a good thing. Maybe you give someone an idea they would never have developed on their own.

I am sure the linux foundation staff are aware of any weaknesses and can manage.

M$ is already on the board of directors for the Linux Foundation along with several of its partners and several repeat GPL violators. Being on the board, they are in effect the boss of Linus until such day as he takes his trademarks and walks, like he had to do before with the OSDL. The only good thing about the abuse he was subjected to the other year is that he saw who turned against him and will know not to bring them over into any new organization. However, much of these attacks have been psychological, so he may be broken and too timid to make the move. Notice that the prelude to this was the Linux Foundation eliminating the community representation on the board. Later, after the move was complete, they canned their press corps as well and have a single M$-oriented, say for pay shill to fill what's left of their web properties with drivel advancing M$ agenda and anti-GPL content in general. People point to Linus flipping the bird to Nvidia as the catalyst for the attacks against him, instead I would say that it was his re-affirmation of support for the GPL during the same presentation which is what did him in relative to the new board of directors.

As for M$ messing with Linux distros, aside from having infiltrated Canonical, they have now have a new distro of sorts which is wholly their own called CBL-Mariner: https://www.techradar.com/news/did-m...n-linux-distro No surprise, it is hosted on their proprietary versioning service, GitHub.

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It would be amusing to see micro$oft having "distro" versions, and statements like "WinDistro 14x is the most Linux-like WinDistro for users just starting to use a WinDistro."