Slashdot | Why Does Windows Still Suck?

Slashdot | Why Does Windows Still Suck?: "Anyone remember the Windows Refund effort? (Score:5, Informative)
by KiltedKnight (171132) on Friday February 04, @04:57PM (#11576935)
(http://slashdot.org/)
There was an attempt to get money refunded because people said that they didn't want Windows pre-installed. The way to get the refund was to take the computer out of the box, put a different OS installation disk in, and install the new OS, completely nuking Windows off the machine. With this done, you could get a refund of the cost of Windows, because you did not accept the terms of the EULA.

When you tried to do this, companies would say that you needed to contact Microsoft for the refund. Microsoft would say you needed to contact the computer seller. Once you finished running around in circles, you found out that it only cost the manufacturer about $1.00 to put the copy of Windows on that machine, and that's what you'd have refunded to you.

Of course, if you needed to get Windows back on the machine, now you'd have to pay the $180 for a full copy of it, because you had to return any and all materials from your computer purchase in order to get your dollar back.

Of course, if you managed to convince the manufacturer to sell you a computer without an operating system pre-installed, you had to pay an extra $10-$50 for that choice. Why? In order to be sure the computer worked in the first place, they had to install Windows to test the peripherals and other devices! Oh, did you want warranty support too? Sorry. 'We don't support other operating systems.'

The whole pre-installation thing was pure genius on the part of Microsoft's marketing department."