this EULA refund deal thing

toasterman

Hi guys,

Does anyone know if this EULA refund agreement (where you can reclaim the cost of Vista/XP) is the same for any manufacturer?
I'm looking at laptops, and £50 off the price for not having Windows sounds good to me.

I know the cases I've read so far have all been Dell machines, but presumably if its in the Microsoft terms, I could buy any system with Windows preinstalled and do the same thing?
I'm thinking if I buy one from HP, presumably I can still do the same with the licence...?

I think I'm getting good enough with Linux to get it to work, and if it turns out I can't - I work in IT and I could pretty easily get hold of an OEM Windows XP Pro...which would presumably be legit still, as I'd revoked the original one it came with?
I might even be able to get it free through my company's involvement in the Microsoft Action Pack subscription service.

Revoking Windows would also save me having to uninstall trial versions of Office, Onenote, Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, and all the other bundled cr4p I'd otherwise have to remove when I got into Windows.

Plus the cheapest laptops with 512mb ram (I have limited funds for this) seem to come with Vista. I can't afford a ram upgrade at the moment, so I'd rather not have an OS that doesn't run well on the machine it's supplied with.
XP Home seems to be available on some still, but XP Home has little annoyances like not joining to domains...I'd rather try linux, and switch to xp pro if need be later on.

Millionaire

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=5006072#post5006072

have a read, and see what you think.

Blacksheep1979

buying an oem copy after buying the laptop actually wouldn't be legit as oem has to be sold with a system critical component. There are many retailers who don't 100% follow this though.

MadCowMan

It can also make support very difficult - you may find yourself being asked to reinstall windows in the event of needing to contact support.

toasterman

Hmm - that is very interesting. I can't think what could go wrong though, that would require Windows.
For example - if you can't power it on - it makes no difference what OS it has on it.
If the thing keeps crashing, you've likely got the same problem under Windows or Linux..and will have to run some sort of software to test it.

I guess Dell have the upper hand on this particular issue, because they have diagnostics software you can run before an OS starts, to test it.

But what if I need a new laptop, but I have software that doesn't run with Vista. If I buy a Vista one, revoke the EULA agreement, and install my own (legal) copy of Windows XP....I don't see they can refuse me hardware support on that basis...proving it is definitely hardware would be trickier.
You could dual boot it, but not if you revoke the licence.. so you're forced to pay for something you don't use.