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Get your Windows license refund

en.refund4freedom.org

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Re: Get your Windows license refund

#231

Post by blaze33 »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #115
blaze33 wrote: post #75

In 2011 I got a 143€ reimbursement from Dell for an E6420 laptop that I had bought for 910€. Maybe I got lucky but I called the customer service, told the lady I did not agree with the Windows license terms, fully ready to argue my case and she just went "oh, ok, let me just edit a new invoice and wire you the money for Windows plus the Antivirus plus etc.". Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact ch…

> Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price. I actually expected those to pay for being pre-installed, offsetting or possibly even exceeding the cost of the Windows license.

I also heard the same thing, hence my surprise, but I guess I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a company simultaneously being paid for installing bloatware and also charging the customer for it...

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#232

Post by alightsoul »

supernikio2 wrote: post #105
gwbas1c wrote: post #76

Seems like it makes a lot more sense to buy a computer without Windows preinstalled. > Device manufacturers and vendors should not impose an operating system or software on consumers This is not a reasonable expectation. Hardware needs software to work, and software runs on an operating system. You can't expect every vendor in the work of every kind of product you can buy to offer you a slightly different version tha…

The key word here is "impose". I can imagine a world where at time of purchase you would select which OS (if any) you would want pre-installed on the machine. Even a checkbox for Yes/No Windows would be an improvement.

[dead]

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#233

Post by jasomill »

BeetleB wrote: post #152
tredre3 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations change over time. But I also believe your recollection is erroneous or must differ by region because I was there as early as the 80s and computers sold without an operating system weren't common. If you were buying a PC clone in the 90s you could buy it without the Windows license, of course, but the default was to include it. Even before PCs, computers typically shipped with BASIC, which was their opera…

> Even before PCs, computers typically shipped with BASIC, which was their operating system of sort. Sure. In the 80's, all the IBM PC compatibles I dealt with shipped with BASIC in their ROM. But I don't think they charged a licensing fee for it.

Maybe not, but as I understand it, languages were one of Gates' key bargaining chips in negotiating the terms of the MS/PC-DOS deal that put Microsoft in a position to start licensing to OEM's on a per-CPU basis in the first place.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#234

Post by BeetleB »

jasomill wrote: post #233
BeetleB wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even before PCs, computers typically shipped with BASIC, which was their operating system of sort. Sure. In the 80's, all the IBM PC compatibles I dealt with shipped with BASIC in their ROM. But I don't think they charged a licensing fee for it.

Maybe not, but as I understand it, languages were one of Gates' key bargaining chips in negotiating the terms of the MS/PC-DOS deal that put Microsoft in a position to start licensing to OEM's on a per-CPU basis in the first place.

I'm pretty sure the BASIC that launched from my ROM was not from Microsoft...

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#235

Post by metalliqaz »

shevy-java wrote: post #157
boplicity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am seriously saddened by the complete takeover of mobile computing by Apple and Google. There is no freedom on your own device to choose your own software, except inside the very narrow constraints allowed.

That's what de-facto monopolies do. What is more surprising is that competitors do not arise. Democracies in general have totally messed this up. The USA should be fined for exerting a monopoly onto other countries. And then fined for penalising US customers with that monopoly at home.

"the US"? fined by whom?

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#236

Post by simulator5g »

neallindsay wrote: post #185

I also raised an eyebrow at "the vast majority of laptops are only sold with a specific proprietary operating system: Microsoft Windows", but after looking at some estimates it seems legit. Probably only about 1 in 10 laptops is a Mac. Software developers really just live in a different world than normal people. It got me thinking though: what is a laptop? People probably count Chromebooks, and that seems fair. Is a…

Software devs absolutely live in their own little world. Regular people don’t even know what an OS is. All the details of computing have become so abstracted away from the user that they’re completely unaware.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#237

Post by brudgers »

upboundspiral wrote: post #222
brudgers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Windows, Hibernate works a treat.

Hybernate is basically cold booting. At least in my experience it's not comparable to suspend + resume in terms of speed.

I just opened my Thinkpad lid.

I was back to where I left when I had counted to eleven.

It’s about six years old, running W11, and was <$600 new. It has a touchscreen I never use.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#239

Post by brudgers »

dijit wrote: post #62
brudgers wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily these days with anything released since 2020- it's a lot better. Unless it’s a post-Intel Mac, and that’s all of them these days.

Websites work better on a mac than ever . You mean Linux, probably, but thats because Chrome doesn't enable hardware acceleration pn ARM, so smooth scroll is disabled. Pretty rough.

I mean Linux because M silicon has no public documentation.

And by Linux, I mean there’s no distribution that runs on a Mac better than a 1990’s consumer HP laptop did in the 1990’s.

And that’s only for M1 and M2 silicon.

Linux doesn’t run on M3 silicon and later at all.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#240

Post by connicpu »

shevy-java wrote: post #157
boplicity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am seriously saddened by the complete takeover of mobile computing by Apple and Google. There is no freedom on your own device to choose your own software, except inside the very narrow constraints allowed.

That's what de-facto monopolies do. What is more surprising is that competitors do not arise. Democracies in general have totally messed this up. The USA should be fined for exerting a monopoly onto other countries. And then fined for penalising US customers with that monopoly at home.

Other countries are free to find a way to incentivize building home-grown equivalents and prioritizing that software or even applying tarrifs to foreign software.
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