Windows Refund Day (1999)
marc.merlins.org
Windows Refund Day (1999)
1–10 of 138 posts
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#2nothing has changed.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#3Hey, I was there! I'm the one in the jean jacket, and the plastic penguins that people are holding up were mine (and I still have them!).
Edit: I also still have my copy of the form letter that Microsoft handed out to us, which I transcribed at
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#4His appearance at this event must have been just about peak ESR. I've been following his long slow slide into crank-dom on his blog, at least up until its stop last fall. I wonder what he's up to now.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#5I was still on the family G3 in 1999, was it difficult to buy a PC without Windows at the time?
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#6> The windows EULA (End User License Agreement) clearly states that the agreement can be refused by the end user, and that windows can be returned to the manufacturer. In real life, however, manufacturers typically say that they can't refund the windows license and tell the user to contact microsoft directly. I can't say I really blame manufacturers for doing that [...]
I can. If companies want to profit by being a middle-man between the OS developers and the consumer, then they also inherit the responsibility of actually dealing with said consumer. If Microsoft wants to be a pain in their arse and make it harder for them to actually fulfil their obligations as a merchant, maybe they should stop doing business deals with a company that's actively hostile to them.
It's the same thing as tech stores that try to foist you over the the hardware manufacturer if you buy a faulty component from them. You don't get to put your fingers in the pie and then claim that you have no responsibility to ensure the quality of an item you're advertising and selling.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#7nothing has changed.
A lot has changed.
No thanks to Microsoft, but a lot has changed.
Drivers are much better now and many large companies supply their own drivers (though frustratingly often as binaries).
Some companies like Dell offer Linux specific SKUs with somewhat tuned drivers.
There are companies making Linux first desktops. Linux first servers are extremely common. There is a lot of hardware not just shipping with Linux but designed for Linux first.
It's a world better now than it was in the mid-late 90s.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#8nothing has changed.
A lot has changed. No thanks to Microsoft, but a lot has changed. Drivers are much better now and many large companies supply their own drivers (though frustratingly often as binaries). Some companies like Dell offer Linux specific SKUs with somewhat tuned drivers. There are companies making Linux first desktops. Linux first servers are extremely common. There is a lot of hardware not just shipping with Linux but des…
I think it was meant in regards to refunding the Windowx tax or buying computers with Linux preinstalled universally.
Some like Lenovo were giving customers very hard time in getting a refund. And only very recently they started offering Linux preinstalled on some of their models for regular users.
Some things like you mentioned above are of course much better today. But Windows tax situation is still a mess.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#9I was still on the family G3 in 1999, was it difficult to buy a PC without Windows at the time?
Microsoft had contracts with all of the OEMs, if an OEM wanted Microsoft's OEM pricing, they needed to pay for a Windows License with every PC they sold.
Buying a PC without Windows meant buying parts and assembling it yourself. Wasn't too difficult, but you were SOL if you wanted a laptop.
Re: Windows Refund Day (1999)
#10I was still on the family G3 in 1999, was it difficult to buy a PC without Windows at the time?
Yes and no. Name brand computers tended to come with Windows. But there was a printed monthly magazine called the Computer Shopper that had ads for mail-order stuff of every possible description, and you could buy a motherboard plus the rest of the pieces without Windows.
Right about that time period, copy protection of the Windows CD's was altering the equation.