Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has announced a program to 'establish a vibrant community of computer refurbishers across 133 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa who will be authorized to re-install its Windows operating system in donated pre-used PCs destined for schools, charities, non-profit organizations and under-served communities...Microsoft will provide re-installation of Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000 Professional in over 18 languages. The refurbished PCs will be accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) and a special End User Licence as evidence of a legally installed operating system.' XBruticusX submits a story on news.com about the program.

Comments

In related news

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news,
Slackware and Debian announced free operating systems for these refurbished computers...

...10 years ago.

Re:In related news

[magarity]

"It is a shame that the refurbished computers can't be loaded with low cost Lindows"

I'll tell you why they can't as until recently I worked at a nonprofit MAR member. People who run the local community center / church / shelter / adult day care / whatever nonprofit have NO IDEA about computers other than they've heard that Microsoft Windows is what they're supposed to have. At $5 per MAR license or $0 for [insert distro here] Linux, they'd rather pay. There is no amount of patient explaination that will change their minds, I assure you as one who has tried. They also want to pay for MS Office rather than OpenOffice for the same reason. Never heard of it? Don't want it and don't want to know! And all of my persuasions were based on cost and performance on older computers, not a fanatical open source agenda.

Re:In related news

[westlake]

Have you considered the possibility that all the staff, volunteers and clients who maintain these programs have years of experience with Windows at home and at work?

No money in the budget for training and support, fundamentally no need, and, for related reasons, I've seen exactly zero interest in maintaining old, cheap, hardware.

Here in town, the Civic Guild donated a gorgeous 19" LCD color monitor to the local library. Seniors manning the desk were tiring under the strain of using the new electronic check-out system. The aging CRT that had served well enough before went to the dumpster when no one would take it even as a gift.

Re:In related news

[Danathar]

Has it ever occured to you NOT to tell them it's not Windows? That's what I did with a friend of my mother's. I set everthing up so it was easy.. the Icon for Open Office said "Start Word Processor".....Replaced the Mozilla Icon with Netscape Icon....ect..

She's been using it for months...with no complaint. If they are igonrant enough to not know about LINUX...they are igorant enough not to understand why they need to run Windows....or even what windows IS! She wanted to add a digital camera to the system....It works without a hitch (MEPIS works great as a newbie distro!!)

Re:In related news

[Lothsahn]

Actually, I'm doing just that. I'm setting up a computer lab for an inner city homeless outreach with little or no computer budget. I've managed to scrape together 3 different computers, and for consistancy, I've used Knoppix for Kids on all of them.

It comes pre-installed with educational software, word processing, web browsing, and if it ever fails, they just reboot the computer.

On the other hand, I could use an illegal copy of windows, or even if I could get a legal copy of windows for free, it would contain little or NO educational software. Then I'd have to go pay for educational software, which isn't cheap.

Linux has really been the best thing ever for these kids learning about computers. Many of these kids have never used a computer before at all.

smooth move

[Anonymous Coward]

A way to fight back as all the recycled machined getting Linux/*BSD installed on them. That's why they're "giving" Win98 for the lower end machines.

Windows 98?

[phearlez]

How odd that they would officially support the installation of an OS that's been EOLed (WinME is the oldest 16 bit still supported, yes?)

Re:Windows 98?

[phearlez]

My mistake/misstatement - the deployment of Windows98 has ceased in any endorsed manner and consumer support for a product extends 5 years past its initial date of availability - in the case of Win98SE that means the end of June.

So I was close, and NOW say... odd that they'd support deploying something that's ABOUT to be discontinued in support.

Re:Windows 98?

[neowolf]

Not odd at all- they are relicensing a deprecated and almost completely worthless OS. They don't make or lose any money off of it and don't have to support it, but they get good free publicity because of this announcement.

Re:Windows 98?

[anon*127.0.0.1]

True, but would you want to load WinXP on a P166 with 32 meg of RAM?

There are old, refurbished computers in countries where there's not that much modern hardware to begin with. Wouldn't suprise me if some of those suckers were 486's. At least give Microsoft credit for realizing what sort of hardware they're dealing with.

Re:Windows 98?

[ottffssent]

At least give Microsoft credit for realizing what sort of hardware they're dealing with.

Hah! Since when have Microsoft ever done anything but make hardware as slow as they can get away with?

No, they have a solid grasp of the market they're dealing with. That being emerging markets where Microsoft has no sizeable installed base with which to compete with Linux. You did notice this doesn't apply in the US or any of the major European countries, right?

This program exists for the same reason that Microsoft practically gives away their software to college students: so people in target markets will be familiar with their product. That familiarity is absolutely crucial to Microsoft: as Linux continues to be more and more compelling from a technical perspective, the only advantage Microsoft has is its familiarity and continuity with the old standard.

Re:Windows 98?

[mallardtheduck]

Actually... Even Windows 3.11 had tiny bits of 32-bit code in... (Im talking Wfw3.11 here..)

It had 32-bit disk access, 32-bit TCP stack, and a few other things. Of course with the Win32s (remember those?) it had a whole lot of 32-bit code.

Not that I am nitpicking here...

Ready pitchforks!

[NanoGator]

Boy I can't wait to see how everybody takes this as a creative writing exercise to tell us about how this is proof Microsoft is evil.

Re:Ready pitchforks!

[Avihson]

I'll bite this bait:

Why pay to reinstall the same OS that came originally on the system?
If It came with 98, then it has a legal license for 98, no need to buy a new one. If I donate it to a charity, then I donate my license.

If Some Evil Company manipulates the EULA to prohibit this act of charity, then I will just keep legal ownership of the PC and allow the charity to use My PC and My Licence to the OS as they see fit.

Re:Ready pitchforks!

[StormyMonday]

I see it a bit differently. Microsoft (and other software vendors) are desperate to maintain the fiction that shrinkwrap/clickthru EULAs actaully mean anything (they viiolate just about every common law principal of business agreements).

By getting people to agree that they *need* to worry about the transfer of license when a PC is sold, they reinforce the idea that the EULA actually means something.

It's a lot better on the ol' PR than suing an orphanage somewhere over EULA viiolations.

Re:Ready pitchforks!

[zcat_NZ]

Microsoft is really unclear on this;

If you have an OEM install of Windows, it MUST be sold with the machine. You can't sell the bare machine and reinstall WIndows on your new computer.

If you buy a second-hand machine, apparently you don't ever get Windows with it and are supposed to buy a new version.

It looks to me like someone is trying to sell at least one new windows licence every time a second-hand machine gets sold or donated.

yay!

[gl4ss]

so you'll essentially pay for the license for a computer that already most probably had a license!

So I guess this makes sense for them(microsoft).

Re:yay!

[Godeke]

Since the license is non transferable (a rule I thinks needs legal review, but that's how it stands) this is an unfortunate necessity. I have worked with Microsoft in the past, and it was difficult to get a relicense approved, even for non profits. Instead they wanted to sell new licenses at a discounted rate, but still at a cost that makes the "donated" hardware a liability rather than an asset.

Re:yay!

[Fnkmaster]

I'm not clear how those sorts of license terms (license bound to not only a particular piece of hardware but also to a particular owner) complies with the first sale doctrine or would be ruled as a permissable sort of EULA in most, if not all, jurisdictions around the world.

I realize that unfortunately rulings on EULAs here in the US have been mixed, but this kind of restriction is not a reasonable one. I bought the hardware, I paid for it, the software comes with it, you can't tell me when I sell the hardware that I can't sell the software. That's as outrageous as telling me that when I sell my car I can't transfer the "license" to run the engine control software because there was an EULA in addition to the standard sale contract when I bought my car.

Just because the stuff behind the scenes is done by software and the software itself is protected by copyright law, doesn't mean that a person who bought it can't use it in the standard way it is intended to be used. This kind of use just plain old doesn't require accepting any license - mark my words, the first auto manufacturer that tries this shit will get torn to shreds by an angry mob, and I think it will take something like that to get the commoners to understand how they are being raped by companies like Microsoft.

WTF?

[Lord Kano]

establish a vibrant community of computer refurbishers across 133 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa who will be authorized to re-install its Windows operating system

I didn't know that the BSA had offices in Karachi and Djibouti. Who the fuck cares about Microsoft certification in the third world?

LK

Re:WTF?

[tuxtomas]

Seriously, this has to throw your head back. Especially in the regions suffering from hunger, AIDS, ethnic conflicts, civil wars, you name it.

Who's gonna care about about that little sticker on your box when you're an orphan suffering from dysentery with tsetse flies and mosquitoes flying around your head as you stare at a blue screen. Open source- the greatest equalizer mankind has ever seen.

Old machines.

[Godeke]

I think it is great there will be a legal way to bring these machines online: having worked with charities, often the limiting factor was the difficulty of getting Microsoft to relicense the software. Obviously, part of the motivation is to stem the use of free software, which was previously the only surefire way to remain legal. The implementation question that remains is how expensive the refurbishing services will be... too expensive and the practice of simply using an unlicensed copy of Windows or punting and using free products will continue.

Always butting into the market

[t_allardyce]

isnt there already a vibrant community of people who will install linux for free on old pc's?:P

Are they going to offer a certification for this?

[Ride-My-Rocket]

MCOSR: Microsoft Certified Operating System Refurbishers?

Nice deal for MS!

[Greg@RageNet]

So Microsoft can get refurbishers to pay again for an operating system that was licensed and installed on the system in the first place, since 99+% of PC's ship with windows when originally sold? Nice deal.

-- Greg

Re:Nice deal for MS!

[morleron]

The double dipping for license fees shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, MS recently told the SEC that Linux is a significant threat to its revenue stream. This is simply a way for MS to enhance their cash flow, give them more money with which to fund SCO lawsuits, and play the PR game to show how "thoughtful and caring" it is. Gates and company are evil, but they're not stupid.

Just my $.02,
Ron

Something Similar...

[The-Dalai-LLama]

Hasn't Linux had a similar program in place for a while now?

The Dalai Llama
...nevermind...

Microsoft does this type of thing all the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is nice that people will be getting functioning (well, to Windows standards at least) computers, it nauseates me to realize that when the people using the computers enter the global economic system they will be 'hooked' on Micro$oft. Ugh. This is just like M$ 'donating' software to schools. It is not altruistic in the least, they just want to develop future customers.

Giving out obsolete operating systems

[Steepe]

and of course they take the full retail version fees on their taxes as a charity contribution. They won't support Win98, or probably the 2k because of some stipulation in the "special eula", but uncle sam will get charged the full brunt for a full OS purchase with support.

It's not like this costs them anything...

[timmi]

or at least it doesn't cost them much, and Why was North and South America excluded?

(I will bow to any proof that MS gives away licenses to American Non-Profit Orgs.)

I can see excluding Asia, Because much of that part of the world doesn't respect Copyrights, but still.

Is it just because MS is unable to establish the MS tax in the EU or something?--computers ship with OEM licenses that must be transferred along with ownership of the computer...

linux and copyright

[Datasage]

Considering that in several countries you can vist a shop to purchase a cd with windows longhorn even for less than $5. How many of these countries will actually care that you get a legal copy of windows with the referbished computer?

I guess its Microsoft's futile attempt to stop linux from taking over the world.

EOL?

[Joff_NZ]

I know they've extended it, but isn't Win98 about to be EOL'ed? Is that to say MS is sanctioning the installation of an unsupported (support, patches, etc) OS?

Beware.....

[overbyj]

As the saying goes "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts". (From The Iliad for those thinking it is racist.) This act is a trojan horse for Microsoft. They donate their wonderful products to those poor, pitiful people in the Third World so we they get them hooked on their technological crack. Once they get them hooked, they can peddle the more expensive crack because now everbody is hooked and has to have it.

Fight it people. Linux is free now and in the future. Can't say the same thing about MS Windows

Re:Beware.....

[chris_mahan]

That's the lesson from Hollywood.

A film like star wars will make 350M in US but 800M worldwide, even though they pay a smaller ticket price a the box office.

Never under-estimate the purchasing power of 4 billion third-worlders with 20 cents each.

But the lesson behind the lesson is when you make a movie that targets the third-world audience, the US public thinks it's crap (except LOTR of course, but there's wizardry at work there). Likewise by third-world standards, win98 is "good enough", since they have nothing.

Re:Beware.....

[Bitseeker]

Does this mean that MS is endorsing the use of outdated OSes to create yet more zombie machines ready to be hacked into? Or does it mean that Win98 will continue to get patches as long as third-world countries are using it?

Mailing list

[chris_mahan]

1) build a mailing list using good intentions.

2) Send list to BSA's foreign equivalents

3) Profit!!!

Remember, Microsoft is a for-profit corporation. They do NOTHING without a profit-derived motive. If they do, the Board is not doing its job.

We do this already - with Linux

[timelady]

ItShare SA, Computer Angels, and Computerbank Australia, are related groups in Australia doing this already - but with Linux. We provide safer systems accordingly, without the need for third party software to be paid for - such as Open Office etc. Having a donated Windows box is all well and good (Now, I don't actually think its that good..;) ), but what about the unsupported nature of Win98, the virus and other security issues, and the need to pay for third party software (unless someone points them towards OO, and other FOSS for Windows...).

Re:We do this already - with Linux

[timelady]

As one of our volunteers is doing, developing Tetun versions for East Timor....such developments are actually MUCH more likely in Linux. Computerbank Victoria is shipping Farsi boxes....I would suggest to you there would be more possibility of FOSS than commercial software for such limited 'customer base'....

Already have a windows license?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're right. Donated PC's *SHOULD* come with the license to the (Microsoft, at least) OS that was installed on it. That's according to their EULA, at least.
here's where reality kicks in

Have you ever *SEEN* most "donated" PCs? You'll be lucky if they're even functioning, let alone coming with things like the Windows license, documentation, peripherals, etc. Take what you can get, if MS wants to make it easy for people to put legit versions of Windows on their computers... more power to them. It certainly isn't my favorite OS, but if people are going to install it (illegally) anyway, at least now they'll be able to do it legally.

Some people are going to talk about how Free Software has been doing this for years; and they're right, it has. However if you're in a situation where you're fortunate to even have donated low-end computers, you're going to go with what your users know. And before you start in with the "thriving community of *nix users" etc...how many of those in the thriving community are willing to travel to some third world country to teach people how to use linux? I don't see the volunteers...

FAQ and Fees

[David Hume]

so you'll essentially pay for the license for a computer that already most probably had a license!

The Microsoft Authorised Refurbishers (MAR) Programme FAQ addresses this issue:

Q Why is a programme required? Why can't the original owner donate the licence?

A Typically, the original owner of a computer no longer has the original media and documentation when donating a computer some years after its original purchase. In accordance with Microsoft licensing rules, this original media and documentation would be required for the licence to be donated.

As for the "adminstrative fee," the FAQ explains:

Q Is there a charge to become a MAR?

A No charge is made to join the programme but an administrative fee is charged to cover the management and supply of materials for the programme for each computer MARs wish to refurbish and reinstall a licence on. The fee is US$5.00 per computer.

Q Are there any other charges to participate in the programme?

A No - the only charge is the administrative fee of US$5.00 per licence.

To answer other questions, people may want to check out:

Microsoft Authorised Refurbishers Programme.

Re:FAQ and Fees

[kisielk]

I had an eBay auction for Visual Studio .Net Student Edition in its original shrink-wrapped package including everything. Microsoft had my auction shut down because apparently it was against the EULA to resell it. However, I'd never even opened the box nor installed the software, so I don't see how the EULA would even apply to me since I was never a "user" of the software and never agreed to their damn license. I guess eBay just does whatever Microsoft says to avoid any kind of trouble from the m..

Spammer's heaven

[Querty]

Just what we need, the entire third world running unsupported Microsoft OS'es. I thought Microsoft wanted to stop spam, not encourage it...

Anyone going online using one of these computers in a year or so will find out the hard way what the term "HaX0red" means.

Windows Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to do windows update on these? These PC's will be one big DDOS launcher and spam host for all the spammers and kiddies out there. There are three upcoming remote vulnerabilites in windows 2000 according to Eeye's upcoming vuln. page.

http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Upcoming/index .h tml

I dont think these will be patched any time soon.

newer?

[Tango42]

From the article:

"Computers donated by large companies are typically three years old and the MAR program upgrades the software to newer versions of Windows that donated PCs can support, for a nominal charge that covers materials and program operations.

Through the EMEA MAR program, Microsoft will provide re-installation of Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000 Professional in over 18 languages."

Since when would installing 98SE onto a 3 year old machine be a newer OS?

they won't install or run

[zogger]

not easily anyway, not any modern distro with a windowing desktop that a non guru can install and operate. Not on them old 16 meg ram machines they won't. 95 will though, and will work perfectly fine, it will surf, email whatever, type a report,etc. I have this problem all the time the olden antiques I refurb and give away, I haven't found a linux equivalent that will do all this with a GUI on these pent 1s.

I still have my old mac 512k. This has a nice GUI that ran off a dang undersized floppy, and I think if I recall it has one meg of RAM, something small like that anyway. Maybe it even has only half a meg, hence the name, I disremember now, but it ain't much, but IT WORKED.

What is it, why can't we (I mean linux) have something that will even come close now without requiring at least 128 megs? Is it just technically impossible because of the way a unix like system is designed? I find even 64megs RAM to be the bare-ly minimum for anything at all practically speaking, and even then it's a kludgy buggy slow exasperating experience. And no, I don't mean installing a CLI only thing, or having to hand carve your desktop windowing gui-like thing out of rocks and old sticks and spending half your spare time keeping it running muttering incantantions and entering runeish commands from a terminal, I mean a slide in a CD and install it and it works thing. Nothing fancy,it don't got to be real fast, just a GUI and a few normal apps.

MS is smart in this case, even with piracy over there as a norm, it costs them almost nothing, and we're talking about a still mostly untapped market of hundreds of millions of people, over a billion easy really. Hearts and minds.....

Software "charity"

[misleb]

Ah, I love it when software makers give away software and call it charity as if it were a real sacrafice or loss.

"Hmm, we have all this 'product' that costs practially nothing to reproduce once it has already been developed. And we also have a bunch of poor people threatening to move to Linux.... hmmm. I know! Lets give away old versions of our software to indoctrinate these poor people and make them dependant on us! Yay!"

Wake me up when Ford starts giving away F150's to African farmers.

-matthew

VERY insightful !

[Teun]

Indeed, this must be the the main reason for M$ to come up with the plan.

And every computer running their product is one less for the competition...

A Eula restricting transfer of the use of the product is rather worthless in most (European) countries I know, in Africa and Asia most people and governements couldnt care less anyway.

Microsoft's Evil Will Kill Us All

[pemulius]

Hello, I hate everything in the world. However, I bequeath my deepest hate towards Microsoft for their charitable deeds, because as with all entities that spawned from Satan's uterus (bet you didn't know Satan was a woman), every good deed comes with vile ulterior motive. I won't be surprised if most of the users declare Jihad on the world, after having exhausted their capacity to restart the computers on an absurdly frequent basis.

So cheers to Microsoft for its relentless, evil ambitions. And remember, when the world is inevitably taken over by robots, the robots commiting the hate crimes will without a doubt be powered by the Longhorn OS.

missed the target specs

[zogger]

what am I talking about? What are YOU reading, and why is this difficult to understand? 48 megs of RAM, you are OVER the top by a factor of 3x as much RAM by my criteria. I have a lot of old pent 1s at 90 or 100 mghz with 16 megs of ram, and hunting down and getting after market RAM sticks is extremely cost prohibitive, and a lot of these older machines take very precise sticks. Extremely, even if you can find the crap. The best I have done is on a 166 mghz machine that had a single stick of 64 megs in it, I got both redhat and knoppix to (barely) run on it. I'm on a 200PP right now, and it works OK,I like it actually, *after* I bought another 64stick, and then another stick of 128 megs ram,now it works swell, before it had come with 32 and wouldn't run (or install) RH7.1, the first distro I owned and tried. I've got 7.1, 7.2, mandrake 8.0, RH 8.0, various knoppix and a morphix, and FC1 here, and around 128 seems to be the magic number in non-guru land, for me anyway.

See the problem really is the ram, not the cpu speed, near as I can see, and a free or 5$ machine is not worth spending literally 60-70 dollars on just to try and track down some oddball RAM. I'd add another stick of 128 to my own machine, but they want 90$ for it!!!! Not happening. I've borked a few machines now using RAM that alleged gurus told me "would work in your machine".

Now imagine you are joe third world, how hard it is going to be to get more RAM of the exact correct kind, or even maybe another hard drive that is large wenough to both install the system and have enough swap space. A lot of these machines only have like 600 meg hard drives. It's a pain in the tush to make anything but windows work on them. I don't even try, I mean after you've tried a dozen times, it gets old, and I'm not command line tweaking installing compiling all kinza crap for a freebie give away machine, I got other things to do.

I'm not trying to say it can't be done, but I am merely asking for a pointer to a distro with any example where someone has a normal system running a full fledged easy to install and config GUI on 16 megs on a low end pent 1, and I ain't seen it yet. Every example I have seen requires a lot of command line, and when you get done you still have to comamand line some window like thing, then do this that and the otherand it's still not much of a GUI. No thanks. I'm not a guru, just someone who gives away old boxes to kids who's families are so poor they don't even own telephones (yes, this is USA I am talking about), and until I can find a linux equivalent, these boxes go out the door with 95 or 98 on them, because at least those will boot and run and install easy on 16 megs, you get a window system, etc, and I *wish* it weren't so, because I'd love to turn these kids onto linux.

I repeat, it needs to run on 16 megs RAM, 32 at the most, be able to easily install from a cd without using a geek dictionary for acronyms and vague man commands that make little sense, and to be run almost 100% GUI after installation.

And no matter WHAT I type, someone leeter than me who can't read is gonna retort they got foodows window like-experience desktopping manager running after tweaking the config sys/etc/stab yo momma file blather yada yada, etc, well, except for the video and audio and the drives don't seem to work and .......

Nope

I don't care about that, these are going to end users even lamer than I am. I am between aunt tillie and.. whatever, and if I can't install and run it, sure as heck the end users are gonna be frustrated within 5 minutes and borrow their cuzzin leroys copy of windows and install it anyway.

I think it's better to just admit that X is a full bore no doubt about it gross resource hog, and not pretend it ain't. I'm not a coder and I don't know why, but it sure is or seems to be. I am not complaining, I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the price is right, but I think my observations are *true facts*. If someone can point me to a Distro th

Re:missed the target specs

[shadowbearer]

and getting after market RAM sticks is extremely cost prohibitive, and a lot of these older machines take very precise sticks

God, Zogger... wish I'd known. I just sold a 8 lb box of 486/PI/II ram - a lot from prop machines like IBMs and gateways - on ebay. If I'd known you were looking I'd have just shipped it to you (didn't get enough money to pay for my time, only about fifty bucks)

Hey, man, don't feel bad. Before I moved I had tons of old equipment around, and that's how I learned to do stuff. Think of it as an education - in frustration - which is often the best teacher *grin* but seriously, sometimes just doing install after install on various machines is the best way to learn it. I'm biased - that's how I did it - but hey :)

That said, for a lot of older systems, you might try Damn Small Linux - which I use on my 486 laptop and which works quite well. It's a massively shrunken (50 mb image) version of Knoppix which is geared for min memory and cpu - and still has the hardware autodetect. Works pretty well (just doesn't update well, it's a mix of Debian stable, unstable and testing - so one has to be careful :) (see below)

You don't need a CDrom, either - if you can get the 50mb image on the hard drive, even if it's in a DOS partition, you can boot it from a DSL boot floppy, or with tomsrblt you can boot it over NFS if the network card is supported (takes a little tweaking tho in some configs)

DSL boots with fluxbox and a fb X and even on my 486 33mhz laptop is quite usable (I use the 486 to monitor the big machines from bed and surf slashdot occasionally :)

DSL is also quite nice for doing chroot to a debian install without having to go thru the crap of loading floppies - read the howtos there (too long to get into in this post)

BTW, none of the machines I've used DSL on have more than 16mb ram - more helps, but it's very usable without them, as long as you aren't using modern browsers (ram-hungry) or things like Open Office. To boot DSL requires only 8 mb ram if you're willing to deal with a lot of HD swap. Installation is easy - there's a script in the image that is really easy to run thru, all you need to know is what partition it needs to be on. Oh, and it pretty much installs and runs itself. Give it a try. I'd be interested in hearing your experiences (no, I'm not affiliated, I just think that Damn Small Linux rocks!)

Hey, good luck, man - seriously. Don't have time to play like that anymore, and I kind of miss it. If you'd like some non-RTFM help, post back - and we'll figure out a contact. I can't promise FT replies but I'll damn sure help you out - I'd consider it payback for those who helped me learning this.

Cheers!
SB

Re:What about Knoppix?

[eclectro]

As the parent poster pointed out, many if not most people have made up their minds unconditionally that they want windows.

And in a sense, you can't blame them. You walk into any department store and you see a wall of windows applications.

Not linux apps.

Awesome Spin

[GoatJuggler]

Wow, I wish I had their skills.

Problem: People are using old computers to experiment with Linux, and aren't paying us enough money.
Solution: Provide a seemingly philanthropic way for these people to donate their computers, and make them feel bad for selfishly hoarding computers that could otherwise be used for kids. Then, when this plan works, sell more addon licenses for products such as Office. When these refurbished Win98 and Win2000 machines propagate, scare the schools into buying new computers with WinXP by inundating them with stories of hackers and crackers.

Microsoft competes with Intel, AMD, Dell

[Doc Ruby]

These refurb'ed computers compete with new and refurbished Dells, Gateways, and every other new x86 PC, and their sales are largely at the expense of that market share. That of course ripples up the supply chain to Intel and AMD. Microsoft is flexing its muscle as these HW vendors continue to grow their Linux support and marketing. By Longhorn/2006, we'll be seeing new M$ brand computers competing directly.

M$moke and Mirror$

[AetherBurner]

In reading the M$ FAQ on this, I see that it is Windoze98 SPECIAL EDITION and not SECOND EDITION, whatever the difference is. Plus I did not see in the FAQ that all of the virus patches (current and future) are to be applied. It just looks like the base system and no install CD's are to be provided. Just think...MAR systems being used in 419 scams and virus hacked to spam to boot...woo hoo!!!

why blame when you can fix?

[twitter]

... you can't blame them. You walk into any department store and you see a wall of windows applications.

Ignorance is poverty. Everything on the wall costs money, might not work with a particular version of winblows, and is available without cost in free software. Show them kpackage, deselect or aptitude. People who have used music sharing programs shrug and ask, "so what". Then you tell them that all that software is free and intended to be so by the authors. Boom, the ignorance is over. You then tell your client that you can make anything on the list work for them for a small fee anytime they have a problem doing it themselves and you have business.

It works for you and it can work for them and make you money too. Free software is like that. Offshore that jog, Balmer baby!