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Is Obtaining a Windows Refund Still Difficult?
Bubblehead asks: "A few years ago, everybody was talking about returning their copy of Windows to receive a refund. I plan on buying a Laptop shortly, and most manufacturers still insist on shipping it with some version of Windows. I was wondering what the state of the affairs is - there isn't that much information on the net. The most prominent piece of information is this 2003 Linux Journal Report outlining how the author had to go to small claims court to receive a refund. Any experiences - especially with vendors that do not offer an alternative?"
Do you value your time so little that it's worth going through the hassle?
I guess if you're extremely principled, I can see doing it.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
No, but you could sell that spare tire without the automobile manufacturer suing you.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It is functional though. As long as all the parts they sold you work. I can go to CompUSA and buy an optical mouse. It's pretty much worthless without a computer to go with it, but that doesn't mean that it's nonfunctional. My computer came with a CD burner, but no blank cd's. So I couldn't burn a CD without making another purchase, but that doesn't mean my computer was broken.
That's not a compelling reason at all.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
When this was on slashdot almost two years back, I seem to recall that there were too many dozens of posts making bad analogies to cars and car dealers.
Folks, computers are fundamentally different from cars, and most other goods[1]. Argument by analogy is a bad plan in general, but argument by bad analogy is a sure-fire disaster. Let's try arguing by logic, or inspecting the entrails of goats, instead.
I suppose that I've just unleashed a thousand bad analogies which will prove my point while trying to disprove it. Sigh.
[1]So, why are they fundamentally different? Microsoft's monopoly, the unique dependence on software to make them useful, (and the unique characteristics of that software, relative to any physical good, including computers), the fact that they are general purpose machines to an extent that nothing else is, and on and on. You might find one of these exceptional circumstances in any field, but you're unlikely to find all of them anywhere else. Unless your analogy accounts for all of these and more, it's probably wrong.
See what I've been reading.
Using a car as an example (I hate doing this) it might be like one tire manufacturer insisting through bullying and manipulating that ALL cars are delivered with their specific brand of tires, even though they are very specific and non-general tires, and there is ample evidence of a market for other types of tires (non-studded, low temp, etc)... It would be an unfair market place if consumers had to pay that "tax" (even if labor were involved to remove and replace said tires with other type) to get a product more suitable to their needs.
This isn't an issue of people being pissy and making snippy demands, it's an issue of a marketplace gone awry and still not corrected by the tactics still in practice by one giant firm, albeit practiced in a more nuanced and subtle way.
and got an apologetic letter too. They EULA says that if you do not agree to the license, you can return it to the retailer for a refund.
I had to take watford electronics to court (small claims), though they backed down about a week before they court appearance.
The interesting thing about their defense was it was "The EULA is not binding on us because we are a third party, the license being between microsoft and yourself".
My reply was that they purchased the OEM copy with that EULA and that it was I that had no relationship to MS. If they didn't want to be bound by the EULA then they could have put a different version of Windows on there.