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How to get a Refund on Your Unwanted Windows
lisah writes "Serge Wroclawski recently contacted Dell to request a refund on the unwanted copy of Windows XP that came pre-installed on his computer. Somewhat surprisingly, Dell complied. Wroclawski admits that the $52.50 refund was more of a victory in principal than anything else, but it was a success nonetheless. Using his tips and techniques readers can try their hand at getting a refund of their own. Wroclawski cautions that you should be prepared for a long haul: the process could take hours." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
Does the hard drive come with a separate license explicitly entitling you to a refund if you choose not to accept the extensive post-sale license it subjects you to?
Why Microsoft can't sell a copy of Windows XP to anyone for $52. I'm not sure why "volume discount" or OEM relationships are exactly a satisfactory answer either.
It's still a better deal than waiting in line for 3 days for a PS3.
Could you do the same thing with Mac OSX (even though it is a *INX variant with a pretty shell)?
OSX isn't just a *NIX variant with a pretty shell.
What makes OSX OSX is the platform built on top of the core: the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and the Aqua UI. The core is largely irrelevant (indeed NextStep had an both BSD and NT versions of Cocoa; Apple only chose the BSD version because they didn't want dependence on MS for their OS core). You belittle OSX to bring it down to the level of Linux. The Linux distros aren't in the same league as OSX, regardless of whether both use *nix cores or not.
But yeah, I think the ability to get a refund for OSX or to buy Mac's with no OS could be cool.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Unless you can get millions of people to do this en masse, this does more harm than good. It gives Dell and Microsoft a perfect opportunity to say:
"Anyone can return Windows for a refund. (Naturally we take just a few simple, reasonable precautions to ensure that people don't abuse the process.) Of umpteen godzillion copies of Windows bundled with Dell PCs last year, Dell's records show that the total number returned for a refund is... twenty-two[or whatever the number is].
This proves what we've been saying all along. Virtually everyone loves Windows, nobody really minds paying for it. Of the reported 5% [or whatever it is] of Dell customers using Linux, obviously the vast, vast majority of them also enjoying the copy of WIndows that came with their PC and think it is worth far, far more than $52.50.
It also shows, as we've been saying all along, that there's absolutely no need to make available PCs that are not preloaded with Windows. Anyone that doesn't want it can return it, as is proved by the twenty-two who did. Clearly it's not worth the effort of generating an extra SKU just to serve twenty-two eccentrics."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Since Microsoft contracts out with hardware vendors, there's no actual way to know how much Windows costs a given retailer. This being the case, I was asking for the price of an OEM copy of Windows XP Home SP2 that I found on Newegg, which was $89. In the end they gave me $52.50.
Try $20 or $25...they paid you $52.50 because it was worth $52.50 to make you leave them alone. Whether you agree with bundling deals or not, making Dell have to deal with you on the phone for several hours and making them pay you money because you don't agree with how they sell their product is a really jerkish thing to do.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
Sounds reasonable from a business standpoint, BUT, I'll bet it costs a lot less to have some people in India pick up the phone and go through the refund process and effectively sidestep the whole issue than it would be to make a refund process easy and effective. Why not then, just offer a credit. Option one - new dell pc, you select "no windows" or "no O/S" they give you a credit of say $40 off the price, optione two - new dell pc, you select "no O/S, credit towards peripherals" they give you a credit of $60 that CAN ONLY be used as an avenue to sell you other crap or to put towards other crap, be it speakers, upgraded mice, more memory, printer of the week, etc... that way you get more for your dollar, you get an upgraded machine and/or peripheral for less money, everyone goes home happy??? Sounds good to me! I think there's quite a few people out there that'd be happy to have a PC with no O/S on, that they could then take to their friendly neighborhood tech guy or family member to install Win2K, or a cracked version of XP for 1/2 of what it'd cost in time and hardship to try and get any cash out of Dell directly as opposed to them just buying the system without the fuss, with the extra money saved put towards something else that Dell immediately gets the sale on. The credit in option two above would be a one time deal, not something people could just sit on... Anyway, just an idea.
Whats your prefered os?
[x] None - add 0 bucks
[] Ubuntu - add 10 bucks installation fee
[] Winblows - add 53 bucks to feed bill gates prostata fund
So really..no, it doesnt add cost to them if the default is none. It makes their deals look better - which is the reason for them having all those "options" anyway. "Loook we got servers starting at $350!!!".
VMWare. So you have to buy another generic XP Pro OEM copy, for perhaps USD 139.
In a business, re-imaging a mixture a Dell/Non-Dell machines requires a non-Dell OEM version of XP (generic XP OEM works on Dells, but Dell XP only works on Dells). Re-imaging is the only efficient way to deploy/maintain lots of machines, since the estimate for "installation from scratch" is 10+ hours to install XP, Office, Updates, applications, leading to white papers advising how it is cheaper to "refresh hardware" than use valuable technician time to reinstall XP from scratch on each workstation.
The non-transferable OEM license associated with a particular Dell machine/COA implies a licensing model for Windows similar to Redhat, i.e. the OEM license is tied to support, which is not truthful at all since the license is for the purpose of operating the computer.
I bought a Dell the other day. I'll be trying to get a refund for my XP license, just as a matter of principle, since I'm installing Linux (Ubuntu). However, on boot up this machine (an Inspiron 1300) does not display an option to reject the EULA. Instead it displays a message saying that "pressing any key" indicates acceptance of the license!
If you accepted that at face value, that would mean that hitting the off "key" would accept the license. Removing the battery and power cord allows you to switch off without hitting a key I suppose, but how are you supposed to use it if you can never press the keys again?
Ok, that's obviously an excessively paranoid interpretation and I doubt a court would hold that to be a reasonable interpretation even in the unlikely event that Dell were foolish enough to press the point, but it does demonstrate a very dubious use of an EULA.
In practice I expect Dell will pony up the money. We'll see.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
I would have to say I saw quite a few options to spend less when I bought my Dell.
The machine came with a 52x CD-ROM, and there was an offer for a free CD burner in the second bay, but I was also given the opportunity to decline the burner and drop $40 off the system price (which I did). I also downgraded the video card, cut the RAM to 128MB (which worked fine for me in the beginning, and by the time I really felt I needed more RAM the prices had dropped). I also didn't take the monitor (-$90) and bought a much nicer one on my own, downgraded the included speakers from the 2.1 setup to plain desktop speakers, and downgraded the multimedia keyboard and optical mouse to a basic keyboard and mouse with a ball. The only upgrade I made was substituting the Celeron processor for a full P4.
But then I did buy it four years ago, maybe things have changed.
The fact that everyone seems to forget/ignore is that the cost of installing Windows is not a big factor when pricing out a system.
Dell DOES offer machines without Windows. However they end up costing MORE than the version with Windows. Why is this? Because along with installing Windows XP (or Vista soon) they install a lot of crapware. RealPlayer, MusicMatch, AOL, and a host of others are being installed in that system that's built "Just for you".
And each one of those companies pay Dell every time they are included on your system. Just like you'll see computers that are $299, after mail-in rebate. That mail-in rebate is you have to sign-up for 2-years of CompuServe and they'll help pay for your computer. You can buy a computer without Windows and without all this extra crap but you're going to pay more for it because these other companies are giving a kickback.
There is a program out there called "The PC Decrapifier". Here is a list of all the "extras" that help lower the cost of your Dell system.
So what does this all mean? To save money, buy the PC *with* Windows, then follow this guys advice to return the OS. Then send a thank you to Corel, Sonic, Roxio, Real, Google, McAfee, Symantec, and AOL for helping you buy the Linux system you really wanted in the first place.
It's not that helpful. The difference in price is $21 once you configure the two computers to have exactly the same hardware.
It's not your fault Dell does not make things easy, but you can help them see the light. Together, we can make this abuse a money loser.
The reason this makes sense is because it forces Dell to go through the wasteful process they have in place. Done enough times, the process will change. No one can afford to tie up their phones and support staff over a $50.00 refund they will have to give you if they don't want to break the law.
There are a lot of people who use free software exclusively and the potential for a whole lot more. Free Software finds it's way onto more than 30% of computers, if you include big packages like GIMP and Firefox. Most of those people may correctly suspect that a free operating system is the easiest way to get and keep those applications. If so much as 5% of Dell users spend the time demanding a refund for software they don't intend to use, Dell will be forced to change for the better. That change for the better will remove on more barrier to free software use - the computer without an OS will be cheaper to the end user as it always should have been.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
That would be true with any other computer supplier, but not Dell. Dell success is due to a business model of stocking parts instead of stocking computers. You order a computer and they either pull the 80 Gig hard drive from Bin A, the 120 Gig hard drive from Bin B, or the 160 Gig harddrive from bin C. The only cost would be having to have the extra bins for one hard drive w/ windows and one hard drive without for each harddrive option. The drives that do not have windows installed would not need to be connected and mirrored saving a step. If the non mirrored drives don't sell, you put them in the que to get burned, nothing lost.
Most other computer makers would have to stock the computer with and without. If they guessed wrong on the quanities they would have the extra cost of adding a different drive to make whichever setup they had a shortage of.
That's just nonsense. It doesn't matter what OS comes preinstalled on the hardware, a corporation isn't going to use it, no matter what. Even if it costs them $500 more for a single license, they'll do it, rather than have one system that may be trivially different than all the rest.
Go to any reasonably large business, and they'll have a site license from Microsoft for sure, even though every single system they buy already comes preloaded with something.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm afraid you've just contradicted your own argument - you used the word "most".
No-one's denying that he's in the minority of Dell users but the fact is that he wanted a Dell machine but not with Windows - end of story.
Why is this any different to you going to a car showroom and wanting the car in a specific colour with a specific set of extras. Didn't Henry Ford make only black Model-T Fords until people started to ask for different colours?
Isn't it the role of any corporation in this capitalist society of ours to offer what the consumer wants the way that the customer wants it?
And why are all the Windows people getting so heated about this? He's not asking Dell to support Linux so it's not as though Windows users will need to pay higher prices from Dell.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Sure it does. Go customize a mid-grade Precision workstation. They have hundreds of options they have to "start keeping track of," including the option to ship XP SP2 with or without media, 16 different RAID preconfiguration options (all "Add $0"), an option to enable or disable Hyperthreading by default and four different options to include disc and/or paper versions of the Resource Guide. Hell, on the consumer machines, you could choose between Earthlink pre-installed (Add $0) or AOL pre-installed (Add $0). Having a "No OS" option wouldn't even require them to maintain a separate disc image like a "Linux preinstall" would.
I don't need his and hers sinks, so I demand the home builder give me a refund for one sink in the bathroom.
:)
Funny you should mention that. We just did this very thing. Got some other upgrade in exchange for the extra sink (several hundred dollars, in case you're wondering). Why WOULDN'T you negotiate on things like that when someone builds it to your specification?
I also haven't seen a car built in the past 5 years that comes with a cigarette lighter, or ashtray for that matter. These days, they're extras that you have to ask (and pay) for. The place where the ashtray normally goes now has a sticker on it that says "not an ashtray".
On the bright side, you're only the second Slashdotter to spell "ridiculous" properly this week, so you have my respect
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The guy who could have made more more money flipping burgers for minimum wage at McD's?
What he has is a token refund check and five minutes fame from a post to Slashdot. Dell meanwhile will go on its merry way selling millions of laptops with the default OEM Windows install
They couldn't give a shit what the OS is, so long as the computer does what they want and doesn't cost more than they are willing to pay.
Which, unfortunately, is why it will not be Linux since you can't view pr0n WMV files right out of the box. Also, will not be Mac, since they cost more than a crappy Windows box.
Actually I think Dell is in the perfect position to offer at least one or two flavors of Linux/BSD because of their control of the hardware just as Apple has. Controlling both the hardware and software that goes into their machines is Apple's secret to having a stable OS and application suite. For that matter, Dell could even offer it's own distro customized for Dell's standard hardware configurations. If they did that, I might even be tempted to buy a Dell myself instead of putting a machine together from scratch and wrestling with Linux over device drivers, screen resolution and refresh rate, etc. Maybe I could even *finally* have a version of Linux/BSD that lets me use the sidebuttons on my Logitech mice as I can under Windblows. :-)
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Then throw FreeDOS on the drive with an AUTOEXEC.BAT that says, "You chose to buy a computer without an operating system. If you wish to purchase an operating system, call Dell at (800) xxx.xxxx". Dell can then sell them Windows at full retail.
Sure, provide Windows but make the Windows partition 50% of the disk.
Then it is easier to install Linux for dual boot. Dell spends very little on OEM Windows licenses so the cost to me of having Windows is very small. However, getting a PC with half the disk unused makes life simpler.
get a linux laptop, from vendor like emperorlinux.com (I'm not affiliated with that company) I remember when I was going to purchased my laptop in bestbuy, I brought a Knoppix CD and asked the guy if I can insert and boot the CD so I can test out the hardware if it's compatible with knoppix, they didn't allow me. Then at checkout they tried to offer me some software, like Norton Internet Security, and I told them I'm going to wipe the hard drive and install linux on it, he insisted I will still need the Norton to protect me - LOL -