Dell Customer Gets Windows Refund

scottv67 writes "Dell today gave freelance programmer and sysadmin Dave Mitchell, of Sheffield, UK, a refund of 47 pounds ($89) for the unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 bundled with his new Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, Mitchell says. Dell also refunded the tax, for a total of £55.23 ($105)."

Common Knowlage

[thejrwr]

I thought most linux geeks did this already, shoot with my 1999 IBM laptop i got a 130$ refund for windows ME same thing for my Compaq Desktop, since i did not need windows, i had linux and a bought copy of windows i told them ship it without a OS and ill do the rest

Re:Return on Investment?

[Lanoitarus]

You missed the entire point. It may not be "ok" to have 1% of my income stolen each year, but that doesnt mean im going to spend 5% of my income (in this case, in the form of time invested) to prevent the 1% getting stolen.

Re:17.5% tax = outrageous

[oggiejnr]

VAT is 17.5% in this country and applied to everything except food, books, children's clothes and a couple of other things. It has been around for so long that people don't really think about it - all prices except wholesale prices are quoted with VAT already added so most people don't think about it.

Technically..

[Channard]

'Windows users' couldn't request their money back if they were using Windows already. The jist of the article is that by refusing to agree to the EULA they're saying they don't want to use Windows, or at least one that came with their PC. But there has indeed been many instances of this before - there was a mass march of some kind a few years ago, the end result being that most EULAs were modified to make the computer and operating system one package. A lot of the old Windows Refund stories involved conversations with managers who couldn't seem to comprehend that the EULA gave the user the right to reject windows, as a separate component from the machine. God knows what Dell's Indian call centre made of this guy.

Re:Return on Investment?

[Thansal]

Geek has not had a negative conotation for a long time (especialy in geek subcultures like /.). So lighten up, the guy is just pointing out that only those people that really are into OSS/*nix/alternative OSs/whatever are going to be the ones that never run windows, and yes, geek is a good term for them.

Re:But they're not itemised...

[vidarh]

Doesn't work that way in (most of) Europe. Consumer protection laws in most European countries require sellers to offer products unbundled when they are clearly distinct products. Since a computer can be used without Windows, and can be bought without from other vendors, and since Windows is available separately this is a pretty clear cut case. Trying to twist the pricing also wouldn't work all the time equivalent products are available unbundled to indicate the real values of the products.

Re:Why not sell them "clean"

[chroot_james]

They don't sell them clean because they make money packaging all that crap on the system. They also test the system's performance by installing windows and benchmarking against what they expect...

Duh...