Every single laptop and any prebuilt computer I find in the market comes pre installed with a Windows.
A good friend approached me to install a Linux on a brand new machine and just to make sure we called the customer support line, informing there was interest to return the windows license, as the software would not be used.
The reply we got was that by removing the software the warranty of the equipment would be null and void. The option was to ship the computer to their maintenance provider and have it removed, with costs presented at end for labour.
In the EU at least that would be illegal - you can’t void an entire warranty, only relevant bits… and since windows doesn’t have a warranty anyway…
The canonical example is you can’t void the warranty on a car engine because you changed the stereo. ‘Doing x will void the warranty’ is almost never the full story.
Unless a lot as changed, they do care.
Every single laptop and any prebuilt computer I find in the market comes pre installed with a Windows.
A good friend approached me to install a Linux on a brand new machine and just to make sure we called the customer support line, informing there was interest to return the windows license, as the software would not be used.
The reply we got was that by removing the software the warranty of the equipment would be null and void. The option was to ship the computer to their maintenance provider and have it removed, with costs presented at end for labour.
In the EU at least that would be illegal - you can’t void an entire warranty, only relevant bits… and since windows doesn’t have a warranty anyway…
The canonical example is you can’t void the warranty on a car engine because you changed the stereo. ‘Doing x will void the warranty’ is almost never the full story.
I am in the EU.
We were caught in a never ending circle of being sent between seller, manufacturer and Microsoft in order to have the Windows license returned.
I did end up installing a Linux on the machine but my friend got chewed by the seller when he took it in to have the card reader replaced.