6 ms·

Also worth noting Lenovo's official statment on the matter http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lenovo-denies-deliberately-blocking-linux-on-windows-10-pcs/ http

Also worth noting Lenovo's official statment on the matter http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lenovo-denies-deliberately-blocking-linux-on-windows-10-pcs/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lenovo-denies-deliberate... confirming that they have not blocked the installation of alternate operating systems. It was a shame to see the initial posts this morning hit the top of the page without any more evidence than a single customer support rep. who was unlikely to realistically have inside knowledge of some kind of "secret conspiracy" to block linux installs by Microsoft.

christogreeff 10y ago
It was fascinating how quickly people condemned Microsoft without applying any critical thinking to the issue. I tend to not read commments on articles anymore, where Microsoft is blamed for something. Reminds me of Slahdot.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Moment I saw it this morning I was like "probably one of those SSDs with a really weird driver setup". My Surface Pro 4 has one too, and Acronis didn't initially work with it either.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    Except that's an inaccurate assumption. If you actually read the specifics about the situation, you'll learn that the SSD is set up in RAID mode, and the Intel hardware also supports AHCI mode. Acronis and all other OSes do not have driver-level support for this new experimental RAID hardware at all; they do support AHCI, of course, like they have for years. The BIOS normally has an option to revert the hardware back to normal AHCI mode, but Lenovo intentionally restricted the Advanced page in the BIOS containing this option (which is available and unrestricted by default in the BIOS code they received from the manufacturer) by adding a goto statement to the BIOS's code.
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      My understanding is that experimental support for the new RAID mode in Linux already exists. AFAIK, Acronis boots a Linux-based OS, and they were able to get it to support the Surface Pro 4 when it's using that mode, so presumably, they figured it out. As far as why Lenovo restricted it, it's likely for the same reason Lenovo was prohibited from preinstalling software. Signature PCs claim to have the "best" performance settings, mandated by Microsoft. If NVMe is superior to AHCI, Microsoft would sensibly mandate NVMe.
      - Hydraulix989 10y ago
        "My understanding is that experimental support for the new RAID mode in Linux already exists." That is not true, many users have tried using the very latest bleeding edge kernel. The drive is not detected at all by Linux when it is in RAID mode. The usual fix is to disable RAID mode and just use AHCI. On most sane systems (but not Lenovo), you can do this easily by changing a single BIOS setting. Also, my understanding is that the benchmarks show no appreciable performance benefits of single-drive SSD RAID over AHCI.
- johansch 10y ago
  They do have a quite strong record of abuse. It will take them another generation to shake that, at least. You knew that when you chose that particular ecosystem. (Why else would you defend them here?)
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    I came here to say this. I am not sure why you got downvoted so much. They have behaved in negative ways for a long time they will need to behave differently for quite a long time before they are trusted again. They have cleaned up many but not all of their behaviors. They are still abusing patents against smaller android distributors. If they care about their patents they would sue Google or the AOSP steering group (or whoever runs it). If they were actually with an open ecosystem they wouldn't be doing those lawsuits. In the context of Microsoft's behavior, blaming them is not an unreasonable default stance. Though when evidence does come along to the contrary someone holding such a stance must be willing to change it or be wrong.
    - johansch 10y ago
      This industry runs on young people. Old people are far and between. (In this context, old means anyone who actually experienced Microsoft's behavior between mid 80s and late 90s.) Most (80%) developer experiences these days are probably limited to their behavior from year ~2008 and onwards.
- __jal 10y ago
  Well, when a Lenovo rep says: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft," it doesn't exactly require a bomb-throwing partisan to reach the conclusion.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    That statement is not by a "Lenovo rep" but by a "Lenovo Product Expert" at Best Buy. If I am not mistaken, those "experts" work for Best Buy, not the company whose products they are experts in.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Sometimes they do work for the company whose products they are "experts" in. Best Buy gets a "free" employee (the hardware company pays the salary), and the company gets a dedicated person in a store for their products. They're still more Best Buy employee than <company> employee.
  - raesene9 10y ago
    But the idea that a random customer service rep. would have information about something that was not a public position of either Lenovo or Microsoft, to me, seemed unlikely.
    - captainmuon 10y ago
      What if Lenovo and MS have an agreement what to preinstall on those Laptops - which is very common. Furthermore, Lenovo agreed not to offer ways to install specific other software - no bundled Antivirus CD, no downloadable Lenovo Picks app - and maybe or maybe not - don't prepare customer support to answer "how to install Linux". The customer rep gets a cryptic sticker on his desk: "Models 1234S, 3333S: Signature Windows Disk ONLY". If a customer calls asking for a restoration media, they get the correct one. If they call asking for Linux, sorry it is not supported according to my sticker. I'm just making this up of course, but it is not entirely unplausible to me. In fact I find it more plausible then just an accident. Why would a customer rep just make stuff like that up?
- plandis 10y ago
  Microsofts track record for open solutions over the past 20 years naturally makes a lot of people distrustful. I'm actually surprised when I see people give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt despite years of building mistrust.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    I'm not surprised at all, though I personally don't understand the mentality. I see it all the time: "Microsoft has changed their ways! Look, they've released Powershell for Linux!" etc., completely ignoring 30 years of history plus all the very recent user-hostile moves in Windows 10. I guess a lot of people are just really naïve sheep. Also, notice how others saying stuff like this here on HN are downvoted into oblivion. It's probably a tribal mentality: just like people become fans of some sports team (Giants vs. Red Sox) or car brands (Ford vs. Chevy) and develop a religious fanaticism about it, probably the same thing happens with Microsoft and Apple (we definitely see it a lot with the latter). Worse, with MS in particular, a lot of peoples' livelihoods are tied up in the whole MS ecosystem. So perhaps all the pro-MS downvoting and posting is coming from people who've bought into MS, especially for their careers (namely, legions of .NET programmers and MCSEs).
mtgx 10y ago
It may be because people have a hard time trusting Lenovo now after being caught with backdoors multiple times over the past few years. http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-backdoors-built-into-the-hardware-1563801/ http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-b... http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-installing-adware-new-computers/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-insta... http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-to-have-a-bios-level-backdoor.html http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-... https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/04/critical-security-flaw-found-in-lenovo-pcs-again/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/04/critical-security-flaw-f...
- ptaipale 10y ago
  I don't see it having much impact. People were attacking Microsoft, not Lenovo.
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    To be fair, signing an agreement like that wouldn't look good for Lenovo too. Considering Microsoft's history, it's also not that outlandish.
indexerror 10y ago
Why should someone not consider the reply from a lenovo rep as legitimate (although absurd)? There was a problem and lenovo said that the problem was because of the signature edition windows. Your comment about requiring more evidence is valid but rebuttal requires some time, and here we have it. I doubt lenovo would have cared about it had it not hit media. Note that the problem is still not solved. You cannot install linux on that machine.
- MBCook 10y ago
  What the Lenovo rep said wasn't accurate, and I'm not that surprised. So I wouldn't really trust them either. The actual reason, some technical firmware/driver minutiae, is exactly the kind of reason that both makes sense and I would not expect a PR rep to know or be able to explain. That may even be what happened here. They were told "It's happening because we're using Windows X and this makes it runs better". That becomes "It was because that's what Windows needs" or "That's what Microsoft has us do". The first one is accurate but misleading, the second inaccurate. But I could see either one resulting from that conversation. Now if the Lenovo rep could cite the rule that MS (supposedly) gave that says "Do things way X" then I would believe them. But "because Windows" alone isn't very compelling.
- raesene9 10y ago
  A low level rep. from a company is very unlikely to be party to something considered "secret" at a corporate level. So given that it wasn't a stated policy, that side of the story just didn't seem likely. Indeed you can't install linux on that machine, but that's a technical problem and a deficiency in Lenovo's setup, just not a conspiracy by Microsoft.
  - johnward 10y ago
    and those low level employees at Wells Fargo committed fraud on their own without any direction from management.
    - kbody 10y ago
      A circle is a shape. A square is a shape. Thus a circle is a square. This is the logic you applied.
guelo 10y ago
The fact that it took a blow up in the media for Lenovo to comment justifies the tactics used by commenters in the forums.
- raesene9 10y ago
  that's a view, but did anyone actually ask Lenovo for official comment before posting the story as gospel truth? From what I've read, I saw no evidence that they had. I'd just suggesting a slightly more measured approach might have worked just as well....
  - guelo 10y ago
    Users don't have any other channel to ask Lenovo besides the forums and (apparently more effectively) leaving poor reviews on Best Buy and Amazon.
    - raesene9 10y ago
      yep that's not an unreasonable point, but do you not think that a more reasonable position would have been to ask Lenovo/MS and wait some time for a response before assuming that it was a conspiracy on MS' part?
      - vetinari 10y ago
        Is several months long enough?
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      No? There's no way to contact Lenovo corporate? No customer support? Just that forum?
      - seba_dos1 10y ago
        If you read that forum thread you would know, that many of them already went past various ways to contact Lenovo and even got a "it's been escalated to dev team, but nothing more to say about it" reply there after a few months of complaining (that changed nothing of course).
captainmuon 10y ago
That's just nitpicking. They blocked the enabling of a setting which allows Linux to see the hard disk. They went out of their way to make a firmware change that has the effect that you cannot run Linux - unless you flash your BIOS or you write a driver. In my book, they effectively blocked the installation of Linux. Now, there are two options. 1) to support this hardware correctly, you'd need to make complex changes to the driver. In this case, I cannot see how it is the Linux' developers' "fault" that this doesn't work. It would be great to have a driver, but it depends on information that Lenovo doesn't give out. Or 2), it is trivial to make a driver, e.g. you just have to look for a certain ID. In this case, I would also blame Lenovo or MS, for there would be no reason to bock AHCI to "ensure a good customer experience" etc. Whether this situation has come from malice or not, I don't care very much. Anyway, I think it is up to Lenovo to provide a solution (a BIOS update, a Linux driver, or information neccessary to write a driver). Now, is it a conspiracy or not? I'd say the most likely option is carelessness. Maybe this happenend: "Shall we set this to AHCI or RAID? Currently it is set to RAID and works fine." - "Do we need AHCI?" - "Nah, Windows 10 runs fine, maybe for some older OSes" - "We don't care about those, just leave it on RAID. And while you're at it, comment out the AHCI option." Did MS give any instructions to Lenovo to block Linux installs? Maybe not specifically, but we have to remember this is a "Signature" edition laptop. (There was the accusation that this only effects the signature edition and not other editions, which would be particularly damning btw..) I wouldn't be surprized if there was an agreement like. "The partner (Lenovo) shall install any crapware on Signature edition laptops. They shall not not preinstall other OSes. And they shall not offer support on installing other OSes." -- Which would be entirely reasonable for a special "Windows Signature" edition laptop.
- raesene9 10y ago
  Should Lenovo provide a driver. Let's be honest, that's a commercial decision and entirely up to them if they want to support Linux installs on this hardware. Why should a commercial company be forced to provide support for a platform? If they advertise the hardware as supporting Linux then sure they absolutely should be required to support it. If they don't, then why should they have to support it?
  - 10y ago
PieterH 10y ago
"It was a shame to see the initial posts this morning hit the top of the page..." If it raises the issue of running Linux on laptops, it's fine IMO. And both Lenovo and Microsoft have a lot of accumulated badwill that does not play in their favor. Guilty until proven innocent seems fair here.
vacri 10y ago
> without any more evidence than a single customer support rep This sounds like post facto justification on your part. It's entirely reasonable to take the word of a customer support representative. It's also an egregious misrepresentation to paint it as "secret conspiracy", given the phrasing the representative used.
- raesene9 10y ago
  It's not post facto justification at all I would suggest. The wording of "secret conspiracy" was inspired by the original posts this morning on this exact subject which cast the matter as exactly that, and it was those posts to which that comment was referring. The idea that a single customer support representative would know something which was previously unknown and unstated across the positions of two of the largest corp's around seemed unlikely. What I've been trying to suggest to multiple posters here (and apologies if you think the arguments are circular but people seem to keep bringing the same points up repeatedly) is this. which is more likely, a mistake from one low-level employee of Lenovo or a deliberate plan by two large corporates to secretly (the use of secret is justified by the fact that it's not their stated position) use the disk driver configuration of a laptop to block alternate OS installs. really which do you think is more likely?
  - farcical_tinpot 10y ago
    > The idea that a single customer support representative would know something When you work at a company you have a funny way of finding things out, and you don't say things on forums or elsewhere that you don't mean to say :-). When somebody tells me something clearly and directly, and why, I tend to believe them. But I'm just funny like that.
farcical_tinpot 10y ago
They enabled something by default that I have not seen on any other system and disabled a way of changing it, which virtually every other system supports. There is no good reason for this. Whatsoever.

christogreeff 10y ago

It was fascinating how quickly people condemned Microsoft without applying any critical thinking to the issue. I tend to not read commments on articles anymore, where Microsoft is blamed for something. Reminds me of Slahdot.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Moment I saw it this morning I was like "probably one of those SSDs with a really weird driver setup". My Surface Pro 4 has one too, and Acronis didn't initially work with it either.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Except that's an inaccurate assumption. If you actually read the specifics about the situation, you'll learn that the SSD is set up in RAID mode, and the Intel hardware also supports AHCI mode. Acronis and all other OSes do not have driver-level support for this new experimental RAID hardware at all; they do support AHCI, of course, like they have for years. The BIOS normally has an option to revert the hardware back to normal AHCI mode, but Lenovo intentionally restricted the Advanced page in the BIOS containing this option (which is available and unrestricted by default in the BIOS code they received from the manufacturer) by adding a goto statement to the BIOS's code.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    My understanding is that experimental support for the new RAID mode in Linux already exists. AFAIK, Acronis boots a Linux-based OS, and they were able to get it to support the Surface Pro 4 when it's using that mode, so presumably, they figured it out. As far as why Lenovo restricted it, it's likely for the same reason Lenovo was prohibited from preinstalling software. Signature PCs claim to have the "best" performance settings, mandated by Microsoft. If NVMe is superior to AHCI, Microsoft would sensibly mandate NVMe.
    - Hydraulix989 10y ago
      "My understanding is that experimental support for the new RAID mode in Linux already exists." That is not true, many users have tried using the very latest bleeding edge kernel. The drive is not detected at all by Linux when it is in RAID mode. The usual fix is to disable RAID mode and just use AHCI. On most sane systems (but not Lenovo), you can do this easily by changing a single BIOS setting. Also, my understanding is that the benchmarks show no appreciable performance benefits of single-drive SSD RAID over AHCI.
johansch 10y ago
They do have a quite strong record of abuse. It will take them another generation to shake that, at least. You knew that when you chose that particular ecosystem. (Why else would you defend them here?)
- sqeaky 10y ago
  I came here to say this. I am not sure why you got downvoted so much. They have behaved in negative ways for a long time they will need to behave differently for quite a long time before they are trusted again. They have cleaned up many but not all of their behaviors. They are still abusing patents against smaller android distributors. If they care about their patents they would sue Google or the AOSP steering group (or whoever runs it). If they were actually with an open ecosystem they wouldn't be doing those lawsuits. In the context of Microsoft's behavior, blaming them is not an unreasonable default stance. Though when evidence does come along to the contrary someone holding such a stance must be willing to change it or be wrong.
  - johansch 10y ago
    This industry runs on young people. Old people are far and between. (In this context, old means anyone who actually experienced Microsoft's behavior between mid 80s and late 90s.) Most (80%) developer experiences these days are probably limited to their behavior from year ~2008 and onwards.
__jal 10y ago
Well, when a Lenovo rep says: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft," it doesn't exactly require a bomb-throwing partisan to reach the conclusion.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  That statement is not by a "Lenovo rep" but by a "Lenovo Product Expert" at Best Buy. If I am not mistaken, those "experts" work for Best Buy, not the company whose products they are experts in.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Sometimes they do work for the company whose products they are "experts" in. Best Buy gets a "free" employee (the hardware company pays the salary), and the company gets a dedicated person in a store for their products. They're still more Best Buy employee than <company> employee.
- raesene9 10y ago
  But the idea that a random customer service rep. would have information about something that was not a public position of either Lenovo or Microsoft, to me, seemed unlikely.
  - captainmuon 10y ago
    What if Lenovo and MS have an agreement what to preinstall on those Laptops - which is very common. Furthermore, Lenovo agreed not to offer ways to install specific other software - no bundled Antivirus CD, no downloadable Lenovo Picks app - and maybe or maybe not - don't prepare customer support to answer "how to install Linux". The customer rep gets a cryptic sticker on his desk: "Models 1234S, 3333S: Signature Windows Disk ONLY". If a customer calls asking for a restoration media, they get the correct one. If they call asking for Linux, sorry it is not supported according to my sticker. I'm just making this up of course, but it is not entirely unplausible to me. In fact I find it more plausible then just an accident. Why would a customer rep just make stuff like that up?
plandis 10y ago
Microsofts track record for open solutions over the past 20 years naturally makes a lot of people distrustful. I'm actually surprised when I see people give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt despite years of building mistrust.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  I'm not surprised at all, though I personally don't understand the mentality. I see it all the time: "Microsoft has changed their ways! Look, they've released Powershell for Linux!" etc., completely ignoring 30 years of history plus all the very recent user-hostile moves in Windows 10. I guess a lot of people are just really naïve sheep. Also, notice how others saying stuff like this here on HN are downvoted into oblivion. It's probably a tribal mentality: just like people become fans of some sports team (Giants vs. Red Sox) or car brands (Ford vs. Chevy) and develop a religious fanaticism about it, probably the same thing happens with Microsoft and Apple (we definitely see it a lot with the latter). Worse, with MS in particular, a lot of peoples' livelihoods are tied up in the whole MS ecosystem. So perhaps all the pro-MS downvoting and posting is coming from people who've bought into MS, especially for their careers (namely, legions of .NET programmers and MCSEs).

mtgx 10y ago

It may be because people have a hard time trusting Lenovo now after being caught with backdoors multiple times over the past few years. http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-backdoors-built-into-the-hardware-1563801/ http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-b... http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-installing-adware-new-computers/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-insta... http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-to-have-a-bios-level-backdoor.html http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-... https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/04/critical-security-flaw-found-in-lenovo-pcs-again/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/04/critical-security-flaw-f...

ptaipale 10y ago
I don't see it having much impact. People were attacking Microsoft, not Lenovo.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  To be fair, signing an agreement like that wouldn't look good for Lenovo too. Considering Microsoft's history, it's also not that outlandish.

indexerror 10y ago

Why should someone not consider the reply from a lenovo rep as legitimate (although absurd)? There was a problem and lenovo said that the problem was because of the signature edition windows. Your comment about requiring more evidence is valid but rebuttal requires some time, and here we have it. I doubt lenovo would have cared about it had it not hit media. Note that the problem is still not solved. You cannot install linux on that machine.

MBCook 10y ago
What the Lenovo rep said wasn't accurate, and I'm not that surprised. So I wouldn't really trust them either. The actual reason, some technical firmware/driver minutiae, is exactly the kind of reason that both makes sense and I would not expect a PR rep to know or be able to explain. That may even be what happened here. They were told "It's happening because we're using Windows X and this makes it runs better". That becomes "It was because that's what Windows needs" or "That's what Microsoft has us do". The first one is accurate but misleading, the second inaccurate. But I could see either one resulting from that conversation. Now if the Lenovo rep could cite the rule that MS (supposedly) gave that says "Do things way X" then I would believe them. But "because Windows" alone isn't very compelling.
raesene9 10y ago
A low level rep. from a company is very unlikely to be party to something considered "secret" at a corporate level. So given that it wasn't a stated policy, that side of the story just didn't seem likely. Indeed you can't install linux on that machine, but that's a technical problem and a deficiency in Lenovo's setup, just not a conspiracy by Microsoft.
- johnward 10y ago
  and those low level employees at Wells Fargo committed fraud on their own without any direction from management.
  - kbody 10y ago
    A circle is a shape. A square is a shape. Thus a circle is a square. This is the logic you applied.

guelo 10y ago

The fact that it took a blow up in the media for Lenovo to comment justifies the tactics used by commenters in the forums.

raesene9 10y ago
that's a view, but did anyone actually ask Lenovo for official comment before posting the story as gospel truth? From what I've read, I saw no evidence that they had. I'd just suggesting a slightly more measured approach might have worked just as well....
- guelo 10y ago
  Users don't have any other channel to ask Lenovo besides the forums and (apparently more effectively) leaving poor reviews on Best Buy and Amazon.
  - raesene9 10y ago
    yep that's not an unreasonable point, but do you not think that a more reasonable position would have been to ask Lenovo/MS and wait some time for a response before assuming that it was a conspiracy on MS' part?
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Is several months long enough?
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    No? There's no way to contact Lenovo corporate? No customer support? Just that forum?
    - seba_dos1 10y ago
      If you read that forum thread you would know, that many of them already went past various ways to contact Lenovo and even got a "it's been escalated to dev team, but nothing more to say about it" reply there after a few months of complaining (that changed nothing of course).

captainmuon 10y ago

That's just nitpicking. They blocked the enabling of a setting which allows Linux to see the hard disk. They went out of their way to make a firmware change that has the effect that you cannot run Linux - unless you flash your BIOS or you write a driver. In my book, they effectively blocked the installation of Linux. Now, there are two options. 1) to support this hardware correctly, you'd need to make complex changes to the driver. In this case, I cannot see how it is the Linux' developers' "fault" that this doesn't work. It would be great to have a driver, but it depends on information that Lenovo doesn't give out. Or 2), it is trivial to make a driver, e.g. you just have to look for a certain ID. In this case, I would also blame Lenovo or MS, for there would be no reason to bock AHCI to "ensure a good customer experience" etc. Whether this situation has come from malice or not, I don't care very much. Anyway, I think it is up to Lenovo to provide a solution (a BIOS update, a Linux driver, or information neccessary to write a driver). Now, is it a conspiracy or not? I'd say the most likely option is carelessness. Maybe this happenend: "Shall we set this to AHCI or RAID? Currently it is set to RAID and works fine." - "Do we need AHCI?" - "Nah, Windows 10 runs fine, maybe for some older OSes" - "We don't care about those, just leave it on RAID. And while you're at it, comment out the AHCI option." Did MS give any instructions to Lenovo to block Linux installs? Maybe not specifically, but we have to remember this is a "Signature" edition laptop. (There was the accusation that this only effects the signature edition and not other editions, which would be particularly damning btw..) I wouldn't be surprized if there was an agreement like. "The partner (Lenovo) shall install any crapware on Signature edition laptops. They shall not not preinstall other OSes. And they shall not offer support on installing other OSes." -- Which would be entirely reasonable for a special "Windows Signature" edition laptop.

raesene9 10y ago
Should Lenovo provide a driver. Let's be honest, that's a commercial decision and entirely up to them if they want to support Linux installs on this hardware. Why should a commercial company be forced to provide support for a platform? If they advertise the hardware as supporting Linux then sure they absolutely should be required to support it. If they don't, then why should they have to support it?
- 10y ago

PieterH 10y ago

"It was a shame to see the initial posts this morning hit the top of the page..." If it raises the issue of running Linux on laptops, it's fine IMO. And both Lenovo and Microsoft have a lot of accumulated badwill that does not play in their favor. Guilty until proven innocent seems fair here.

vacri 10y ago

> without any more evidence than a single customer support rep This sounds like post facto justification on your part. It's entirely reasonable to take the word of a customer support representative. It's also an egregious misrepresentation to paint it as "secret conspiracy", given the phrasing the representative used.

raesene9 10y ago
It's not post facto justification at all I would suggest. The wording of "secret conspiracy" was inspired by the original posts this morning on this exact subject which cast the matter as exactly that, and it was those posts to which that comment was referring. The idea that a single customer support representative would know something which was previously unknown and unstated across the positions of two of the largest corp's around seemed unlikely. What I've been trying to suggest to multiple posters here (and apologies if you think the arguments are circular but people seem to keep bringing the same points up repeatedly) is this. which is more likely, a mistake from one low-level employee of Lenovo or a deliberate plan by two large corporates to secretly (the use of secret is justified by the fact that it's not their stated position) use the disk driver configuration of a laptop to block alternate OS installs. really which do you think is more likely?
- farcical_tinpot 10y ago
  > The idea that a single customer support representative would know something When you work at a company you have a funny way of finding things out, and you don't say things on forums or elsewhere that you don't mean to say :-). When somebody tells me something clearly and directly, and why, I tend to believe them. But I'm just funny like that.

farcical_tinpot 10y ago

They enabled something by default that I have not seen on any other system and disabled a way of changing it, which virtually every other system supports. There is no good reason for this. Whatsoever.