3 ms·

Why doesn't the author just pay the non-subsidized price and get a clean Signature machine from Microsoft? http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd

• maurits 14y ago
  So perhaps the real surprise is, is that despite the rather vocal apple/linux crowd, there is still a very large user group for which the crapware-OEM bundles are not big enough an issue to switch or to act up on. Be it for technical or for economical reasons.
  • jiggy2011 14y ago
    I think it's just that many people aren't aware that there is an alternative. I'm surprised the number of people who consider a browser that takes 30 seconds to start (on an i5) as normal. No wonder they are awed by an iPad when they use one.
• tl 14y ago
  From your link: "To install Windows 8 Pro upgrade, customers must be running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, or Windows 7." What I don't see is a way to buy a non-upgrade version at a sane price ($69 vs. $199) if I want to run a clean version of Windows on the desktop I built. Said desktop is running linux and my primary interest would be running it on virtualbox, but that's neither here not there.
• _delirium 14y ago
  You can also get non-crapware machines if you buy from most OEMs' "small business" divisions.