4 ms·
In 2011 I got a 143€ reimbursement from Dell for an E6420 laptop that I had bought for 910€. Maybe I got lucky but I called the customer service, told the lady
by blaze33 1mo ago
In 2011 I got a 143€ reimbursement from Dell for an E6420 laptop that I had bought for 910€.
Maybe I got lucky but I called the customer service, told the lady I did not agree with the Windows license terms, fully ready to argue my case and she just went "oh, ok, let me just edit a new invoice and wire you the money for Windows plus the Antivirus plus etc.".
Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price.
This being 15 years ago it feels like a forever unsolved issue. My opinion remains the same, that a personal computer should not be tied to a specific OS. But now with smartphones the hardware/software (de)coupling situation seems even worse.
- throw902309 1mo agoI would rather get full refound for laptop, if I disagree with the license. Windows is unseparatable from hardware after all... Use laptop for a few months, than finally boot windows install...
- recursive 1mo agoThe hardware is separable from the windows though.
- Joel_Mckay 1mo agoNot always, Microsoft lingers like a fart in an elevator on some laptops. =3 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/act-now-secure-boot-certificates-expire-in-june-2026/4426856 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/...
- 7bit 1mo agoYes, always. The link you pasted doesn't prove otherwise. It just shows a luck of understanding UEFI
- Joel_Mckay 1mo agoSome vendor firmware blocks external platform key enrollments. Contains 100% farts. Have a great day =3
- 7bit 1mo agoThat might be true. And has nothing to do with your previous ridiculous claim. Your comment is further proof you lack even basic understanding of UEFI. But I sense the feeling that logic won't change your emotional position on the matter, so I'm not going to bother you further.
- Joel_Mckay 1mo agoSomeone probably buried your post for Sealioning, but in general even trying to install a clean windows 11 pro OS over a windows 11 Home embedded firmware license/hardware-signature on a gaming laptop is too complex for many users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning Perhaps getting outside for a nice walk could lower stress levels a bit. =3
- efreak 1mo agoIn that case, I suggest (not having tried it) that updating the OS and then resetting it might work better? Does Windows still have the reset option it had in win8?
- Joel_Mckay 1mo agoThe issue is the update license is different than full install licenses, and the red sticker oem licenses people scam are hardware specific. You usually must pay for windows twice (or more if you don't know) to be Pro license compliant for commercial use. Setting a machine up for multi-boot Linux/BSD is not always a simple process with every BIOS firmware, and configuring Windows to stop automatic encryption of NTFS volumes is nontrivial. Even with an offline install for games, if the OneDrive account is ever activated... files are upped to Microsoft cloud anyway. Running an offline win11 account with a recent "rclone gui" NFS mounter for cloud APIs is a better option: https://github.com/rclone/rclone https://github.com/rclone/rclone winget install Rclone.Rclone Thankfully, disarming Win11 TPM/Drive-boobytrap/BS-encryption/Spam is easy with Rufus, O&O ShutUp10, and Copilot removal (note undocumented AI API areas suggested RAT/snitch-ware... the final straw with Microsoft BS around here...) https://github.com/pbatard/rufus https://github.com/pbatard/rufus https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI Yes it still supports DRM Steam games, and Win11 x4 gen4 SSDs are now about 17% faster i/o on my rig. You know what I like about Apple OS, is you just flip around 8 options and it goes quiet. Best of luck, ymmv =3
- Barbing 1mo ago“Note: Affected third-party OS includes MacOS. However, it's outside the scope of Microsoft support. For Linux systems dual booting with Windows, Windows will update the certificates that Linux relies on.” macOS users out of luck?
- Joel_Mckay 1mo agoSome had to do a manual firmware/BIOS update. ymmv =3
- alecsm 1mo agoWhy bother making a throwaway account only to post a comment that is obviously and blatantly wrong?
- trevithick 1mo agohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham's_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham's_Law
- bilekas 1mo agoThis makes almost no sense, so you would return the whole laptop due to Windows being on the machine once before ? > Windows is unseparatable from hardware after all... What are you talking about ? The TPM ? Not windows', they enforce once being there for W11 but it's not some trojan M$ code ?
- boplicity 1mo agoI am seriously saddened by the complete takeover of mobile computing by Apple and Google. There is no freedom on your own device to choose your own software, except inside the very narrow constraints allowed.
- shevy-java 1mo agoThat's what de-facto monopolies do. What is more surprising is that competitors do not arise. Democracies in general have totally messed this up. The USA should be fined for exerting a monopoly onto other countries. And then fined for penalising US customers with that monopoly at home.
- metalliqaz 1mo ago"the US"? fined by whom?
- carlosjobim 1mo agoBy the king of England of course.
- connicpu 1mo agoOther countries are free to find a way to incentivize building home-grown equivalents and prioritizing that software or even applying tarrifs to foreign software.
- karlgkk 1mo agoWe were fine without it, we can still be fine without it. Nothing is stopping you from buying an mp3 player, a small point and shoot, and running Linux on a 12 in ultra portable.
- lukan 1mo agoWhy would I want 3 or more devices, when I want one device capable of it all and under my control?
- Telaneo 1mo agoI have a sneaking suspicion that Dell probably had standing orders to not bother to argue with someone who wanted a reimbursement for Windows, and just get it over with. If you care enough to want that, you care enough to argue your case and make life a hassle for everyone if Dell refuses. To even ask the question is a shibboleth that instantly marks you as someone on the edge of the bell curve. I also have a similar suspicion that that order has been lost to time, partly because it's very rare that people do that (and Dell even offers Linux machines to those who do care), partly because the support's been outsourced to someone who hasn't read that part of the script, and partly because the world has become more hostile towards consumers during the past 15 years.
- tough 1mo agoIt's been very funny to go through life discovering such shibboleths exist in so many random places and its like getting a powerup to even find out about them...
- razodactyl 1mo agoShare!
- avadodin 1mo agoA few months ago I bought a scam CPU along with a working computer. The CPU is almost identical in performance to the one they were advertising —it was certainly malicious— but do I deserve $200 for something I didn't even care about in the first place? There an argument to be made for harming the criminals even if you deserve it but it just doesn't vibe with my type.
- CodesInChaos 1mo ago> Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price. I actually expected those to pay for being pre-installed, offsetting or possibly even exceeding the cost of the Windows license.
- noisem4ker 1mo agoThere's no way the typically included 30-day trial of an antivirus or Office costs 50€. It must've been a full yearly subscription of one or the other, that managed to sneak in right before checkout without being de-selected.
- blaze33 1mo agoApart from the OS I got reimbursed for 4 or 5 additional items between 6 to 15€ each as far as I can remember, I don't have the details as she only told me on the phone and have no record of it. The original invoice had the following list (although it seemed different from the itemized price list that customer service had access to): Camera : Software for Integrated Camera (Only for standard Base ) Windows Live Optical Software : PowerDVD Software for Vista Home Premium and Ultimate, WIN7 Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate Software Driver : Latitude E6420 Diagnostics & Drivers 1 S Operating System : French Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) 1 S OS Media : MUI Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) Resource DVD 1 S Software : Microsoft Office Starter 2010 1 S Operating System Recovery Dell Backup and Recovery Manager for Windows 7 SP1 1 S AntiVirus : Trend Micro Worry Free Business Service (15 Month subscription)Software MUI I sure as hell did not order extra antivirus or other kind of software but I guess it's possible there was some "Office and 15-month antivirus included" marketing offer that turned out to to neither be free nor optional...
- chihuahua 1mo agoWhile your mouse is over the "place order" button, after the left mouse button has moved through the first 0.2mm of its 1mm travel, but before the click is registered, the checkbox next to "1 year subscription to McAfee Anti-Virus" is automatically enabled, to better serve our customers.
- shevy-java 1mo ago[dead]
- karlgkk 1mo ago> I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware It’s complicated. Those licenses have a dollar amount for accounting purposes.
- blitzar 1mo agoDouble Irish with a Dutch Sandwich. Those taxes don't avoid themselves.
- celiacFun 1mo agoSo your personal computer was not tied to a specific OS and you were easily about to get a refund for the license cost of the OS that shipped in box. So what’s the issue? Do you want hardware to ship without any software?
- megous 1mo agoIdeally. Normaly if you build a computer, there will not be any OS on a random SSD you buy for it. And it's fine. Do I have to build my own laptop to get this nice experience on a laptop?
- close04 1mo ago> Normaly if you build a computer, there will not be any OS on a random SSD you buy for it. That's why so many people go with pre-built and don't even care about wiping and reinstalling the OS to get rid of the bloat. They want a fully functioning product from the moment they power it on so having the OS is a big deal.