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  • Since one can get a lot of models with and without Windows, I would suggest to ask the seller to get a variant without windows. This way availability sorts it self over time. Vendors do not want to sell Windows Notebooks, seller just demand only windows notebooks. OEM/ODM will however only test some linux distributions and very likely support none.
    by flaep
  • I think some manufacturers offer the ability to buy hardware without software preinstalled and have the software as add-ons you can opt-in. That should be the way.
    by hmokiguess
  • Which is why Dell doesn't have a process. You can just buy a Dell machine without Windows in the first place
    by mixdup
  • The real culprit is Microsoft's licensing which gives PC manufacturers a "discount" when they install Windows on all their computers. As soon as they deliver machines without it they lose the discount on all the Windows machines they sell.

    This should be challenged in court and prohibited by law. But so far, no computer manufacturer has dared to do so for fear of losing the ability to sell their computers with Windows pre-installed.

    by hn_submit
  • Do you have a source for this practice? I couldn’t find any evidence of it with a search.
    by minitech
  • I switched two of my PCs over to Linux Mint last week. The automatic driver support is shockingly good compared to when I last installed Linux on a PC (almost 20 years ago). It even found a driver for the random no-name USB wireless receiver I bought on Amazon, whereas I had to install that driver manually on Windows.

    Part of my motivation was that one of the machines was still on Windows 7, but more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account, and the cramming of Copilot into everything, that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

    by AnodicElegy
  • It was good back then as long as your hardware wasn't too new.
    by qmr
  • Good that you decided to do the move. Often any existing problem on Linux has already been solved by someone; it may just take a while when you find a solution. In that case I also recommend to make local notes. I do so since +20 years. Some of those local notes helped me many years later.
    by shevy-java
  • I switched my primary PC over in 1999, my secondary over in 2001, and haven't looked back since.

    You're in a better place today than back then as finding software solutions to common problems is much easier now.

    For other OS needs, just virtualize. I started off using VMware Workstation, after a decade (or so) transitioned to Virtualbox, and now today, virt-manager (qemu, kvm through libvirt).

    by davsti4
  • "more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account"

    Absolutely. Obnoxious and unacceptable. Then there's the fact that Windows has regressed into a clinic on UI incompetence and defective design.

    I put Mint on my 2014 27" Intel iMac and it's slick.

    by MoonWalk
  • Finding it's much easier to migrate to linux with an llm as a troubleshooting assistant.

    Even used it to make a task bar applet adjacent to Media Controls, where I can rate the current plexamp song without having to open plexamp.

    A big plus of linux is the easy ability to use workspaces and switch between them with a hover over the workspace taskbar applet and the mousewheel (and other options).

    by scrollop
  • It's unfair that apple gets an easy pass on this, as well as any mobile device.
    by haute_cuisine
  • I reckon Apple buyers are more interested in the OS than in the hardware, in general.
    by forinti
  • MacOS is free, what refund would you expect?
    by kube-system
  • Apple doesn't pay to ship macOS on its devices.
    by ChocolateGod
  • Nobody complaints that MS laptops ship with Windows - this is about hardware companies partnering with MS.
    by ivanjermakov
  • In what sense is it unfair or do they get a pass? I’m asking in earnest. My impression is that you may be confused about the dynamics or are just trying to compare Apples to Oranges out of distaste.

    No one at Apple paid for a macOS license on your behalf in any sense a legal regime might recognize so there is nothing to be refunded if you choose not to accept the license. It’s one of the many, many structural advantages of vertical integration.

    by semiquaver
  • Looks like this is Italy-only.

    I’m pretty sure (though I have no record of it) that I asked ASUS Australia through their online channels before I bought my current laptop six years ago, and they said no. I never tried following it up more closely. In truth at that stage I didn’t mind having a Windows license, it was convenient for testing certain things occasionally. But I haven’t booted into it for at least three years now other than a couple of times to verify that the keyboard problems are hardware, not software.

    by chrismorgan
  • I did the same in germany for Diablo 3 around 2014. Boxed game, ToS not outside = not part of the purchase contract.

    Got my money back from the store after 15 minutes of quoting the specific law.

    The Windows boxes had the ToS on the outside though.

    by OoooooooO
  • Better yet, take your business directly to System 76, Star Labs, Framework, or other FOSS/H-friendly vendors, that give you choices: https://trustworthy.technology/status.html
    by mixmastamyk
  • ... If the product is as good. Sadly if you buy a worse product for ideological reasons, it's still a sacrifice.
    by inigyou
  • This is great. It tells you how many manufacturers make it easy and difficult to get refunds. ASUS is the most specific one, albeit their refund range is between 9 and 65 EUR. Great work.
    by vkaku
  • I honestly would assume that’s a pretty honest price for an OEM license paid by a company as big as Asus, they definitely don’t pay retail!
    by graypegg
  • Now you tell me...

    After drowning my last laptop in tea I needed a PC urgently and bought ASUS. Had I known that a refund was possible, would I have applied, to get what amounts to £10 refund on a £2K machine?

    I am not sure!

    The Windows install means my laptop has some value in the second-hand market, should I need to sell. Without it, I am not going to easily find a buyer, because it is still not yet 'the year of the Linux desktop', and even then, stock Ubuntu is not as fashionable as some other Linux variants.

    What did surprise me was how flaky Windows is these days. If memory serves me correctly, I needed to boot into Windows to turn 'bitlocker' off, in order to resize the drive for my Ubuntu partition. However, there was no UI to turn 'bitlocker' on again afterwards. Allegedly I need a 'pro' version of Windows to do that, since the UI is just absent from the 'Home' version of Windows.

    This process means that I did 'accept the EULA' and therefore denied myself the opportunity to claim back the Windows tax. Drat!

    In previous decades I kept the Windows install just in case I needed MS Office or Adobe products to do work. MS Outlook was the 'gotcha', but then they got the web version of MS Outlook working acceptably.

    Nowadays I am quite confident that there is nothing Windows that I want, so this use case has gone, yet I have new rationale to keep paying the Windows tax, to 'insure' my PC with some resale value.

    I wish manufacturers such as ASUS provided Linux support, even if in a 'community' guise, so as to not upset Microsoft. With my example, I needed to change the power setting on the Wifi card to ensure that Bluetooth worked for the mouse. That was it, yet I had to work that out for myself, with no instructions provided. If I was completely new to Linux then I might have struggled with this or lacked the confidence to spend £2K on a machine that might not run my chosen OS.

    In 2026 we still have a long way to go!

    by Theodores
  • I was part of an event called "Windows Refund Day" in 1999 (I think) to draw attention to this issue. We had a march to a Microsoft office to ask for refunds (unsuccessfully). It was fun, but it's 27 years later and it's still a problem.

    Edit: it's covered on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Refund_Day

    by schoen
  • Seems like it makes a lot more sense to buy a computer without Windows preinstalled.

    > Device manufacturers and vendors should not impose an operating system or software on consumers

    This is not a reasonable expectation.

    Hardware needs software to work, and software runs on an operating system. You can't expect every vendor in the work of every kind of product you can buy to offer you a slightly different version than you would like to buy.

    by gwbas1c
  • > Seems like it makes a lot more sense to buy a computer without Windows preinstalled.

    For the vase majority of users, it only makes sense to buy hardware with a preinstalled OS.

    by stronglikedan
  • Hardware needs software to work but hardware should not need specific software to work but rather any software that implements the other side of a set of standards.
    by account42
  • this has only been somewhat possoble for laptops within the last decade even then you're limited to a narrower selection of models.
    by deadbunny
  • I hear what you're saying, but there are issues when you continue the line of thought one step.

    Imposing Windows implies requiring agreements to unknown eula's at the time of purchase. Consider Windows is there in the first place because of anticompetitive practices. Stuff like this is unreasonable too. I think moreso. I guess it comes down to if you think consumers or big tech is more deserving of protection.

    by dfxm12