[Gllug] Linux invalidates your HP warranty

[Bernard Peek]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.0703301841070.17205-100000 at lucy.ukfsn.org>, 
Jason Clifford <jason at ukfsn.org> writes
>On Fri, 30 Mar 2007, Bernard Peek wrote:
>
>> The summary says that installing Linux means they don't have to honour
>> the warranty and you've just repeated that. But that's not what HP said.
>> It will need to have the Windows system restored before they will
>> attempt to fix it. That's almost certainly because their diagnostic
>> software runs under Windows. The first step in fixing the machine is
>> probably going to be re-imaging the drive.
>
>That is not a reasonable restriction.
>
>As has already been pointed out diagnostic software should be run from a
>network or ROM source and not from the existing installation which, if you
>are going to claim software is breaking things, cannot be considered as a
>safe environment in which to run the tests.

Nobody has claimed that software can break the hardware. It's HP's 
choice what platform to run their diagnostic software on. You may prefer 
to run diagnostic software from CD or the network, but it's not your 
decision.

The point of re-imaging the drive as the first step in diagnosis is to 
restore the software to a known good state. If the machine runs normally 
at that point it can be returned as fixed.

>
>Moreover there are issues regarding to copyright associated with
>installing Windows onto a machine for such purposes.

That's true, and would make an interesting point to argue if I didn't 
have anything better to do. If I choose to reject the Windows license 
when the machine is first delivered then I can't legally reinstall it at 
a later date. I'm sure that one would keep the lawyers amused for ages. 
But it wouldn't help to get the machine fixed.

HP could have offered to reinstall Windows for the owner, and I suspect 
they are going to do that anyway, which does make her also reloading it 
redundant.. At least this way she has been warned to do a full backup 
though.



-- 
Bernard Peek
bap at shrdlu.com

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