[Sussex] Window's Refunds

[Richie Jarvis]

Geoffrey Teale wrote:

>So...
>
>On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 17:29 +0000, Jon Fautley wrote:
>  
>
>>I think about 4 people in the whole world have. I briefly mentioned 
>>this to our then account manager, some months ago. He laughed.
>>
>>If you work out the right phrases to say, please let me know :)
>>    
>>
>
>
>... I did the research and found the following key phrase in the Window
>XP EULA is:
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING,
>OR OTHERWISE USING THE PRODUCT.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR
>USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL
>REFUND.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Dell however have added this to their standard Terms and Conditions:
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Software
>not owned by Dell is supplied subject to licence and warranty of the
>Software licensor. Dell encloses the Software licence that you require
>with the Product where necessary; you must comply with that licence. If
>you choose not to accept the operating system licence at start-up, if
>any, Dell will only accept the return of the entire product for refund.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Apparently this clause is not legal in the EU (this is hearsay, not my
>opinion or that of anyone qualified to make such a judgement), but in
>practise it appears that getting these refunds can be difficult. 
>
>Browsing the web I've found several people who have managed to get
>refunds, but usually they have had to resort to small claims court. 
>
>  
>
Very interesting - I recently purchased some machines from Dell for 
Linux installations - the best I could achieve was to have Windows XP 
Home on the system at a saving of £30.  They refused to supply the 
systems without an OS, as Microsoft didn't allow it!