Any way to force big stores to give the CD for the OEM OS?

Post Reply New Topic

No. Here's the problem:

Microsoft is a primarily a software firm. If they want sell their own branded hardware to run Win8 and prevent you from loading competitive software products to run on their hardware, I would have no problem with this; Also they do this in reverse with OSX with varying degrees of success to prevent people from running their OS on generic x86 and x86 64 hardware. Apple does this with their iPads and iPhones.

Apple is a firm which provides hardware and software. Apple is protecting their company from active competition with MS in the case of OSX, but also ensuring that they provide the software for hardware that they themselves have manufactured for them. --In the case of their desktop and notbook hardware, storage can either dual boot other OS's or can run other OS's completely

OTOH, If I buy a piece of hardware from say, HP, or Dell, who are essentially hardware companies, I should be able to do whatever I want to do with that hardware without having Microsoft tell me that I can only run their software on hardware that they do not manufacture and brand as their own. --That's the problem.

Agreed. I seriously doubt HP or Dell have an interest in locking down their tablets, so it must be a MS initiative, which makes it anticompetitive. I think the FTC should be involved in cases like these.

Unfortunately, it is an interest to them should they wish to provide tablets certified to run Win8.

That's what I meant.

The hacker community will continue to do what it's done with basically every locked down technology that's ever existed: they'll find a way to jailbreak it. The fact that I can build Gentoo for my Sega Dreamcast is a testament to the long hours people will put in to do something stupid in the name of...something or other.