On Thu, 2006-11-05 at 14:46 -0400, Rickey Moore wrote: > > You cannot even boot a new computer without agreeing to the EULA. The > > service tech may do it in advance and you, as a user may never see it. > > It has happened to me. > > As I'm finally getting an 'almost' new machine, (I stay firmly a few > cycles behind as I am cheap!) from a local shop, how do I go about > making sure that: > > 1.) ..I'm not paying MicroSoft a dime. > 2.) ..no sneaky sneak by the dealer hiding MS somewhere in the cost of > the system occurs. > 3.) ..that I incur no nothng towards MS in this purchase. > 4.) ..no smell of MS on the darddrive. > 5.) ..that the cost of MS is backed out of this deal. > 6.) ..I can remain the nice charitable fellow I am, being Bill Gates > free. > > Any thoughts on the matter will be appreciated. Rick Get the parts and put it together yourself. I built a machine for about CA$ 500 a few months ago with a decent processor and 1GB, 800MHz memory and a 300GB drive. I could have bought a similar "bare bones" system without an OS for CA$ 600 or CA$ 700 with XP Home and some other bundled SW. If you have an old case you can save yourself a few more bucks.
