[2] Microsoft encourages original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to supply computers with Windows pre-installed,[3] saying that purchasers benefit by not having to install an operating system.
In 1999, Maximum PC wrote that non-Windows users "have long griped that machines from large companies can't be purchased without Windows".
[6] In 1999, analyst Rob Enderle attributed the lack of computers without Windows available for individual purchase to economic impracticality, citing certification and warranty requirements.
[6] The Guardian's computer editor Jack Schofield claimed that there were significant cost overheads associated with preinstalling Linux, in part due to Linux's small market share,[7] although Schofield had generally viewed Microsoft's bundling practices favourably, claiming in 1995 that Microsoft's incentives were not unlike promotional deals in other industries and that "Microsoft cannot be accused of beating PC manufacturers with a stick: at worst it is beating them with a carrot",[8] despite the well-established competitive impact of such practices on suppliers of competing systems software, acknowledged in a 1994 settlement with Novell.
[11]: 165–66 Microsoft entered into a consent decree in 1994 that barred them from conditioning the availability of Windows licenses or varying their prices based on whether OEMs distributed other operating systems.
[12] Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said that the decree was effective in allowing Dell and HP to offer Linux computers,[13] and Jeremy Reimer of Ars Technica stated that the decree made it "fiscally realistic to sell computers with alternative operating systems".
[14] According to a 1999 New York Times article, "critics assert that the company continues to use its market clout to ensure that nearly all new personal computers come with Windows pre-installed.
Some smaller OEMs and larger retail chains such as System76 have taken to specializing in Linux-based systems to their advantage from major suppliers' paucity of non-Windows offerings.
[17] Microsoft requires that OEMs support UEFI secure boot on their products to qualify for the Windows 8 Logo [case badge] Program.
In 1999, the relevant text read[1] If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, PC Manufacturer and Microsoft are unwilling to license the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to you.
"[1] In 1999, a Microsoft representative described requesting a Windows refund on the basis of rejecting the license as "a technicality where someone is twisting the language a little bit to come up with the idea that they can run back to the OEM with this".
[40][41][42][43] In September 2014, the Supreme Court of Italy in ruling 19161/2014 decided that a laptop buyer was entitled to receive a refund of €140 for the price of a Microsoft Windows license and a Microsoft Works license on a computer, saying that bundling was "a commercial policy of forced distribution" and called this practice "monopolistic in tendency",[44][45][46][47] confirmed later with ruling 4390/2016.
[48] In December 2020, the Court of Monza (Italy) in ruling 1734/2020 imposed upon the manufacturer punitive damages amounting to €20,000 for abuse of the appeal procedures.
[49][50] In India, bundling is challenged by users as a violation of Competition Act 2002; one Indian citizen has sent a legal notice to HP.
[39]: ¶26 In September 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that "the sale of a computer equipped with pre-installed software does not in itself constitute an unfair commercial practice within the meaning of Directive 2005/29 when such an offer is not contrary to the requirements of professional diligence and does not distort the economic behaviour of [purchasers]."