On 26 December 2011, at 09:44, Mick wrote: > On Sunday 25 Dec 2011 19:28:35 CJoeB wrote: >> … >> And although the computer is new, I've screwed the warranty because I >> removed Windows and there is only Linux on my computer. > > It is worth noting for future cases like this that the warranty may not be > screwed up at all
In Europe the warranty is absolutely certainly definitely unaffected by the use of Linux. I would very much doubt the situation is different in the USA. An installation of Windows is necessary, however, in order to reasonably and amicably prove the fault to the supplier. It's quite fair for the supplier to limit support only to operating systems with which they have experience. I know we're all very excited when we get our new toys, but this just underscores the need to make the very first boot of the new system one from a LiveCD, using it to make an image of the factory o/s installation. If you pipe dd through bzip2 (documented a million places on the net) then the size of the full disk image will reflect only (approximately) the amount of data on there - i.e. only a few gig, even for a huge modern hard-drive. If this advice is too late for the OP then it may be possible to arrange an official Microsoft version of the OEM Windows installation DVD - it should be possible to activate this with the license sticker attached to the laptop's underside. The Microsoft OEM disks will generally produce a cleaner installation of Windows than the factory install, as the latter tends to include a bunch of extra crapware, but they're often lacking drivers that you'll need, and it can sometimes take a while to find and download the right ones (although my experience with Windows 7 is limited). Stroller.
