Microsoft to charge customers $99 to remove OEM 'crapware'
Found on ZDnet on Saturday, 19 May 2012
The OEMs are paid by a variety of software makers to install crapware onto systems. The OEMs don’t disclose how much money they receive from this, but sources tell me that it works out at a few dollars per PC.
Consumers are expected to take their new PC to a Microsoft Store — though there are currently only 16 of them in the United States — and pay Microsoft $99 to remove the crapware that the OEMs were paid to install.
Long gone are the times when you received a simple CD-ROM (or even just floppies) with the OS which you had to install yourself. No crapware, no "pre-configured" system, just install it the way you want. Maybe more consumers should not accept the EULAs when they buy a computer; that gives them the right to return the licenses and since the crapware and the preinstalled OS costs money too, they might even get a discount.