no, it's a terms and conditions thing, not a retailer thing. in principle, you can get a refund directly from microsoft, however they will try everything to delay this and put you off in practice, or so i have heard in previous years on this board from other users.
re: being unwittingly forced to pay for an O/S, the O/S is not equivalent to a hardware part, you might need to update the O/S many times over the lifetime of the computer (or you may want to). Software is not tangible, it is intellectual goods, unlike any hardware component.
re: building your own PC, that was fine back in the days when this was actually cheaper, but now it isn't. It's more expensive and it's more hassle. Plus, the door's closed for this when it comes to laptops. Still, i suppose the "don't like it? do it yourself!" argument is what i had started to get at, but i generally think it should be made easier, ie: give the customer what they actually want, not what they have been told they want. I mean this isn't a new issue. Since i have been using computers in my own home (about ten years) the preinstalled O/S ripoff has been totally normal. Hard drives in computers was a new thing in the early-mid nineties, it's fifteen years later now, and that's being charitable. The only reason more O/S choice isn't the norm is that the majority of home computer owners (ie: they are admins who think of themselves as users, if that) are perfectly willing to take whatever they're given (the latest MS bloatware at high cost) and the rest of us have to deal with the fallout.
