One at a time
This is a great day, because today I got the license-fee for Windows Vista back from Lenovo Germany. Initially I feared it would be a lot of phoning back and forth, but in the end I got a template-letter as PDF from a Lenovo-employee. The letter states what actions one needs to take to return the unused license and reclaim the fee. You are required to turn in the licence/certificate label (usually on the bottom of the notebook), return the install-media (im my case there wasn’t any, just the recovery-partition, which I deleted… I send them screenshot-printout of the fully ext3-formatted hd displayed in gparted), a copy of the bill of the purchased notebook and your account-details. That’s it. All in all it took about one week from sending the letter to the fee arriving on my account-balance.
So if you bought a machine from Lenovo here in Germany and intend to give back the unused Windows-license… it’s a piece of cake to do so these days.
This made my day 
November 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Can you post up a scan of this form? I didn’t seem to get a copy in with my latest Lenovo purchase.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
@ Rob: Send me an eMail to mirco at ubuntu cot com and I forward you the PDF. But this one only applies to Germany. Your name implies that you’re not a native german and not likely to be living in Germany.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Good job..!
May I ask how much did you get back ? And was there any other software bundled with it which you could reclaim the fee for ?
In several occasions I’ve seen that the vendor would offer you a refund of about 20€ or 40€ just to get you off his back… (take a look at http://detaxe.org if you can read french)
November 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
@ M. Pomme: I got € 30,- back for a "Windows Vista Home Basic"-license. That was the only "pay for"-software bundled with the notebook.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
hm, Windows Vista Home Basic OEM costs 87€ at Amazon.de. Basically, you can get a complete refund. At least an Italian citzen got one (and a French one, too), see http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/98083 (sadly in German). Could you please also send the PDF to me?
Martin
November 29th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
@ pirast: Hm… that would be € 57,- still missing. I don’t have the time to enforce those with a lawyer at the moment. But unpleasent it is!
December 4th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Hi MacSlow,
I would’nt assume that Lenovo pays 87€ for a Vista license. Manufacturers usually get substantial rebates, since they buy in thousands/millions. Furthermore, the OEM’s produce the installation media and handbooks (if any) on their own, which may further reduce the cost per license.
Therefore, I would say that 30€ is a fair deal!
Hendric
December 4th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Congratulations!
This is actually a piece of useful information for me as I try to avoid paying obligatory MS-Tax
For the whole past month I have been e-mailing HP Customer Service in Poland if I could get a Vista refund after buying one of their laptops - no response so far 
Dell in Poland seems to ignore the general public, see http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/74918/Start_offering_DELL_products_to_the_general_public_in_Poland …then we have Lenovo laptops so I think I will give them a try… here or in not so remote Germany 
Unfortunately, at the time being, the only rational solution seems to be buying some ugly-looking, yet powerful barebone laptop.
I reckon you didn’t get actually a full refund because money you got came from Lenovo not Microsoft.
"I’ve cost Dell £50, not Microsoft, which is a slightly annoying," said Mr Mitchell. He encouraged other people to try to get a refund and wondered if Dell’s policy on which operating systems it offered on laptops would change if enough people tried. full story >> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6144782.stm
Following article may also be interesting for you: http://www.linux.com/articles/59381
""You didn’t pay anything for Windows."
Since the price of Windows was included in the price of the computer, they may try to argue that you didn’t pay anything for it. This one is easy to debunk. Windows costs money — everyone knows that. Once you establish that Windows does indeed cost money (and you can’t get it for free) then the only remaining issue is how much you paid. Since Microsoft contracts out with hardware vendors, there’s no actual way to know how much Windows costs a given retailer. This being the case, I was asking for the price of an OEM copy of Windows XP Home SP2 that I found on Newegg, which was $89. In the end they gave me $52.50. I don’t know if this is really how much Windows costs, but it’s a non-trivial amount and I can well imagine that one of the world’s largest computer makers can get a good deal on Windows licenses from Microsoft."
Known workaround how to check the actual price: "So you say OEM is only 10$?! Alright then, can I order 100 copies?"
April 14th, 2008 at 10:23 am
We’re lucky in Malaysia. I helped my sister in law buy an Acer notebook - no MS - only Linux. Almost every model has a Linux counterpart. Then my wife bought an HP notebook - FreeDOS. The MS version they don’t even sell because no demand. I just bought a Lenovo - PCDOS7. They sell without MS - you have option to top-up to get Vista Home Premium.
You know why? Because people don’t want to pay for MS stuff - they just pirate them, use company legal enterprise license, or like me, go Linux. In fact, MS had to offer a special deal for Malaysia only: less than US90 for a Vista Home Premium. Hehe, better US90 than nothing at all, eh?
July 21st, 2008 at 3:22 am
i just got a refund for windows vista from HP in the U.S. - and it was not so easy!!! read the full story if you have the time, here:
http://digg.com/microsoft/How_I_got_a_Windows_Vista_refund_from_HP