Legality of using a Thinkpad

[Brian Wallen]

I've started reading the text of EULAs carefully.

I just got a new T43 (1875DLU) and it is wrapped in plastic with a paper seal that includes the following:

• Important-Read Before Removing
  
  Please read the accompanying license agreements carefully before using the programs included with this system. These agreements detail your rights, obligations, and warranties for the software included with this system.
  
  By using the programs you agree to the terms of these agreements. If you do not accept the agreements included with this system, do not use the programs. Instead, promptly return the system for a full refund.

Included in the packaging is a statement in many languages which includes a paragraph:

• Software License for PC products (if applicable)
  Lenovo grants you a license to use the software that comes preloaded on your new personal computer. The terms of this license will be displayed to you when you first use the computer, and you must accept this license to use the machine. ...(The remainder of the paragraph deals with the transfer of warranty responsibilities from IBM to Lenovo.)

The machine comes preloaded with Windows XP. I don't know whether it is only in a compressed version in the hidden partition or whether it is installed in an active partition. I won't agree to the Microsoft EULA and I won't use XP. From downloaded copies of T43 Troubleshooting and HMM, I understand that there are IBM/Lenovo utilities, including Rescue and Recovery that appear to be OS agnostic, but at the same time have XP/2000 as a stated requirement. Some legal and practical questions occur to me:

Can Lenovo legally require that I agree to software agreements that I haven't yet read?

I may have a choice of installing a working version of XP from the hidden partition and may be able to opt out of that installation, or an active version of XP may just stop working after some period of non-registration with Microsoft. Will that affect the operation of essential Thinkpad utilities that affect the health of machine operation? My hardware warranty?

Can I be legally prohibited from repartitioning the hard disk for dual boot operations with another OS? Or even legally prohibited from formatting the hard disk and removing XP completely? Will either of those operations affect my hardware warranty?

Feel free to add to the list.

[JaneL]

If these are serious questions and the discussion can be kept civil, then OK, but be aware that trolling is expressly forbidden in the Rules of the Road as are OS wars in the FAQ.

[Brian Wallen]

These are serious, if, at least at this point, theoretical legal questions. I didn't go to law school, so perhaps they are legally naieve questions. They might be seen as trolling, but probably many legal and philosophical discussions would fit that category. Like you, I expect a civil discussion to the legal dimension of the thread. If my questions are trivial, I will be suitably embarrassed by informed, well-argued responses.

The practical issues I raise seem to be non-theoretical. Can I safely operate a T43 without installing/using Windows and IBM/Lenovo software installed on the machine that may require Windows. There have already been suggestions in a T43 thread about IBM creating a whitelist of acceptable HDs, the early posts of which explored the possibility of firmware that limited what user behavior might be limited by implementation in the firmware of digital rights issues. That thread discussed IBM/Lenovo's patches to firmware that made IBM/Lenovo branded HDs work with their PATA<=>SATA bridge on the T43. There was no conclusion at the end of a 10 page index of posts as to what non-IBM drives could be purchased to work reliably with the T43. IBM/Lenovo has issued firmware updates for non-IBM harddisks and they have patched T43 BIOS to limit earlier warning messages. I believe their legal position still is that they cannot warrant reliable data handling with non-IBM, firmware patched HDs. By deviating from the hardware/configuration shipped on the machine, what practical, possibly lethal problems might I encounter. Other contributors to the forum appeared to be concerned and frustrated with limitations and risk they were confronting when they encountered this bundling limitation. Discussions of these frustrations seems to be a legitimate subject for exploration.

The point I am trying to explore is generally, when we buy a computer with bundled software and implicitly agree to EULAs what legal ramifications confront us and would they likely be binding. More specifically, using the T43 as an example, am I likely to find myself in a position that IBM has bundled W32 applications that are essential to safely running the machine and could affect my warranty.

[jdhurst]

If you are willing to permanently forgo your Windows license (OEM'd onto your computer), then forget the agreements, format the hard drive and install Linux and have fun. I don't think anyone can touch you for doing that.

If you are going to dual-boot it, then you *are* using Windows and pretty much have to agree to it.

That's the way I see it. ... JD Hurst

[christopher_wolf]

It doesn't affect the legality of dual-booting as it isn't stating that you have this license for and only for this software on this piece of hardware (pretty much as John says). It is simply giving you permission to use that build of Windows XP on that hardware unit through Lenovo. It isn't that it restricts you from dual-booting or blowing away Windows altogether then installing another OS (BSD, Linux, Plan 9, OSX, BeOS, etc). If I remember correctly, IBM moved to the hidden partition for two reasons, one of them was to give the user such abilities and the other was to deal with Microsofts requests that they stop supporting an OS they shipped with older Thinkpads; essentially, that inhibits IBM from sending out recovery disc sets, but not the end-user from burning a set and/or recovering from such a hidden partition later on that Thinkpad.

I read through it about 10 times now and it just seems like a writ that is intended for informing the user about what rights they have been granted by Lenovo in terms of the *combination* (and that is important since they could have dictated the absolute use of the hardware, but didn't), and not just the hardware and software alone. Which is why Thinkpads with Windows XP preloads have the COAs on the bottom as their main proof-of-license.

HTH

[GomJabbar]

One piece of software that affects the safety of running the newer ThinkPads is the ThinkVantage hard drive Active Protection System. This is supposed to protect your hard drive if you drop your laptop. I don't know I Linux has an equivalent to use or not. I would kind of doubt it.

Of course if you drop your ThinkPad, whether the Active Protection System was running or not, you risk damage to the case, display, and other components. Unless you have a warranty that covers physical damage, you might be out of luck anyway.

If you run improper drivers from another OS, there is also a small risk of damaging the hardware.

[christopher_wolf]

One piece of software that affects the safety of running the newer ThinkPads is the ThinkVantage hard drive Active Protection System. This is supposed to protect your hard drive if you drop your laptop. I don't know I Linux has an equivalent to use or not. I would kind of doubt it.

Linux, and BSD for that matter, do indeed have support for the HDAPS subsystem. Putting it through its paces reveals that the underlying API (which is accessed in fundamentally the same way, no matter what OS you have as long as you have the drivers, upon inspection with a Hex Editor and Disassembler). Does the same thing for the same movement and same parameters as in Windows.

[Brian Wallen]

Sorry if my initial post seemed provocative. I'd just found out that I'd bought a new T43 that I couldn't install Xandros 4 on and couldn't even try my typical strategy of swapping in an old HD to experiment because only a limited number of HDs will work in the T43 primary bay. It was looking increasingly like Lenovo was saying, "Use the HD we installed and the XP we bundled and if you don't like that combination, send it back for a refund." The ten pages of posts here in the T43 section documenting the problems that T43 owners had with non-approved HDs hadn't sweetened my mood.

It looks like I can preserve my embedded investment in the XP copy by carefully following the directions for using Rescue and Recovery to make a CD copy of the original disk image, then delete the XP installation to recover the space it takes.

christopher_wolf, thanks for the information about the harddisk protection utility. That was exactly the kind of issue I was concerned about.

I've found other threads that are exploring the ThinkVantage utilities and help me understand the functions they support and the work some of you are doing to get Linux versions to run.

[smugiri]

Your mentioning the "return for refund" part of the EULA reminds me that another aspect of all this is the issue of money. Basically, you have been stung for the cost of Windows since if you choose to go with another OS, you essentially have bought a copy of Windows that you will never use.

Good luck getting that refund though.

There have been a couple of initiatives to get Microsoft to refund this money (the cost of the bundled copy of Windows) the most visible of which was the "Windows Refund Day" event in the late 90s but most of these initiaves run out of traction when the money run out.

A couple of links to get you started on this side of things in case you decide it is something that you want to pursue.

+ A summary of progress in the area of getting Microsoft/OEM manufacturers to refund the cost of Windows to end users. This is pretty old - October 2002.

+ One guy in Australia did manage to get a refund. That was 8 years ago though.

+ Another guy in California got a judgement for the cost of Windows & costs. This implies that he had to go to Small Claims Court which he did. Another 2003 California case can be found here.

[Brian Wallen]

Just when I began to think that paranoia had fueled my first post on this thread I find issues that seem to justify it.

I've powered on my new T43 and booted it with a DOS disk and ran an old DOS shell that displays drive contents and can display files. I find a C: drive (apparently the service drive) that seems to have, among other directories, one titled MININT that has subdirectories SYSTEM32 and WINSXS. WHen I run the Rescue and Restore application, it appears to be a W32 app, judging by the styles of some of the dialog boxes. I find a directory I386\SYSTEM32 that looks NTish. The PREBOOT\STARTUP directory has CMD files, which I doubt are OS/2 based. So I am inclined to think that when I run some basic, pre-OS-load applications like Rescue and Recovery, I am running them in some version of NT. I haven't allowed Windows to load, only started the BIOS configuration and R&R applications. If R&R is a W32 app, will its ability to run eventually evaporate if I don't start XP and validate it with MS or is R&R running from this MININT version in the Service Partition and if so, is it licensed separately, and if so does its use require validation?

In this thread, there is discussion of Rescue and Recovery requiring updates to Windows:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ght=rescue

LUTHEREQUE DEMANDS
For good and sufficient personal reasons I've been trying to become Windows-free for about three years. I was almost there until I discovered that I couldn't install Xandros on the T43 and that it may be difficult to get rid of Windows entirely if I want to keep some of the machine-oriented utilities provided with the machine. In any case, the T43 is the oak door on which I have nailed my user demands:
- No user W32 applications run in Windows on this machine
- Running Windows only when necessary for machine operation or hardware maintenance.
- No agreement to the Windows XP EULA
- No Windows updating
- No connection of a Windows machine to the internet
- No connection of a Windows machine to servers at Microsoft
- No Windows vulnerablities

DIAGNOSTIC DISKS
I thought that liberating PC DR to a set of FDs would be a good start toward making this machine OS agnostic. From the main menu of R&R, I could not successfully create a set of diag FDs. A half dozen freshly formatted/verified FDs would always produce a write error msg. I see that there may be a version of PC DOS on the T43, but booting to DOS does not appear on the R&R menus. I booted from a DOS FD. In the parent directory of PC DR in the service partition is DIAGDISK, which I suspect is the W32 pgm that is run from the R&R main menu to create diagnostic FDs,but it is non-DOS executable . You can create the diag disk, however, from the executables in the PC DR directory by running each one from a DOS prompt. Incidently, I used the same set of FDs that the R&R utility rejected. I am not sure what FD4 is for; loading PC DR doesn't prompt for it and it isn't bootable.

Steve, your links are a fair response to my thread and useful for users who want to do battle with Microsoft. I think the EULA I was confronting was from Lenovo, not Microsoft, and involved returning the hardware as well as software. For me that would be like throwing out the clean baby with the dirty bathwater. As for a Microsoft refund, I am too old to take on a battle that the DOJ had difficulty prosecuting when it tried to prove that MS had, among many other things, tried to strongarm hardware manufacturers into bundling Windows.
DETAILS: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

Unfortunately, the Lenovo announcement that they were no bundling SuSE on TPs came after I bought mine, so XP was just an unwelcome and unnecessary cost of buying a new computer.