[GRLUG] Some Viruses Come Pre-Installed

[john-thomas richards]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 05:07:22PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 4:48 PM, David Pembrook <david at pembrook.net> wrote:
> > john-thomas richards wrote:
> >  > On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:40:33AM -0400, Casey DuBois wrote:
> >  >
> >  >> Interesting story about Pre-Installed Viruses on Retail devices.
> >  >>
> >  >> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WireStory?id=4446944&page=2
> >  >>
> >  >
> >  > I bought my wife a laptop that came with a virus pre-installed.  I
> >  > cannot remove the virus until the warranty is up (strangely, the
> >  > manufacturer, HP, voids the warranty if I replace the virus with Linux).
> >  > Alas.  In a year or so I can wipe out the virus and put Debian on it.
> >  > My wife even asked me if I would.  :-)
> >  >
> >  Why wait?
> >
> >  You could make those nice restore cd/dvd's that they never bother to
> >  include any more... Use it with Linux, if it need factory work, restore
> >  the original os.
> 
> Unless the factory work makes restoration impossible.  This could
> happen in the case of a bad CD-ROM drive, bad hard drive, or a variety
> of mainboard failures.  True, you might be able to put the hard
> drive(assuming it works) in a different box, but that's still more
> work than a simple restoration.

This is exactly the reason.  If I knew I could restore the original OS
before shipping back for a warranty repair/replacement, I would install
Linux.  I would hate to have a mainboard failure rejected by HP's
warranty department because I voided the warranty by installing Linux.
-- 
john-thomas
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