[fractallyte]

Just buy a laptop as usual. But then return the pre-installed Windows to the manufacturer (not the retailer), for a refund.

Your right to do this is protected by various competition laws prohibiting 'tying' - the bundling of third party products. For generic PC hardware, Windows is third party - it's not exclusively necessary to run the machine, since there are many other third party OSs available.

More details are in my comments in previous threads: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2600047 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1642068

[Rhodee]

Thank you so much. I was not even aware of this. I really appreciate it. Opens up my options.