Some ingenious dude in the United States had enough with Microsoft pushing their error riddled bloat-ware onto hardware that he had purchased. Since hardware manufacturers dont offer laptops or even computers for that matter free of any OS - he decided to be a smart ass and refused to accept the EULA conditions.
Turns out that the companies are indeed bound by contract to refund you the amount that they charged you (bundled) along with the computer in the first place.
A 200$ cheque is what resulted after some not so easy efforts. So while it works, we certainly dont recommend it. Of course you need to be geeky enough to be able to install and run Linux on the system afterwards which doesnt make the task seem any better.
Shown here, cheque from HP with the refund for Windows Vista.