| Huh? The brand new hard disk needs an operating system.
| Where am I supposed to "get" that operating system?
|
| same place you got the original.
|

Circa 1998 a Windows PC came with a Windows CD that
could be used to install Windows on any other PC, or to
reinstall. It was an actual copy of Windows. Since then Microsoft
has gone to great lengths to lock the OS to the hardware
and render a PC as a disposable appliance. With XP, MS
instituted Product Activation, tying Windows to the hardware.
The public has been trained to see Windows as part of the
PC, and trained to see the PC itself as a single unit, when
it's actually just an assemblage of parts put together by
the OEM company in a branded box.

Microsoft now make a lot more profit from people like
Danny D. Most people buy another Windows license with
every PC purchase. And many people buy another PC the
first time their current PC "doesn't work". Meanwhile, pressure
from Microsoft and plunging PC prices have all but eliminated
"white box" PC shops, so it's very difficult to buy any PC
without also buying a Windows license.

It's possible, through various means, to make sure that
one has a backup of the OS in the case of hard disk failure,
power surge, nasty malware, etc., but most people don't
know anything about that and don't realize they're at risk.
Danny D. might also be able to successfully reinstall using
an OEM disk with his existing product key. But where will he
get a basic OEM disk? He can't use his product key with
any other license type. And only people who build their own
computers are likely to have a generic OEM Windows disk.
(Microsoft have been careful to cover all the angles.)

From what I've seen, even the average tech. support
person doesn't create an install disk or make a disk image
for customers. So any failure that can't be fixed by re-installing
from a "restore partition" usually means buying either a new
PC or a new copy of Windows unnecessarily.

Actually, even MacOS could be installed to a "white box"
at one point. Then Steve Jobs returned to Apple and locked
it to their hardware. Probably the Microsofties got the
idea from him. They might not have dared to try pulling
it off otherwise. But Steve Jobs was more clever. He
provided the appearance that Apple was actually building
the hardware, so rendering the software virtually embedded
didn't seem so odd, even though Apple is really just the sole
OEM company for MacOS. They don't make the hardware any
more than Dell does. They just design the package. But Windows
comes in several packages, which dilutes their brand. HP,
Dell and Acer all manage to create the illusion that they
built the hardware, but since there are several Windows OEM
companies there's no "Microsoft computer" in the same way
that there's an "Apple computer". (Apple lovers often refer
to "Wintel" because they've been trained to view Macs as
appliances with embedded software, but there was never
such a monolithic Windows hardware brand.)