Can't tell whether this is sarcastic or not, but if you think Dell pays full price for Windows licenses you are in for a surprise.

I don't know the backstory on this....does Dell pay much less than the full price? How much less?

When people have managed to get refunds for preinstalled Windows licenses from major OEMs, the number's generally been in the $35-50 range.

Keep in mind that the manufacturers also subsidize the cost of systems with all the preinstalled crapware that comes on a lot of machines.

The OEM agreement prevents the exact numbers from being disclosed, but I believe it's common knowledge that it's quite small; probably well under USD50 for a company like Dell.

I think dell gets subsidies from installing all that crapware, so I would expect it to be offset by that.