Can I buy just a software bundle

Factual Questions
1

The home PC crapped out the other day.
Smoked the power supply.
I’ll probably fix it if the PS is the only thing wrong but its really time to get another computer anyway.

I’m wondering if I buy just the basic computer,someone suggested a Dell for $300.00. Does that come with a software bundle?
Also I know of some used computers from a hospital,that have the memory erased.
Obviously no software bundles there.
Will I need to program a computer like these from scratch?

2

I just looked at the Dell site and the least amount of non-OS software you can get is Corel Word Perfect (which, according to the site, is included in the base price).

3

Have you considered OpenOffice?

4

I’ve been using this for over a year and it’s great. You can’t beat the price!

5
      • A couple people I know IRL have bought off-the-shelf computers that said that they came with some version of MS Office software, but it turned out to only be a 30-day trial version. The print that explained that was very very tiny. Corel still makes some fairly-good software but I don’t think anybody cares much anymore. People generally want/expect MS Office for office software and Adobe programs for image-editors.
  • The other commonly-bundled software is whatever comes with video, soundcards or DVD/CD-RW drives. I have not seen this “crippleware” for sale elsewhere very often; occasionally it is actually tied to the particular model of hardware it was intended to ship with (and so it won’t work with other devices of the same general type).
  • As far as office-software, OpenOffice works just fine for most home-users. It does open MS-format documents, at the least most Word files and Excel spreadsheets.
    …
  • If you buy a wiped computer, then at the least you’d need an install disk for an operating system. And with MS occasionally blocking shared and cracked serials, it’s basically easier for a “typical user” to just pay for a copy of XP now than it is to go hunting for a new crack or serial every few months. …And honestly, the surplus hospital computers might end up being the same or even older/slower hardware than what you have now.
    ~