Huawei's Microsoft Windows license for PCs expires this month, company launching PCs with Harmony OS: Report

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Microsoft's supply license to Huawei expires this month, so the company can no longer legally produce and sell PCs with the Windows operating system unless it gets an extension, reports MyDrivers. As a result, the company might have to rely on open-source Linux distros that do not come from American companies or its own HarmonyOS.

Huawei has previously announced it won't use Windows for future generations of its PCs. The company is now said to be releasing a PC in April that comes with its own homegrown OS. While HarmonyOS could be a viable solution for China, Huawei's laptops wouldn't gain much traction in Europe and the U.S. without Windows.

According to MyDrivers, Yu Chengdong (Richard Yu), executive director and chairman of Huawei's consumer business unit, stated that as the company is on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Entity List and American companies must obtain an export license to deal with it, Huawei might not get a Windows license renewal from Microsoft. As a result, existing PCs from Huawei could be the company's last and final systems based on Windows unless Microsoft obtains an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce to sell Windows to the troubled company.

As a result, Huawei would have to use open-source Linux distributions and the company's homemade HarmonyOS, which is believed to be primarily based on open-source Android. The company has also announced its Harmony OS NEXT, which purportedly doesn't rely upon Android.

According to the report, Huawei is set to introduce a new 'AI PC' laptop in April that will run its own Kunpeng CPU, HarmonyOS for PCs, and various DeepSeek LLM-based applications to justify the 'AI PC' moniker in its name. That aligns with the company's prior statements that its done with Windows.

Additionally, Huawei plans to launch the MateBook D16 Linux Edition, its first laptop running on Linux. The new model will retain the same hardware specifications as the existing MateBook D16, the only difference being the switch from Windows to Linux as its operating system.

Windows continues to dominate the desktop and laptop operating system market considerably. According to StatCounter, Windows was installed on 70.65% of PCs as of February 2025. Apple's macOS is the second most popular choice, commanding roughly 16% of the market. Meanwhile, Linux's share was around 3.8%, while ChromeOS commanded 1.81%.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

24 Comments Comment from the forums
  • TerryLaze
    Admin said:
    Huawei's licenses to install Windows expired this month, so the company will no longer be able to produce and sell PCs with Windows.

    Huawei's Microsoft Windows license for PCs expires this month, company launching PCs with Harmony OS: Report : Read more
    According to your own article Microsofts license to deal with the company expires and not huwaei's license to install windows.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    Could they sell the computers $50-100 cheaper without activating a license and call it something like The BYOL Edition ... Bring Your Own License?

    They could even make some fancy gui when the computer boots up that allows you to choose Windows or Linux Distro and sets the active partition to either the unactivated Windows partition or a linux distro and then deletes the other partition to save space.

    This would give people who want to keep Windows the option to activate but those that never wanted Windows in the first place save some money.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    derekullo said:
    Could they sell the computers $50-100 cheaper without activating a license and call it something like The BYOL Edition ... Bring Your Own License?

    They could even make some fancy gui when the computer boots up that allows you to choose Windows or Linux Distro and sets the active partition to either the unactivated Windows partition or a linux distro and then deletes the other partition to save space.

    This would give people who want to keep Windows the option to activate but those that never wanted Windows in the first place save some money.
    If it were advantageous/profitable for them, and all the others, to do that, they would have been doing this for years.
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    USAFRet said:
    If it were advantageous/profitable for them, and all the others, to do that, they would have been doing this for years.

    this is kind of a yes and no type argument.

    no one has had a reason to do an either or type thing thus far. not saying it's never been considered, i obviously have no way of knowing one way or the other. but this is the first time i recall any major company being in this position of having to go away from windows like this.

    so for them, it could be time to consider such things to still be able to offer windows for those who want it and can/will bring their own license to the system.

    doesn't have to be the entire industry as a whole, but for them to be shut out now, this could be a way forward.

    frankly i'd love for linux to be a true windows alternative for anyone and everyone so MS would have a reason to stop doing what they have been doing with windows. the whole world is held captive right now so they are free to do whatever they want. and what they want is clearly not good for anyone but themselves.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Math Geek said:
    no one has had a reason to do an either or type thing thus far. not saying it's never been considered, i obviously have no way of knowing one way or the other. but this is the first time i recall any major company being in this position of having to go away from windows like this.
    This isn't "a major company" moving off Windows.
    Rather, zero cost charities wondering what to do.

    As far as a major organization moving off WIndows?
    Munich.
    https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/
    https://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/ebooks/why-munich-made-the-switch-from-windows-to-linux-and-may-be-reversing-course/
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    There have been plenty of freedos laptops and pcs, probably still are.
    The thing is that the broad public is going to want windows preinstalled because it's too scary for them to install an OS themselves or to learn linux.
    So an OEM is going to want windows to make decent sales.
    Reply
  • funguseater
    It wasn't very long ago that we made good money installing OS's and updating systems, you think people knew what to do with XP when it came out? Remember Dial-up? People will learn or they will pay someone else to do it just like they always have
    Reply
  • bit_user
    derekullo said:
    Could they sell the computers $50-100 cheaper without activating a license and call it something like The BYOL Edition ... Bring Your Own License?
    I'm pretty sure MS Windows licenses don't cost that much for big OEMs, and especially not if these are licenses for China's domestic market.

    Whether it's hardware or software, a lot of things are sold at a discount for the Chinese domestic market, which is one reason you can buy systems made for the Chinese market at lower prices via AliExpress than a comparable model that's made and marketed for sale in the US. Mini-PCs are a prime example.

    derekullo said:
    They could even make some fancy gui when the computer boots up that allows you to choose Windows or Linux Distro and sets the active partition to either the unactivated Windows partition or a linux distro and then deletes the other partition to save space.

    This would give people who want to keep Windows the option to activate but those that never wanted Windows in the first place save some money.
    Well, maybe useful for buying off-the-shelf items sold at retail, but when ordering from an OEM like Dell or Lenovo, you can pick which OS you want preinstalled on it.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    The article said:
    According to StatCounter, Windows was installed on 70.65% of PCs as of February 2025. Apple's macOS is the second most popular choice, commanding roughly 16% of the market. Meanwhile, Linux's share was around 3.8%, while ChromeOS commanded 1.81%.
    So, what are the other ~8% running?

    Second, I don't trust stat counter. They're not very transparent about their methodology, last I checked.

    Finally, when running a less popular browser or OS, it's not uncommon for the browser to lie in its identification string that it sends to the server. This is another reason I'm a little skeptical of StatCounter's numbers.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    That will for sure speed up the adoption of non-Windows computers in China. From what I have seen China has wanted to see Windows get ditched for a long time now, but due to such huge numbers of people using it they can't really do anything about it.

    Makes me wonder if other Chinese companies (smaller than Huawei) will end up in the same situation.
    Reply