One provision of the 1994 consent decree signed by Microsoft and the Department of Justice limits Microsoft's licensing agreements with personal computer manufacturers. In the years preceding the decree, Microsoft had a practice of offering large discounts to PC manufacturers (up to a 40% price reduction) if the company would pay Microsoft a royalty for every computer the manufacturer sold, regardless of whether the machine had a Microsoft operating system installed or not. The alternative was to pay Microsoft "per processor" royalties with no discount.

"This is unfair for several reasons, the first being that consumers, in effect, pay Microsoft when they buy another product, and the second being that it would be uneconomical for an OEM to give up the 60% discount in favor of installing a less popular OS on some of its computers." (Dan Check)

The conclusion of the decree is that Microsoft may only charge a computer manufacturer for each copy of an operating system installed and shipped on a PC. Furthermore, Microsoft's general contract livberties are restricted by the decree - the company is allowed to author contract terms which last at most one year.