I don't think it's fair because for the upgrades, it costs 100 dollars less than the full

I have vista ultimate and the upgrade to 7 ultimate costs more than I paid for vista!

It's a rip off to people who have vista but like to do clean installs.

Xp is the best for me

nah, if microsoft lowered the price a bit. Especially with the Professional and the Ultimate editions.
But I don't know if it's fair for me YET. I need to know the price of the OEM license.

Better than Vista was, that's for sure.

I'd say it's worth it.

I think there should be a special price for those who participated in the Beta and RC, but only for a limited time.

The half price deal sounds good. Upgrade is all you need, it does clean installs, why buy full??

It's not just the price, it's the features you get at that price which matter. You have to take that into account when comparing to Vista or XP.

So to get Valid Copies of my operating system for my family (Myself, Wife, And 2 kids computers)it would be $500 minimum.... (4 copies of Home Premium Upgrade) Yeah, it isn't going to happen.

I think it's fair. Alot of people forget the amount of resources that go into designing an operating system. Not to mention the support.

There should be a family license, though, that makes sense.

when you have a monopoly you can make the prices whatever you want

I got my versions of XP and Vista 64 free with msdnaa totally legally with the help of my university... but I would not even dare pay a cent for them... so the maximum price I am actually going to put for W7 is 0$!

There are no "Family Packs" but if you have multiple PCs you want to upgrade look into a Technet subscription.

I really don't know what MS is waiting for. In an attempt to re-invigorate sales game manufacturers have, on occasion, severely slashed prices and the end up making an absolute killing. I'm certain the same thing would happen with a price reduction on Windows. People would rather pay a reasonable price for software than obtain it illegally. The sooner MS figures this out, the sooner more people will have affordable, and legal, copies of Windows.

They are the same prices as Vista and XP, so I don't think the prices are too expensive. I think most on this site are used to buying OEMs. I know I am going to get an OEM.

just buy the oem copy from newegg

Of course, if they need to force Linux out of a particular market(like netbooks), they'll drop the price to $1 if they have to. The joys of having a monopoly...

don't you usually get three installs with a license? i know i installed my vista on two computers with no problems. there's your family pack

No, is not even a question. No OS is worth over 100 bucks, simply ridiculous and Microsoft should be taken to court for abusing it's marketshare.

@jeremyrailton

I don't think that is technically legal.

Way to expensive.

If microsoft really wants to rake in some $ and get most everyoen to upgrade....they should price it $50 at the maximum. If they priced it at $20 i bet they would have most people upgrade.

Me, id pay 10 and try it out, there is no way in hell ill pay 200 tho, or 100. I might even pay 20, 50 is a stretch tho. XP does everything i need it too, so there is no reason to upgrade unless the price is right.

Can someone explain how the "upgrade" works?
I remember long ago upgrading from NT4 to Win2000. I needed to install NT4 first, then run the Win2000 upgrade - can not do a clean format install (or at least have 2 install CDs handy).
Later I tried to upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro on a Dell notebook. Dell told me it will cost something like over $200!
I just remember this upgrading as as total pain.
Am I completely wrong? Has things changed? What is it like now? Thanks!

thats ridiculous. the ultimate version costs as much as a netbook.

Pricing sucks.....OSX is $129 (even has developer kit included) or bundled with iLife & iWork for $169. ($229 for 5 user License). Many of you complain about Apple being high priced, but Micro makes the world bend over when it comes to their OS and Office Products.