But the thing us system-builders want to know: how much are the OEM discs?

^ yea that is what really matters

Really OEM prices please.....

AND

Will the upgrade version installer have the ability to bootstrap itself, i.e. not require an installed copy of Vista or XP in order to install.

Exactly my question, OEM is...?

Most likely the same percentage of cost differential as with XP, Vista. Buying licenses in bulk could also factor in a discount, or so one might think. All you can do is wait until information has been released from MS.

Buying at the promotional 50% off might be a good option. This will most likely net savings over an oem copy. Again, it depends on if you need to buy multiply licenses.. or if by "system builder" you mean your 1-3 home pcs.

On a side note.. I wonder if they will offer 7 ultimate with the discount. I was thinking about switching over to dual boot 7/xp on a new machine. Half the price would make it more appealing to me since I had trouble with vista retail. $300 for an OS that wouldnt even install 64bit on a 64bit system, luckily for me the people working at staples are idiots and I managed to return it for a full refund after I uninstalled (no I didnt activate it) and sealed the package up like new.

Perhaps If I would have paid half the price I might have been willing to let it slide until the updates rolled around.

/ramble.....

Why buy OEM unless you are selling the computer you build to someone else? If you change anything important on them, you immediately end your license. AND, it's stuck on that one computer. The full version will let you upgrade anything, install it on a new computer altogether when the old one craps out, etc.

OEM por favor

Yah because there is absolutely no way around that...

seems expensive.

Agreed, this is what windows vista was supposed to be in the first place. How about a discount for current vista users.

Damn it's expensive to get your computer virus infected.

I called MS many times to reactivate XP and answered I changed an important part (mobo mostly) and they ALWAYS agreed to activate the copy.

And yeah, OEM price is what matters for most of us, really.

OEM is all that matters, a full copy and full feature set for an OS should NOT cost $319, that is OUTRAGEOUS. Honestly, Apple has it right, $99 for Leopard, and $149 for a 5 computer house/site license. Just for one copy of the full Ultimate I can authorize 10 computers with Leopard, that is INSANE. And still have $20 left over to be exact.

I honestly think that OEM is all you need. I have put OEM's on many different computers, occassionally you need to call India tech support and get a new key (and have a good excuse) so you can get it registered but it beats $100+ for a "Full" version which is just more of Microsoft's money hoarding.

i would love to see vista users get some sort of coupon or something.

Do you think the pricing would be the same for x64 versions?

@brendano257: you forgot to mention the upgrade price of snow leopard ($29 for 1 license) vs $220 for Windows. Given how bad the experience was with Vista, Microsoft should have offered a mea culpa by selling upgrades from Vista at a much much lower price point!!

Have a good excuse?...."How many computers is this copy of Windows installed on?"......"One"........."Thankyou,your copy of windows is now activated".........
I guess "one" is a good excuse then because the 30 or so times i've had to phone in with various windows oem licences thats all i've ever told them.

The EU is stupid.

wow 200$ for a home premium is a LOT of money.. a lot more than xp home.. and be fair. can't do more than xp... it's an OS...
need to think if it's really gonna be a good investment buying a win7 licence, and change the OS from ubuntu to this one...

Well no duh W7 will be a lot more then a OS released NEARLY A DECADE AGO!!!

1. Are those prices for 32-bit AND 64-it versions?

2. Can I upgrade from WinXP Home 32-bit to Win7 Pro 64-bit?

yes Microsoft watch me pay you 200 bucks for you to play achievements with my os, just wait for it ...........

Considering Vista Home Premium OEM is $140 compared to $240 retail, we can expect Windows 7 Home Premium OEM to be somewhere in the $100-$120 range.



Vista Business is $180 OEM compared to $300 retail, so Windows 7 Business will probably be $180 as well, maybe a little cheaper if were lucky.



And Vista Ultimate is also $180 OEM compared to $320 retail, so Windows 7 Ultimate OEM will probably be $180 as well, give or take $10.



Overall I don't think the pricing is too bad at all. You have to remember that Windows is Microsoft's biggest product and is where Microsoft makes a large amount of it's money. Where as OS X from Apple, isn't really Apple's main product. It's just part of a family of products which come together as the Apple experience. Apple makes it's profits off of the entire Apple experience which includes a whole bunch of different Apple products. Apple doesn't intend to make large profits off of selling OS X so it can afford to sell it really cheap, where as Microsoft DEPENDS on making profits off of selling Windows. So obviously Windows will always cost more than OS X versions.



They also didn't mention in this article that pre-orders for Windows 7 start tomorrow, and it is a lot cheaper on pre-order. It is only $50 for Windows 7 Home Premium on pre-order, and $100 for Windows 7 Business on pre-order. You can tell that Microsoft is trying to make the tech savy early adopters happy by offering very cheap pre-order prices. They're hoping that by keeping the tech savy happy their general image of Windows 7 will be that it is a good operating system, and this image will spread out to average consumers as well. Because in Vista's case, the average consumers just heard from their tech buddies that "Windows Vista sucks!" so they just kept repeating it so that they could sound like they knew what they were talking about, even though they had no idea why some people actually thought that Vista sucked (which it didn't but that's a whole different debate).

1. Yes, 32-bit and 64-bit come together in the same box.
2. No, you can only go XP Home or Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium, or XP Pro or Vista Business to Windows 7 Business.

What does Windows 7 Business have in it that you need that isn't in Windows 7 Home Premium anyways?

Can I upgrade from Win XP Home 32-bit to Win 7 Home 64-bit?

Also - I'm running Win 7 Ultimate RC right now - just curious as to what I'll be losing when I install Win 7 Home.

Yes you can. You could with from XP to Vista anyways.

And as far as what you'll loose going to Home Premium, basically, you'll loose a bunch of corporate networking features, bitlocker, virtual hard disk booting, and Windows XP mode.

Mostly stuff you'll never use unless it is a business computer at which point your business probably pays for your Windows liscence anyway. Windows XP mode could be useful for some though.

Here's a more detailed comparison chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

Yeah because we totally can't install anti-virus and firewall software.

Can I upgrade from Windows XP Home to install Windows 7 Home and THEN re-install Windows XP Home on a separate partition? So I could dual-boot to Win XP if I have, for example, a VPN program that only likes XP?