You know what I meant.

That's a laugh. American English is probably the most complicated language, with more broken rules and non-sensical spelling, than any language on the planet.

'i before e, except after c'

And how many exceptions are there to that single rule? Yet, it has been taught like gospel in every school.

And how does 'ph' equate to 'f'?

And how about all the 'silent' letters. Letters that are written but not spoken. If they are 'silent' - then DON'T USE THEM!!!

We Americans 'perfect' everything, I guess. Doesn't matter if things stay proper, it just matters that we have changed them into our own bastardized 'perfection'?

And wow, has this thread gone off-topic?

I think MS should take into consideration, market share.

Microsoft has nearly 90% - that's nearly 1 billion computers, as of last year.

In April of 2007 MS reported a net income of 4.93B, which means they were making around $5 profit from each license sold (and/or product sold).

Is that too much profit? I think not... (unless the books are being cooked?)

Even so, I think they could lower the price. I will not spend several hundred dollars for an OS, especially for one that has bugs in it. And MS is rather known for buggy software. Plus which, you have to pay for tech support.

With the cash-flow of MS - in the double-digit billions of dollars - I would think that they could simply stomp-out any Linux or Mac version with a blink. And, I would think that they could simply build better software. After all, we are talking billions of dollars here, versus what the Linux community does with personal time alone, or the Mac people do with a fraction of the market share.

In the end? The OS should not cost over $100 - for whatever version. Heck, just making separate versions adds to the costs of the whole.

Sorry I hijacked the thread. Just a bit of fun. No offense there Starkers.

I managed [so far] to buy my OS vers as OEMs.....seems people aren't always that tight about only selling them WITH a system....so Win98 cost $180 ..... XP cost $200 some years later ....and I imagine I'll snaffle up Win7 for this side of $300 ....that's AUD, not USD.

It's not a lot, not for what it does....and how much better each ver does it.  [I managed to avoid Vista....was given the ME, 95 was on a S/H system already....and I can't remember how much 3.11 was....it was included with a system I bought eons ago...

free to Impulse users and using Goo for DRM.

None taken, kona, I was just having a bit of fun as well.

Depends on which edition you go for.  I'm hearing from my PC store that they're expecting the Oz price on the OEM of Win7 Ultimate will be around $400 - $430, with the Home edition being around S340 - $350.  Add to that about $40 for Upgrade copies, and $60 - 70ish for full retail copies.

Those are tentative prices that they were given by their supplier... so they're not set in concrete.  Hopefully they'll be a little lower than that

It would be nice if we had a sale on the retail versions. All I hear about is about how great the prices are... on upgrades. 100 dollars for retail seems fine to me for a full version, upgrades should say at around 50 and then go up for various versions. I still think the different versions can be a little difficult to understand which is "best".  I game. I don't need half the extra features that come with Pro, certainly not interested in ultimate but the ram limit... I mean I don't know what the goal is in pricing, but if you want people to go legit who aren't now, getting them to pay 200 for a full version is a bit much. I know some people will always pirate no matter what but the price excuse would be harder to sell if it was dropped.

starkers.... depends on the store. There are 'PC stores' in Melb, too that'd be 20% more expensive than others.

Keep away from the big chains like Hardly Normal....

free with any previous version of windows installed

The (tentative) prices I was quoted were supposedly RRP Oz-wide... though I imagine some store will undercut others, etc. 

Never, ever shop there... my local PC store beats Harvey "we won't be beaten on price" Norman on price every time.  However, I've found a store not too far away that beats them... about the best in SE Qld, so for major purchases I now go to them. I shall enquire with them regarding Win 7 prices when the time comes.

Not only that, Hardly Normal does not stock x64 of Vista, nor will get it in (same with most other large dep't stores), so I don't imagine they'll stock or order in Win 7 x64, either, and that's the way I want to go.

I've read that Win7 includes both x32 & x64 versions & installs the x64 version on x64 hardware, out of the box.  I don't believe you'll need to 'find' it, even in Oz.

If only that were true here in Oz.  The major department stores here (such as the one referred to by Jafo and myself) usually stock only the Home Premium edition of Vista, which comes in either 32 bit OR 64 bit... not both.  Very few major stores here actually stock Professional or Ultimate editions of Vista, and I imagine the same will be true of Win 7... that they will stock only the Home edition (which I understand will still comes in either 32 bit OR 64 bit) and not the Professional or Ultimate editions, which will contain both.

Furthermore, it is my experience that these stores won't/do not like to order in one-off copies of that which they do not regularly stock... they make the excuse that they are not licensed to stock 64 bit editions of Windows, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.... meaning one has to go to smaller stores to get them.  When I was hunting around for a copy of Vista Home Premium x64, I tried at least 10 or 11 major stores before giving up and purchasing a copy via a US online retailer for considerably less than I would have paid here in smaller stores.

That's what you get for living on a puny island far away from civilization... 

View my edits before starting to play smartass on me.

Puny???  Sweden fits into Oz  40 + times... so I'm thinking... um... like when you decide to travel away from that speck you call home, come visit ... we got sheep farms bigger than Sweden.

Uh, on second thoughts... like um, sheep!   

Orright, then, if you're coming... bring your own mint sauce and... er, condoms.   

Erm... Condoms because of all the beautiful sheep herding women I hope... Otherwise... Umm... Well...