Erm, these days, China?  Korea (at least back when I was stationed there in '89).

When I was stationed in Korea in '89, if you went to a software shop downtown,
maybe at best, 10% of thier stock was original, packaged software.
All the rest was pirated floppies, MANY were virus-infected.
And this was not a dark backalley place, this was a rather large store on a main street.
And if you DID go in there to buy something, obviously they would know you were a US Soldier,
and would hit on you to bring them original software so they could copy it.
There was no copyright laws in effect in that country at that time, dunno about now.
This was also not limited to software, but also to any other goods,
aka, a Rolex on the street-corner for 40 bucks, Gucci bags for 20 dollars,
35 bucks for an ORIGINAL pair of Nike sneakers, the SAME sneakers costing 125 bucks in the PX.

Back then, we had a choice, buy our games in the PX at "x" dollars,
or go to one of the software shops, and buy it for half the PX price.
Yes, I did buy some of those floppies, but no, I never did give them one of my purchased games.

These days, the only software I buy is my OS, the occasional game,
and software I want, for which I cannot find equivelant freeware,
with the functions I want or need, for example, WindowBlinds or DeskScapes.
If you look around, there's freeware, real freeware, not that 'less-functionality'
or 'fully functional for 30 days' freeware,
for almost EVERYTHING you could ever need...

Where?

They offer students some great, steep discounts. I got Microsoft Office for about $60.

I take it you haven't tried the beta. There are some pretty big UI changes.

GenBlood: I don't think there should be different pricing points for 64 bit and 32 bit versions. That would encourage more people to buy the 32 bit version, and I don't want them to do that. Current versions of Vista don't have different prices for 32 and 64 bit versions, and I see no reason to start doing so.

100% correct, bebi. And Vista users were their 'guinea pigs'. Why should they pay a price for what is essentially a Vista Service Pack?

Unfortunately, M$ has earned it's rep for incompletely developed products which are then resold as a brand new OS.

I can confirm: In Windows 7, the sound device can be selected, and the device properties sheet can be opened directly from the volume mixer.

Yes I did try it. And yes, there has been a few changes to the UI... WB and WinStep does big UI changes too... So back to what I said... Just a few new apps.

What Microsoft should do: offer Vista users a cheap upgrade to Windows 7.  Say $50 per.

XP users? or Windows 2000 (or previous) users: $200 per.

And the upgrade should then check and confirm that the user is going from Vista to Windows 7 otherwise the cheap upgrade wouldn't work.

Shock and horror, right?!  Nope.  The idea would be that Microsoft would be rewarding the customers that made the leap to Vista while making the customers that skipped the 'interim' release (Vista) pay nearly full fare.

Null point of discussion..........

Being punished because I did not buy a new OS that was as bad as WinME is no way to get me to buy the latest and greatest.

If it is not easily within my budget, well, I don't really need it any more than I needed Vista.

Agreed.

I found compatablity issues that Vista didn't work well with others like 1 or 2yr old programes or games.

It has the habit off slowing down if you don;t stay on top off the stuff you do with the computor. I actually liked the xp verstion better.

Not that it really maters for it seems that every time there is an upgrade the older products I meant 1 or 2yr's old will not work or not suported any more. I use Vista not for compatablity but it came with new laptop and is very propriotary and I don't like the not bakewards compatiblity.

IMHO I truly believe that if should be FREE to Vista users

i think if you buy W7 you should get both the 32 and 64 bit copies, along with being able to register them as 2 different copies

That is possibly the dumbest statement ever made, and I'm talking 'OF ALL TIME' [No Offense].

Pretty much, no matter that people feel/think, Microsoft is unlikely to change their pricing.

Why would I change from vista ultimate at this point? It's just not going to happen, even if all games released in 2010 are Windows 7 only. I'm sorry, but to me Vista works flawlessly and I am not going to spend precious time exchanging it and paying for the process as well. At this point, Vista 7 would have to come up with a "BLOW YOUR MIND" feature for the END USER. Minor stuff about start menu enhancements and software docks - yeah alright, it looks like stuff I'd buy for $10 on impulse.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying I think MS will sell windows 7 for €50. I am simply saying that unless they come up with really good reasons for me to purchase it, I am simply not their target audience.