Free Windows Upgrade only $17.00!!!

In general, I recommend people stay away from Windows 7:

Avoid Windows 7

Lest we forget: Windows 7 is just like Vista, folks. "Windows 7" is Microsoft's attempt to re-brand the damaged "Windows" name after the extremely poor "Windows Vista" release. I love that you can still buy systems with Windows XP "downgrade" because Windows Vista still isn't trusted 3 years after it was released.

Ha! I just wrote a post linking to your Windows 7 comment (to come out in a couple of days). Glad to see the link here as well.

Actually, if you read the article, most people will in fact pay $0. Lenovo is the only $17 upgrade. The rest are about $13 or $0.

Damn, I was hoping "Free Upgrade" meant source code, no spyware, and no Digital Rape Management.

@1
WHAT? Screw that Windows 7 is great. I've been running it for months and it is beautiful, stable and quick as all hell. I'm not trying to to start a flamewar here (I'm a user of Windows Linux and OS X). And I have been running Beta releases on hardware that was at the time not ready for windows 7. And guess what, runs like a charm.

"'Windows 7' is Microsoft's attempt to re-brand the damaged "Windows" name after the extremely poor "Windows Vista" release"

That's not relevant to the current release. I agree that on release vista was a piece. By now, it's actually a good OS after updates. But Windows 7 is much better than Vista ever was. Yes the 'feel' is the same. Only now it is stable and fast. Yes, this is what Vista should have been, no doubt, but what does that change about THIS RELEASE? OS X has been the "Same" since 10, but they keep 're-branding' it. Same with Ubuntu. This is how upgrades work. Windows 7 is trusted.

"Windows 7, including the classic Start Menu, Windows Ultimate Extras, InkBall, and Windows Calendar. And Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Mail (previously bundled in Windows Vista) aren't even in Windows 7 - you need to add them manually from the separate Windows Live Essentials package."
That is somewhat of a lie. First, yes, there is a start bar (WTF?). Nothing new here. It's a good thing they left out the very rarely used apps mentioned. YOU CAN INSTALL THEM! Why have pre-installed apps that 90% of users won't use?

I love that blog, people spout "windows user know it sucks..." NOPE! I'm a windows user and I love it.

Netbook - Ubuntu (eeebuntu)
HTPC - Windows 7

RE: Upgrade - Not too sure why they would be charging $17 for the upgrade. OEM Vista purchased after June (I think June) gets a free upgrade.

Also, if anyone has a email address that ends in .edu - you can also get an upgrade to either Home Premium or Pro for $29 (www.win741.com) although most people in this category should be able to get it for free using their schools MSDN contract.

-JJ

"Lest we forget: Windows 7 is just like Vista, folks. "

Guy I know who's done IT for about 10 years now (this guy: http://www.michaelalanmiller.com/ )says Windows 7 is much, much better than Vista.

And Hitler built great highways.

Windows 7 runs well and is stable. Well, duh, that's what an OS is meant to do !

Can't say the same about Ubunut Karmic beta unfortunately, very disappointing, too many glitches, and don't get me started on the wireless !

I really loathe MS at the moment. I paid big bucks for Visual Studio 2008, and the piece of crap won't work out of the box. I've wasted over 4 hours so far trying to find out how to fix things and I still have long to go; apparently one of the problems was that I installed the trial version ("Professional") and the paid-for version docs didn't tell me to Uninstall the previously installed trial version. Now the steaming heap of crap is wasting my time by not working... grrrrr. That is why I NEVER recommend any MS products, operating system or otherwise and I push other instrument makers to ditch MS and use Linux or FreeBSD instead (or even QNIX, depending on their specific requirements).

I read #6 (steve s) and #8 (Rorschach) and got a very interesting comparison:

#6 "Guy I know who's done IT for about 10 years now says Windows 7 is much, much better than Vista."
#8 "Windows 7 runs well and is stable. Well, duh, that's what an OS is meant to do!"

Why couldn't Windows Vista run well and be stable? When did that come off the collective list of expectations? People are getting very excited that Windows 7 is "stable" and "runs great". Why is this even an issue? Because Windows Vista hasn't been that great. It had a terrible launch, and 3 years later companies like Dell still get enough demand for an XP "downgrade" that they still ship systems with the older version of Windows instead of Vista. So now we're all excited about how great Windows 7 runs, not realizing this as a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome.

Or any version of Windows, for that matter? I've done IT for about 15 years and it's been a long, long time since I've seen Windows run stable. To get Windows stable, you have to not touch the thing, no installing apps. God help you if you install any third party applications or drivers.

And to #8 (Rorschach) I've rarely experienced stability problems on Linux, and I've been using it at various levels since 1993. Opposite my experience with Windows, it's been a long, long time since I've crashed a Linux desktop. You're using a beta version of Ubuntu, so you should expect some weirdness from a beta. It is curious that with Google, etc. releasing services as "beta" that we've come to assume "beta" is stable for production. If you're having stability problems with the beta, roll back to the current full release.

Rorschach, you are comparing a full release OS to a beta and claiming the full release OS is more stable than the beta. That is what the beta is supposed to be!

Windows 7 will indeed be better than Vista. And after three service packs it may even be better than XP.

@Linux In Excile

Vista is NOT what is discussed here. No one is saying Vista was a good OS. Windows 7 IS.

Or any version of Windows, for that matter? I've done IT for about 15 years and it's been a long, long time since I've seen Windows run stable. To get Windows stable, you have to not touch the thing, no installing apps. God help you if you install any third party applications or drivers.

Well then I would not hire you. I've been in IT for 6 years, and it takes nothing to make windows stable. XP is by far the best OS in use today. To say you "can't touch a thing" and keep it stable is either a flat out lie or you are in the wrong profession. As mentioned above, i dabble in many OS's. I've pretty much used them all (although currently I use Ubuntu, XP, Win7 and OS X, depending on the machine). Honestly, you will not find a better OS of an HTPC than Win7. Period. What's your issue with drivers an apps? My hardware always works, and I never have any issues with "3rd party apps" - shit, I have very few MS apps installed on my PC. When I built my rig a couple of months ago, I was running the Win7 beta on very new hardware (AMD PhenomIIx4 955 AM3 black edition, ATI Radon HD 4890x2 in crossfire, Haupaugge Digital/Analog Tuner), that was not 7 tested or supported and it ran like a charm.

Oh, and those specs literally SUCK for Linux/Ubuntu

Using Vista as your reason for trashing windows 7 isn't relevant. If anything, the failure of Vista is WHY 7 is such a good OS. It's close to the same thing as Windows ME to XP (OK OK, ME was on the 98 platform and XP on the NT), as they failed with a crappy OS, and realized that they needed to get back to nuts and bolts of the OS.

I know it's hard for you to admit it, but Windows 7 kicks ass

-JJ

You are very cool and your data related to this good topic supposes to be professional. Should you continue your research? We would order some thesis proposal and thesis from you.