Win 7 on neweeg for $179

[dragonash]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116762&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL102209&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL102209-_-SoftwareOperatingSystems-_-L0C-_-32116762

pretty good deal.
i almost bit it too... but I cant see myself spending that much on an OS.

Use promo code: EMCMLNN24

[Bald_Yew]

Home Premium OEM at 99.99 will be good enough for my next build. ^.^

[shifty]

Home premium is really nice too. I've gotta say, I've grown incredibly fond of 7 Ultimate.

[dragonash]

whats your say on Win 7 ultimate vs Vista Ultimate(sp2)?

[shifty]

Uhm, my say is, I hated Vista with a passion, and didn't last till SP2.

All I can tell you is, I've dealt with Vista machines up till SP1, and they were dog-ass slow, and had so many annoying features I wanted to **** it.

Doesn't really exist in 7. 7 Looks more like Vista, but feels more like XP.

W7 is fast! Even on slow hardware.
Hardly any annoying popup/safety features at all.
Limitations and restrictions aren't prevalent.
Have not had a single BSOD/driver problem as of yet - and I've run all the RC's and several Betas.

[dragonash]

really? well, theres a glowing review for the masses.

still gonna wait till i can find a better price :)

[shifty]

you want a copy of the RC with a key? i have the iso downloaded from MS, along with several keys. 32-bit and 64-bit.

[dragonash]

no thank you :)

im still in debate on whether to stay with what i have for now and let MS work out the kinks first.

I'm also looking to do the upgrade version since you are able to do a complete wipe.
The upgrade should be cheaper than the retail....but not by much.

wish i knew someone in MS so icould buy it for $45 lol

[Ninjahedge]

The "RC"?

I was interested in trying this out, actually being able to use the full 64 on my E6600 duo, but paying minimum $100 for an OS for a machine that is still working.....

RC = Review Copy?

[Bald_Yew]

Release candidate. Valid until next June.

[=A!M=OakWind]

I'm using the 32 bit version exclusively. No problems at all.

Now the 64 bit version was another story... Too many driver conflicts and lockups.

[Ninjahedge]

>sigh<

I thought a full version was too much to hope for! ;)

And not a working 64 to boot? Double downer...

[shifty]

How many times do we need to tell hedge what an RC is? Second time you've asked, bud. RC *is* the full version dude. Jebus, wtf? It's not the final release version, but it's good until next June, hopefully when prices will be down, and it is still constantly updated, etc.

64-bit RC is running flawless on the media PC I just built for the office, no hangups, no lockups, no crashes. Here are the specs for the box. That's my public wishlist - only thing I bought elsewhere was a Silverstone TOB02 blu ray drive. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12097112

Also had 64-bit (beta, not RC) running on a custom built rig with an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe mobo. No BSODs. No lockups. Worked like a champ.

I'm running 32-bit exclusively at home on my Dell D620 laptop. Operating flawlessly as well. No bluescreens.

I have yet to have a bad experience with Windows 7. Seriously. If Epic would have done this well with changing up UT3 after the failures of UT2003/4, I wouldve been all over it.

[Ninjahedge]

shift man, pardon for being confused when you say it is the real thing, only it expires.

To me, that aint the real thing and makes it hard for me to remember it as such.

/me shrugs.


I hope they have some sense and lower the prices on this sucker. It IS the OS, not any app software (really). It would eb nice to be abel to run your machine w/o having to pay someone ELSE to get it running.....

[Zaphod]

I too love W7! I pretty much skipped Vista altogether. I tried it way back and immediately had issues of one kind or another and just bagged it. W7 on the other hand is a different story. I ran the betas and the RC and pre-ordered W7 Pro upgrade for $99. Downloaded and installed it a few days after release and it's been running flawlessly (64bit btw). Granted, a fresh install of any OS always feels great. But since I ran all the betas and RCs and dumped all kinds of software on them and they kept chuggin right along, I have a feeling W7 will retain that 'new install smell' for a longer period of time. :D

[shifty]

shift man, pardon for being confused when you say it is the real thing, only it expires.

To me, that aint the real thing and makes it hard for me to remember it as such.

/me shrugs.


I hope they have some sense and lower the prices on this sucker. It IS the OS, not any app software (really). It would eb nice to be abel to run your machine w/o having to pay someone ELSE to get it running.....

I thought lifetiem subscription for Tivo being $400 was outrageous. But I bought it. And it was worth every penny. Still using it several years later. I'd pay half as much for W7 and get just as much (or more) use out of it, quite honestly. Why spend it in either case? It's necessary to make my unit work easily and properly without tons of hackery, whether it be the Tivo or my PC.

With that in mind, and thinking about what you spend on games - which are an addition to your computer, they don't even help run it, while your OS is permanent - and makes your computers run....something you'll be using day-in and day-out for the next half-decade or more, how can you tell me that $99-319 for a version of Windows 7 that you'll use daily for the life of your computer(s) is too high of a price? Seriously? GTFO!

I get it. And I didn't before. But, I gotta say, Windows 7 is polished. It's nice. I like it. It's not one of the freeware solutions like Linux that causes me innumerable fits of research and work every few months. It just ... works. And has. And everything works with it, FTMP.

Expiring edition or not, W7 RC was free, it is essentially the full-version edition of W7, but I will need to re-up come June of next year. For someone complaining about how "W7 is too expensive", you have an opportunity to run it for free until June 2010, but you'd rather forget what an RC is and blow it off as "not the full version".

Go, you!

[]LoL[Harm]

In another thread somewhere I tried to explain that even at $300 an OS is still a minor component to most computers. Most video cards are more expensive than the operating systems that run your entire system. I still don't understand the sticker shock. Especially if you are getting the $180 version. I mean my memory cost more than that. So did my power supply. Hell my case, if you include the fans cost the same amount, and that's just a case.

But I guess there's no ability to download a free case, which goes a long ways in the mindset a lot of people have when thinking about price. Here are a few nifty articles:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/10/app-store-pricing-dangerous-for-game-publishers.ars

http://www.ratracetrap.com/the-rat-race-trap/irrational-decisions-anchoring-and-arbitrary-coherence.html

[shifty]

That second link lit up Avira, some HTML-based script virus loaded from the blog (no adverts; not sure where it came from). User beware, YMMV, it may be nothing.

With all that said, I just want to reiterate one thing: I applauded Apple for releasing MacOS "Snow Leopard" for like ... $30. Until I realized I was basically paying $40 for an upgrade from 10.5.x to 10.6.x - that would be like me paying $30 to upgrade from XP SP1 to SP2!. You'd spit in my face if I told you that as Microsoft employee.

The reality is, Apple DOES have what I feel are more "reasonable" pricing offers: ~$175 for a 5-pack/family pack of 10.5 Leopard, then $40 more for the 10.6 Snow Leaopard .... but the new W7 Home "3-pack" (family pack) when you add it all up, it's arguable that, for what you get, Microsoft is actually more competitively priced.

For how much more I like W7 over MacOS, feature-set, usability, stability, etc. I gotta say ... W7 is still the better buy. And it's really NOT outrageously priced for what you get when compared to the other big OS manufacturer out there (Mac). I think W7 is also more flexible in letting the consumer buy what they need. I'm glad to see we've scaled back in W7 to get rid of all this 'business' versioning, but I really wish they would have further pruned things to remove the 'home' vs. 'home premium' product. home/professional/ultimate is suitable divisioning, I feel.

But, I dunno.

I've been spoiled rotten over the years. Not only have I gotten more free software (pirated) over the years than I can shake a stick at, I've always managed to have some means with which to have a free, legitimately licensed copy of Windows on my computers - ALL of them. So, in that light, yes, actually buying an OS is a daunting task for me. It DOES seem expensive. But I'm actually (probably) going to do it this time, or at least - some time next year. I'm hoping that by summer, we'll see a price drop, and we'll see 3-packs of Win7 Ultimate as a realistic option under $400 so I can put them on my HTPC, my gaming rig, and my floater notebook I use around the house (or on my netbook, if I have one at the time).

[dragonash]

wow, i haven ever seen shifty give such a glowing review about an OS before lol
I'm almost buying the $180 version for win7 ult... but i just remembered that I have a bday and christmas coming up. lol

[Cerwin_Vega]

wow, i haven ever seen shifty give such a glowing review about an OS before lol
I'm almost buying the $180 version for win7 ult... but i just remembered that I have a bday and christmas coming up. lol


After using vista i thought to myself Microsoft has really screwed themselves and it would take their next OS to be a miracle.

On the 7th day God gave us Windows 7!

Remember how you felt that first few months with XP?? That's how I feel with W7 and I've been running the RC 64bit since it was released months ago. It astonishes me how much faster everything runs AND looks super sweet doing it... PLUS all the xtra tweability that XP didn't have and vista tried to have.

XP 8 out of 10
vista 4 out of 10
W7 9 out of 10

Can you feel the vibe i'm feeding you about W7??

[dragonash]

so your saying..... ?

[Cerwin_Vega]

so your saying..... ?

Yep!

[shifty]

XP 8 out of 10
vista 4 out of 10
W7 9 out of 10

Can you feel the vibe i'm feeding you about W7??

Exactly. The speed, lack of glitches, lack of constant "are you sure?!" questioning, lack of "i'll protect you from everything" etc....

It's funny you mention "that feeling you got with XP". I totally had the same experience with Win7 Beta, and even more so with the RC. Loved it!

Tellin ya folks, you gotta try it.

[Ninjahedge]

Wife has Home Premium(?) version on her new laptop.

I like some things, but they are trying to make some of the menus a bit to crunchy for me.

Does Pro hae a more straitforward start menu/control panel system?

[shifty]

I believe it's all pretty much the same. It uses some of the concepts from Vista as far as ... you know, dumbing down the Internet Connections area, and changing some of the fundamentals (typical MS), like ... have fun trying to find add/remove programs (fortunately i just load appwiz.cpl instead of going to the CP)

All in all, it's for the better, and just another adjustment to make, like the leap from Win98->XP. Some folks chose to go to Win2k in that transition, so they had not so much problem with XP. Just like that - some folks will have issues with the transition from XP->W7, the folks that actually bothered to suffer through Vista will have an easier time, it should be like ... pretty much the same thing, only 10x faster and more reliable with less interruptions.

With that said ... Tinker with the themes and crap. There is a plethora of choices. You can even revert to Windows XP/Classic style themes IIRC, which may make your life easier?

I personally like the GUI and menuing a lot, the hardest thing to get accustomed to was the "All programs" area. I don't necessarily like the way the default start menu works with regard to apps.

[Ninjahedge]

The help menus have gotten better. It is a bit easier to look for things in context. I just wish they had the "classic menu" option with some additional tweaks...


Second question. If you have a bunch of proggies already installed on XP and you decide to upgrade/dual with W7, can you still access/import these programs or is it like a clean install?

Another question, I tried installing the Avira on her machine, but it starts strobing the "preparing install" after expanding all the dll's and just keeps sitting there with the progress bar getting up to about 85%, then going again, and again, with no disk activity.

I did not see anything blocked, and I tried to run it with "compatibility mode" and no dice. Any clues guys? I would like to get rid of teh Trend Micro and other things the machine came with by default.

[shifty]

The help menus have gotten better. It is a bit easier to look for things in context. I just wish they had the "classic menu" option with some additional tweaks...

You'll get over it ;)


Second question. If you have a bunch of proggies already installed on XP and you decide to upgrade/dual with W7, can you still access/import these programs or is it like a clean install?

I did a clean install. My dad did an upgrade. He siad that there was a tool to transfer your settings and stuff. He had to install several programs though. I suggest clean install. You can't direct-upgrade XP (W7 will create a new partition).

Remember: This upgrade is like w98->wXP. Two different platforms. But you can direct-upgrade Vista, I believe.

Also note: My dad bought the upgrade, and I told him to install 64-bit W7, but it wouldn't let him b/c his XP was 32-bit.

Another question, I tried installing the Avira on her machine, but it starts strobing the "preparing install" after expanding all the dll's and just keeps sitting there with the progress bar getting up to about 85%, then going again, and again, with no disk activity.

I did not see anything blocked, and I tried to run it with "compatibility mode" and no dice. Any clues guys? I would like to get rid of teh Trend Micro and other things the machine came with by default.

I ran it directly. I had no problems. I had no prior antivirus.