Want to buy a full version of Windows 7 - I take it the 64 bit Home Premium is the optimal package? For home use.
Where’s the best (cheapest) place to buy? We’re tight on money at the moment while I live in Iowa and we try to sell the house in KC, etc.
Thanks.
United Kingdom is the cheapest area (about £60 to £80), unless you qualify for Microsoft’s BizSpark. In the latter case, you get a free MSDN subscription with access to everything, but must pay $100 after three years if you want out (or keep paying MSDN prices - not so cheap).
Sorry, when I said cheapest place I did not mean geographic - I was referring to retail locations.
I’m adding things up - looks like I’ll need the software, a new HD for my notebook (like the higher capacity drive referred to in another thread,) a connector of some kind for my current notebook HD to move things after installing Windows 7 on the new drive, and a couple of 2 Gig memory sticks (I have two 1 Gig memory sticks now - seemed pretty powerful at the time! ;) )
Very cool - I assume you have to buy some kind of hardware or something to get that OEM version, right? Which is NP since I’ll be buying a new notebook HD at the same time (and I’m looking for recommendations for that too!)
If you know a student I got my full version for $30. You just need a valid .edu email address. www.win741.com/
You don’t need to buy hardware to get the OEM version, but the license is for a single motherboard. Upgrading the system motherboard and continuing to use the same OEM license is a violation of the terms of the license.
Get a friend MS employee to buy it for you for $30.
Ah, OK. It would be like trying to use my Dell Windows XP on another computer (i.e. it checks the motherboard and refuses to install if it’s not a match.) No problem, since if I purchase another PC it will come with Windows 7, and my wife’s Dell notebook has a free Windows 7 upgrade.
If it’s like XP, when you try to activate it on a second machine, it’ll stop and ask you if the motherboard was replaced due to a hardware failure. If you say that it was, it’ll activate. This will presumably stop working if you do it too often.
Of course, even if it works, you’re breaking the license agreement. Exactly how much that matters to you is, well, up to you.
You have a kid in college, right? As mentioned you can upgrade to Home Premium or Professional for $30 right now. It’s a download file that isn’t an ISO, but turning it into an ISO is trivial so don’t buy the optional $19 DVD media.
Another option is to find someone who’s buying a PC and leech off of them because there’s currently an offer to upgrade a 2nd PC to Win7 for $50 when buying the new one.
Upgrade discs are the same as full versions if you do a simple registry tweak: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp
What about universities that don’t have a .edu address? My university doesn’t have one, neither does the local college I managed to get one at, or in fact any other Canadian university that I know about.
If you go to the win741.com site there are other ways of validating your student status (faxing a copy of your tuition statement and so on).
That sounds like a plan, I have a kid in college so I sent her a note last night. I’ll investigate to see what the “catch” is. ;)
No catch. I’m taking a class at the moment and have an .edu address so I got the Professional upgrade for $30 (it defaults to Home Premium, so be sure to select the Pro option if you want that instead). Sign up at the site and they’ll send a download link and serial number to her .edu address.
Bear in mind that this is technically a violation of the TOS since the upgrade won’t be performed on a student machine.
I used this method to burn it to an ISO so I could do a clean install:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/how_burn_your_student_copy_windows_7_dvd
The file is a huge pain in the ass for some people. There are lots of reports of the file stopping at 89% no matter how many times you try to download it (this is what happened to me). I couldn’t get it to download properly and actually ended up borrowing someone’s physical copy and just using the key I purchased.
You fax them a student id, it’s on the site somewhere.
Note that this is just a list of schools that qualify but don’t provide .edu addresses to their students. The actual list of schools is much, much longer than this.