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I need to look up the vendor that had it for $70 while newegg listed it for $75. Some place like discountmountainsoftware as I recall. hang on here. They must have had a sale going last summer since it is now back upto $134.99! Windows 7 Upgrade - Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade Retail - 32/64 Bit
A Dell 64bit 7 dvd that supposedly will work on all brands as well as custom builds is listed for $75.99 at Microsoft Windows 7 Professional W/ SP1 64 Bit - SoftwareSpeedy.com So it pays to shop around since most on a fast Bing are found for over $100 for the upgrade and very close in price to the 64bit Ultimate by the way.
For a few bucks more you can leap for the higher edition or shop more for a better price if found. Surprisingly the 8 Pro was found for only $3 more then the 7 Pro upgrade. Here's another eye catcher with the 7 Pro full version found for $86.99! Windows 7 Professional Full Version 32/64bit - www.digitsee.com The only problem is no media to download both isos for 32/64bit and no mention of SP1.
Keep in mind that OEM's are a one time license. The license gets tied to the motherboard and if you should ever replace the motherboard, you won't be able to activate a reinstall unless, possibly, the new board is identical to the old one. Many, if not most, people have been able to sweet talk M$ into allowing the reactivation but you are at the mercy of the operator you get at M$ when you call in. While a retail version costs twice as much, you wouldn't have to worry about moving the license to another computer or motherboard.
You are wise to get a couple of copies since they won't last forever (and the price may go up when they start running out). I've already got a copy of Home Premium (I don't really know why I bought that one; senioritis? cranial flatulence?) and two copies of Ultimate, all retail. That should hold me until 1/1/2020.
Branded OEM disks are tied to one machine. For the OEM for System Builders you can upgrade to a new machine but cannot transfer the 7 license over to anyone else as you can with the retail. If you sell a new pc you build the 7 disk goes with the machine used to install Windows.
This is all very good information. Thanks guys. I may stock up some more. Now I have to find a reasonably priced Office 2007 for 3 machines. I run out of keys and I have already 'borrowed' one from my brother in law.
I certainly wouldn't mind grabbing a few more Ultimate as well as Pro disks since both support the XP Mode for some who haven't actually fully upgraded over the years to Vista or 7 and now do not want 8! One has an 8 laptop out of necessity until his main case is back up fully since even a temp install of XP went belly up.
Why 2007? 2010 is better and won't reach its EOL until 10/13/2020, well after Win7's EOL of 01/01/2020; 2007's EOL is 10/10/2017. I normally wouldn't advise anyone with 2007 to upgrade to 2010 unless 2010 had a new feature you needed but with direction M$ has been going, I strongly recommend getting 2010 while it's still possible. There is no telling what abomination will be available once 2007 reaches EOL.
Hi there.
Office 2010 is fine or even Office 2007 if you can get hold of cheap legit copies.
Office 2013 doesn't offer anything special that either Office 2010 or even 2007 doesn't -- especially for home type users.
Probably Office 2013 too won't be around for much longer as Ms is pushing everybody towards its Subscription Based Office 365 offering.
They will of course succour people into this model via cheapish subscriptions -- and then Bang - when you are hooked with no convenient place to go elsewhere the prices will rise.
In any case except in very rare instances I HATE Subscription models for software-- Buying a Newspaper or magazine is one thing but the whole idea of "Renting" Software is against my nature.
The reason Ms is going down this route is fairly obvious -- Ms Office is probably the most heavily pirated suite of software on Earth -- more pirated than Windows itself and obviously "traditional methods" for combating piracy have failed -- well they would if the full price for this stuff is around 400 USD for an incredibly popular product - it's OBVIOUS. !!! -- The student and Teacher editions plus use at home versions of Office 2007 when the price dropped dramatically also caused pirating of this version to show a huge drop too but obviously Ms and corporate greed in general are attempting to foist this method of Software purchase on to us.
I hope it fails otherwise Windows will itself go the same way -- better get those reserve copies of Windows 7 or start brushing up on Linux.
Incidentally another way of running a decent adequate version of office is to get hold of a copy of WINDOWS 97 Small Business edition. The office version which is included in that edition is probably good enough too for 99 % use. I consider myself quite a Power user of EXCEL - but I find there isn't a whole lot that you can't do in the EXCEL included with Win 97 business edition -- and the other nice thing is that all software BEFORE XP doesn't have to be ACTIVATED so even if you get a copy for 3.00 USD from ebay it will work indefinitely never needing an activation code and can be installed on as many machines as you like.
Try this as a VM.
Cheers
jimbo
Hi everyone.
It's time IMO for some humble pie to be eaten around here by the naysayers.
The surface PRO contrary to what people have read IS doing quite nicely --would be tempted by one of these myself but it's a bit expensive for me at the moment (April --Taxes coming up) !!.
Microsoft's first PC lives! | Microsoft - CNET News
Cheers
jimbo
I might be wrong (wouldn't be the first time :)) but I think many people agreed that Windows 8 would be great on a touchscreen device like a tablet or phone. The naysayers were complaining about using 8 on a traditional PC.