Windows 7 Flying Off Retailers Shelves? Perhaps Not.

strollin said:

What incentive is there for the average computer user to upgrade to Win 7? I think the average user sticks with whatever OS came on their computer and is not willing to pay any amount to upgrade. My sister, for instance, is a pretty typical computer end-user with a desktop running XP and a laptop running Vista and has no desire or intention to upgrade either of them. When she buys a new computer it will most likely have Win 7 and she'll use that only because it's the OS that came with the computer.

My dad is a bit more savvy than the average joe. He has used computers since I was a kid. He has built his own computers and has both a desktop and a laptop.

I've given a copy of the Windows 7 Beta, the Windows 7 Release Candidate, and have made the RTM available to him to test out (for 120 days with rearm) on his computer using a spare hard drive. But I haven't been able to get him to even install the software. He seems to be 100% perfectly content with running Windows XP. As far as I know, he hasn't ever used Vista either. I think that since he has XP on his computers at home and has XP on his computer at work...he is just perfectly content to keep things as they are.

Hi all
who ever pays the full listed retail price for ANYTHING these days.

W7 is really heavily discounted as has been pointed out many times in this thread and elsewhere - and what really IS a no brainer is that if you really HAVE to pay full price - well for a very FEW USD more you can join technet and download a HUGE amount of software FREE. You get 10 Keys for versions of Windows (going back as far as Windows 3.1 if you want), Office, Servers, SQL server, exchange etc etc.

So the "selling" volume of W7 might be difficult to establish using conventional criteria.
What would be of more interest is the number of installs or the number of users.

And once we are all hooked - they will sneak in some type of "paid for licensing" to generate a revenue stream - probably like a smaller version of technet where upgrades etc will only be available to paid subscribers.

A popular saying is in this world only 2 things are certain - Death and taxes --I'd suggest a 3rd - Corporate Greed - although so far MS haven't gone down the paid for windows updates business process.

Cheers
jimbo

Night Hawk said:

He probably doesn't run much as far as various programs to start with in order to see how buggy XP had been too often for a long list of programs.

No, I wouldn't say that my dad uses a large number of applications. It's probably 10-12 things that he uses on a regular basis. And I think this is typical of the average PC user as well. Even if apps are buggy and such...so many end-users don't even keep them up to date. They download whatever version is available on day 1 and so often just leave it alone...the web updaters are probably the biggest boon to people staying up to date these days.

While there are some of us who want to be on the latest and greatest, there are tons who just aren't running to retailers and buying up copies of Windows 7 like mad.

Night Hawk said:

For those looking to stay on top or simply not fall way behind

And I think this is the point for my Dad....nothing indicates to him that he is falling behind. Absolutely everything he has and wants to use is running just fine for him on XP.

From the moment I installed some beta version I was hooked and certain this would be my first instant buy when it gets out. Then I got a mail from MS saying how much they appreciate all the folks trying W7 bla bla bla and that you can preorder with discount. So I wanted to preorder and after trying several sites I find out I cant because Im not from the US?! Wtf are they sending me mail then? So I decided to keep RC for now and when I do get the final version I'll get it from some torrent site, no way am I buying it unless I really have to.

Hi Naala

Welcome to Seven Forums. Sorry to hear you didn't get the pre-order offer. We in the UK did so I thought it was Europe wide.
I bought it on that offer but I think that it is so good I would gave saved up and paid full price if I had to.
By the way I wouldn't mention anything to do with piracy on these forums. The moderators will ban you and it's far too good a forum to be excluded from:)

I'm not surprised it's selling so fast. It's basically gotten as close to acclaim as anything MS has ever sold and since Vista was so hugely unpopular, a lot of people are taking advantage of the upgrade. It's actually still $50 an upgrade if you get the Family Pack but I don't know if that's still selling.

Well i installed win7 on my notebook because i had vista pre-installed when i bought this notebook (even though i wanted no OS installed), but on my desktop PC i have win xp and i see no reason for installing win7. I mean i dont fall for that aero thing and though its nicer and have more features i still dont see it worth paying $100-$150. I dont do things which take advantage of new features and i believe that most of ppl also. But for them , in my opinion, it's like new mobile phone, people get bored with current one and want to buy some new.(Im talking generally)