Windows 7 upgrade to be sold at Best Buy $49.99 (presale) starting June 26th (ish) other info

awesome, moving thread to deal discussion is basically killing it. If someone is considering buying a computer at Best Buy tomorrow, they need this info now.

jamesbodden said: advocatus said: awesome, moving thread to deal discussion is basically killing it. If someone is considering buying a computer at Best Buy tomorrow, they need this info now.

I would hope that since they use fatwallet they would not buy computers from bestbuy

Well we have a broad viewership so I'm not going to cast aspersions about their shopping habits, however I do think the Windows 7 upgrade price is a good one and people should know... rather then having it delegated to the forum that most people don't read.

Windows OS are so highly pirated, I am suprised its not free yet..

Thanks. Could I upgrade to W7 from XP SP3 OEM?

windows 7 is probably the first OS i'm going to actually go out and buy, i'm using the beta on all four (from netbooks to desktops) of my computers and its very nice and stable, i love it. $49.99 is an amazing price for it. definitely going to get at least one copy of it. thanks OP

advocatus said: if you've come here for advice, here's the best we've got: don't buy a PC at Best Buy until June 26th."
I have better advice. Don't buy a PC at Best Buy before or after June 26.

Will Microsoft do a Windows tour and give away free Windows 7 as before?

I hope all the technical magazines and people stuck with Vista will pressure MS to replace Vista with free copies of Windows 7. This would do a lot to erase the bad feelings about the Vista disaster and may have an effect of business customers switching to Win 7.

I'd go buy this, but im wondering if it is really better than a stripped down version of vista... Vista will all of the nonsense graphic enhancements and UAC turned off works...

handyguy said: Staples usually has a ton of free after rebate stuff you can get when you buy a new OS. I might wait & see what they have to offer.

I remember all the Office stores having great deals with XP, were the deals good with Vista too?
I remember getting cameras, DVD drives, memory, CD's etc with XP. Decent stuff at the time. Don't remember anything exciting with Vista. Maybe I missed it.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Best Buy had good giveaways with XP like the Office Stores. I remember buying copies of Xp from them all and using coupons too.

Bolo334 said: I hate VISTA but I'm grown use to it. It's like a self destructive relationship.

If you have Vista SP2 installed you essentially have Win7 without the Win7 interface (ie explorer.exe et al). Vista SP2 brings Vista to 99.8% identical CRC verified Win7 binary code in both 32 and 64 bit editions.

I installed it on a friends Acer Netbook he just got from the CompUSA $199 deal and it runs CIRCLES around my dual-core 4gb Vista Home Pro system!!

advocatus said: gaore said: Thanks. Could I upgrade to W7 from XP SP3 OEM?

That is my question as well, and I don't have an answer personally. Everything I heard from Leo Laporte and read on Engaget etc etc mentioned an upgrade from Vista. I am also running XP, and am looking forward to being able to buy an affordable upgrade to Windows 7. My gut feeling however is that XP users will get the shaft in one way or the other.
The $49.99 pre-order price is a great first step for Microsoft, and hopefully they will continue to reward their consumers with the ability to upgrade from XP rather than punish them.

Bump, same question here.

Maybe Microsoft will do a tiered pricing model based on customer hassles. XP users get W7 for $200 and Vista users get W7 for free, plus a $200 check for their trouble

cnIsfg said: Bolo334 said: I hate VISTA but I'm grown use to it. It's like a self destructive relationship.

If you have Vista SP2 installed you essentially have Win7 without the Win7 interface (ie explorer.exe et al). Vista SP2 brings Vista to 99.8% identical CRC verified Win7 binary code in both 32 and 64 bit editions.

While I'm sure Vista SP2 is a cut above previous versions of Vista, all benchmarks I've seen indicate that Windows 7 is significantly faster than Vista and in several cases even faster than XP. I have been running Win 7 on my 4 year old laptop now since the beta was first leaked and recently installed the RC and have been amazed at how well it has run.

As for upgrading from XP to 7, I haven't seen anything conclusive but I would imagine Microsoft will allow it since there are still a large number of users on XP (myself included). Either way, $50 or $100 is a hell of a deal if you ask me.

One of the more exciting features for gamers is WARP which should help breathe some life back into the PC gaming market. It will basically allow you to use spare CPU bandwidth to accelerate DirectX applications meaning higher frame rates. I've read stats that a modern core2duo or quad core will yield 10+fps on top of whatever your current GPU can pump out. This article gives a good outline of what it did for certain processors in the game Crysis.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-cpu-gpu,6645.html

michaelkenyon said: Why does every idiot under the sun think a new MS operating system is a "great upgrade" and a "must have" piece of software? Wait until you buy a new computer and you'll get it anyway. 9 times out of 10 upgrading your OS is more trouble than it's worth. The new features aren't really all that great to begin with. I swear, the only people worse than Windows fanboys are Apple fanboys. Both groups lack common sense.

Still using Windows '95 are you?

michaelkenyon said: Why does every idiot under the sun think a new MS operating system is a "great upgrade" and a "must have" piece of software? Wait until you buy a new computer and you'll get it anyway. 9 times out of 10 upgrading your OS is more trouble than it's worth. The new features aren't really all that great to begin with. I swear, the only people worse than Windows fanboys are Apple fanboys. Both groups lack common sense.

Some of us build our systems so we will not be "getting it anyway". It's either buy the upgrade or pirate it.

parquedematthew said: cnIsfg said: Bolo334 said: I hate VISTA but I'm grown use to it. It's like a self destructive relationship.

If you have Vista SP2 installed you essentially have Win7 without the Win7 interface (ie explorer.exe et al). Vista SP2 brings Vista to 99.8% identical CRC verified Win7 binary code in both 32 and 64 bit editions.

While I'm sure Vista SP2 is a cut above previous versions of Vista, all benchmarks I've seen indicate that Windows 7 is significantly faster than Vista and in several cases even faster than XP. I have been running Win 7 on my 4 year old laptop now since the beta was first leaked and recently installed the RC and have been amazed at how well it has run.

As for upgrading from XP to 7, I haven't seen anything conclusive but I would imagine Microsoft will allow it since there are still a large number of users on XP (myself included). Either way, $50 or $100 is a hell of a deal if you ask me.

One of the more exciting features for gamers is WARP which should help breathe some life back into the PC gaming market. It will basically allow you to use spare CPU bandwidth to accelerate DirectX applications meaning higher frame rates. I've read stats that a modern core2duo or quad core will yield 10+fps on top of whatever your current GPU can pump out. This article gives a good outline of what it did for certain processors in the game Crysis.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-cpu-gpu,6645.html

Show me a single benchmark that shows WIn 7 is faster than Vista SP2. They don't exist and in fact 99% of all Vista benchmark comparisons are based on the original Vista RTM code now over two years old. Microsoft realized that no matter how much they fixed Vista the OS was never going to recover its initial bad rep hence Win 7.
At the very least you have to finally give MS for marketing convincing many here that WIn 7 is in somehow substantially different than Vista SP2. It looks like MS got smart and hired some of Apple's marketing illusionists

nickmetha said: cnIsfg said: nickmetha said: I am using the Win 7 RC and like it very much. Would I need to do a new install or can I turn the RC into a full version?

You can't upgrade Win 7 RC to full. However you can back your settings and data and restore to a Win 7 full install.

Basically, I would have to buy a full version and then do an install

Thanks

No as with past MS OS upgrades you can install the Win 7 upgrade as new full install as long as you have an XP or Vista disk laying around to insert when asked during the initial Win 7 install process. You should easily be able to get the retail Win 7 upgrade for $50 or less given the numberous retailer Win 7 upgrade promotions that will be around when Win 7 is released.

UPdownLoAD said: I installed it on a friends Acer Netbook he just got from the CompUSA $199 deal and it runs CIRCLES around my dual-core 4gb Vista Home Pro system!!Nice use of "CompUSA" in a BestBuy thread.