I remember way back getting Windows XP at a Staples back in Atlanta, GA. The lines were insane. The deals were insane. Free digital cameras (at that time decent ones),scanners, printers, tons of software, hard drives, computer monitors, networking packs (you got to choose from like one of four pretty damn good packs - you didn't get everything). But each FAR pack was like $1000 worth of stuff.

This time around....very little. Office Depot has a lot of FAR software, but it's mostly stuff that can be found FAR many other times anyway. Office Max deals are even worse with just relatively minor instant rebates off software like $30 off Adobe Photoshop Elements 8???? That same $69.99 deal is at Best Buy without buying Windows 7.

Just curious as to why there hasn't been as much furvor over Windows 7 deals as there has been with other Windows releases. I got mine free through ACM so I'm not complaining, but I actually had thought about buying a copy if there were some incredible deals like there used to be (making it worth the price of the upgrade anyway).

Any thoughts?

I remember the XP Rollout too! When you went with Pro vs. home, you paid $100 more yet got $100 more of FAR stuff.

A big catch with XP was that many items that worked on '95/'98/Millennium would not work on XP - no way, no how. Scanners were a biggie, anti-virus and CD burning software was another major issue. Also there were promos on RAM since XP required more than previous releases for the home user market.

But marketing changed with Vista. PCs were cheaper to buy, and there was a push for "Vista Ready" computers months before the release. Memory was cheap when Vista came out too.

So that leaves us with the Windows 7 rollout. Same demands on the computer - in fact the same PC running Vista should perform better without any upgrades. The same software that ran on Vista will run on 7. So the best deals have been the pre-sale promotions to get 7 at a lower price and spare the FAR deals.

I upgraded last night, and it was the smoothest PC OS upgrade I've ever done. Took several hours, but everything works and the computer runs even better than before the upgrade. That is the best deal I've found