Thanks OP, in for one.

Don't get me wrong, I think VISTA is a steaming pile of DRM rubbish, but for someone that is a software developer
it's always handy to have a few of the current OS versions around to test / develop with should the need arise.

It'll probably be semi usable (as much as it's going to get anyway) (compared to XP) around SP2 time...

The deal clincher for me was that the 64 bit version will support more than 4GB memory and with
DDR2 dirt-cheap these days, I can hardly envision wanting to run a PC with less than 8G come 1-2 years
down the road when I might actually want to use VISTA64 vs XP32.

UH-OH this VISTA Home Premium kit DOESN'T INCLUDE 64 bit install media, and there's a horrible bug that
crashes installations 100% of the time if you have more than 3GB of memory installed when
you're installing the 64 bit version (of course well before you can install a bug-fix patch to fix the problem).

But I figure I can always (down the road) get cheap/free an install disc for the 64-bit version integrated with
SP1 or SP2 or whatever the flavor of the month is and then not encounter those install limitations and the current slew of bugs.

AFAIK you CAN use the Vista Home Premium SP1 license/key from this retail kit to run a 64 bit version
of Home Premium, you just need to get the 64 bit install media (at least Microsoft is
consistently stupidly brain-dead -- way to go, make it even harder for people to take advantage
of the one MAIN new feature of VISTA vs XP -- the 64 bit support!).

So for others jumping on this, it's probably about as decent of a price as we're likely to see
often for VISTA HOME PREMIUM, but beware of the lack of the 64 bit install media in the box
and the over 3GB memory bug etc.

BB did this sort of thing a year ago, XP HOME UPGRADE = $79.99 with a $50 Gift Card right before
that product was end-of-life retired. Clearly Best Buy is just trying to DUMP all their current
inventory of VISTA since it'll be UNSELLABLE in about 1 month when the new VISTA discs with
SP1 integrated come out.

I guess that's the other big "WATCH OUT" for this deal -- this VISTA version will have about
200 Megabytes of patches to download to upgrade it to SP1 with all the current bug fixes / updates.
Not a big problem for someone with broadband internet access for the vista PC, but a deal-breaker for
someone with a slow / limited internet connection whose only recourse to get the SP1 and other upgrades
would be to beg/borrow/buy a SP1 update CD from somewhere etc.

The other deal-breaker is of course if the pre-SP1 version won't even INSTALL on your
hardware due to bugs / driver limits / etc. which are potentially fixed/less of a headache in SP1.

Itoq said:QuixoticOne said:UH-OH this VISTA Home Premium kit DOESN'T INCLUDE 64 bit install media

You can order the DVD for 64-bit from Microsoft. I am still trying to figure out what that cost is though.

See the bottom of this page.

That looks familiar from back when I was looking at VISTA a year or so ago.
I think the actual order site is:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

And it doesn't seem to like Firefox or working with my settings anyway; they should just
list the price before you go deep(er) into the order process.

When I checked a year or so ago it was around $10 to $15 or so (I forget exactly) total
cost including shipping within the US for the 64 bit install DVD; maybe it's different now.

Looks like you can download the pre-release test candidate version of SP1 and make a CD of it rather
than having to pull them all via internet update and then potentially having to wait for that again
if you need to reinstall at some point.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2FA54665-7716-47D9-B9B7-5CFDF71198CB&displaylang=en

I'm guessing it'll be another month or so before the SP1 final version is out, though, and if you
wait until 3 weeks or so after the release date you can probably order the 64 bit install media and hopefully
then it'll come with SP1 preinstalled on that disc; you can install off the 64 bit install media, you don't
need the 32 bit disc at all in that situation.