Mine's the one that comes out in September and costs € 29.

mebbe they crashed it to make it appear that it was in great demand ??

It was also at pains to point out that Windows 7 was "an incremental release".

I thought it was an excremental release!!

Mines the one with XP in the pocket.

and torrent it

Anybody else a little bit miffed that the US version was $49.99 but the UK version is £49.99

Which gives the exchange rate of 1:1... when according to my search on MSN is a little off, but we all knew that we would pay for the EU fines.

Still 50squid for an actual legal copy of win7... just imagine actually having a legal copy of windows for the first time in almost a decade... From using the beta as my main media centre for the last 6 months I am seriously considering this...

PS: I've tried the penguin, but it was too much like hard work just to get an ATI graphics card working... I, like stuff to work first them configure second, not the other way round.

Home £49.99 or Windows 7 Pro for £99.99 that's more like it.

Bahahahahaha. Ha.

If Windows were 5$, it would be a great product. At 50$ it is an okay product. At 500$ it is unsellable. Why isn't Windows tracking other software or hardware costs down?

Isn't the definition of a malign monopoly one that hinders real competition to keep the price high? Rather than fines to EU coffers, I'd take the low price.

Maybe I'm being unfair but I can't help but wonder if this is deliberate to make it *look* like demand is higher than it actually is.

I pre-ordered a copy of Home Premium from Play to plonk on a VM (may sort something out for BootCamp) and play with. Maybe a tad overkill for a VM that will prob gather dust more often than not, but £50 for a full (erm) retail Microsoft OS isn't bad. Always useful to have something running Windows around just in case.

I Pre Ordered 2 copies from Play.com, they clearly state that they are retail versions, not upgrades or OEM.

I am hoping that they will let you install one copy on several computers at once as it has been hinted at.

I find it funny they released an E version, the first thing 99.99% of people will do is install IE8, what a pointless waste of time.

Ordered from Amazon this morning, having watched the MS site display a variety of error messages throughout the early hours.

Definitely a price I'm happy to pay. Anyone noticed it's cheaper than OSX at this price?...

The one advantage (I think) the MS store would have is the ability to download the ISO instead of waiting for Mister Postman. In fact I believe you can opt for both. Hate to see how they'd cope with that given they can't even serve up an html document... MSDN to the rescue?

MS Store still down.

Ah yes, and just what is Gary Glitter up to these days...?

"PS: I've tried the penguin, but it was too much like hard work just to get an ATI graphics card working... I, like stuff to work first them configure second, not the other way round."

Not sure why you had trouble...

My "bleeding edge" system (AMD quad-core 3Ghz, 12Gb RAM, ATI Radeon HD4880 w 2Gig VRAM) was detected just fine with Ubuntu (9.04, "Jaunty Jackalope", released in April of this year).

The *only* reason I bothered to install the "restricted" ATI drivers was to see if video quality improved significantly.

It didn't, and I switched back to the default video drivers, which correctly identified the monitor's capabilities (1920x1200), the video card's capabilities/specs (2Gb VRAM), and are currently working just peachy.

I accept that our stories are anecdotal at best, but every version of Linux (Debian, Gentoo, Suse, Ubuntu, Xandros, and even a beta version of "Lindows") I've ever installed were all able to properly detect/drive my ATI cards.

(Shrugs)

Maybe give it another try?

=)

"pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium E for £49.99 or Windows 7 Professional E for £99.99", I can't wait to ditch Ubuntu for this. I'm so over Linux. Who wants a system that just works like a reliable dog, when you could have something that does exciting & unexpected things the way Windows does? You learn so much more from Windows bcoz it just never ceases to thrill when something new comes along, you know, that moment of fear when you're thinking, "blue screen of death or will it handle a failure properly or just freeze or the excitement is over & it actually worked".

Lets not forget supporting this wonderful company that has never given any guarantees that their software would work at all. I think what I love best about them is their use of society to test their software & depending on how loudly the world screams, perhaps fix it. If they scream loudly enough M$ makes a whole system update. I'm not sure that these actually do anything but at least you feel like it is. Oh & you feel like you're taking charge of your stuff, protecting it from all the worms & viruses & trojans on the Internet that won't run on Linux. What's the point of that? Do you feel like you're in charge when you don't have to do that stuff? Not at all, so follow the Piper, past the Vista, which was really only ever there for you to take the ultimate in protection by making it so it couldn't be used & then making Windows7 a real option that you had to have bcoz Vista didn't work.

This might of been interesting but US customers pay only $49 for the same deal.

Not so much a thank you and a F you.

Anyone notice when it's a Microsoft product that overpriced, then it's the UK to blame, when it's a Sony product, everyone bashes Sony...

I rarely defend Microsoft, as they are corrupr corporate scumbags, but in this instance, Europe gets the FULL version for £49, whilst US gets the UPGRADE version fro $49.

Europe is getting a very fine deal indeed.

I have 4 monitors with 3 different graphics cards. Try getting that to work!

Linux takes me (on average) and hour longer to install and configure that a windows machine - and I earn more that £50 an hour, so, linux is actually MORE expensive for me than a £50 copy of windows 7....

In fact don't we HAVE to have the full version in Europe? An upgrade would allow Microsoft to retain IE as a default browser. This was the only way to ensure compliance with the stupids that apparently run the EU.