Windows Vista Pricing Official

Microsoft will accept your first-born as a down payment

Published on September 5, 2006 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

Last week, pricing was leaked on the Microsoft Canada site for the various editions of Windows Vista. Today, Microsoft HQ has made the pricing official after posting Release Candidate 1 on Friday and beginning the push towards release early next year.

Here's a quick overview of the pricing:

	Full Retail Version	Upgrade from Windows XP
Windows Vista Ultimate	$399	$259
Windows Vista Business	$299	$199
Windows Vista Home Premium	$239	$159
Windows Vista Home Basic	$199	$99

Quite a steep price compared to what Windows XP Pro costs. My next OS will cost as much as my XBox 360. That just seems wrong somehow.

Comments (Page 1)

Island Dog

on Sep 05, 2006

I don't know what I will do about Vista yet. The Home Premium upgrade isn't too though. My problem with Microsoft is they offer to "family" packs of licenses. I have 3 Windows PC's in my house, I am definitely not buying Vista for each.

Life is a Game

on Sep 05, 2006

If I have Windows XP pro and I just buy an upgrade.

Does that mean every time I will want to reinstall my computer that I will need to install Win XP and Vista on top of that?

Will it do a clean install or just an upgrade. Because I want a clean install. Upgrade will for sure leave a mess on my hard drive as much as I know Windows.

KiwiSwe

on Sep 05, 2006

Ill just buy the upgrade to home premium, about what i was expecting to spend to get Vista.
And you can upgrade from Xp Home to Vista Premium, doesnt have to be xp pro???

Adamness

on Sep 05, 2006

Hm. These prices are quite high, but I think Microsoft assumes most people will get Vista only when they actually buy a new computer. Most people probably won't upgrade their XP to Vista, and most people don't build their own machines. I know that I wouldn't upgrade to Vista until I do get a new computer.

I'm curious what this will do to the prices of computers themselves. Dell still charges $159 (I think) to upgrade XP Home to XP Pro. Will there be any discount when you buy a computer with Vista? I hope so...

sa33od

on Sep 05, 2006

All of you remind me of the same old talk when Windows XP came out, and people started saying "no one will upgrade from Windows 98 it is the best OS in the world" and "we don't like this offer of XP from Microsoft", and stuff like this.

Guess what guys? All of you and everybody who is using a PC will end up buying Vista wither they like it or not, no need to talk a lot about it, and by time you'll get used to Windows Vista you'll thank god for having Microsoft done this important upgrade to their operating systems.

STFU, you are ALL going to use a Vista or a MAC, so STFU ALL.

The_Muggar

on Sep 05, 2006

holy crap its expensive!!! In my country thats over R1000 to upgrade to home premium!!! Dats about a years allowance!!!

sa33od

on Sep 05, 2006

!!!!!!!!!!!!! How can I delete the extra messages?? I don't know what happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Buttermaker

on Sep 05, 2006

The funny thing is that Microsoft and other companies keep raising the price of these programs all the time and they wonder why there is so much piracy going on. Why not lower the price of Windows to $50 - $70, so everyone can afford it? There is no reason to charge 100's of dollars for a disc and a serial number! The only reason they seem to do it is to cover the cost of the lost revenue from piracy and it's the honest consumer that seems to pay for it at the end.

Buttermaker

on Sep 05, 2006

Don't feel about the extra (double) posts, sa33od... It just did it to me, so I had to go back and edit this post.

The prices listed are in US dollars, so Canadians like me will have to add an extra $100-150 to the cost! Nice!

Zoomba

on Sep 05, 2006

The extra posts were removed.

Zoomba

on Sep 05, 2006

Actually, price typically doesn't impact piracy as much as you'd think. Most people who would pirate Windows at $400 would pirate it at $99, and would even pirate it at $50 (student discounts). Games are priced in the $60 - $40 range, and are still pirated. Stardocks' software, individually, is typically priced around $20, and it's software that does a LOT of stuff, yet it's still pirated a fair bit.

Piracy is a function of people not wanting to pay ANYTHING for software. Sure, some piracy occurs because someone simply can't afford a product... but that is typically a small piece of the overall pie.

AiTakahashi

on Sep 05, 2006

The only time I'll be upgrading to Vista is when software or hardware I own doesn't run on XP.

...and that's it - in a nutshell.

antivista

on Sep 05, 2006

hallo "citizen life is a game" ..!

...by all microsoft upgrade products, to date, it's always been the same procedure... at some point during the installation (in your case vista), even a clean installation, you will be asked to insert the original cd of the software (xp) you're updating to verify your right to the (vista) upgrade product...

...so don't be scared to use the harddisk format option when installing vista 'cos a clean installation is always the best way to go... in otherwords you don't have to (re)install xp first to install vista..!

...only snag with the clean install is you have to reinstall all your programs... which in itself is no big deal, other than being time consuming, it's the hassle with all the program options and settings that bugs me..

...anyway, have fun with vista..

one day i'll update, but for the moment i'm staying with xp 'cos for me it's a tried and tested system that WORKS like no windows before has ever done, and together with the stardock programs, and other goodies, it's a dream to work and play with

antivista

on Sep 05, 2006

...here in switzerland the discount warehouses they have already started "dumping" their xp stockpiles onto the market with heavily reduced prices... up to now i couldn't justify to myself the price difference for xp-profesional so i settled for xp home... so maybe i might just update to xp prof rather than vista

Adamness

on Sep 05, 2006

There is no reason to charge 100's of dollars for a disc and a serial number!

The price of software isn't dependant on the price of the media it resides on. If you buy XP from a store, the box, the cardboard and papers inside and the cd is less than $1.00. But this type of software is years and years in the making. Vista development probably started before XP was released. That's 5+ years.

(5+ years of paying developers, buying other companies, and settling lawsuits with ungrateful foreign entities.

)

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