... and I've no doubt for Britain all they'll do is change the $ to a £ ignoring the currency conversion

Luckily, however, I have a MSDN subscription so get everything for free

I wonder why OEM pricing will look like.

Don't you think it rather sad in this world we live it that they go out of their way to create multiple versions at hugely different prices, when the only change is a couple of registry values to restrict certain things. In other words, it initially costs more (in effort) to create the lower value item.

Well, unless you can somehoe entice the USA into the common market there's really nothing anyone can do that. UK prices usually include VAT whereas US prices don't include sales tax, but I don't think that makes up the difference. I assume of course that you always consider whether the UK is more expensive to live in than the US when you're visiting a doctor or a hospital?

Oh well, maybe it shall soon come to pass that "the Microsoft platform" is .NET and not Windows.

Will it be like XP, where you needed Pro for the domain joining and group policy features? I personally prefer XP Pro, because there's options, like non-simple file sharing, group policy editor (I just used that to make Automatic Updates stfu about rebooting, because with the new Windows Defender in order to recieve it's updates, it requires wuauserv to be running).

Heh, IE7 totally blows from what I've read. I guess a lot of sites break with it and such. But as far as it causing problems with the OS or something, I wouldn't worry about it as it comes as part of Vista, so no OS problems, then you can use Firefox or Opera or whatever suits your fancy.

If people seem to generally like it, I may buy a copy. Then again, I'm not spending $400. If I can get an OEM copy for $150-200, and it's a good version, maybe I'll bite.

I bet the final version will be nothing like the Beta. I know i had multiple issues with Beta, and if those problems aren't fixed in final, I won't get it.

You could always grab one of the RC's when they come out and use that.

Hey, I don't blame you for taking free. I get everything free that I can too (including signing up every time I see a free EGM offer... my subscription says I still have 5 years left on it. ).

My question is: Why upgrade? We know what to expect from Windows XP and we have already spent the money. Is there a big enough difference (I would like to say improvement, but that is optimistic) to warrant the expense? My XP works well enough for my needs. If they want to give me a big rebate check for my copies, I may think about it. I know the problems with IE 7 are limited to that software, but it reflects poorly on the company. They have been writing IE for more than 10 years.

Not necessarily, the rest of Europe have far lower prices for the majority of goods than the UK, and some have far higher taxes than Britain, and a higher or equal cost of living. And before you start your pro-european stance, it has nothing to do with being out of the monetary union

Because Microsoft will only be releasing certain new stuff as Vista only, even when there's no practical reason it won't work on XP.