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Of course, they're a business. You'd do the same thing.

Well, of course, the upgrade copy for Windows 2000 and Windows XP x64 will be priced similarly to the retail because of that very fact you mentioned. That's why the word "upgrade" is in quotations.

You could do the same thing with previous versions of Windows. During setup you'll just be asked to insert the CD of your previous OS to prove that you had one.

I doubt many people uses Fat32 as their XP filesystem anyway.

They do if they upgraded from 98 or ME

Only if they didnt do a fresh install. It's been years since I've been on a pc that would have been using Fat32.

Yeah, NTFS is much better than FAT. Only some of my external hardware (camera and USB flashdrive) use FAT and they are the only devices that use the FAT I've ever used in years.

There are 2 versions of OSX, Server and Client.

I believe that people bitched and moaned when XP came out with Home and Pro, because there wasn't enough flexibility. Proof that no matter what Microsoft does, someone will hate them for it.

I hear you, but having this many variants is crazy. How many are there now?

Basic, Home, Pro, Pro 64, ultimate, media, tablet pc, ... Im missing a few. They differ in subtle ways, like having different backup/recovery tools.

I think they aren't sure what to do with the media center and tablet pc stuff honestly. They should probably just throw everything together for the consumer: Basic and Ultimate. Then for the developer: Business (get rid of "professional".

Its not as bad as you make it out to be.

Basic, Home, Pro and Ultimate are the only versions users will actually be concerned with, the rest of these versions are for more specialised purposes such as small business, servers, tablet PC's ect. Basically only a subset of the actual Vista releases will be applicable to home users.

Of those releases for the "average user" who doesnt require specialised functionality you can then drop Pro and ultimate as they arent intended for them leaving only basic or home editions. I seriously doubt you will see as many editions available in stores as you seem to suggest. It's possible that something like basic will only be available OEM too, kind of like Windows XP N. I duno but.

Although I havent read this anywhere, seeing as how EVERY version of windoes comes on the same disk and functionality is unlocked based on the key, I wonder if the 64 and 32 bit distinctions will only be made at install time, ie they wont be boxed as individual products or priced differently. I couldnt say but it would seem to be a logical move IMHO.

OEM's will also gravitate towards a single release or two max probably, most likely one being home and the other being either pro or ultimate.

Your close, the versions are as follows: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. The Tablet PC and MCE fuctionality are built into some of the versions of Vista (I know Home Premium and Ultimate have them, not sure on the other versions though) Here is the link if you don't believe me

EDIT: As for the 64-bit editions, I'm assuming there you can get 32-bit or 64-bit versions of all the Vista editions with the exclusion of Starter of cause, but I could be wrong about that as I'm not sure.
EDIT2: I also beleive the install CD is the same for all versions so it doesn't matter if you buy Starter or Ultimate or whether it was an Upgrade or Full Install, the CD is exactly the same, as all your really paying for is a CD key...so while it seems rather confusing I think MS have actually done it very well.

Last edited by Xerxes on 01 Aug 2006 - 06:46

I have to agree - it's a good thing to have many versions. I won't use all the stuff in the top of the line, and will probably go for the first version to have MCE in it.

Last edited by fred666 on 02 Aug 2006 - 02:16

Cool! I'm a consumer that wants to purchase the exact operating system I want without paying for features I don't want and won't ever use. Now where can I get the version that doesn't have WGA's invasive features and that nasty embedded DRM?

Sigh. You people and your 'I'll never use Vista because of DRM'.....

What no one seems to comprehend is that the content producers don't care about you. They really don't. They are the ones who want the DRM in place, and those systems that lack it (Linux, for example) Will simply be unable to use any DRM'd content.

Sigh. You people and your 'complacent attitutde towards embedded DRM'....

What no one seems to comprehend is that you are the consumer that purchases the product from content producers. If you don't stand up for your rights as a consumer, who will? So let's all use systems that allow the DRM to be disabled (Linux, for example) and the content providers will follow... and guess what? They will STILL find a way to make money.

will probably involve WGA, if you purchased a genuine license key then you get to advance