Not knowing anything about your setup, all I can say is..... Good for you?   

Jafo, Starkers...is there something special about the version of Windows you run in OZ or is it the same version we have in the States?

Reason I ask is with as many friends you have here, I can't imagine why you would have to pay that high of a price for it.

Just a thought.

I had thought of it, actually, though I'm waiting for the prices here to be announced officially before making a decision.  The price range I was quoted was provided by industry insiders who say they were tentative, though likely close to the mark.  Going by what we paid here for Vista Ultimate (Full), official price AUD $453, I'd say they'd be not too far off.

Also need to take into account the GST, shipping and other gov't levies: ie, import duties.  So yeah, expect to pay similar prices to those of Vista.

OK, while writing I thought that I'd check out official Oz pricing: see here

Home Premium Upgrade @ $199.... Full @ $299

Professional Upgrade @ $399... Full @ $449

Ultimate Upgrade @ $429... Full @ $469

Prices for OEM and Academic versions have not been announced as yet, but expect them to be roughly $30 - $40 less than the Full versions

If you have a spare copy of XP/Vista laying around perhaps you could install that prior to running a Win 7 Upgrade... dunno if you can use your former rig's copy of XP without activating it, but that may also be worth a look at those prices.

Yes, Vista had initial problems because it was built around new coding and many apps presented installation/operational issues, but Win7 is based on the much improved Vista code, is very stable/reliable even in beta/RC, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that it'll work right out of the box on just about any modern hardware with all the major apps, and more.

Will Win 7 be perfect/flawless?  No!  It was designed by humans, and humans are not flawless; however, Win 7 is definitely the best OS Microsoft has ever developed and has far fewer bugs than even XP when it was first released.

I do agree with you on price, however. Given the state of the economy worldwide and downward market trends, I think MS has put too big a price on Win 7 editions (particularly here in Australia) and its overall sales will suffer as users refuse or can not afford to pay the hefty fee. For me to purchase 2 licenses for Win 7 Home Premium for my household it would be AUD $598 and for Ultimate the cost would be $62 shy of AUD $1,000, which is far too steep for ordinary people

So yeah, volume licensing is another failure of MS and (as it did with Office 2007, 3 intallations per copy) it should offer discount volume licensing to ALL users to make the switch to Win 7 more attractive, particularly to families and small businesses. If *say* all Win 7 licenses included installation for 3 machines at around $80, and *say* an extra $20 for subsequent installations, more households would put Win 7 on more machines, thus reducing the need/demand for MS to support XP and Vista: ie, patches and security fixes, etc.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is highly unlikely to do this and it will be 1 singular copy per singular machine.  For some reason it does not believe in the philosophy that it is easier to get $1 from a million people than it is to get a million dollars from one person or just a few.  It makes sense, but sadly, projected sales figures on a set price (aka, profit motivation/greed) takes precedence over sense.

Like all big businesses, it will extract as much as it thinks the market can bear, based on average incomes, etc.  However, many people earn well below the supposed "average" income, and in today's economic climate, many are out of work and struggling just to keep a roof over their head, so these people will give upgrading to Win 7 a miss and stick with XP and Win 2000, etc... something MS would rather they did not do.  Oh well, maybe one day they will learn... though I won't hold my breath.

XP will stay on all my machines, no matter the price of W7, for a loooong time.  W7 prices are still too steep and the benefits too meager, particularly in a mixed business-personal environment.  Barring unanticipated price drops, W7 will show up in our shop or home only when a machine has to be replaced and there is no other Windows OS option (i.e., can't get XP anymore), and I will definitely look to repair machines when they break rather than replace them if at all possible.  Should the cost of a W7 version that 'works' in a network domain drop to $50 or less, then I'd consider it - not necessarily buy it, but consider it.

I think the recent deal--at $50 to upgrade to Home Premium--is a fair price. However, the expected retail of $120 is too much. So, IMO, the price should be $50 for Home Premium and not more than $100 for Pro.

I think that Microsoft should offer a special license for home network users.  The price should be around $200 and that should include a license to install on all of the computers in the user's personal household, up to 3.  The computers should have to be networked together on a home network (for Microsoft to be assured that the computers are in the same household, and also to enable extra home network perks that Microsoft should include in the deal.  Since they will be connected to the same network, the activation should also be done automatically: if I replace a computer's hard drive, the new installation should detect that it is on a network with two other computers sharing a license and say "hey, I'm smart enough to know that I'm installed legally so you don't have to activate me". I'm so tired of Windows being so damn stupid.

They should pay me to use their windows 7.