It’s an Upgrade though…

Also worth noting is the fact that the version offered is the “upgrade version.” But what is the “Upgrade” version? In reality, the contents of the disc are identical… the difference lies in the key. You must have a valid Windows XP or Vista key in order to use the upgrade. I’m not sure whether Win741 or anyone else is planning on offering a cheap version of the pure license… well, actually I am sure of one option which we’ll get to in a moment.

I’d also like to refer to an article on zikkir.com which did an upgrade on a system with a lot of data and programs already on it. In short, you need to have pretty much the whole weekend to devote to the “upgrade” and even when it’s done don’t expect everything to work right. You’ll probably have to update drivers, programs, etc, and even then you may find incompatibilities, but hey – nothing’s perfect.

The Option [isn't an option anymore ]

You can become a member of the Association for Computing Machinery if you have an applicable technical major and you’re a student for as low as $19. This is relevant because they provide access to almost the entire suite of Microsoft software which includes hundreds of titles, and used to include Windows 7, but some popular blog made a post about it and spoiled the whole thing. Thanks for that Cybernet News! Well, it’s not really their fault I guess – thank Microsoft for that.

Microsoft,

Why can’t you be nicer to poor computer science and engineering students? You just pulled Windows 7 out of a package that would have been a great deal for us and kept us elated. Instead, we’re all angry at you and many of us outright hate you. We use Linux, or we just use Windows with someone else’s license, or without one at all. We have part of our college education completed and we understand that your company is a bureaucracy and is lacking in innovation relative to your competitors, but this doesn’t make any sense. We’re not going to buy it anyways, so why don’t you just give it to us? Then maybe we’ll stop making cross-platform Java apps or *nix binaries and focus on you a little bit more.

Oh well, I know you won’t respond. Thanks for nothing. Thanks for not having a heart and not supporting education in a respectable manner.

!=yours_truly(); // not(yours_truly)
CS, ECE and Engineering Students of the World, Mark ShuttleWorth, GNU, Linus

(forged signature, but still gimme a break will you?)