Ok it doesn't...

But the pricing sure as hell does.

I for instance have 4 computers. In America I could get a family pack and upgrade 3 for not much more then 1. ~USD150
Here there is no such option.... ~AUD600 (which is ~USD540)

And it would appear we are one of the more expensive places to buy it.

Yeah, not having the 3pack sucks... Is there any sort of "region" locking?

Just pirate it, serves them right for charging ridiculous amounts for it.

y'ar me hearties

do we really need another thread, even one with a misleading title?!

it's worth mentioning that if your a student or have access to get a *.edu* email address then you can get the student edition for like $90-$120

Trog gets paid to reduce e-waste

Trog gets paid to reduce e-waste

It is my mission in life

it's worth mentioning that if your a student or have access to get a *.edu* email address then you can get the student edition for like $90-$120

Or as usual, if you do IT/Engineering at uni you can most likely get it for free:

http://www.msdnaa.net/search/SchoolSearchIntl.aspx

Supported schools:

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/ms.png


I've had the legit ISO for a couple of months, still not touching it until proper driver support appears.

last edited by parabol at 12:32:46 22/Oct/09

It is my mission in life

The first rule of goal-setting is to set realistic and achievable goals.

I was wondering why all the fanfare about Win 7 all of a sudden - didn't realise the official release was last night. I like the comment in The Age article which notes the limited corporate fanfare. Hahaha. Because corporations even want another friggin O/S!

it's worth mentioning that if your a student or have access to get a *.edu* email address or are a pirate who pays for software you aren't licensed to use then you can get the student edition for like $90-$120

still not touching it until proper driver support appears.

hahaha. why the hell would they go back and make 64bit / vista / windows 7 drivers for all the crap old hardware out there? when they are doing all that for their new hardware.

I installed windows 7 on my home computer gaming rig, it picked up every single peice of hardware and when i conected my phone and printer it also picked up drivers and apps for those devices authomatically from windows update. bloody brilliant. only thing i did ontop of that was to install the latest nvidia drivers (out of choice).

No fair, why do eng/IT get it for free?

There's never any love for science.

No fair, why do eng/IT get it for free?

The uni does deals with student licencing etc

Parabol... driver support is pretty much as good as it is in XP.

I'm running the RC 1 on an ancient AMD k8 laptop with a dodgy no name pcmcia wireless adapter. Win 7 found all the drivers for it.

why the hell would they go back and make 64bit / vista / windows 7 drivers for all the crap old hardware out there?

I have an i7 920 with 12GB ram, blah blah all of that new hardware.

Not really wanting to risk instability with drivers that haven't been tested by the masses yet. Nothing wrong with that.

You know it uses the same driver model as Vista, right?

What are you running that requires 12gigs of ram?

risk instability with drivers that haven't been tested by the masses yet

HAHAHA! I actually loled when i read that.

Your hardware has been more vigerously tested on the vista/win7 kernalz then on windows xp douche. Millions of poeple around the world have been running vista/win7 for years now. Wasnt vista released like 3-4 years ago?

If you got over your stupid mentality you would realise that windows 7 has features that will (shoulg..) actually use your hardware better then your winxp would.

I noticed a massive performance gain in both gaming graphics and day to day operating system stuf like web browsing, file copies and getting around the place in the os etc when i moved from xp to win7.

Your doing your hardware a massive in-justice being on xp, which doesnt even know how to fully utilise multiple cores like win7 does, let alone the new driver STABILITY that win7 (and vista) brought when they moved driver execution from the kernal to USER space, meaning no more blue screens of death.

What are you running that requires 12gigs of ram

Assuming hes running a 64bit version of windows xp [he would only be able to have 4gb PER PROGRAM still. As windows xp programs are limited to 4gb of memory EACH. This is a desgin limitation of the kernalz itself.] (cant find any quick source for this via google - will try later - it's just what i read once on a microsoft blog - but may be wrong - post source if thats the case)

Technically if he was running 4 programs such as adobe photoshop, each using 4gbof memory, he could utilise all his memory. Although I doubt thats very possible in 'normal' use of a computer. Even if your an 2d/3d art head.

Perhaps if he wrote his own software that simulated some complicated maths stuff (ai/neural networks?)

last edited by gamer at 12:56:44 22/Oct/09

urr... 4x3=12.

Gizmodo and a few others reported that MS will trial the family bundle in the US market first. If successful, we should see it here sometime Q1 2010.

It may come under a different banner tailored to our market though.

it's worth mentioning that if your a student or have access to get a *.edu* email address then you can get the student edition for like $90-$120

50 dollar upgrade . Option only popped up today I think.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/itsnotcheating/default.aspx as mentioned in the other thread.

good spotting mongie

i just bought a new laptop, but they give me a 32bit free upgrade! ffs, why make a 32bit version?

we are going gold so should get lots of copies.

50 dollar upgrade . Option only popped up today I think.

didnt work with a .edu.au address.

Assuming hes running a 64bit version of windows xp [he would only be able to have 4gb PER PROGRAM still.

Your doing your hardware a massive in-justice being on xp

lol @ your assumptions, you're frothing at the mouth. I'm running Vista x64, which renders all of your rants pretty much useless. Though your high level of arrogance is probably just trolling.

What are you running that requires 12gigs of ram?

* Lengthy electromagnetic simulations that can use up 3-4GB instantly
* MATLAB open at the same time to process the results
* Photoshop CS4 is also open to process the 3D model output and graphs
* Second electromag program open for comparison
* Office 2007, Firefox often open at the same time.
* other desktop stuff in the background (music, downloads, etc).

And yes, these programs are running most of the time. At the time of purchase it was a choice between 6GB ($150) and 12GB ($320). I would have run out of memory with only 6GB. A no-brainer right there, considering how seriously cheap 12GB was.

last edited by parabol at 14:17:18 22/Oct/09

What s***s me about Windows is you pay top dollar for the thing only to find bugs/problems/backdoors/ incompatabilities/ driver problems/ some games wont work etc...

Top dollar for dodgy software.
every few years you have to buy a new operating system.
Then they charge you again to buy their software to run on their operating system.
Ive been using XP for a long time and will end up never using Vista.
Was Vista really necessary ?
Is windows 7 ?

heh, clearly the new guy doesnt know what parabol does for a living.

But yeah, that parabol guy, he sure is stupid.....

Parabol... driver support is pretty much as good as it is in XP.

Not sure why everyone keeps mentioning XP. I never considered that OS.

When I got the new machine, I had both Vista x64 and Win7 in my hands from uni, I actually wanted to install Win7 to be up to date. Motherboard (P6T Deluxe v2) driver support was poor for Win7 (but great for Vista), in fact many people had huge problems with it.

Also, I run 4-disk RAID. The only Intel RAID driver that "officially" supports Win7 is v8.9. Problem is that version is insanely buggy*, causing random RAID failures which many people (including me!) have experienced - I had to rebuild the array twice in a day, for no reason (took hours). I'd have to downgrade to a non-supported version for Win7 to actually have the machine not crash. Massive deal-breaker.

* = by "insanely buggy" I mean have a look at:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/5036
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-030818.htm

(Some claim v8.8 works fine under Win7 too. I may look into that if Intel doesn't fix their bugs)

last edited by parabol at 14:09:46 22/Oct/09

I thought a stupid remark about driver support for win7 would have been caused by you being on xp and being completly neive to the fact that driver support for modern hardware is actually quite good, if your on vista already and running all your hardware fine then there is no reason not to move to win7, most win7 drviers are just hacked vista drivers, you can do this yourself by modifying the .inf files if your hardware vendors havent already done it for you.

As far as i'm concerened until the service packs hit vista no one should have touched it, even after the service packs hit it, it was still arguable that vista didnt add any benefit to a customer but those arguments cant be put forward on win7, with the amount of features and redesign from the ground up that MS has done on win7 users really have something to look forward to, including WAY better driver support and performance then both xp and vista.

Get a TechNet subscription. $330/year, access to basically everything. Way cheaper than buying retail OSes.

The only Intel RAID driver that "officially" supports Win7 is v8.9. Problem is that version is insanely buggy*, causing random RAID failures which many people (including me!) have experienced - I had to rebuild the array twice in a day, for no reason (took hours).

Software raid is fail by definition, ZFS + hardware raid = win

Get a TechNet subscription. $330/year, access to basically everything. Way cheaper than buying retail OSes.

that sounds awesome but I can't see it on the technet AU site - looks like it starts at $512 for a new subscription? here and $365 each year after that?

what's fail about software raid? if you have decent cpu it's great