That's the upgrade price. AFAICT they haven't announced pricing for an installable new copy of the OS.
(It appears "retail" copies have been given the axe entirely, which isn't particularly surprising.)
[0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416...
[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416...
[0] (footnote) http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2...
I suspect the real reason for this train wreck of an EULA is that "no retail copies" is yet another stick to force volume license users to purchase software assurance, as it does mean that the only current-version Windows base license available to companies with more than five seats is the restricted, nontransferable OEM EULA. Or, oddly enough in the case of most volume license agreements, Mac OS X.
Offer valid from October 26, 2012 until January 31, 2013
and is limited to five upgrade licenses per customer.
To install Windows 8 Pro, customers must be running
Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.[1] http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/Windows...
Really, just visit a friend/relative and find a dusty old PC that has a license sticker on it and ask if you can have it.
The first thing that broke was it wanted the oem cab file. Fixed that.
Then it would complain "this product key is intended for the original system."
Since I was running in a VM I changed it piece by piece until it accepted the product code, first changed the type of CPU it was reporting, then the bios identifier string, and finally the ethernet MAC address. It finally acceepted the product code after all of that (not sure which parts were optional but only needed it for like a week) Considered those licenses pretty much worthless from that point on.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1157...
Note: You may be required to activate the OS as the product key has been deactivated. This is the expected behavior. The VHDs will not pass genuine validation. Immediately after you start the Windows 7 or Windows Vista images they will request to be activated. You can cancel the request and it will login to the desktop. You can activate up to two “rearms” (type slmgr –rearm at the command prompt) which will extend the trial for another 30 days each time OR simply shutdown the VPC image and discard the changes you’ve made from undo disks to reset the image back to its initial state. By doing either of these methods, you can technically have a base image which never expires although you will never be able to permanently save any changes on these images for longer than 90 days.
The stupid things restart every 30 minutes. I don't know what else I can say to underline what an annoying waste of time they are.
(Or I could be showing my [lack of] age and MSDN didn't have easy download access in the XP era)
The discussion was about whether or not MS has decided to reduce their retail OS price from the ~$100 it is at right now. AFAICT, they have not.
This is still desirable compared to torrenting because a pirated copy will end up failing the Genuine check, will no longer get updates, and will happily be a part of some botnet some day.
That said my current machine is Win7 enterprise that I somehow, if only through brute force rather than actual know-how, managed to convince that its install had been validated.
I know plenty of people who would hate to torrent of, say, Photoshop, but also don't think it's worth $550 to them. Having a bought license that's legally of questionable origin is a compromise many non-business users would be more than willing to entertain.
What would be peoples motivation to buy it for existing computer?
* "It's sorta legal, it's at least some kind of a licence, right?" -- they're misinformed / tricked /fools
* "I want to pay something, but retail costs too much" -- if you pay without getting anything useful in return, you're donating. Why not donate to charity?
* "I want to get Windows Updates" -- cracked copies used to get updates, and they're often bundled with updates already applied
My point is, I don't understand buying half-valid licence. Licence is either valid or you have no licence.
Because your sense of fair play says you've got something from MS so they, and not some random charity, deserve some of your money? Do you follow the same logic and donate to charity instead of tipping at restaurants?
The idea of buying a chef's knife from Victorinox for one price if it's to be used to chop vegetables and another if it's to be used to trim fat from steaks is absurd. You buy the knife at the lowest price it's offered and use it however you like.
Software licensing does include the ability to charge different prices for different usage scenarios, but violating those conditions doesn't strike most people as unethical while obtaining the software without paying seems similar to theft.
Purchased goods are purchased goods, and the idea that something is licensed with restrictions seems ridiculous to most people unless it's something upfront like a subscription that you are paying monthly fees to access.
This practice is actually fairly common. For example, almost all the technical people I know have bought OEM licenses rather than retail licenses for previous versions of Windows when they're building new systems. According to Microsoft, an OEM license is only valid if you sell the new system to someone else, not use it yourself[1].
[1]http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/...