I bought a new HP for X'mas with a free Vista upgrade which will use 15gb space of my hard drive. Is Vista like Windows ME? When I had a Windows 98 upgrade to ME was a big mistake?

The Answer by :

So far, I personally can see absolutely no reason for using Vista just my opinion and I'm sure others will disagree. Microsoft would love it if all of us switched on over, more sales, apparently harder to pirate and of course more sales. Yes I know I typed sales twice, money drives the software industry.

From what I've read about Vista iself, there are more than a few reasons to NOT switch over. Each and every time you turn on your computer with Vista, it calls home to MS. Vista requires far too much hard drive space and too much RAM to run. Vista is definitely not bug free as of yet and you can expect an almost instant update of over 75 megs with a new install.

Bottom line though is that it is all up to you, whether or not you jump right away. I'll be stripping mine out of here as soon as I finish building my other machine.

is there any one get their free upgrade vista dvd? how much does it cost for any shipping,handling or other fee?

The Answer by argile556733 :

Some computers you can buy offer a free upgrade to vista.

The reason is, Microsoft doesn't want WindowsXP sales to plummet — and manufacturers also doesn't want everyone waiting for Vista.

So they offer a "free upgrade". That doesn't mean like… it's free upgrades for all. Just free Vista's goin around. It's about if you buy a machine now.

So… All that being said. Things you need to look at:

1) All "Free Vista Upgrades" are not equal.
– Look at the VERSION of Vista that they are willing to upgrade to for free. It might be the basic, not including the Aero vista interface and other features. (and Aero is totally cool)
– Also look at details of the free Vista upgrade. This absolutly can vary from whatever manufacturer or OEM you are considering. Typically, you pay nothing. The main issue here with value to you, is what version of vista is free — and you can get a higher version at a diminished cost?

I've used Vista for a while, but most of the free offers doesn't include the version that has Aero or "media center" features. (and Aero is totally worth it, it's nice being able to see through windows as if they were glass, and alt-tab into 3D-Live images of all windows running)

2) If you mean "free" as in "Free right now" (and legal) that's a beta issue. At this point, it's kind of pointless as release isn't far away — but as far as beta, you could have gotten it virtually free (S&H)

3) If you mean "free" as in "pirate" or steal - best of luck as you can imagine it's even more restrictive than XP with activation and validation(for updates). This means the security of the program of the product ID - or the actual program itself - quickly becomes irrelevent since it needs to be registered at a central server (Windows update) to really be useful.

PC gamers have been lusting for a DX10 video card paired with Windows Vista, but nobody's particularry excited about paying the big bucks for the software upgrade.

Microsoft is offering XP Media Center 2005 edition with a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium. This means I could get both operating systems for about a hundred bucks. I think buying Vista by itself might be over $200. Is there some kind of trickery or downside to this?

I already have a copy of XP MC 2005 (although I could use another one). Does anyone know how much the upgrade by itself is going to cost?

The Answer by shail_aj :

about $200