Windows Vista & Rip Off Britain

[Jamez]

I happend to stumble across a video on YouTube earlier of someone using Vista's voice recognition software. It looked pretty cool and got me wondering how much it would cost to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

I ended up on PC World's website.

They are advertising Vista Ultimate for a 'web exclusive' price of £187.97 (store price £199.99).

I click onto Amazon US and check their price. They are offering Vista Ultimate for $240.99.

When we take into account that pound sterling is very strong against the US dollar, the currency conversions are as follows:

£187.97 GBP = $375.55 USD

$240.99 USD = £120.61 GBP

That's a saving of £67.36 GBP!!

How on earth can this be justified???? It pisses me off so much.

[Pete]

Get an OEM copy of Home Premium for £70.

[Aston]

My Ultimate was £97.

Mark, the prostitue thread is in the secret forum

[Nate J]

My ultimate was £399 - well technically it was free

[cwathen]

It was well publicised when Vista came out that the upgrade to Home Basic costs $99 in America but the same upgrade costs £99 in the UK - virtually double the price.

[cwathen]

Question: Are the UK and US versions the same? If not, can the US version be fiddled with so that it's identical to the UK version?

What's to stop you buying the US version from Amazon.com in US$ and paying the extra shipping charge to the UK?

There may well be (although I don't know for sure) some clause in the EULA which prevents you from doing it, but AFAIK there is no difference between the UK and US installation DVDs - so there is infact nothing to physically stop you buying from a US site and paying the shipping cost.

Bearing in mind also that virtually all online retailers will happily sell an OEM copy without a qualifying hardware purchase (I also note that both Integrem Computer Shop and Computerbase in Plymouth are also anal enough to be by the book on this despite being small independent shops), you can save yourself a packet on the PC World cost of Vista if you shop around.

I believe also that there aren't actually different builds for different versions of Vista - every DVD is a copy of Vista Ultimate, it's only the product key you enter which determines which version will be installed - this is how the 'anytime upgrade' thing works; everything you need is allready on the disk. Presumably this means then that you can buy a copy of Home Basic but have that install as any version you like in combination with a keygen.

[marksi]

I have a legal copy of it here which I was entitled to with the new laptop I bought at Christmas but I have no intention of installing it. I'll keep it in case it becomes useful in future when the product has been properly finished.

[Pete]

oh indeed. Vista is lovely, aside from the fact its a nightmare to copy and delete things, and I can't hibernate properly. I'd expect bug fixes will appear in time although it does serve me right for playing with an MS operating system before its first service pack.