You want Australian pricing for Windows 7? You got it. Just don’t complain to us if you don’t like the numbers.
The press release that came through with the pricing details was a little confusing, but here’s what you’re looking at: If you pick up a new PC from today, you’ll be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for free. Okay, free may not be 100% accurate – there may some postage and handling costs involved, depending on which manufacturer’s PC you purchase. You’ll just have to pay attention to T&Cs when you pick up your new computer to find out what you’re expected to pay.
If you don’t want to pick up a new PC, there are prices available to upgrade you from Vista or XP for the Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate SKUs, going for $199, $399 and $429 respectively.
If you want to buy the OS from scratch, you’re looking at $299 for Home Premium, $449 for professional and $469 for Ultimate.
So what do you say, PCs out there? Are these prices reasonable enough to entice you to upgrade come October 22?
Mikko
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:26 PMwell coming from the earlier post saying it was gonna be cheaper… this is just a kick in the nards! but still gonna get it regardless
Adrian
Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 11:37 PMI rarely say this, but BULL!
Seriously. I bought Vista Ultimate with the hope of all the promised extras we were going to get.
Now we’re getting re-ripped again for Vista Ultimate users to UPGRADE at $429!!! That’s insane.
My friends got a Macbook pro and paid $15 Aus to upgrade to snow leopard.
lucky7
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 1:42 PMyeah i agree
if mac’s werent so overpriced the whole world would run on mac, how cool would that be
having said that, i have been running win7 7100 for 4 months and even though it is the release candidate i have had no major issues, and its actually a really nice os. i ran vista ultimate for a year and a half before that, and win7 is definitely faster and more stable.
Mikko
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:31 PMAND YES I KNOW THEY WERE AMERICAN PRICES but have you seen the exchange rate recently… it’s currently steady at .8 – you cant tell me there’s so much in shipping & handling going in the $399AU price from $100US (or $124AU)!
OmniAlpha
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:52 PMAre they MAD???? How can they justify the massive price increase, compared to $US, for a new piece of OS that is 50% apology for the vista fiasco. Add to that the fact that US, Japan and others are getting a wonderful offer/enticment to head down the Windows 7 path, it really does come across as Mikko put it…”This is just a kick in the nards”
RightPaddock
Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 6:07 PMQ How can they justify the price difference ?
A Another case of the AUS-USA/FTA being worth SFA.
Indefinite Implosion
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:33 PM$200 for an UPGRADE!?
what is this???
too much, yo… I was thinking it’d be $150max for home premium upgrade, though more around $100
pfft… I’ll just run with the RC ’til they drop the price.
mike
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 9:33 PMdude microsoft has confimed the W7 RC will begin its ‘shutting down mode’ from March 2010!!
your computer will shut down every 2 hrs.
and by june i believe it wont work….
so mmm kinda screwed here! unless they drop the prices which they f**king better!!!
$200 can get fucked!
Tris
Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 3:34 PMMust not forget about cracking the OS ^^ But I think I’ll stick with Vista, it runs well in 64.
Aaron Divitini
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:41 PMIm in, Bring on Ultimate! not bad i guess, the operating systems is brilliant
Leonard Grey
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:48 PMI wonder how much of that $469 sticker price is going towards piracy protection.
winblows
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:16 PMi wonder how much of that is going to more crap marketing?
matt
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:48 PMand they wonder why we pirate stuff? why is SOFTWARE priced by region??? are their toll booths every few km along our international internet cables??!?!?
still Microsoft, thank you for making me realize that I don’t really need win7, i’ll stick with xp.
I am absolutely sick of being ripped off cause I live in Australia.
StevoTheDevo
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:01 PM+1
Put simply there is no excuse at all for these prices..
It’s made even worse by the 50% off deal that everyone else gets..
And here I was thinking I might actually BUY a copy this time around!
Mikko
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:08 PMDude…. AMEN BROTHER!
Rhys
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 11:09 AM+1 alright.
If the 50% off early-bird special was available here, I’d have bought it already. I’ll never pay full price for Win7- as good as it is. OEM is the only way to fly.
BTW: Win7 RC is an excellent OS; I’m running it at home on an old 2G machine with 768M RAM, and it works great.
Phill
Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 4:29 PM+1
I have 7 PCs at home. If I were to upgrade all to W7 Ultimate I’d be looking at almost $3300. For a home set up? You’ve got to be kidding. I agree with the comment “any they wonder why people pirate!”. This is insulting. I’ll either stay with XP, or seriously look at Linux or MAC next year.
pedro
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 4:54 PMyou complain about the price of Windows 7 being too steep and then you say that you’d rather try OSX?
jesus christ man, think before you speak
Dr_Stef
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:51 PMWhat they should really do is offer all Vista users a discount, but alas. That would be like asking a shark to eat the moon.
bobby12
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:07 PM@DR_Stef
Why should Microsoft give a discount to Vista users (by the way the upgrade price IS a discount to current Windows users)? Apart from some teething problems, Vista is the best OS Microsoft have released (including the RC of Windows 7, which in the last several months has given me plenty of hassles I never had with Vista).
I really can’t imagine why anyone would upgrade at those prices. Surely most people get their Windows pre-installed on a new PC (cost is invisible) or get the OEM version (much cheaper).
landsblerg
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:06 PMthat’s it.. i’m getting a Mac
Mic Cullen
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 7:56 PMClearly never used one. What a stupid over-reaction.
Garth
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 1:13 PMWell obviously.. If he had he’d have already bought one… ;P
With Snow Leopard coming in under $50 these updates are well overpriced, and as a Vista 64 buyer I find it vexing that I have to pay the same price as someone that stuck with XP. I don’t think I’ll be bothering.
Tim
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:09 PMnext time i’m in the US i’m gonna fill a bag with win 7 discs and sell them on ebay in Australia. seriously. such a rip off compared to US pricing!
Marek
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:17 PMAny word on OEM pricing? I got vista OEM and it was much cheaper(as it should be) than these prices.
And (warning:stupid question coming) is there anything stopping people from buying it overseas and installing it on local computers?
Captain Hook
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:20 PMAsif buy software :p
pete
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:27 PMWait a sec… Is Microsoft offering the preorder prices in Aus? that would bring the price down would it not? Isn’t that what those US prices were based on?
Namarrgon
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:29 PMNo mention of Australian pre-order pricing yet, if any.
According to Ars, it’s US$120 for the Home Premium upgrade, and US$50 for the pre-order, compared to AUD$200, so that’s a 22% price hike we’re getting, after conversion & GST. Or nearly 300%, if we don’t get a pre-order option.
David
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 3:28 PMWhilst I am disappointed about microsoft not including a Multi Licence which I belive would have gone some way to justifing the pricing, I really can’t complaine about the recent pricing.
Why is this so, because I remember purchasing Vista Home Premium for $403.00 when it was first released, now if purchase the Windows 7 version it will only set me back $299.00 a saving of $103.00, so for me it’s a good price, especially when you consider the positive reviews the operating system is getting when compared with vista.
I think the only people complaining are those who purchase Vista Ultimate and want to purchase the Windows 7 version. People ask yourself one questions before purchasing ultimate “Do I really need all those extra features and will I use them”.
And Microsoft please think again about A multi Licence User Pack much like your Office 7 Student Pack which allows 3 users to use the one program
Kevin
Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 8:11 AMBut think about how that pricing structure worked out for them, no-one bought vista unless they had to at least in part because it was so expensive. Same thing could well happen here. Why buy a $200 OS for my $600 laptop. Microsoft may as well have handed linux extra market share.
lasantha
Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 7:57 PMi agree with you with purchasing ultimate. i mean with vista people you were limited between home premium and business because home premium is not networking friend and does not let you join domains, where as business does, but its not as entertainment friendly as home premium, so to have both those features, you have to get ulitmate. at least with this now they combined it in both, but just the question is, who needs all that other crap what ultimate has to offer. your not going to be using it in a home environment, its more for an enterprise with having all their data secure. i think i’ll stick to professional when win7 is released. and i get a free copy of professional from msdnaa when its released!! =D
weightedmean
Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 5:58 PMAround August 2007 when I bought my laptop. I only had an option between Vista OEM Home Premium and Vista OEM Business with no option for xp pro or ultimate and THEY WERE BOTH 32 BIT! Plus I am not entitled to get a free 64 bit copy from Microsoft because my version is not a Retail Version but an OEM version. Vista is a nice Operating System but I wanna 64 Bit version so I can run future apps and get 600 MB extra ram due to the 4GB ram limit in 32 Bit mode. Microsoft are driving me to Linux literally.
Nathan Greenway
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:00 PMThose prices don’t make sense. For the upgrade, Win 7 Professional is x2 Home Premium. To buy outright it’s not x2 as much. I really hope they give us a early bird promo!
Yannick Moore
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:25 PMHoly fuck, that is some serious monetary-rape.
feral
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:44 PMWell I’ll be one of the first to adopt, without paying.
Big Al
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:51 PMLOL ,
i am just going to get Tech Net Plus for $489 with the discount code and get windows 7 for all my PC’s for free :-)
what a rip just get tech net and get windows for life :-)
Hal
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 5:48 PMOSX AUD$158 for a more stable and secure OS .. ?
david
Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 7:47 PM$158 + at least $1000 of hardware if you don’t already own a mac. Not a fair comparison.
Tim
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 6:02 PMQuite honestly, half of all Australian Windows users would be better off spending their money on a new Mac than upgrading to 7 now.
Sure, there are some people need Windows to run certain programs, but any home user should think at least twice before blindly upgrading!
Greenish
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 2:18 PMNo, just… no.
Vista ran brilliantly for me, and is running brilliantly in our office. Every PC (except mine, running Wind 7 RC) has Vista here and no dramas have yet to be seen.
Windows 7 is fantastic – but really, if you have Vista then just hold on to it. If you have XP, it’s cheaper than Vista was, so yeah – great all round!
Shove your Mac propoganda.
weightedmean
Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 6:02 PMYou are right the only solution for Australians is to pay even higher prices and be limited in hardware choice due to artificial limitation Apple places. That solves the problem.
graham.lv
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 6:11 PMAnd Microsoft had a dream .. and the dream was thus .. that the blue bird of happiness flew up its bank account .. but then it awoke .. and alas .. it was only a wet dream .. and so the dream never became reality .. and even DollarBill Gates was forced to economize .. with Apple software.. (Check Apples latest software upgrade price!)
Windows 98 Forever
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 6:39 PMThere has not been a decent os since windows 98.
hopefully I might get windows 8.
i hate my 1.2ghz processor
Sibron
Friday, August 7, 2009 at 1:53 AMroflmao!best joke i have seen today :-)
woofwoof
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 7:26 PMWindows XP runs just fine on 1.2ghz CPU. In fact it runs OK on CPU’s half your speed
You need to look at why your system is so slow. Is it the old HDD, lack of RAM, RAM Bandwidth because of intergrated Graphics, or lack of drivers
I have built many machines with early CPUs and they run just fine if setup correctly
Windows 98se is really only needed on early pentium II and less machines.
Mark Giles
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 9:11 PMGoddamn. That hurts me.
=/ And I really wanted to buy Win7. After buying Vista, this is a little upsetting.
molokoplus
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 10:39 PMsince i purchased Vista 64bit and it was a complete piece of shite and I had to go back to XP
I think i might get a the free version of windows 7
Craig
Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 12:46 AMLol, the Mac ad campaigns are going to have a field day. “Snow Leopard” is only about US$30. MS really need to get their finger out their backside when it comes to pricing. If OEMS are paying~$50 so should everyone else.
Vatoe
Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 7:46 AMCompare those prices to snow leopard (Mac) upgrade of under $50!
jonny
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 5:47 PMand if i dont own shitty mac hardware?