What is the cheapest legitimate way to get Vista x64

[Ualaa]

Cheapest legitimate method...

Have a friend or family member purchase the OS for you, for Christmas or your next birthday.

[Vicker]

First, recognize that Windows is terrible. Second, go to www.ubuntu.com , download the 64-bit version, and then install WINE. Better use of system resources, safer to use, and 100% free.

[Ozbert]

I'm also a UNIX sysadmin, but currently run Vista Ultimate 64-bit on my main multiboxing machine.

If I needed another copy of Vista 64, I'd buy the cheapest option of Home Basic OEM 64-bit.

OEM = No support from MS, but those of us who build our boxes ourselves probably don't need it
Home Basic = No glass effect in Aero (but framerate-concious multiboxers would turn that off anyway) and less miscellaneous other bloat.

Last time I checked Amazon, I could get it for about £60. Prices have risen a bit recently though.

[Kaynin]

I've noticed piracy is becoming less and less of a problem. Which is a good thing. I sure as heck didn't pay for all those dos versions when I was still in elementary school. :P

...It might be me getting more and more money though.

As for vista, legit. Apart from the MSDN copies. Could get an OEM version with a cheap-ass harddisk. :P

[Svpernova09]

First, recognize that Windows is terrible. Second, go to www.ubuntu.com , download the 64-bit version, and then install WINE. Better use of system resources, safer to use, and 100% free.

Not everyone wants to learn linux. Some people just want to plug stuff in and have it work.



Yes I am devout Linux and FOSS advocate, but I realize Microsoft is a necessary evil.


/back on topic


OEM w/ Cheap hardware like an above poster said is probably going to be your best bet.

[zanthor]

The absolute cheapest way takes a lot of time, but it's 100% legal, 100% free, and 100% legit.

Find a Microsoft launch event thats giving one away and attend. Of course, this is about as feasable as a layman installing Linux, configuring Wine, and getting WoW to run in an unsupported OS... I'm a fairly technical person and after 3 days of working on it non stop, I abandoned the Linux path for WoW, not because of WoW, but because I couldn't find a clearly documented, easy to follow, way to put Flash on the machine. If I can't do something as trivial as browse the web, I certainly don't want it as my main OS.

I would suggest OEM as the best route for you, the problem with OEM is there is no upgrade, of course, if you didn't plan on upgrading then you are fine.

[suprafro]

going out on a limb here...but I'm pretty sure that the OP could easily configure a WoW on wine setup if that's what he wanted to do:

Advice would be appreciated as I am a Sr. Unix admin and not exposed to Windows much since XP first came out.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya just scane your local CL or ebay for something cheap, sometimes people dont know what they have and sell really cheap ... Ya OEM is da choice, what good is their customer service anyway, all they do is seach the ms knowledge base and you can do that yourself.

[heffner]

Gah, Ubuntu...why didn't I think about that before I purchased Vista =(

Sounds like a great suggestion though. Gonna toss that on one of my boxes and see how it works out.

Cheers.

[Duese]

I've tried and failed to install Ubuntu so many times I've given up on it. The initial install would error out on me and I would go to the ubuntu forums and stump anyone and everyone in there with the error messages. Then I would get an error message that seemed to be common and see many others with the same problem. The only advice they gave was to try redownloading the image. I've got through stacks of disks rewriting the image, different computers, different writers, different software... finally gave up and installed xp professional.

A few of my friends are big ubuntu users and didn't have the same problems as me, not sure what the deal was. I was even trying it on two different computers.

I think if I go back to installing ubuntu, I'm just going to have them send me the install cds. That may help, but for now, I'm content with xp pro.