My Adventures on the Trail of Vista

I have discovered that I will need Microsoft Windows for school during the next grade.  I also found that my restore disks that included Windows XP have been corrupted.  So, now what?

I have to get a copy of Windows.

To get my copy of Vista, I visited a local office/electronics store.  While there, I was escorted by a store worker, who showed me the multitude of Windows Vista versions sitting on a set of shelves devoted to the system.  After the store worker #1 took off, a second one showed up to see if I needed any help.  I told him I wanted to get Vista Home Basic.  I asked him how much it would cost.  He said something between $200-300, since it included the whole system.  I almost laughed.  Vista Home Basic, or any version of Vista that matter, does not come with any office suite installed.  To get Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2007, it costs $150.  So, I took the empty box to the customer service to find the total price.  The total?  $200 for the lowliest in the Vista bunch.  So, with an added office suite, that would have been a total of $350, not including tax.  I go to another store, and it’s the same price.

Needless to say, I didn’t buy Vista today.  I was and still am convinced that Microsoft has lost it’s mind.  Wanting me to pay $200 for an operating system with missing programs and limited features is crazy.  If I had a Mac, it would have cost something like $160 to get the full Mac OS X system.  Oh, and for the system I use on a daily basis, Ubuntu?  It would be FREE!

If Microsoft thinks it can compete with the other offerings available with costs that high for a full system, then they are crazy.  I really do not look forward to buying Vista, and might just buy a new computer instead.