What's a reasonable price to pay for a new operating system?
TelevisionUser
Posts: 41,414 Forum Member
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I'd be interested to hear views on the above question. I've just gone with the operating system on the PC, laptop or supplied upgrade disk which has meant no cost for me.
I felt l had to upgrade my laptop's XP operating system with the end of support and l went with a Linux operating system. These are for the most part free although voluntary donations are invited.
I ended up donating £30 which seemed quite reasonable to me but l was surprised by the prices being charged for new Microsoft operating systems especially for the residual supplies of legitimate Windows 7 disks. Any comments/experiences on this matter would be welcome below.
I felt l had to upgrade my laptop's XP operating system with the end of support and l went with a Linux operating system. These are for the most part free although voluntary donations are invited.
I ended up donating £30 which seemed quite reasonable to me but l was surprised by the prices being charged for new Microsoft operating systems especially for the residual supplies of legitimate Windows 7 disks. Any comments/experiences on this matter would be welcome below.
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It's the main software on your computer so I don't mind paying a bit for it.
The DVD/download can be classed as mass produced but I would not class the software itself as something that is mass produced.
It's the very definition of mass produced, lot's of research/development then they churn out gazillions of copies.
It's not bespoke is it? Mass produced.
The softwares free when you spend a grand on some hardware so its not really free just covered in the purchase price of some very expensive for its specs gear
not going to happen though as Apple make their money from the hardware to run the free OSX
Where can you get Mac OS for free?
So where does the £20 price come from. OS development is very expensive and complicated with lots of end support required which the purchase price has to cover..
Yep. Apple overcharge quite a bit for their hardware. Even the Mac Mini ends up being the cost of a decent desktop once you've added enough resources to it on their site.
From the Mac App store, just logon with your Apple ID and if your device is compatible you can download and install the latest version of OSX for free.
So it is free as long as you pay over the odds for Apple hardware. Isn't that a bit like getting a free car when you spend £10,000 on a cup holder?
It's not free, it's included in the purchase price of a new Mac, same as Windows is normally included in the price of a new PC.
Try ringing Apple and ask them to send you a free copy of OSX if you haven't bought any of their hardware and don't have a license.
Indeed, and there are also authorised sites where you can download legal disc images of Windows, but you need a legally purchased key to install it and activate it and have to have met certain criteria, such as having purchased the OS via a student license.
If you don't fit the criteria, you can of course still download the ISOs, it's just against Microsoft Terms and Conditions, but not actually illegal. You still need a legally purchased key to install it.
But if you have proof of purchase, or a valid license, you can also contact Microsoft who can supply replacement install media:
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/326246/en-gb
In fact, if you call Microsoft Customer Support, give them your valid license key, they will probably direct you to the legal download sites mentioned in the first paragraph, even if you aren't a student. That's what they did with me when I had to call them after a system crash and I had damaged the original installation disc.
Indeed, all the time they make the upgrade something convoluted like Windows 8 there's little reason for many users to bother upgrading unless they get it bundled with a new PC at which point they don't feel or realised they've actually paid for the OS, just the computer hardware.
Win XP was so long in the tooth (still is) that I reckon many users are oblivious to what the operating system is, they bought a PC with XP and often their mate bunged Office on it for free and they don't realise that's a chargeable item either. They treat the whole thing like a TV or fridge purchase and don't understand why their replacement PC doesn't come with Office like (they think) their old PC did.
I suspect MS will try and force us to go down the pay monthly route as they're slowly getting MS Office users to do but many will be reluctant to pay anything now that more and more software is given away free like antivirus, linux OS, open office and the numerous half decent open sourced software out there.
Very naive, I didn't think and I had the money.
I bought Win7 Upgrade for £50 for my desktop when it was released (4 and a half years ago) and a new laptop with W7 Home pre-installed (so they would both be the same).
I think max £50 is reasonable, no more. Don't talk to me about R&D costs etc.
The founders of Microsoft are embarasslingly rich.
Too much. Rich is OK. Mega rich is overcharging/monopoly.
Linux is OK, but I don't want it for my main system.
I am not buying W8, I may upgrade to W9. Wait and see,
That's 9 years of service for about £9 a year. It's a no-brainer. I'll be happy at two-thirds that lifespan.
Linux distros are totally unfocused about where the OS is headed, competing UIs, different package repositories, too much CLI in places. It's a geek paradise, but it isn't for the masses. Hardware support isn't consistent and sometimes lacks functionality and some is still proprietary.
Windows is commercial software, yes it's proprietary of course. But it is still the choice of many.
Like millions of others I was weaned on MS products as there was little else for the home user to chose from. I have since migrated to Apples systems because they are simple to use, free from bugs and offer software either free or at a reasonable price that just works with the OS and hardware without having to fiddle around with it.
I have tinkered with Linux Distros on an old Dell PC and a very old IBM Thinkpad, they have been easy to install and offer as much software as you will ever need for free (obviously you can donate if you wish). If I was in the position of wanting to upgrade a PC's OS or other software and had to pay MS for the dubious privilege then I would most definitely switch to Linux.
I did pay full (US) price for Windows 2000 when it came out. Had plenty of Amazon.com vouchers and found someone online willing to forward the package on. I think i actually bought the guy a copy too and it still worked out cheaper than buying here.
Paid small amounts in the early 2000s to some of those companies that would burn a Linux distro to discs and ship them to you, and i think i paid around £50 for the box set of Progeny Linux (a short-lived commercial distro from the creator of Debian) and around $70 for Libranet (one of the best distros ever).
Then don't update, windows 7 will still be supported for a few years yet, even Windows XP is still usable. People i know that have XP have not gone out and got another version of windows just because MS say they are not supporting ti any more.
I have put linux on some peoples computers as long as it does what they want.
As time goes by, less and less software will be written for XP, and that includes browsers. I just don't see the point of using XP because it's basically got no protection when out 'in the wild' The people you know that have XP and aren't upgrading will probably regret it if they end up losing their data because their system wasn't patched.
They're oblivious to the chance of losing their data (they've never backed up any of their work/home documents (surely it's just automaticly backed up right?*) and they never consider the hard drive could fail either because they don't understand that a thing spinning at 7500rpm for 12 years could ever fail.
*I wasn't asking, but repeating what some users assume
I am pretty sure that they know at some point they will have to update, but they have their reasons for not doing so at the moment.
I think some people panicked too much when MS said they was not supporting XP any more. The OS is still usable and if people are careful is fine in security as well.
I think you are looking too much into this and think just because they are keeping with XP that they just carry on as normal. I am sure some do, but the people I know that still uses XP don't seem to have any tool bars, they are all updated as far as they can be now apart from one and that is because it is have never been on the internet, so I think the last update was SP3.
The people that got stuff that is important do seem to back up either on hard drive, USB flash or even to the cloud
They all use a Antivirus of some sort, most use Comodo because that the one I use and one uses Zone alarm.
I keep a eye on these machines as well just to make sure.
As i said, they all got different reason for not upgrading at the moment. I doubt the one that is not connected to the net will ever be changed unless the computer goes belly up
Not that I use it, but what is wrong with AVast and AVG toolbar anyway?
Oh yes, none of these people uses Internet Exploder.