I am running 5 legal XP's at home. Have 1 oem vista on a nice laptop with nice processor, 2hdd's, 3gb memory, 512mb graphics card. Which sucks. Also I tested vista both 32 and 64bit on various machines, with no winners, and just eating up that ram.
Vista consistently gives 40-50% less fps in games (which is usually where real stress is seen), and even x64 vista did not improve upon my Sony Vegas rendering (legal version too).
However I am now running err 5 legal windows 7 boxes, and the only complaint I have is that early XP level hardware is not 100% compliant, an old media center box doesnt wake up from sleep cleanly, neither does a 4 years old acer laptop.
All applications, new and old work wonders, vegas x64 on my quadcore box is way faster than even on xp with only 4gb ram.
Overall, when 7 comes out I am replacing my MSDN versions with legal storebought upgrade ones. All 5 of em.
Also made my own family and garden themes etc.
Vista wasnt worth it (in fact bought 2 xp's more while they were available), but windows 7 on even older hardware, with firefox 3.5 rocks. Really.

Cor. What were they running those webservers on? Vista?

Or... (call me cynical here, but...) did they intentionally underspec their server just so they could produce this headline?

Microsoft are posting that they have sold out of promotional Window 7 offers, but I think it is only a market ploy to grab the headlines. There are still plenty of UK stores selling both versions at the offer price.

I shake my head. Why are people buying from Amazon? It's a good bit more expensive than the Computer online Shops.

I also see the great Atlantic divide means the $ is getting swapped with the £ or €. Someone is making a mint out of this. Oh hum.....

I got myself two copies of Home and a copy of Pro.

Come December that will be the equivalent of a copy of Pro and two free copies of Home thrown in.

Even told my brother to order a copy of Home. Just to put on the shelf and wait till he needs it upgrade time next year.

Argos were doing it for 40 quid delivered. I actually got for £45 myself. That's less than a 360/PS3 game for a full OS. Thanks EU! I never buy OSs (still on XP) but at that price it was hard to say no.

Have a look around some are still doing it cheap. Some have risen the price to £75+ already (amazon,play).

I got my Home Premium copy for £50 from amazon whilst the pre-orders were in stock, now they're out of stock and have risen to £75 :D

Well I see the Linux geeks are upset with this news, as expected LMAO

Face it your Linux OS will never grow as you'd like

MS has more computers available to it than any other organization on the plane, processing power and bandwidth becomes available as they require it, on demand, ......to many orders what a crock of x%%@. MS should try scaling with linux.

Pre-ordered my copy earlier today and have just checked the Microsoft Store UK site and it has the 'important' message that "Window 7 promotional pricing no longer available", I wonder how long it'll be before the other outlets will stop taking orders for Windows 7.

Like Peter said above, this is viral mark. from MS that the likes of "I'm so cool at bashing MS- Nick" cannot possibly comprehend. In actual reality, MS wasn't overwhelmed with pre-orders, but it might thanks to idiots who just like to pitch headlines so their site content remains fresh.

- Nick Farrel fail #34

I've order a total of 138

Windows 7 Home Premium E x 96

Windows 7 Professional E x 42

Can't wait to get my hands on them and flog em!

I'll still be using good' ol Vista.

I've never had any compatability issues with it, no crashes, no slowing down, non of the bullshh... you hear everywhere about how "bad" it is.

I don't think that is a correct statement. Some preorder sites here were overwelmed. I know it took me a few hours to get into a preorder site due to demand.
The interest here is very high and the satisfaction with the RC is excellent.

I've ordered Home Premium from Amazon UK. The reason is simple. It's a price I'm willing to pay. Vista was way overpriced as an OEM and retail product.

I pre-ordered this morning from Play. Vista is excellent, it has improved my main application's performance over XP no end, and 7 improves on it again. Buying an English version (I live in France) for fifty quid? No brainer and it'll be even better if I get both 32 and 64-bit versions since I didn't with my OEM Vista.

I didn't hear any news about any linux distro crashing servers.... You could say its MS with viral ads...but why would Amazon sell out then?

For the first time ever I am actually tempted to buy an OS rather than pirate it....

ChromeOS? snowball in hell

Sorry, I can't believe that the requests to purchase 7 could bring down the kind of hardare that MS have.

This is viral marketing

No drama if the site is down for a day is there, it won't affect when your order is shipped - these are only pre-orders.

Every euro news site has published this - good advertising.

Vista is a can of worms and Windows 7 is the white horse coming to save us. Cough.

The wisdom of sticking with XP.

How did the words to song go? "Could it be"??

Maybe Microsoft is right after all; maybe not. But if this is any indication of how Windows 7 will sell then maybe MS has been telling at least one version of the truth.

I remember the midnight lines to buy Windows 95 and thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. Well, close anyway, but who knows.

Of course I'm sticking with warm vintage XP.

But a nice low price is tempting.

It doesn't surprise me as to why they are selling like they are.
Obviously the discounted price,is one factor,another is that, the 'E' version is a 'Full',not an upgrade,thirdly, it is much improved on the Vista shambles,but, I believe that more importantly, in the long run,is the fact that M$ are shipping an OS,(WITHOUT) Internet Explorer bundled together,thanks to the EU parasites in Brussels.
If they pick up on that & unbundle more of the trash included in their OS's, like Defrag et'c,et'c,then, when W8 arrives,it might be an OS that's been on a healthy diet,that's able to run like a cheetah!

I'm fairly certain that the preorders in the US only account for the upgrade packages whereas in Europe there is no upgrade edition only the 'E' editions of Home premium and professional which are the full versions.

In other words it's a fantastically great offer... i never thought i'd say that about a paid-for OS.