It's Your Money

As Ulysses notes:

Windows 7 Prices

Preorder – Starting June 26 until July 11, 2009, Windows users can preorder Windows 7 Home Edition and Professional. This is a limited time offer. This is an upgrade version and NOT the full version. Upgrades are available for Windows XP and Vista users only.

• Preorder Windows 7 Home Premium Edition $50
• PreOrder Windows 7 Professional $100

Family Pack – Allows 3 PCs in a single household to be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Edition. This is an upgrade only. Details on this offer is sketchy. Wait for Microsoft’s official announcement.

• Family Pack Windows 7 Home Premium Edition $150

Upgrades – Upgrades are available only for Windows XP and Vista users only. Earlier versions are not supported.

• Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade $120
• Windows 7 Professional Upgrade $200
• Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade $220

Full Version

• Windows 7 Home Premium Full Version $200
• Windows 7 Professional Full Version $300
• Windows 7 Ultimate Full Version $320

Buying a PC now – Starting June 26 to October 22 and beyond, buyers of PCs with Windows XP and Vista installed can upgrade to Windows 7 for FREE. This is a bit deceiving because the actual cost is outlined below in the OEM which is passed on eventually to consumers.

OEM Price - Cost after October 22 when you buy a brand new system with a Windows 7 operating system. The cost is passed on to the consumers by vendors. Currently, the OEM cost are: Windows XP $15, Vista Home Basic $97, Vista Home Premium $121, Vista Business $153 and Vista Ultimate for $205. See the OEM prices for XP and Vista.

• Windows 7 Starter Edition OEM $50 (1)
• Windows 7 Home Premium OEM $200

This means, if you buy a $700 PC, you paid for $500 for hardware and $200 to Microsoft for the operating system.

(1) Please note that Microsoft has placed a limit on the hardware requirements for the Starter Edition. Vendors have to comply not to install Windows 7 Starter Edition on anything less than the following: 10.2 inch screen, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, 64GB solid state, and on a single core processor with less than 2GHz.

Europe – If you live in Europe, you poor souls, expect to pay a lot more, almost double for what the US users will be paying. After all, Microsoft has to pay all those programmers to strip IE from Windows 7 and also pay for the new packaging of Windows 7E. By the way, there is no upgrade, just the full version.

• Windows 7 Home Premium Full Version €120
• Windows 7 Professional Full Version €286
• Windows 7 Ultimate Full Version €300

Competition – Finally, let’s compare the rest of the competition:

Mac OS X

• Mac OS X Leopard Upgrade $29
• Mac OS X Leopard $129
• Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack $199

Linux

• Linux Upgrade $0.00
• Linux Full Version $0.00
• Linux All Universe Pack $0.00