I see what you mean, there, Darwin. Going from Vista to Win7 won't be a big deal like XP-to-Vista was. But you have to figure that from now on Microsoft will likely issue only one SP before rolling out another major OS version, just to keep the revenue stream intact. Gates lamented not making XP-SP2 a new OS version on its own. They won't be sitting on Win7 long either before rolling out another version.
-zridling
Drat! Actually, if they revamp their pricing scheme to mimic Apple's this won't be the end of the world, and would likely line their coffers like never before. I'd be pretty happy paying $150 every 18-36 months for a DVD with the full version of whatever the current version of Windows is (or to download a disc image) and a licence. I suspect that if they did this, their revenues would go UP (and pirating would be curtailed) because perception here is the name of the game. Paying $150 every 18 months for the latest OS works out to about $100 a year. XP Pro and Vista Ultimate don't cost that much! And yet... spread the pain out like this and people won't flinch. Mac users love upgrading the latest OS X point release and gladly pay to do so. Yet many of them, and all Windows personal users, balk at the idea of paying $200-300 in a lump payment to upgrade from one version of Windows to the next. I think if people were able to pay half that to buy a full version (ie the DVD contains everything and the licence allows them to do a "legal" clean install), without worrying about Home Basic vs. Premium vs. Ultimate, etc., they'd be more likely to do so and more likely to keep pace with development, rather than sticking with, say, Win2k for upwards of 10 years, missing two or three versions before finally upgrading...
OK, this is turning into my frequent "If only MS would follow Apple's pricing scheme" spiel, so I'll shut up now
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Never thought to do that... Right, off to give it a go now!
I'd give my left... eye tooth for this as well 
