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Hidden Fees Discovered For "Free" Windows 7 Upgrade

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the nothing-is-free dept.

An anonymous reader writes 'Thousands of recent computer purchasers who are expecting to receive free upgrades to Windows 7 when it is released on October 22 may be surprised to learn that some big computer makers are quietly tacking on hefty processing fees as high as $17 to mail out those disks to some buyers.' How about they process $0 to click a link and download a file?

2 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Digital distribution has been needed for a while by Fittysix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The RTM of windows 7 has been out for 2 months now? 3 by the street date of Oct 22nd.
    This time is of course used for manufacturing, marketing, etc.
    Meanwhile they should be offering fully updated ISOs directly on the windows site for everyone and anyone to download - the OS itself contains its own validation so there's no harm in letting anyone download it. Then you buy your key digitally with a steam-like system, this would even benefit Microsoft by serving as a key registration system.

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    *.sig
  2. Re:Digital Dist is NOT FREE! by amoeba1911 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you are paying $2million/year for the bandwidth of a small company that doesn't have a large web site and doesn't do digital distribution, you're overpaying by a whole lot.

    It sounds like:
    A. you're getting majorly ripped off
    B. your company claiming to be spending $2m/year but in fact paying a lot less and pocketing the rest of the money
    C. all the computers in your company are a zombies spamming 2 million emails per day and performing dos attacks
    D. your employees are undercover couriers for 0day warez scene
    E. you're an idiot who really doesn't know anything and you make up nonsense

    http://gigaom.com/2008/10/07/wholesale-internet-bandwidth-prices-keep-falling/