Last night we went out around 7pm to a couple stores to see how they were prepping for Vista and Office launch day. Almost all the laptops were gone from Best Buy which tells me today will be filled with laptops offering Vista. There were several empty Vista and Office kiosks.

Meanwhile, the pirate kiosks in China were already doing business.

physorg:

In an electronic market in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, scores of sellers were offering the brand new software for as little as 10 yuan (1.3 US dollars), along with Microsoft Office, anti-virus software and others.

Not sure what anybody can do about software pirates. These lowlifes cling to the bottom rung of society and hide in places that are more difficult to prosecute. I know there are many people who believe Microsoft overcharges for their software, but the solution isn’t offered in some backroom dive in China.

We plan to return to the store this evening. My wife received Office 2007 for watching the videos in yesterday’s mail. We’ll have to buy Vista, as neither of us got in on that watch the video and get it for free deal. Leaning toward the Home Premium version, however I like the idea of the Ultimate with family pack (two extra licenses) for an additional $49 USD. Still don’t know whether we will buy a computer with Vista preinstalled or buy one of the upgrade versions. I’m not looking forward to upgrading any computer, although a friend told me his install went smoothly.

Getting a late start on my morning reading and suspect I’ll hear more upgrade stories throughout the day about people who went out at midnight and bought Vista.

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