Vista USA

[SteveSxx]

Is there anything stopping my asking my brother in law to purchase me a copy of Windows Vista (at half price) in the USA and me running it on my PC in the UK ?
They are not country dependant are they ?

[joethecomput]

no, not really, they come installed with all languages and can be activated anywhere in the world.

however, if you were going buy it off a website and get it imported, there could be some problems.

[vehelpfulguy]

If you buy the OEM version rather than the retail version it can be a lot cheaper.

This company is selling Vista Business Edition OEM for �90 and the home premium editon OEM for �70 and I am sure you can find other sites doing the same (or cheaper)

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/products.aspx? cat=35&subcat=159&brand=57

Dont buy the Home Basic Edition as it does not come with the new fancy AERO interface.

Dont be too much of a hurry to install it. I did an upgrade from XP on a spare hard disk and found my sound did not work.

There are still Vista drivers missing so some hardware components will not work, some software does not work under Vista (Nero 6 for example).

Unless you plan to just "play" with it I would give it six months before moving to Vista, that way many of the driver problems will be sorted out, and Microsoft will have probably shipped service pack 1.

[rojash]

Cheap way:
Buy an upgrade disk
Perform a clean install but DO NOT type in the CD Key or agree to activate on line, or elect the live installation that checks for updates during the install.
Boot the machine into Vista - DO NOT activate it
Put the install disk in, explore it, and run setup.exe
Choose Upgrade
Enter CD Key
and allow the installation to run
Activate it, and then check for updates.

Vista upgrade allows you to upgrade from Vista (non-activated) to Vista!