Microsoft Unveils Windows 7 Pricing-But be cautious of the Upgrade Option

Technically speaking, be cautious whenever you purchase an 'upgrade' version since this requires an operating system already running on the computer, such as windows XP or Vista.  If your hard drive goes haywire or you simply want to start over with a clean formatted drive, think again. Since you own an upgrade, you will first be installing the old operating system and that could be a problem if your computer didn't come with an operating cd as is the case with most computers these days. This is because they install the system setup files to a hidden partition on the hard drive. You might have some 'system recovery' cds which are actually used in conjunction with the hidden partition in the recovery of the system from the factory.. but this would be all gone if your hard drive crashed.  For this one reason alone, you might want to make sure you are getting the full program and not the upgrade version, when it goes on sale this October.

PCMag.Com reports on all the options you are going to have when it is released for sale.