Go buy MS Office, or any other piece of MS software, and tell me how they make money. For that matter, go ask Mr. Gates. Operating systems should be free. Period. Microsoft it the only OS that you have to pay for. Mac is free, pretty sure every form of Linux is free, you just have to pay for the disk if you want a hard copy.
The reason MS gets away with it, is because just about every bit of software made right now is made for Windows. If you didn't have to have a Windows emulator to run stuff on Linux or Mac, and if Linux was more friendly to teh average user, MS would have nothing.
BUY office??? WHY??? They sent me a 100% operational Office 2010 Beta to test. I send in evaluations and they keep sending me updates. You can not beat that deal!
I got my computer in december and it came with Windows 7 on it...i absolutly love it!..
I will never go back to the XP thats on my grandparents computer..
And i've never used vista so i can't comment on that..
My computer is a acer aspire i think.
Not sure on what it's running exactly since i just bought it from future shop..couldn't afford to build one... but i do know it's got 3gb ram, and a 320gb hard drive. It's fast as hell