PUMPED! Gaming

If you’re a college student or have access to a college e-mail address, Digital River is offering the retail version Windows 7 Home and Professional for the extremely competitive price of $30. You can sign up for the offer here. Find more details on the offer here.

Keep in mind that if you only order Windows 7 itself without the “Backup DVD” (which is actually just a normal installation DVD) Digital River will only provide you with files needed to UPGRADE to Windows 7. They do not provide an .iso file to make a bootable Windows 7 DVD. It IS possible to make a bootable DVD using these files with some finagling, but you may find it to be tedious or outside of your tech comfort zone. You may wish to purchase the backup DVD for an additional $15 or so which basically covers the shipping charges. You can do a fresh installation of Windows 7 using the DVD they send you. If you have a friend who’s already purchased through Digital River, you can borrow their DVD or make a copy for the installation.

I’d suggest selecting the Professional edition which is the same price as Home and comes with extra features (last I checked Professional retail was selling for close to $300, so again, this is a killer deal).

Even if you don’t currently have hardware that can support Windows 7 or don’t want to upgrade right away, you may want to take up this offer by 11:59AM Central Standard Time on January 3rd, 2010 at which time the offer ends.