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Well, my luck has got to change some time. A while ago I shelled out £70 for the privelage of Windows Vista. It wasn't really for me, since it was slow and I wasn't used to it. After a couple of months I switched back to Windows XP and its far superior version of Solitaire. With Windows 7 looming, I decided to buy that instead. There was a nice little deal on at Amazon, allowing me to buy it for something like £55, home premium. After ordering it I discovered a special student discount edition for just £30, so I cancelled my order and bought that instead. I realised later it was an UPGRADE version, which means you have to install XP or Vista first and then overwrite it, but I could live with that. Today, it became available. I downloaded it... but it wasn't an ISO. It was 3 separate files. After double clicking on the EXE it went through a lengthy process of extracting, after which I was greeted with an error message which I thought meant that it hadn't extracted properly. After a while of browsing I realised it would still work, so I then went searching around my room for a DVD to burn it to. No DVD. So my house mate was kind enough to go and get one from the shop while he was at lectures. He got a +R instead of a RW, which worried me at the time because I hate burning discs. They always seem to go wrong. After a while of dabbling with ImgBurn, I managed to convert it to an ISO file, and save it to the blank DVD. I waited for it to happen. It Verified, the DVD drive made a spin down sound and BLEW UP. Not really. It ejected the disc, only to SWALLOW IT IN AGAIN and commence the same thing it had just done. Thankfully it was just doing what it was meant to so I didn't mind too much. Any way, it finished doing that and I double clicked on it, only to get another error message about how it's not compatible with Windows XP 32 bit. Gah. I tried booting my PC from it. No success. It didn't recognise it as a proper DVD, so I tricked it by putting in my old XP disc (I have now memorised the key!), loading that one up a bit then quickly switching them around. Only to get ERROR CODE 5. Looking on the internet, it turns out that... well, I don't know. Either my motherboard sucks or I forgot to add the boot file onto the disc and WHAT THE HELL? How is Microsoft able to sleep at night, releasing a such a complex download/install package for students? They should be whipped, repeatedly. With shattered Windows Vista DVDs. I haven't experienced so much trouble since my Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio card stopped working (Yes, don't get me started on how I bought it thinking it was an X-fi, only to find out later that it was just a rebranded Audigy 2 and that it required special drivers).

I couldn't be bothered with it any more. I can't wait until tomorrow to get another DVD and start the same hassle again. So I've gone and bought Home Premium- for £80. So far, that's 3 Microsoft products I have bought and I've not had an ounce of satisfaction from any of them. That might change once Windows 7 Home Premium arrives, but I'll forever be marred with the knowledge that I could have saved £55 and got the thing sooner and saved myself this hassle. I could have even bought Ultimate for £100 in the deal, still saving me £10. And so concludes this rant.

I think my friend has the answer. He pirates everything, and saves a lot of money because of it. Some day I'm going to do the sensible thing and save myself the hassle of buying things legitimately.