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They're not necessarily unused licences - they could be controlled by a group policy, such that a central computer would download all updates and distribute them across a network. I certainly don't think 80 million users have a copy of Vista just sitting on a shelf, though the number is possibly in the millions. We don't have any real way of knowing.

I was thinking more about companies. I know we replaced about 800 machines this year, all of them having a Vista licence, even though we run XP. I wonder how many more companies are in this situation, although I find it hard to imaging that makes up 80 million of them.

Businesses unlike normal retail shoppers can buy bare bones systems and install whatever OS they want. He's talking licenses sold, I really really doubt that we've only sold 180million PCs in these past 2 years. I think you can go check some sales numbers for PC/laptops/notebooks for these past 2 years and then see if they add up.

I'd like to be proven wrong about this, but I don't think I am.

Don't worry, the media will bash Win7 for a few years just like they bash every new MS OS. Every time a new OS comes out they bash it for a few years then miraculously this terrible OS turns into the best thing since Apple pie and they don't know how the lived without it. So if you want to wait for Win7 you will have to wait a few years for the media to adopt it. Unfortunately CFO's and CEO's listen to the media and tell their IT departments that it isn't time to upgrade even if the IT dep has decided to give it the green light. By the time the media decides an OS is worthy, the next OS is right around the corner. At some point you have to move on or you will just be waiting forever.

Heh, same here. I just wish there were x64 drivers for my CanoScan LIDE 20 scanner. Fortunately my printer (i560) has drivers out of the box for 32 and 64-bit.

Agreed, might be a good idea to write a complaint to canon for their crappy support. I have a newer (but not brand new) scanner and they seem to deliberately limit the drivers once a new revision of their product is launched.

But businesses don't work that way. They don't upgrade to the next best thing, because everyone says it's better. Businesses don't care so much about the UI and all these new features (as most businesses that do upgrade to 7, I bet a bottom dollar they run it in Windows Classic), unless it affects the productivity of it's employees (i.e. help them work better) and even then they will need to extensively test it with their software and how it will behave in their network environment etc.

They usually stick with what works for them and in many cases they are stuck with the OS their software/hardware supports. For example if the company printers don't support Vista and the company that made them have no intentions to add Vista support, the company can't upgrade to Vista till the printers get replaced. Bad example I know, but I hope someone gets what I'm trying to say? maybe?

Funny thing is, it worked in Linux without me even having to find a driver. And rm20010's LIDE20 model is likewise supported in Linux. No need to have a hardware vendor force you into purchasing new hardware for them when the driver is open source. Use it as long as you want to.