[geoschmo]

It's also been my experience for the Last few years at least that the cost savings in building you own is not that spectacular, and may not be there at all. Unless we are talking about building a machine as cheaply as possible, in which case you can scrounge around and find year or two old components or whatever. You can put a workable low-end machince together on the cheap pretty easy. Of course you can also buy a used year or two old pc at a flea market or on ebay for next to nothing. If you are trying to build a machine to play all the latest games then the savings just aren't there.

OS's shouldn't be sloufed off so easily either. Typically every time I've found myself looking to upgrade pc's the OS has been a lttle long in the tooth as well. Of course some people grow fond of the older OS's and don't want to upgrade, but hey, that's not me. And yeah, I know there are a lot of "creative" ways to come up with a copy of an OS. But that's why I qualified my statement with "legit". And if you aren't trashing your old pc, and who does that when there are always family, friends, and home networks in need of backup computers, using the OS on the new pc isn't legit.