Microsoft can basically charge whatever they like; they also make most of their money of their OSs so it makes sense that they want to earn substantial money of this too.. . Production/development costs also ran pretty high this time, with the additional emphasis on security.. . Microsoft is also encouraged do to this by PC manufacturers since then you'll be motivated to just buy a whole new PC or laptop. The manufacturers get the licenses at a lower price so you can get your new Vista Home Basic PC for prices starting at $400 (and supposedly, they'll make money off the $400 sale).. . Just for reference:. It doesn't cost anything to get Linux as long as you don't want any support. Download it off the Internet, burn the disk image, run and install.