caballo is wrong.
You would be recieving the product.
This is the same as when MS did previews for Windows 95 and Windows 2000.
"Just a demo" implies that all you would be getting is a slideshow presentation with
screenshots and product details, not something that you can actually make use of.
If you are a big name OEM, or have the cash for the full MSDN subscription, you will
get a copy gratis.
But for the rest of the world 10 bucks is a small price to be able to legitimately
evaluate Windows XP the same as the OEMs do. Plus having access to a network of
other previewers to share notes and gripes months before the OS actually hits the
streets can help build quite an advantage in technical experience with it.
(For those who weren't around then, the preview program for Windows 95 cost about
three times as much, and only included the Beta2 release).
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In itself, this announcement should probably go to the OS forum. But you can consider this
a precusor of the threads that will arrive later this month, when people start reporting
how WinXP is working with their rigs.