What better way to convince people to upgrade their systems with Vista than giving it away for free? HP's most recent ploy, starting at the end of January, is to offer a free Vista upgrade on certain systems. HP owners can sign up for the upgrade now, over at HP's site, though only certain hardware qualifies. Basically, any HP systems purchased after October 26th of this year and before March 15th of next year will qualify, and the upgrade will be for the version of Vista that corresponds to the version of XP installed.
While upgrade licenses are vastly cheaper than retail licenses, many home users may be reluctant to upgrade at all, and this is one good way to convince them to try.