The Microsoft Corp has announced it will be making its new operating system, Windows Vista, available digitally, as a download over the Internet. Previous OS versions from Microsoft have only been available on new computers or pre-packaged discs.

Vista will be released along with Office 2007 to consumers on the 30th of January, though the downloaded version will initially only be available to customers in the United States and Canada.

Source

What the hell? I have downloaded the last 3 versions of windows. Oh wait, lol.

I was so about to say that...

What I find funny is that they where playing with protection on disks physically (bad sectors, odd printing, etc); now they allow you to download it... talk about making things easier to torrent...