As an upgrade to a machine running XP
Any educational discounts available?
As above or I got a copy from [url= http://www.rm.com/shops/hebasement/Default.aspx ]The Basement[/url] - similar student prices, got it next day too. (EDIT - looks like they've only got 32 bit available at the mo though)
Run into PC World and steal a copy off the shelf?
Only an OEM key is linked to hardware, a normal retail copy isn't but then I doubt there's any free keys out there that can still be activated and even the corpo agreement keys are limited on numbers of activations now so their far less common (and I guess MS disable them if they become aware they've leaked).
ecostsoftware.com are good.
The upgrade is fairly cheap iirc.
EDIT: and well well worth it.
You got the answer in the first reply.
It's an MS partner and dirt cheap.
Oh yeah,
Run this before you buy anything.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15