Ok well then don't program for the Kinect. what do you want me to say? sorry things cost money? I apologize but if you are gonna harp on windows or things costing money its not here. I just wanna help and give advice to people who are interested in developing for the kinect SDK. I apologize you do not have the opportunity. but i mean you can get the kinect used for 80 and windows 7 is 120 so 200 isn't that terrible a price. I hope you one day will have the opportunity to do it.
But I completely understand! You could always start coding in visual studio and thats free just look up visual studio express

its never too early to start coding .NET!