I would say buy it from adept if it was not delivered with the robot.
There are some other possibilities if you think the software is too expensive. (I do not know the price, I use to get it with the robots...). You can connect to a adept controller via any terminal program. Search adept document library on their homepage
www.adept.com for more information. Via the terminal program you can program and run the robot, but not make graphical user interfaces as you can do in adept windows. But if you do not need the GUI, this way will work fine. If you have an old cobra with MW controller you can use a VGB card instead and connect a screen and keyboard directly to the robot controller. This works in the same way as adept windows with GUI and so on. VGB cards is very common in older systems and could be found used for about 50-100$.
If you find or buy adept windows, make sure to get the correct version of Adept Windows and V+. Somewhere around V+ 11 or 12 there where a change in the TCP/IP communication. Older V+ does not work with windows 2000, XP or later. The problem is that you cant connet from the PC to the robot controller. I do not have the exact versions, but Adept should know. Othervise you need a PC with win 95...