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Whoa! 50 and 100 bucks! That ain't bad!

I wonder if I could purchase Windows Vista Ultimate through my school (about 30 bucks), and still be eligable for The Tech Guarantee program?

Reading your post I would think this is the price for upgrades of Windows 7, forever.

Yet when I go to the link I see in the actual memo "This we be available for 16 days through July 11th" after that I assume it will go up?

I am sure you are going to get lots of ping-backs, which will lead plenty to think as I did, especially if they don't go to the source and read that memo.

Good point...Paul's point about pre-purchasing and the leaked document are worded diferently. It sounds like it will be a pre-SALE rather than a pre-sell or pre-purchase program. Either way...that is a good price if it holds true! You have to wonder if Microsoft is "leaking" some of this information on purpose to build anticipation and momentum. Seems like it is happenning more than ever with 7.

--tayme

If 50 and 100 is true, I'm thrilled! That is dramatically cheaper than any Windows I can remember. Microsoft really has no choice but to make 7 cheaper, to compensate for the bad (unfounded, perhaps) public opinion of Vista.

Even on my student's budget I could afford that. Especially if the education prices are even cheaper. Hope that leak was right.

The BestBuy memo itself is confusing. It seems to me that the presell will last for 16 days and not the pricing itself, but I might be wrong.

If the memo is accurate (Not saying either way, just reminding people that is only claimed to be a leaked memo and might be a fake) then the big news for a lot of people is that the guaranteed free upgrade period starts on June 26th. If so, the next 3 weeks should be a really slow sales period while people put off buying computers and wait for their free upgrade.

If its the price of upgrades for the life of the product that is great.  

If its just then it wont really amount to anything considering the retail sales amount to a very small percentage of actual sales.

Contrary to what you say Paul, the Best Buy memo says "Vista that works" when describing Windows 7.  Which implies Vista prior to 7 did not work.  

The only question I have is this Best Buy marketing speak or Microsoft.  Whomever came up with it, is an idiot.

@Lindy - It actually says "Microsoft is launching Windows 7 in mid-October 2009. This new operating system isn't just a "Vista that works" program - it's a new operating system with improved productivity, functionality and creativity that uses less computer resources."

--tayme

Actually the "Vista that works" is in quotes thus saying that it's something some people say and is followed with some reasons why that charaterization isn't true. And we all know more than a few Microsoft-bashers who've described Windows 7 in just that way. Why some of them are even frequent posters on this comment board.

As an example of how this works that might be understood by people with a reading comprehension problem when the word Windows shows up, let's say Best Buy had said: "Snow Leopard isn't just 'an aging Unix clone with a pretty face for people who'll buy anything as long as it isn't from Microsoft', it's really ...' and followed that with a list of why that statement wasn't accurate. That wouldn't be Best Buy characterizing Snow Leopard. Just the opposite, it would be telling their sales reps why all the people saying that were wrong.

Circuit, circuit city, where service is state of the art.

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I knew my comment would only draw the best out of Mike.  I wish you were a race horse Mike, I would be rich!

Regardless of what it says, or how it was said, many will see it in a negative way.  Smart marketing people would have avoided it completely.

I think that if Microsoft wants to garner more retail purchasers rather than just people that get Windows with a new PC, they should offer support at an add-on price rather than include it with retail copies.  Then they should make full version retail copies the same price as OEM System Builder copies.  Currently, upgrade versions are approximately the same price as OEM System Builder full versions, but full version retail packages cost a lot more.  I suppose the other part of that is that retail full versions include transfer rights whereas upgrade versions and OEM System Builder versions don't.

I don't know of too many people that actually bother utilizing Microsoft support for retail purchases where they can't just get support from a buddy, neighbour, or local computer shoppe, but then there aren't many people that buy retail copies to begin with.  Whatever.

Good job, mikegalos...you didn't let us down. Once again fueling the flame wars. You could have stopped at "Actually the "Vista that works" is in quotes thus saying that it's something some people say " and left it at that...but you had to throw a jab in there. Many people would have totally agreed with you if you had done that, plus it would have given a bit of credibility to you as something more than the anti-anything but Microsoft troll that you really are.

--tayme

Lindy

Sure. When you lie, I correct you. That's predictable.

The problem with that is that the odds of my being right and you lying about Microsoft are so close to 100% that you'd never make any money on that bet.

If they price it right, it's bye bye linux i think (for the desktop - not wanting to start a war here, i know it's big on the server side!)...  

Hopefully they get the exchange right for us in the UK this time, i think MS has it's own special £ to $ rate of practically 1:1 !!!

Once again, Mikey bring up Apple (you know, the company that he and Microsoft "hardly ever think about") first in a non-Apple related thread. WTG Mikey! You win the "troll of the day" award!

So Mike you are saying that I am the only one that might glean that Windows 7 is "Vista that works"  from that memo?  Only me and no one else, or I guess me and the person that posted that blog piece on Engadget???

Also how did I lie?  I did write the memo nor did I post it on Engadget, nor did I post here Paul did.  If its so clear then why did Paul even mention it?

Your logic is flawed Mikey, as usual.

Maybe you could ask Paul about the confusion....

"Windows 7 will be a refined version of Windows Vista"

community.winsupersite.com/.../minwin-is-it-or-isn-t-it-part-of-windows-7.aspx

"Once again, Mikey bring up Apple"  yep predictable.  What was he saying to that new guy yesterday???  Hahaha!!!

"If they price it right, it's bye bye linux i think (for the desktop - not wanting to start a war here, i know it's big on the server side!)...  "

I don't think linux can be more unused as it is now on the desktop. Most people that use it on the desktop are geeks that simply aren't going to give it up based on any price of Win7.

I have a question. The EULA for a retail copy of Windows Vista has no limit on the number of times it can be moved to a different PC, as long as you uninstall it from the previous one. In practice, they do let you reactivate it over the phone later, as I have moved my respective copy of Ultimate at least three times.

Windows Anytime Upgrade explicitly makes it once-only if it was ever permitted (Section 15 of the Vista EULA). What about upgrade editions?

"I don't think linux can be more unused as it is now on the desktop" LOL and so true.  Linux on the desktop is a joke, not because the OS is bad (as Mike would say) but because there are NO mainstream applications.  OS X is around because MS, Adobe, Inuit and others have ported applications to it.

"Only me and no one else, or I guess me and the person that posted that blog piece on Engadget???"

Engadget? That's a gossip blog that panders to the anti-MS crowd. Gizmodo is slightly more towards the center.

I gotta say I agree with what Mike is saying, or at least the concept, irregardless of whether it was a trolling post.

The text above can be written to describe many products that have newer versions, and this is just a way to present a relatively uninformed sales staff of how to sell a new product.  Remembering that the sales staff will drive sales, you don't want to get the wrong message out, and a memo like this from BB would hope to quell the misinformation given out.  In fact, if you actually look at the full memo, you will see that they encourage their sales reps to visit the Windows 7 site to learn more.

You can also see the upsell that they also mention that this is not going to be a BB only program.  But BB wants to offer the competitive "value" of their Geek Squad services.

10 seconds of research...

g6672D

Win7 isn't actually released yet, and the Eulas haven't been released either.

Check back when they have.

That was a pretty harmless comment by mike. It's something that would have gone unnoticed had someone else made it. Funny!

OT, but no more than the rest here...

Speaking of Best Buy(since them and Sprint Stores will have them at the kick-off) - is anybody looking at a Palm Pre? I am nearing the end of my contract and considering it, since I won't be able to upgrade my Omnia to WM6.5 or WM7. I am alos somewhat tired of Verizon locking out features that the other carriers include, such as GPS and a few others.

--tayme

@g6672D:

Re: Upgrade licensing

AFAIK, you can't move upgrade versions (by themselves) to a new computer.

You would have to have a previous install of Windows on the new computer to install an upgrade correctly and legally (or do a clean install in trial mode).

However, upgrade licenses are not full licenses to use the product.  You need a full license on a specific computer to use Windows.  When you transfer an upgrade, you would have to transfer the old operating system also, so that means the previous license you're using as a prerequisite for the upgrade also has to be retail, and you're transferring that FPP license to the new computer before using the upgrade.

To sum up:

- You need a full license to use Windows on any specific computer

- A Retail "Full Version" is transferable

- An "Upgrade Version" does not include a full license - it only includes a license to upgrade an existing full license to the new software bits

Does that make sense?

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Lindy,

So, by your "logic", you think the following two statements are the same and won't object to me substituting one for the other later this year. I'll keep that in mind when quoting you in the Fall.

Leopard was a less refined version of Snow Leopard

Leopard was a broken version of Snow Leopard

"Leopard was a broken version of Snow Leopard"

Many Mac users even think that Leopard was "the Vista of OS X", meaning that when it was released, it was a pig, because third-party software and hardware support was lackluster and it caused a lot of stupid, but major, bugs (like that upgrade problem that caused a complete lockout of the machine).  With the patching they've done thus far, most feel it is still (read: now) an improvement over Tiger.

"Contrary to what Engadget says, the leaked memo does not say that "Windows Vista doesn't work." It says that Windows 7 is "Vista that works.""

By saying Win7 is Vista that works, it implies Vista DOES NOT work. This is basic inference 101.

Mike first off, I could give a rats *** what you do.  Second I would not expect less from you.  You are the one that brought Apple products into this this discussion.  It freakish really how you lash out and try to rip on Apple when they are not even part of this discussion.

Also I have ZERO doubt that Paul will cover, in a slanted way, Snow Leopard here at the Winsupersite.

The difference between the two of us is that I will run both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard.  I will comment on what I think is good and bad in both, and I have not doubt that both will have good and bad.

So please feel free to make your self look like robertsjoe of clan MS, I wont hold you back.

Waethorn, the same happened with OSX itself, which many mac crazies seem to forget. I've had people preach at me that OSX is not in fact the second coming, but the first arrival of the one true god, as it would be foolhardy to believe that such perfection could be anything else (I paraphrase, but.... meh)

They all seem to forget the problems that were caused by the changeover from macOS to OSX.

@tayme:

Does the Palm Pre support Exchange ActiveSync?

So far, the new webOS looks alright, but they haven't proven themselves to be a player in the mobile application space.  A new OS is always going to be a wildcard.  If they don't make it look attractive as a computing platform, it'll just be relegated to another "almost-smartphone" OS like Symbian or an incomplete sandbox like Android.  I mean, have you really looked at Android?  It's a typical Linux ware.  That is, everybody talks about making software for it, but nobody does, and the baseline is hugely feature replete.  People even talk about Linux moving to mobile, like they know that its place on the desktop is failing and his no other place to go (Linux is also declining in the server space too, but that's another matter altogether).

Here's a question to throw around:  Do Android handset makers still let carriers dictate terms on feature sets and restrictions, or are carriers required to leave the phone in a completely open state as the OHA would have it?

If they do still dictate features and software limitations, then there is no point in Android being open source (Android isn't totally open source, but for the sake of the argument, let's just pretend that it is).

"the same happened with OSX itself, which many mac crazies seem to forget"

Good of you to remind them.

Also, looking at Wikipedia's article on OS X, it would seem that they claim that OS X kept adding performance enhancements from 10.0 through to 10.3.  That would infer that OS X was only "fixed" in 10.3, and that performance was "broken" with prior versions.  It also infers that performance either plateaued or declined after 10.3, and that 10.6 will improve it again.

@Waethorn - Yes, it supports Direct Push. I am just tossing around the idea. I agree with you on Android...it is a mess. The biggest concern that I have with the Pre is that Sprint is the carrier. I've heard that their support is bad and they have supposedly been on the verge of failing for a while now. Pre may just be a last ditch effort for both Palm and Sprint...time will tell. I am just curious if anybody is seriously considering it and if anybody has seen any more than what is on the web.

--tayme

@gorath and Wae, perhaps you should just use consumer satisfaction raitings to compare whether Vista or Leopard is broke/fixed/finished.  

Numbers from a 3rd party not paid by MS or Apple.

Sprint where I live sucks really bad. (West Coast)

"@gorath and Wae, perhaps you should just use consumer satisfaction raitings to compare whether Vista or Leopard is broke/fixed/finished.  "

That's a stupid comparison. The OS X user base is statistically more homogeneous than the Windows user base. You can't take one product with 30 million users and another with 1 billion users and compare them this way.

"Yes, it supports Direct Push"

That's not what I asked.  Does it fully support the Exchange ActiveSync protocol for Calendar and Contacts synchronization alongside email?

"Pre may just be a last ditch effort for both Palm and Sprint"

I sense the same kind of desperation on both parties, but moreso with Palm.

Palm had Palm OS, which is considered a real stinker now what with partnerships with Sony and Handspring having long dried up, and WM & Symbian supplanting it, and their Windows Mobile phones are sold at a premium but lack options such as touchscreen support that cheaper phones from other hardware OEM's already include.  Graffiti is a joke.  Microsoft already killed that with Transcriber years back (Transcriber is still the same basic handwriting technology that's used in Tablet PC's to this day).  I still look at simplified devices like the Zire.  That kind of device, although not "connected", still has a simplistic Zen-like quality.  It's also cheap, and fairly easy to use (Palm Desktop software for PC is the exact opposite!!).  I sense that they are trying to approach that same level of simplicity with webOS.  Unfortunately for Palm, people want everything to work together on their handheld, and "the new handheld" is a phone in everybodies eyes.  webOS also doesn't have a big application base, which iPhone users have gotten used to, so I would almost bet it's going to be a detracting feature for the phone, which goes against their marketing to attract iPhone users (that's the desparation coming into play again).  Furthermore, if it doesn't have full compatibility with Exchange ActiveSync, it's a no-go in the business world.  After reading that the iTunes sync support is just a hack, I'd almost bet that ActiveSync support is done the same way.  This all spells catastrophe for Palm.

"The OS X user base is statistically more homogeneous than the Windows user base."

Nice choice of wording there.  ;)

"That's a stupid comparison." I am guessing it would not back your argument?

They could talor the sampling to get a good comparision, as in 1000 consumer users in the US.

As another data point, Sprint is pretty good up here in the Northwest. Very fast data connect, very good coverage and support's been fine.

Lindy

The problem with "consumer satisfaction" surveys is they only measure how well the vendor did compared to the consumer's expectations which the vendor themselves has set by their marketing.

If you set the bar very low in the area that should be measured by poisoning the environment (say, by saying "all computers are miserable but ours are less miserable so what you should pay attention to is the manufacturing technology and the color of the case" or "all politicians are crooks so don't pay attention to that bribary thing and listen to what we have to say about the War on Chrismas") then beating those lowered and distorted expectations returns a higher "consumer satisfaction" rating than the facts would reflect because you've told the consumer to ignore precisely the measurement they should care about. And a lot of them will buy it and tell you that you're wonderful for being "honest" with them.

@ Lindy

"@gorath and Wae, perhaps you should just use consumer satisfaction raitings to compare whether Vista or Leopard is broke/fixed/finished.  

Numbers from a 3rd party not paid by MS or Apple."

What the HELL does that have to do with any of what I said?

Get a life, you sad, pathetic weirdo, and quit making arguments where there aren't any.

Sigh. All this over a little ad copy that was probably written by some rocket scientist at Best Buy.

However, in Paul's own words, "And to be fair to Vista, Windows 7 is simply an evolution of that OS and arguably just a fairly minor upgrade, one that runs faster than its predecessor and offers some interesting usability improvements."

Is that the same as "Vista that works?" Dunno. Read for yourself.

My only comment on this is that Paul's statement sounds very much like the "incremental" upgrades that he so roundly mocked as OS X went through 10.0 to 10.5 and Microsoft released nothing for 8 years.

windowsitpro.com/.../vistas-fate-hangs-in-balance-as-windows-7-nears-completion.html

@gorath make me, please, I am begging you to.  Only a pathetic weirdo would not make me stop.  Maybe you should consider anger management classes?  Maybe better living through chemicals?  Here is fantastic idea, ignore my posts.  I know I can ignore you when I choose to.

You and wae were commenting on OS X having problems.  Wae brought up some wiki article and said OS X was fixed at 10.3 or whatever.  How you to got into OS X in this blog post about ugrade pricing and the wording of a Best Memo is beyond me.

My suggestion was to use customer satisfaction surveys to gauge whether Vista needs fixing, which is what the Best Buy memo implies, and I threw in Apple to satisfy you and Wae.

OT but I figure when things have devolved too "I don't give a rat's *** what you say" and "you sad, pathetic wierdo" that may not be a bad thing.

The StatCounter (gs.statcounter.com) measure now shows bing has passed Yahoo! in US and global search share mostly by taking users from Google.

US Numbers:

Google

June 1 - 80.13%

June 4 - 71.99%

Bing

June 1 - 05.52%

June 4 - 15.64%

Yahoo!

June 1 - 10.41%

June 4 - 10.32%

We now return you to insulting each other and providing no data.

"They could talor the sampling to get a good comparision, as in 1000 consumer users in the US."

Sorry, but when there's such an image created about Jobs, Apple, and Apple's products that when something goes wrong, the users blame themselves, rather than Apple itself, I can't see how customer satisfaction can be low.

"We now return you to insulting each other and providing no data."  Yes sadly it breaks down to that.

Believe it or not Mike, politically we are on the exact same page, reading your blog site.

How are you liking Balmers recent comments on Obama's tax policies?

@Lindy

Did I mention Leopard? No

I just pointed out that some people will argue that their chosen platform is faultless, if it fits their zealot view to do so.

You're always on the freaking defensive, as soon as anything apple is bought up. Grow up.

@gorath

"Waethorn, the same happened with OSX itself, which many mac crazies seem to forget. I've had people preach at me that OSX is not in fact the second coming, but the first arrival of the one true god, as it would be foolhardy to believe that such perfection could be anything else (I paraphrase, but.... meh)

They all seem to forget the problems that were caused by the changeover from macOS to OSX."

How does this statement have anything to do with Best Buy's memo wording and info about the upgrade price of Windows 7??

My only comments about Apple were in response to what you said about them, and Wae's response to what you said.  Even then my response was only about consumer satisfaction.  I did not praise Apple or bash MS.

Who needs to grow up?

>Regardless of what it says, or how it was said, many will see

>it in a negative way.  Smart marketing people would have

>avoided it completely.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't about marketing people, is it? It's a leaked internal memo. It seems Best Buy is maybe telling employees how to approach people about it - to not come at it from a "Vista that works" angle. Or am I misreading?

@dipshtadmin: "Of course, it isn't much different than any of the other governments around the world.  Slow, bloated, costs too much, and boring."

Yes, that is true.

@shark47: "It's funny that even the worst US Government is orders of magnitude better than the best Governments in many countries. Of course, the US is responsible for bringing some of these Governments into power."

The US Government is better for its own people (which is understood). But not good to other countries, when it's killing the leaders and citizens in other countries. Invading or taking over to enforce their own agenda and points of view. Then I have a real dislike for the US government.

This sounds really good, but I'm only interested in the full versions of Microsoft Windows 7. So those interested in the upgrade path, this is definitely a nice decision by Microsoft. However, I'm still going to reserve judgement until we have something more definitive from Microsoft.

->Waethorn

Thanks. That's all that need to be said. :)

Wow.. this thread is way off course.

Great, I just bought a new netbook. (this does cover netbooks, right?)

@wjglenn141:

I think you've got it right.

@robertsjoe: The way the British, French, and Spanish governments treated their colonies before WWII (and even after) makes the US seem saintly in comparison.

Dang, Subzerohitman beat me to the punch [again]. Definitely agree that it's a good move by MS if true. BB has leaked a lot of true stuff in the past.

"bing has passed Yahoo! in US and global search share mostly by taking users from Google."

Nice OT post, "mikegalos". But since you brought it up, shall we discuss how Microsoft is "playing fast and loose" with IP rights via bing?

blogs.zdnet.com/Howell

If Apple or Google did this, you'd call it "evil". But being the good WinJihadist you are, I'm sure you'll find a way to justify it since it carries the Microsoft brand.

Discuss.

lotsa,

You've posted one side of the store, as was expected from you.

www.beet.tv/.../wow-bing-has-live-video-thumbnails-but-is-it-fair-use.html

" [The] feature is ... probably within the bounds of fair use. Our apologies."

www.beet.tv/.../bing-has-integrated-hulu-clips-and-player-.html

"Earlier this week, I reported that these thumbnails played full length and might be considered a violation of fair use.  This is not correct, Microsoft has a technology which somehow samples segments from a clip and presents a short excerpt.   I have amended my original post."'

I would've expected this from robertsjoe, but not from you.

Mike,

"We now return you to insulting each other and providing no data."

The data you provided are like this:

www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle

COMPLETELY irrelevant to what is being discussed. But, in the spirit of no insults, I also provide some data, of course, your post and my example are so completely removed from the topic that the "data" are really the same as "no data", because neither has any relevance.

"If Apple or Google did this, you'd call it "evil"."

Under fair use, it's acceptable to play an excerpt of a video so long as the original content creator says so.  Obviously, sites like YouTube are the content providers here, so they are the responsible first-party that need to obtain IP rights.  YouTube relenquishes responsibility for obtaining IP rights as part of the terms of service for posting anyway though, so it's entirely legal.  YouTube and related sites don't block users from accessing public files.  That goes for search engines and other public entities.

Oh, and Google already did Book Search with full transcriptions of entire books WITHOUT permission of the original content holders.  That's copyright infringement, plain and simple.  The books WERE NOT in the public domain, and they just started scanning them and posting them online.  So yes, they are evil.

Besides, they do THE SAME DAMN THING - they both aggregate video feeds into their own page! (short of the thumbnail prevew).  And here's a sampling to show you the difference in "safe" "***" searching.  Notice that Google's is more risqué (probably NSFW, but it's Saturday, and who the he11 works on Saturday?!):

www.bing.com/.../search

video.google.ca/videosearch

....and Apple?  Yes, according to Fox News, Apple is a search engine:  gizmodo.com/.../fox-business-network-thinks-microsoft-and-apple-are-search-engines

I still think Vista was a great OS especially compared to XP and Leopard, not to mention any iteration of Linux I've tried (which is most of them). But if if the PR wars are won by false advertising I'll concede MS lost this one.

But looks like they learned their lesson and new "laptop hunters" ads are quite good. The way they've marketed Win 7 is brilliant I think Apple will be back to low single digits in a few years, frankly I don't care either way but I think Windows 7 is going to kick some serious butt, especially if these prices hold true.  

Oh, and FYI:  Despite what others are reporting (within the US, mind you) Bing still respects IP address restrictions from video sites ie. I can't see Hulu results.