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There's both good news and bad when it comes to Windows 7 upgrades

As the windup to Windows 7's pricing announcement came, many in the news industry suggested that Microsoft lower its prices to make up for bad public reception of Windows Vista.  Some analysts, such as former Windows 2000 developer-turned blogger Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft suggested that Microsoft should give away Windows 7 for free to Vista users as an apology. 

Now OEMs are stepping up to the plate and offering some free upgrades of Windows 7 -- but only to customers who purchase machines with Vista between the end of June and next January.  Lenovo became the second to announce such a program, airing the news on Friday.  Hewlett Packard, the top computer shipper in the U.S., had become the first to announce a Windows 7 upgrade program, releasing details on Thursday.

A concerned Microsoft reportedly has moved to limit free OEM Windows 7 upgrades to orders of 25 machines or less.  This provision was first noticed by Gartner analyst Michael Silver, who posted a research note urging businesses to stand up and demand equal upgrade treatment.  The provision is unlikely to affect the smallest businesses, but for larger firms it essentially puts free upgrades out of reach.

The move is not without precedent -- Microsoft pursued a similar strategy with Windows Vista, limiting the free upgrades to five installs.  Mr. Silver, though, does take issue with Microsoft's failure to widely publicize the limitation, writing, "Microsoft has not publicized this limitation to our knowledge ... Gartner believes that Microsoft designs these program limitations to persuade organizations to enter Enterprise Agreements, enroll licenses in Software Assurance or purchase upgrades to obtain rights to run Windows 7."

Mr. Silver is urging businesses to push their OEMs to provide free upgrades.  He details, "Press your OEM to give you free Windows 7 upgrades for all the PCs you buy until Windows 7 ships on new PCs. Larger OEMs administer their own programs, have latitude to do this and have made exceptions for organizations in the past."

Microsoft enjoys little OS competition in the business market.  A few businesses -- mostly software firms -- use Linux distributions, and a few businesses -- mostly creative media firms -- use OS X as their operating system of choice.  The vast majority of businesses, though, use Windows.  Apple is aggressively marketing its new OS/service pack -- OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but it is only available for Apple hardware minimizing its impact.  So the primary risk to Microsoft in forcing businesses' hands is not losing customers, but rather losing upgrades (or the fees OEMs pay Microsoft for free upgrades).  In recent studies over 80 percent of businesses indicated that they will not be upgrading to Windows 7 in the next year.

The company is also facing criticism over the pricing of its full retail and upgrade editions outside of the pre-order and free pricing programs.  This comes despite Microsoft lowering the price of Windows 7 slightly from current Vista pricing, and significantly from Windows Vista's release pricing.

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Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Luticus on 6/29/2009 9:52:20 AM , Rating: 4
I don't understand why everyone is acting so butt hurt about Vista. Vista is a dang good OS, and is in no way a rip off. I own Vista Ultimate (and love it) and sure I'd LIKE a free Win 7 Ultimate but I understand that Microsoft has to make money on the products they make and so I'll happily purchase Win 7. Windows Vista is a great OS, especially on nicer hardware. I think people just want something for free, they just don't want to pay for anything and now they have sour grapes.

I don't see what the big deal is with HP offering 7 free to users who purchase systems with Vista from now till release either. They did that exact same thing with earlier operating systems back in the day too. It's just an incentive for the customers to continue buying HP/whoever computers until the new OS comes out. It should be taken as though they are doing it as a "Vista sucks" deal, because in my opinion they aren't.




RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Hieyeck on 6/29/2009 10:13:13 AM , Rating: 1
It's a performance hit, a BIG one. Big enough that when compared to W7, it's veritable glutton and sloth. If W7 could be even more efficient than XP (not counting the stellar optimizations on SSDs), with a footprint barely larger than it, you have to admit Vista was a screw up - a polished up alpha if W7 if you want.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Luticus on 6/29/2009 10:24:55 AM , Rating: 2
Performance hit... afraid I don't see it. Everything I have it on runs fine. My high end system (which I used to play Crysis on max with) doesn't even flinch at it.

Personally, I like it. Yes it uses more memory then XP, because of things like SuperFetch and pretty graphics (which can all be disabled, I have everything on but UAC).

If Vista is such a MASSIVE performance hit then I shouldn't be able to run it on my laptop which is only a core duo with 1GB RAM, and that machine runs VMware with other OS's usually on.

Just because people don’t know how to optimize their systems or they buy some prepackaged thing with all the OEM junk software on them and they don't bother to fresh load it, doesn't mean Vista sucks, just the user.

I've run just about every OS there is, from OSX to Solaris to Linux(s) to all the Windows OS's. I know a good OS when I see one and while Vista isn't perfect (none of them are), it is good... dang good, and certainly NOT a rip off.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Screwballl on 6/29/09, Rating: -1
By Luticus on 6/30/2009 9:35:48 AM , Rating: 1
Sorry man, I like Vista because it has the features and power I look for in an operating system. XP didn't even have a pro version with media center on it for Christ sake...

My use of Vista has VERY little to do with the eye candy because unlike most people who open their mouths about Vista and spout off what the latest Apple commercials have to say about it... I actually know what I'm talking about because I've actually used the thing!

Windows Vista != Windows ME

Windows ME's problems were not so much bloat or performance. Simply put, Windows ME was as unstable as Charles Manson. Vista is quite solid with stability. Yes it uses more resources then XP... Cry me a river, with 4+ GB RAM I don't think it's much of a problem. Even on 1GB its fine. I had the fresh install (day one) disk loaded on a AMD 2800+ with 512MB RAM, couldn’t find a single driver but it loaded and worked just as snappy as anything else I'd put on there.

I mean seriously, do you honestly think OSX Leopard would run just as well on the Power PC Macs... here's a hint... It DOESN'T!

Even Linux has steps of performance demand. Debian Lenny is great but if I enable too much "pretty" on a low end PC it won't run as nicely.

For the record, my first Vista machine is a dual boot between XP MCE and Vista Ultimate x64 (dual HDDs), the performance hit is minimal at best, I can still play HalfLife 2 on max settings on only lost maybe, MAYBE 5 FPS if that. A good handful of my PC’s were upgraded from XP, so I know all about the performance differences. Yea, I could load XP pro on my main system… I’m sure it would run great! Except, if I did I’d lose FPS/performance because I’d lose access to half my RAM!

I think it’s funny when people are pissed because Vista takes up so much space, never mind that most high-end videogames take 5+GB now too… Go ahead man, spread the hate… you can’t fool me.

So to all you "Windows XP is better than Vista idiots". I liked XP before it was "cool" to like XP, and when Windows 7 is released I'll say the same thing about Vista.


By msomeoneelsez on 6/30/2009 11:42:09 PM , Rating: 1
Vista's problems were very limitedly their own fault. The problem was the reliance on 3rd party software, applications, and drivers, the latter being the largest problem.

These 3rd party venders were so used to the XP way of doing things that they didnt sufficiently support vista until a relatively long time into its release cycle, despite the release of the tools and cooperation provided by MS.

So yes, its uses more RAM, and maybe it uses more CPU (depending on your settings and the conditions of your drivers etc.) but that does not mean it is a "resource hog" or even a bad OS... it means that MS had no way of controlling the problems.

Really though, what would you expect after over 5 years of the same, and then the application of new (and yes, better) technologies such as 64 bit support, and SuperFetch.

In fact, if you do some research and get hardware that is fully compatible with vista, and each other (i.e. RAM to mobo speed capabilities) then there should never be a problem with Vista. I built my system in the early vista days, making sure of the compatability etc. and I have been extremely stable despite the lack of maintenance, and the abuse that Ive put it through over that time. I have seen 2 unrecoverable problems (which were both my own fault) and maybe 10 various other problems which have all been recovered from without the need for a reboot, whereas XP would have required one.

So all things considered, Vista has proven to be MORE stable, and reliable than XP, and it is just as well performing, if not better.

So let me reiterate; put your system together right in the first place and it is a better OS, especially now that 3rd party venders have jumped on the vista wagon by supporting it.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By jimbojimbo on 6/29/09, Rating: -1
RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By MrPickins on 6/29/2009 12:47:31 PM , Rating: 4
Nobody is forcing you to upgrade your outdated machines. It's not even a good idea.

I mean, would you load XP on a Pentium1 with 24mB of ram and expect it to run worth a crap?


By gerf on 6/29/2009 4:29:10 PM , Rating: 1
XP requires 64MB of RAM to install. I installed Win2000 on a system with 40MB and a P-166MMX, but then opted to put WinNT4 on it, as that thing only uses like 5MB with a fresh install. Win98 ran well on it as well.


By Luticus on 6/30/2009 9:41:18 AM , Rating: 2
Just because Vista doesn't run on your well 2500 doesn't mean it's a bad OS, I have XP on my older lower end PC's as well. Granted they don't see as much use and are usually only for streaming from my servers to my 50" in the living room. Still, my point is low-end is what XP is good for, and if you want to put XP on a high-end PC then that's your choice… I wouldn't but that's just me.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Hieyeck on 6/29/2009 11:36:56 AM , Rating: 5
YOU isn't the rest of the world. YOU aren't Microsoft's target market because you and me are a tiny fraction of a percentage of Microsoft's pie (excaberated by the fact, that 1/3rd of us are probably using illegal copies and another 1/3rd using MSDNAA licenses from way back when). Their biggest slice is from OEMs and businesses (via OEMs).

Yes we have >2G of RAM is our systems, yes we're willing to spend the time to optimize the system. People and businesses aren't. They expect it to work AS ADVERTISED out of the box, which it doesn't do without taking that performance hit.

Half the machines I manage still have 512MB for RAM. The other half has 1G. Consider that Vista ALONE would take a little over 1G (out of the box) and each background application adds a relatively large footprint, we'd run out of RAM pretty quick after installing remote access, remote deployments, anti-virus - the ABSOLUTE minimum we require on machines plugged into to our network. SURE we could plug in more RAM, but it's not a priority to plug in extra RAM in 1500 machines spread across 50+ offices who do NOT have on site support.

The entire point IS out-of-box, and because of that, Vista gets a fail grade.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By MrPickins on 6/29/2009 12:50:07 PM , Rating: 5
Why are you even considering upgrading OS's on desktop workstations. Use it till it dies, then buy a new PC. Generally anything else is a wasteful use of resources.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Hieyeck on 6/30/2009 9:45:10 AM , Rating: 2
Consistency and standardization - or at least that's the goal. XP is long overdue to get replaced and the general idea is that a person can sit at any computer and continue work if theirs should fail.


By Omega215D on 6/30/2009 10:04:31 AM , Rating: 2
Not only that but the security and driver model is much improved over XP.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By MRwizard on 6/30/2009 8:02:04 AM , Rating: 1
"expect it to work AS ADVERTISED out of the box"

OK, mine worked right outta the box, and what performance hit is this that people are talking about? vista is atleast twice as fast as XP!!


By Omega215D on 6/30/2009 10:06:32 AM , Rating: 2
Oddly enough while looking through the weekly Best Buy ad I noticed that all the PCs being sold contain RAM amounts 2GB or greater with 4 being somewhat of a norm. Same goes for many of the Windows based laptops.

When I got my MacBook in 2008 it came with 1GB of RAM and when I installed Vista on it (some programs weren't available for OSX) it ran just as fast as OSX did and that was pre service pack.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By captainBOB on 6/29/2009 11:38:45 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
Just because people don’t know how to optimize their systems or they buy some prepackaged thing with all the OEM junk software on them and they don't bother to fresh load it, doesn't mean Vista sucks, just the user.


Funny how you mention that, I have this POS Acer laptop. (Celeron, 1gig RAM, 5400rpm hdd) It came preinstalled with Vista Home Basic. Absolutely abysmal performance, even after I removed the cancer that is Norton and friends, the damage was beyond repair. Over 80% RAM usage doing nothing.

I do a clean wipe with Vista business, runs better but still took 60 - 70% of the RAM, a little more room but sometimes not enough.

Windows 7 used about 40 - 50%, a good improvement now I could actually watch movies on this damn thing.:D

TL;DR
Acer was a dumb@$$ for shipping a low end single core system with Vista Bloated Edition.


By MrPickins on 6/29/2009 12:51:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Acer was a dumb@$$ for shipping a low end single core system with Vista Bloated Edition.


Way to place blame where it is due. I'd rate you up if I could.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By The0ne on 6/29/2009 1:34:24 PM , Rating: 2
Same, got two business laptops with Vista Home and they were just crawling. Took several minutes to boot to desktop, application took longer than 30s to come up, etc. So when Win7 RC1 came out I thought I give it a try and walla, both laptops are running like champs...WITH Aero on the integrated graphics.

First laptop is an Acer tablet, nice one at it. Second one was a Vostro 14" laptop. Afer the first two I converted my main business Vostro 1700, one lab Dell M320 laptop (for CAD) and 3 home PCs.

Windows 7 may not be perfect but in pre-release form it's running like a champ with minor issues/bugs. Vista gave me nightmares upon release just with drivers alone. Yea it's resolved now but that very bad scar will remain with ALOT of users.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Belard on 6/29/2009 10:11:32 PM , Rating: 2
Using Vista well.... its like this photo:

http://globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/upload...

I gave a quote for a computer setup job that was drop shipped. I open the box and found a PC that was not what I was expecting (hardware wise) and had Vista. A 4 hour job became a 7 hour job (there were other things to do, but Vista just takes foreeeeeeeever to do anything).

Vista just does so many stupid things. In Explorer, right click on a folder and select "Explore" expands the folder in Vista, but opens another Explorer window in XP, which is WHAT I want. To normally expand (explore) a folder, a left click will do.... why get rid of a function that was around since Win98?

Using Vista is like making out with a hot chick in a club and finding out she has a penis.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By nycromes on 6/30/2009 11:17:24 AM , Rating: 2
Again, the problem isn't Vista, its the hardware you were running it on. Vista runs fine on the appropriate hardware and in fact its a damn good OS (Post SP1) though not without its problems here and there.

Also, your expectations about what an action in the OS will do doesn't mean the OS is bad. You think that design decision was stupid, I'm sure there are people who love it.


By The0ne on 6/30/2009 1:04:07 PM , Rating: 2
It is Vista when a different OS, one that is newer like Windows 7, runs the same hardware a bit quicker and more smoothly.


By Omega215D on 6/30/2009 10:08:33 AM , Rating: 2
Umm, I thought when the OS uses the RAM it was a good thing. Vista releases it when it is needed elsewhere.


By callmeroy on 6/29/2009 12:08:42 PM , Rating: 2
Performance Hit? No wonder that guy was rated down -- his talking out his arse.....

I've been testing RC1 on a spare laptop (that isn't even all that great hardware to be honest) and its running surprising well, I'm fairly impressed. If it runs my apps decent on such crappy hardware my logical assumption is W7 probably flies on higher end hardware.


By DeepBlue1975 on 7/1/2009 1:04:19 PM , Rating: 2
Of course, my quad core, 4gb machine didn't even care about any kind of performance system with vista x64.

But it runs better with w7 rc1, which I like more than vista by leaps and bounds.

And what's more, I have w7 x86 rc1 running very smoothly on a 1.6ghz intel atom, 1gb ddr2, intel gma 945 netbook, even with every single aero effect turned on.

Tried vista x86 on the netbook and it really sucked, it was infuriating.

So, W7 is better business for MS, because you will be able to run it and have a top notch experience even on the lowest end machines you can by (like netbooks) and so they'll be able to get rid of win XP once and for all, and have just one OS to fit every kind of system that's selling.

I had no gripe against Vista at all, I liked it quite a bit... But W7 IS a pretty big improvement in every single department.


By DeepBlue1975 on 7/1/2009 1:08:44 PM , Rating: 2
quote:

Of course, my quad core, 4gb machine didn't even care about any kind of performance system with vista x64.
quote:


Oh boy, I guess I'll have to give a cash price to he who actually gets what I tried to say in that sentence.

I intended to say that my desktop machine did never incur in any kind of performance hit when using vista ultimate x64...


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By invidious on 6/29/2009 10:48:32 AM , Rating: 5
Why don't you try installing XP on a system that was made for win 3.1 and see if there is a performance hit.

Is Vista more bloated than it should be? Sure. Should people be smart enough to look at system requirements/recomendations before spending $100+ on a piece of software? Also yes.

Every OS MS makes is iterative, you could just as easily say that win7 is a beta of win8. Vista brought a lot of good new features to the table and naturally brought some problems with it. Name one OS that didn't, and don't even think about saying XP.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By MonkeyPaw on 6/29/2009 12:40:38 PM , Rating: 4
It's something the haters will never understand. Everything Vista brought about was for a reason, even the much derided UAC. XP was an old OS that was exploited in so many ways. When XP launched, most people didn't have always-on internet connections and multi-user home machines. XP handled the dawn of affordable broadband okay, but Vista had to be Vista to counter-act all kinds of bad habits, from software writers to hardware drivers to inept end users. In the end, Vista can't fix stupid, but it brought about many of the changes it needed to make Windows 7 looks so fantastic. Vista's poor reputation was proof of the fact that some software and many drivers were poorly written, and that many users can't be trusted with that much control at the admin level on their PCs (something XP wasn't ready to take away in 2001). The problem was not so much Vista itself, but the too-long life cycle of XP that created so many bad habits that Vista had to address.

If you need proof that Vista isn't all that bad, I was seriously considering passing on Win7, since Vista SP2 has worked so tremendously well for me. If it weren't for the $49 price, I probably wouldn't have bought the Win7 upgrade. I might just put that upgrade on my Netbook and let Vista stay on my home PC. Yeah, I'm that satisfied with Vista.


By Mitch101 on 6/29/2009 1:29:53 PM , Rating: 2
Same here I have Vista Ultimate and to go with Windows 7 Non ultimate I would lose a few options. Its a bit too pricey to go from Vista Ultimate to Win 7 Ultimate and hard to justify since Vista Ultimate works great. I would like to see a cheap upgrade path to go from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate but now Im starting to sound like my other post.


By MRwizard on 6/30/2009 7:53:29 AM , Rating: 2
i disagree with you SSOO much. i had winXP and loved it very much (except for the first iteration,[without sp1]) and will say the exact same for Vista. i LOVE it. on my ol rig (daul core CPU, DX10 grphx, 2GB ram)i had XP and refused to buy vista just because of what i heard, well lately i've bee hating XP cos it just keeps getting infected and slows down to almsot a stand still...
So i said screw it, i need the better security and i went for vista home, and OMFG!!!! i can't beleive how freaking AWSOME this OS is. it is able to make my computer faster than XP ever could. i dont know how it does it. but its BLAZING fast.
i will never EVER go back to XP and everyone i know dat still uses XP i tell them off about it. ontop of that, every single person that complained to me about performance in xp i told them to just install vista and see if its any better. i'm yet to hear a SINGLE complaint about vista from my friends that USE it.

I also don't listen to people who dont use vista. they dont know what they are talking about. even people who installed it just to check it out quickly, screw that man, use the bloody OS. i have never had a BSOD or random reboot or even random lag (that seriously irritated me about XP). thank you microsoft for such a great product. and thank you some more for improving it with 7

Before some one complains about incompatible drivers do this. just download/install the drivers for your internet conection, go to windows update and download the updates, yes even the driver updates, actually especially the driver updates. dnt install the drivers from your manufacturers CD cos they likely dont work. i downloaded my drivers straight from microsoft and never had any problems.

my words of advise: stop bitc**ng and moaning and DO IT


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By eddieroolz on 6/29/2009 2:39:22 PM , Rating: 2
I'll keep it short and concise.

Well said.


By Luticus on 6/30/2009 9:47:21 AM , Rating: 2
Thank you :)


By stromgald30 on 6/29/2009 4:37:17 PM , Rating: 2
I agree completely. Sure Vista got bad publicity and had issues when first released. That doesn't mean the next OS is free.

Along these same lines of thinking, Mac OSX users should get Snow Leopard for free because of all the problems Leopard had on it's first release (and trust me, it was as bad as Vista).

What about Windows ME owners? Didn't they deserve a free upgrade to XP Home? I think Windows ME was probably the worst because it wasn't just slow performance, it was lots of crashes and BSODs.

The logic of some of these people are shocking.


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By Samus on 6/29/2009 5:38:01 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with Luticus. I run Vista x64 Ultimate and love it. Yes, its a performance hit (compared to Vista) but every subsequent version of Windows is slower than the last. Compare Windows XP to Windows 2000 *installation times aside*.

Anyone running Windows XP or Vista upgrading to Windows 7 looking for a performance boost is clearly in the dark. Windows 7 isn't going to be faster than Windows XP and is pretty much on par with Vista SP2. The boot up times and shutdown times are better in 7, but overall system responsiveness and smoothness is about the same (and it should be, because Windows 7 uses the Vista Kernel)


RE: Everbody's acting butt hurt over nothing....
By derwert on 6/30/2009 1:22:36 AM , Rating: 2
Windows 7 doesn't use "Vista's Kernel", Vista had its own kernel, then Microsoft had some many problems with it that they took the kernel they made for Windows 2008 and packaged it for Vista SP2, Windows 7 uses an optimized version of the Windows 2008 kernel.


By MRwizard on 6/30/2009 8:27:50 AM , Rating: 2
uh nooooo, not as from sp1 anyways. they are essentially the same:
http://apcmag.com/microsoft_replaces_vista_kernel_...
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14074

and urm, according to microsoft. it uses the Vista kernel:

'Now, Microsoft has settled the question of whether or not the operating system would come with a completely new kernel, or simply one that builds on what we already see in Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008: "Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista," said Flores. He went on to say: "one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7." '

foud at: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2008/05/ms-n...

sorry to burst ur bubble, but please read up on things before you post


By Luticus on 6/30/2009 9:54:18 AM , Rating: 2
Server 08 uses the Vista kernel, it’s just Server 08's is stripped down a bit because it doesn't need to support everything Vista’s does, being a server OS and all...

Server 08 is a server OS BASSED on Vista.


How Evil - MS Wants to Make Money
By d0gb0y on 6/29/2009 9:40:28 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Gartner believes that Microsoft designs these program limitations to persuade organizations to enter Enterprise Agreements, enroll licenses in Software Assurance or purchase upgrades to obtain rights to run Windows 7.


The horror... If you are a business, and do not already have the above agreements, you can always wait a few months. Or keep using XP.




RE: How Evil - MS Wants to Make Money
By rob8129 on 6/29/2009 9:54:46 AM , Rating: 2
Well, for companies is one thing, but I hope this does not apply to the education sector. Some school districts purchase PCs on a lease and may mave to upgrade before the official release date. So, if we need to lease new equipment before that time and our order is above the 25 limit, we may be out of luck to get the PCs with the latest OS. We have been testing the RC and we are much more impressed with it than Vista. We are happy with XP at the moment, but I think in the next three years we will have to switch to Win7 due to software updates.


RE: How Evil - MS Wants to Make Money
By Luticus on 6/29/2009 10:01:33 AM , Rating: 2
Well I can't speak for everyone, but I work for the county government as a network admin. The way we do it is we have a site license for XP, Vista, and soon 7 I'm guessing. So when we refresh our machines we lease whatever HP is selling and then we load XP and create a new image, then we push this image to all the new machines. We can pretty much use whatever OS we want as long as it's still supported by MS or whatever other company in terms of 'nix, etc.


RE: How Evil - MS Wants to Make Money
By rob8129 on 6/29/2009 12:18:34 PM , Rating: 2
We looked into getting the OS included in our school agreement, but at the time, most of our PCs wouldn't have run Vista well or at all and the cost just didn't make sense. I think the approach we will take is to slowly deploy Win7 as new PCs come in and we have a stable image for those units verses an XP image. With the new OS, I'm sure we'll get the "deer in headlights" look from some of our users. lol


By Luticus on 6/30/2009 11:27:48 AM , Rating: 2
That's the way I'd do it. From a business perspective your right, the upgrade path is always slower and almost always happens only during a refresh of machines. This is because for the average user a stick of RAM to meet performance requirements is ~$20, multiply that by the 2,000 computers a big corporation has and your talking MONEY (granted I’m sure the corp. would get a bulk buy discount). As far as your users go, it depends on their intelligence and if they have experience in Vista or not. Going from XP to the Vista/7 OS's will be much more difficult (though not hard at all for someone who knows computers) then going from Vista to 7.


RE: How Evil - MS Wants to Make Money
By Proxes on 6/29/2009 10:00:03 AM , Rating: 4
I don't see why Microsoft has to bail anyone out. Vista isn't THAT bad.

If $120 is too much for you to spend then don't spend it. I've been running XP Since November 2001, I think you could get a few more years out of Vista. You said yourself, it's stable.


By Omega215D on 6/30/2009 10:17:00 AM , Rating: 2
but Apple is only charging $40 for their OS...

/sarcasm


Stop the hate.
By invidious on 6/29/2009 10:40:02 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
...Microsoft should give away Windows 7 for free to Vista users as an apology.


Vista 64 SP1 is a good OS and does not require any apologies. Anyone who buys a new machine right now with vista on it is getting a perfectly good system and certainly does not "deserve" a free copy of win7. That isn't to say that offering a free copy of win7 would be a bad marketing strategy, in fact I think it is a very smart one. But the apology stance is not valid in my opinion for current/future retail PC sales.

If anything the people who bought retail copies of Vista to install on their older winXP machines thinking it would be compatable should be given a rebate or voucher for win7.

I know from personal experience that some motherboards stamped with "vista compatable" were either completing incompatable or did not have any driver support Vista. Though that is more the vendor's fault for improperly advertising their product as compatable.




RE: Stop the hate.
By Mitch101 on 6/29/2009 1:24:18 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with you nearly 100% but I would like to see a heavily discounted option to purchase Windows 7 Ultimate if you purchased Vista Ultimate. Doesn't have to be Free just charge a fee like $50.00. The reasons I say that is the Vista exclusive stuff never really panned out. If they don't offer a cheap upgrade to 7 Ultimate for existing Vista Ultimate that's certainly fine Vista Ultimate is and continues to be a great OS I'll just leave that box the way it is and wont upgrade it.


RE: Stop the hate.
By The0ne on 6/29/2009 2:14:21 PM , Rating: 2
I totally agree. I bought Vista Ultimate at release and after 4 failed attempts (pre SP1) to use it I finally gave up. Same for Office 2007 although now I have both versions running on my main laptop as a precaution. I would love to have a cheap/free alternative to obtain Windows 7 Ultimate instead of the high price.

Vista SP1 is good, it's the horror of Vista release that drove everyone crazy. For some people you can't get their trust back, not even with Windows 7 can do that. This is partly MS's fault for releasing a very bad OS to the consumer mass. You're going to have minimal effects with Windows 7. I mean, it's already being labeled.."What Vista should have been", and no doubt it feels like it should be.


RE: Stop the hate.
By smackababy on 6/29/2009 2:39:13 PM , Rating: 2
The preception of Vista being bad had nothing to do with Microsoft. They did not release a "bad OS" as you put it.


RE: Stop the hate.
By The0ne on 6/29/2009 6:33:27 PM , Rating: 2
There are no "perception" of how bad Vista was prior to SP1. It was bad. And I did stated "partly" because MS could have done better to make sure their OS supported some reasonable amount of hardware. Sure, it's not their task but it has been.

I mean come on, how can anyone install and run Vista during Beta and early release without the right drivers and software? And this got release because? Some bright tester must have had a light bulb come up telling him something's not right if MS release Vista onto the masses like it did. Not too bright IMO.

Again, not all of MS fault but they could have done something to warn the consumers. A label like "Your PC might crap out because we only supported the hardware we tested it on...not even generic hardware is supported. Sorry, but buy the OS anyway and pray for the best."


Gartner analyst are out of touch
By crystal clear on 6/29/2009 11:01:13 AM , Rating: 5
It seems these analyst dont seem to be aware of what people (who influence purchase decisions or decision makers) in the market are talking or thinking.

Here are a few opinions-

# "There is nothing in Windows 7 that has been compelling enough to motivate us as an organization, especially in this economic climate ....

# "The reality is if it is not broken, don't fix it,".....

# "It is going to drive my hardware costs up. It is going to drive my support costs up. I will have to train all my people." .....

# "Tell me what I get from it," to move from XP to Win7...when I am desperate to cut my cost....

# "Just because it works better doesn't mean we'll move to it." ......

# Microsoft is going to support Win XP until 2014,so we can afford to wait,...

# " Whats the hurry".....Price it right or I dont buy....

# WE plan to have all of our PCs off Windows XP by the end of 2012. "Plan for year end 2012 and I think you'll be in pretty good shape,"

So businesses dont need a Gartner report to take a decision to buy or not.




RE: Gartner analyst are out of touch
By Belard on 6/29/2009 10:25:33 PM , Rating: 2
Sounds good...

Thats is thing many vista lovers don't GET. They are installing vista on their top end PCs and for the avg person, its their only choice... So these "LOVERS" have 3Ghz Quad systems with DX10 cards.

A person (or business) shouldn't need such horse power to read email. Like that MS Exec who said something like "I now have a $3000 email machine"

Look at bestbuy (site or store). Compaq computer $370 gets you an AMD X2 CPU at 2.5Ghz, 3GB RAM, 320GB HD, PCIe 16x slot. Its a very good deal and the minimal I would recommend someone get. There are cheaper -$300 computers with PDC or Celeron s which shouldn't be touch.

Before Vista, the typical $350 computer came with 512mb and was EASILY functional. Todays 1GB PC = 128mb for XP. 2GB Vista = 512 XP, 3GB Vista = 512mb XP. Finding off the shelf PCs with 6~8GB of RAM is the NORM. Before Vista, 2GB was a power users system.

Sure memory is CHEAP.... NOW. It wasn't 2 years ago!
Vista is bloated & slow, the the requirements is proof of that. Its not so much that it NEEDS the requirements, its that for what it DOES... it sure shouldn't. For the most part, there is NOT a thing Vista can do - that XP can't. Other than DX10/11 and running Halo2. WHoopie.

For business, Vista isn't worth it. Windows7 does things quite a bit better. XP does need to be retired... but its not like the days of OLD with a new OS version coming out every 4~6 months. XP is a SOLID OS. Vista has become a SOLID OS... but something NEW has got to be better than the OLD the first time out.

XP wasn't perfect when it was new... but it was vastly better than Windows9x out of the box. It took about 2-3 years to phase out most of the Win9x people. Vista will be off the market quickly.

Go to Frys or Newegg, there is XP OEMs for sale. The only way an end user can buy XP. I bet that by JAN 2010, there won't be ANY end users buying Vista. Or the OEMs offering to sell Win7 > Vista downgrades.

The other thing the Vista end users need to keep in mind about those who use WindowsXP.

THEY ARE NOT BUYING the hardware or software for these companies or other users. I think that is another reason that Netbooks are selling so well, they are the easiest computers for end-users to buy with XP installed.


By crystal clear on 6/30/2009 3:41:35 AM , Rating: 2
In addition to my comment there is another issue at stake-

the Upgrade Cycle

The upgrade cycle was once 3 years now it has jumped to 5 years in some cases 7 years.

Company budgets for IT expenditure are very tight nowadays.
Cost cutting has brought them to bare mimimum or to levels of "only for essentials".

Companies dont & never did/neither will upgrade so easily & so fast.

The general trend /rule was to await the release of SP1 after a new O.S. is released/launched & then upgrade.

Very strangely you have Microsoft releasing Vista SP1 so close to a launch of a so called completely new O.S.
which in fact is Vista (just much better) rebranded.

Then they tell companies migrating to Vista to skip it & go directly to Win7 migration.

Companies seek a period of stability when migrating from an old O.S. to the new.

As for single user or home users or mainstream buyers etc the upgrade cycle is around 3 years.

Mainstream buyers are neither early adopters nor adapt to changes so easily & frequently.

A fine example being the adoption of Blu-ray technology/players.

Supporters of BR said that there should be one format to avoid consumer confusion & ensure smooth transition.
Even after that, BR failed to convince mainstream buyers to switch over from DVD to BR even after price cuts.

Back to Win7 & mainstream buyers-

Mainstream buyers are the major revenue earners for OEMs/Microsoft/etc.

They lack the consumer awareness of Win7 (they are not IT professionals).

Its only when they buy a new computer(Desktop/Notebooks/netbooks) or undertake a major upgrade to their existing computers that they will get the first exposure to Win7.

That could be at the earliest the Christmas buying season Dec 09.

So Microsoft has a long wait ahead of them to see a mass acceptance of their Win7.

This would mean atleast 2Q 2010 & beyond reaching its peak 18 months from date of release Win7 or release of SP1 for Win7, which ever is earlier.


By Luticus on 6/30/2009 10:12:48 AM , Rating: 2
I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that I don't tell XP users they should upgrade. I don't tell XP users that they should put Vista on their low-end pre dual core machines and why would I. If you want to keep using XP till the end of time then that's not my problem!

What I do is tell the people who say "Vista sucks" and who tell the people curious about Vista to avoid it based on misinformation and FUD that they are idiots.

I still have XP kicking around on older machines too, but anything with a dual core or better and a gig or more of RAM is on Vista, like they should be.

Windows 7 will not be Vista 2, Like Windows 95 was to Windows 98… um SE, Windows 7 will be a new refined and more mature OS because it will be the second OS (3rd if you count Server 08) released based on the underlying framework and code that Vista pioneered.


More on this
By crystal clear on 6/29/2009 10:27:38 AM , Rating: 2
Some important additions-

1) Software Assurance, which provides unlimited upgrades for three years, generally costs between $100 and $150 per PC.

2) Microsoft has said that after Windows 7 ships, "organizations needing to buy a PC deployed with Windows XP will be allowed a free upgrade to Windows 7 only until [Windows 7] SP1 becomes available (or 18 months, whichever is earlier)."




By honestIT on 6/29/2009 12:55:05 PM , Rating: 2
And telling the other 99 percent of you that have Vista performance issues that I don't have a problem running Vista so why should you?




Gotta love Irony
By atlmann10 on 6/29/2009 3:50:54 PM , Rating: 2
The only thing I am confused on with 7 is the amount of pc's. I have two desktops and a laptop at home. So do I need to buy 3 copies of windows or one for 3 pc's in one location?

I would of course like to see a rebated upgrade path from Vista ultimate to 7 Ultimate. The main reason for that is Vista Ultimate was nothing. Of course they promised all these new specific apps etc if you bought Vista Ultimate so I thought it was a valid buying path for my upgrade. The truth was Vista Ultimate gave you nothing much other than what was on the software you took out of the box.

For the Vista problem's issue, they no longer exist. I like WIN 7 RC better than Vista Ultimate. However; that is more personal taste than anything as it runs fine on my systems. As for those who whine about vistas performance on current hardware I find that almost laughable. My desktop is an Athlon x2 4400+, I actually have it oc'd to 5000, and 4 gigs of DDR1 on it is so cheap I could probably collect change to get it. I do run a 3870x2 in it that is the only pricier upgrade.

I actually upgrade based on hardware and capabilities rather than M$ released a new op sys. Do you guys remember when people used to camp Best Buy and other retailers when M$ released an op system. So after the I5 chips hit the market and prices stabilize (not to mention the Radeon 5000 gpu's) I will upgrade all my systems, of course I build them myself. Except the centrino2 laptop. Which is running Win7 ultimate 64 now anyway.




Apology?
By Russell on 6/29/2009 5:30:44 PM , Rating: 2
Why would Microsoft need to apologize for Vista? I realize that it's the OS that everybody loves to hate, but it's not nearly as bad as everybody claims. Windows ME? Now THAT was a TERRIBLE operating system. Ok, so Vista was a bit glitchy at first. That was two years ago. I'm over it.

I bought Vista. It's been worth every penny. Great upgrade from XP. I've already pre-ordered a couple copies of Windows 7. I look forward to it.

I guess being an early adopter (beta tested and immediately switched to 2000, XP, Vista and now 7) means I'm more patient and tolerant toward bugs than others.




Flat upgrade fee
By vkat on 6/29/2009 5:31:43 PM , Rating: 2
MS should have a flat upgrade fee of $49 from an equivalent Vista version. (i.e.) Vista Ultimate to W7 Ultimate, Vista Home Premium to W7 Home premium etc.




By Belard on 6/29/2009 10:38:07 PM , Rating: 2
Unless I miss something...

Where is the WindowsXP > Windows7 deal?

If Microsoft isn't offering any upgrade deals for WindowsXP users, then MS is only going to hurt themselves in Win7 sales and market share.

And how about a real Family pack... 3 License version of Win7 Home for $150~200.




Just a comment about the upgrade special pricing...
By Golgatha on 6/29/09, Rating: -1
By amanojaku on 6/29/2009 9:47:26 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
As a father of two small children, I do not appreciate having either my time (by having to reinstall everything) or money ($120 for basically not having to reinstall everything and two features I will never care about) wasted by Microsoft in this fashion.
Or you could just leave everything alone; I'm running XP until MS stops supporting it. "If it ain't broke don't fix it."


By Golgatha on 6/29/2009 10:20:32 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, given the cost savings, I will eventually wipe the system and put Win7 Pro on there, which will subsequently allow me to sell off Vista Ultimate or move it to another machine since I have a full retail copy of WinXP Pro running on VMWare for the odd Vista incompatible program.

Given the hassle of having to reinstall all my programs, I'll most likely wait until SSD drives are large and cheap enough for me to want to get one before migrating over to Windows 7. Stability wise, that's the only reason for me to want Windows 7 anyway, since it should be built to run well with SSD drives out of the box.

All that said, it would be nice to move over to Windows 7 with an in-place upgrade. If the upgrade didn't work well, I could just reimage Vista using Acronis TI, and do a clean install later. I put Windows 7 Beta on my laptop to try it out and loved it, so I'd like an easy and cheaper option to migrate from Vista Ultimate on my desktop is all.

I stand by my original statement though. It's hard for me to fathom why you wouldn't allow your best customers to migrate from Ultimate without the hassle of reinstalling everything, when you're doing it for your mainstream customers already.

I suppose it's because they don't want to allow a cheap upgrade path from Vista HP to Win7 Ultimate. However, the only features differing from Ultimate and Pro for Win7 are Bitlocker and Ultimate extras from what I can tell. Most users won't use Bitlocker and the Ultimate extras were a bad joke for Vista and are an empty promise for Win7 currently. It would at the least, be a nice gesture for Microsoft to offer all Vista customers their premium package for 50% off, since the migration from WinXP to Vista wasn't exactly smooth.


By tmouse on 6/29/2009 10:56:35 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think it is despicable that Microsoft isn't offering the 50% off Windows 7 Ultimate. Vista Ultimate customers are probably their biggest cash cow and it just doesn't make sense to me to not offer them in-place upgrades, rather than having to wipe their system clean to get a downgraded version of the new OS.


I think there is a valid point here. It makes no sense to me why Microsoft would offer pre-release discounts for the lower end versions of Vista upgrades and not to the people who probably supplied them with the most profit per unit. I could see no discount to anyone but anyone who purchases the upgrade or full version of windows 7 ultimate would be a fool. If they are not concerned with keeping these customers then they deserve to lose them. I will never buy a top of the line version of their OS again, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. If Microsoft simply did not offer any presale discounts I would not feel wronged, but they did and then they left out a group for no good reason, so in my opinion they should get bad press for a bad decision.


By rudy on 6/29/2009 11:13:03 AM , Rating: 2
What is in ultimate you need? For most people nothing, ultimate is just the upselling technique which provides little to know value almost every company has this, for instance why does McDonalds or any fast food offer 3 different sized drinks when refills are free. I think M$ figures that ultimate users are going to pay the full premium no matter what and they would rather keep the profit. In any product you will have a certain number of people who just walk in and say give me the best with everything and that is what ultimate is for. These people are not value minded and so you actually do not want to give them deals. If you grab pro you are only missing 2 features why not just grab it.


By tmouse on 6/29/2009 12:03:06 PM , Rating: 2
I needed Bitlocker; and the Secure Online Key Backup and BitLocker Drive Preparation Tools were more than worth the price for me. Now they may be available in the pro version but that would require a clean install and I have a lot of scientific software that will require tech calls for reauthorization for each one which is quite a hassle. Several of my collogues are in the same boat. We will probably not upgrade but any increased performance or additional memory would be advantageous.


By The0ne on 6/29/2009 2:17:46 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, this applies to us Engineers too. Calling in to be able to use your apps is frustrating :/


By Luticus on 6/29/2009 9:56:52 AM , Rating: 2
My system is perfectly stable too, but I'll be doing a clean load anyway because that's the best way to do it. In fact I’ve already begun the process of backing everything up, and if you’re smart you would too just in case something goes wrong. In my opinion clean loads just go with the territory of upgrading. No one’s forcing you to upgrade man...


By Venator on 6/29/2009 10:05:35 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
As a father of two small children, I do not appreciate having either my time (by having to reinstall everything) or money ($120 for basically not having to reinstall everything and two features I will never care about) wasted by Microsoft in this fashion.


Sorry to disagree with you, Golgatha, but
1) any self-respecting techie would know that in-place upgrades just don't cut it. If you want a clean and stable system, a clean wipe is the way to go.

2) if you feel that there are only two new features to 7, then you shouldn't bother wasting your time to install the new OS. Keep Vista Ultimate - because under the hood they are very similar OSs.

3) Windows 7 installs from scratch in approx 20-25 minutes (hardware depending, so in the time that you spent reading the story and formulating your witty post, You could have been half-way there!


By Golgatha on 6/29/2009 10:29:03 AM , Rating: 1
1) Any self respecting techie does a clean install after every motherboard swap too. I'm on my 3rd motherboard under Vista and don't have any problems though. Also, if the in-place upgrade didn't work out, I can always re-image Vista with Acronis TI.

2) Yes they are very similar, but I like the lighter footprint of Win7, the interface, and the home networking upgrades. Better out-of-box workability with SSD drives would be welcome too for when I image from my 300GB Velociraptor to a SSD.

3) Getting the OS on there isn't the time consumer. It's reinstalling everything else (apps, utilities, anti-virus, games, etc) that will take days of reinstalling and reconfiguring to get back to square one again. This is why an in-place upgrade option would be nice.


By Flunk on 6/29/2009 10:55:34 AM , Rating: 3
If you want to run 7 then you have to pay whatever Microsoft wants for it. Your choice is to either buy it for what they want to sell it for or not. That's how you can effect Microsoft's pricing, not by whining around here.


By Golgatha on 6/29/2009 11:45:38 AM , Rating: 1
Totally agree with you. It's just annoying is all.

What I did end up doing is pre-ordering three upgrade copies of Win7 Pro. One for the laptop (WinXP Pro), one for my HTPC (Vista HP), and one for my desktop (Vista Ultimate).

The laptop is an easy upgrade, I just need to reinstall/reconfigure Office 2003 and my anti-virus program once the clean wipe is done. No games on this system and very few apps outside of Office 2003. All my important files are saved over my home network to a central location and backed up regularly. The HTPC will just be an in-place upgrade, and I anticipate it will go smoothly, as there are only a handful of apps running on there. No Office, no anti-virus; just PowerDVD, VLC, TVersity, and Skype.

The awful one will by my main desktop. 40 or so games (some with Online activations, so they'll have to be uninstalled, have a deauthentication too ran, etc), Office 2007, lots of utilities, lots of ripping and transcoding programs for editing video, a Photoshop install that's been tweaked with RAM and scratch disk settings, Acrobat Pro 8, PowerDVD and several other video viewing programs, VMWare with WinXP Pro and Ubuntu install within, etc, etc, etc. It will be a freaking nightmare and huge time-sink to get everything back to its original state. I will probably just use Vista Ultimate until I make the switch to a SSD drive. I doubt I'll get a full-retail upgrade in the future for less than $99, so I don't mind sitting on my 3rd copy of Win7 Pro for awhile.

The thing that sucks is I probably would've had Vista HP on my desktop too, except that someone on the Anandtech FS/FT forums cut me an awesome deal on a full-retail Vista Ultimate a few years ago, so I installed it instead.


By Smilin on 6/29/2009 11:22:54 AM , Rating: 2
While I'll agree the advice regarding inplace upgrades is very good for most I do not always follow it. I'm quite familiar with all the software and drivers on my box.

95% of my software runs up in user-mode with settings saved in the HKLM or HKCU keys in the software hive. Inplace upgrades have no impact.

Of the remaining 5% all are running Vista drivers which are nearly identical to Window 7 Drivers and most if not all are noted on the Windows 7 upgrade tool.

If the worst were to happen and leave a system unbootable I'm more than capable of getting it going again without any sort of restore or reload. If lesser problems occur they can be easily fixed as well.

I'll be doing a inplace upgrade to Windows 7 on my main box at home as the longer install time is made up for many times over by not having to reload software. All the rest of my machines are already running Windows 7 so they'll be getting clean installs.

If you do choose to do a clean install I would highly recommend the settings migration tools available in Windows Vista and Windows 7.


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