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Software Microsoft Gives Out Copies of Vista Ultimate, Business to Beta Testers
Brandon Hill (Blog) - November 16, 2006 7:51 PM

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29 comment(s) - last by Pirks.. on Nov 18 at 4:41 PM

Free copies of Vista for official testers that submitted at least one bug

For those testers that were fortunate enough to be invited to the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program and submitted at least one bug, Microsoft thanks you. That thanks comes in the form of a full final copy of either Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Vista Business.

Testers are now receiving emails informing them of their selection for free downloads of Vista and each will be given a product key within one week to activate their software. This will be a download-only proposition and no media will be mailed.

It's nice to see Microsoft giving back to those that helped uncover bugs with the Vista operating system. Vista has been five years in the making and the thousands of participants in the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program were quite instrumental in helping Microsoft reach its Vista RTM date.

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Does this include the CPP?

By ChronoReverse on 11/16/2006 8:25:06 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder if this includes the CPP folks. Oh well, I have access to Vista (legally) from multiple sources.

RE: Does this include the CPP?

By AaronAxvig on 11/16/2006 8:28:20 PM , Rating: 2

From the article:

quote:
For those testers that were fortunate enough to be invited to the Windows Vista beta program and submitted at least one bug

Seeing as CPP customers weren't really invited, and they could submit bugs into Connect like the real managed beta testers, the free license is only for the "official" beta testers.

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MS has done this before

By gsellis on 11/17/2006 7:16:45 AM , Rating: 2

In fact, this is a little less generous than XP was. MS gave use 4 Product Keys then. I am happy though. Now I can actually upgrade. Early reports are the my NLE actually works 10-20% better at some tasks in Vista 32.

RE: MS has done this before

By Spyvie on 11/17/2006 11:12:13 AM , Rating: 1

What NLE? Premiere? Vegas?

I support a Premiere user and he wants to upgrade

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I can't wait ...

By restrada on 11/16/2006 9:44:18 PM , Rating: 2

My email will be coming soon. Enough people bash Microsoft. Well, thanks Microsoft for being generous.

WOW!!!

By Dragen on 11/16/2006 11:06:02 PM , Rating: 2

It's not like they can't afford it. :D

yay

By Samus on 11/16/2006 11:33:02 PM , Rating: 2

i received an email today documenting my bug for rc1 and that a free copy of ultimate is on its way 'pending launch'

i found that "when cutting and pasting a networked file, if permission on the host isn't granted to move the file, the file disappears from the gui window until you refresh, and the file shows up on the destination, even though nothing was copied" :)

give it a shot if you have RC1

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

By flexy on 11/16/2006 11:43:40 PM , Rating: 2

ffffffff......

i have to give it to MS...this is awesome...

I slap myself for NOT having submitted anything :(

Cool!

By ET on 11/17/2006 2:07:24 AM , Rating: 2

Now I'm happy that I submitted that "Vista doesn't install" bug. I had such bad luck installing versions of Vista. I really hope the final version will install on my machine.

damn

By Pirks on 11/16/06, Rating: -1

RE: damn

By ChronoReverse on 11/16/2006 8:29:14 PM , Rating: 2

Could you detail the bugs here? I'm actually quite curious what those bugs are (my download of RTM from MSDN won't be done for a while yet... looks like MS's servers are hammered)

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RE: damn

By mikecel79 on 11/16/2006 8:33:38 PM , Rating: 2

Just got my copy from my MSDN license about 2 hours ago. Caught it almost as soon as it went up and was able to download it at about 700KB/sec. Just tried to pull the X64 version down and it was much slower so the servers must be busy now. Between this and Office 2007 it may be a while before the traffic subsides on the MSDN site.

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RE: damn

By jon1003 on 11/16/2006 9:06:13 PM , Rating: 2

Darn, not up for MSDNAA yet. Wonder when, or ever for my cheap-on-tech school.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/16/06, Rating: -1

By Pirks on 11/16/2006 9:02:08 PM , Rating: -1

1) when you open the services window (one in control panel where you start/stop/manage system services) and close it - it loses its size/postition/column settings i.e. it always opens in the same default small size and its table columns inside alre always ugly narrow - I have to resize and move the window AND the table columns inside EVERY #UCKING TIME I open the window. I was sure that this windows XP "feature" would be fixed in vista - boy was I wrong. have to learn not to trust MS now :)

2) when you go to the window where you can change the system fonts, it has the samples of windows and a dialog box inside - when you go there first you'll see the samples of aero glass windows/borders, and you can switch themes in the combobox below it and you'll see the result, BUT - here's the catch - when you press advanced (or custom? don't remember, one of them anyway) button and go to the window where you can click on these sample windows/dialogs and choose the font for them (it's set to ugly 9 pt font that's way too tiny on my 1600x1200 screen) - these window samples there - in the font selection window - are ALWAYS ugly grey win95 style windows, no matter what theme you are using, aero or whatever.

3) an additional one (in case you have contacts at MS whom you can kick - kick them _HARD_ please) - when Vista installs it detects that my monitor has default resolution of 1600x1200, which is correct, BUT - those 9pt fonts it sets, together with its 96 DPI default setting - this stuff made me REALLY conisdering trying out leopard next year. yes, I am seriously pissed off. if anyone at MS can hear me - you guys can shove your 96 DPI and 9pt fonts you-know-where.

I'm checking out Leopard next year and if it is at least half decent working with high resolution monitors like my 1600x1200 professional NEC - I'm ditching MS for sure. I'll leave PC for games but I'll try to stay as much as I can in OS X, doing MS Office work and stuff like that. time is out Microsoft, I've been living with XP on 1600x1200 FIVE years, and after these FIVE YEARS I see SAME #UCKING TINY fonts? screw you billy and your buddies. eat your own dogfood alright - I know you don't have 1600x1200 monitors at work, you all use 1280x1024 lcds cause you're cheap, but you guys could AT LEAST try to test your lovely Vista on 1600x1200.

and don't tell me to increase DPI - why would I do that is my monitor IS 96 dpi? or why would I do that if vista apps and windows turn into mess? did you try to set custom DPI to say 192? jeeez no way I'm trying any of that "resolution independent" bluff - it does not exist.

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RE: damn

By squeezee on 11/16/2006 9:45:53 PM , Rating: 2

Get glasses.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/16/06, Rating: -1

RE: damn

By tuteja1986 on 11/17/2006 1:47:45 AM , Rating: 1

I ain't so worried about GUI bugs , i am just hopping Windows Vista is secure and stable. None of the software i use work on leopard except for WOW.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/17/06, Rating: -1

RE: damn

By MuskBassist on 11/16/2006 11:07:08 PM , Rating: 4

There's a difference between bugs and rants.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/17/06, Rating: -1

RE: damn

By protosv on 11/17/2006 7:57:50 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
I know you don't have 1600x1200 monitors at work, you all use 1280x1024 lcds cause you're cheap

Funny how things change over the years. I remember the days when a 14" color monitor (that's 256 colors) running at 640x480 was absolutely breathtaking. I mean....COLOR!!!!!!...and it's not just green/orange!!!!

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RE: damn

By glennpratt on 11/17/2006 3:15:14 PM , Rating: 3

Just change the DPI. Because of your post, I just changed mine in Vista RC2 and it looks great. I won't leave it here, because it does muck up a few websites, but thats the fault of the sites. Use highter DPI + Opera's zoom feature and you can work great with high res. and bad eyes. I wont be leaving it here because 1280x1024 on a 17" LCD at 96 dpi is just right for me. If I wanted more pixels, I'd go bigger.

FYI, OS X defaults to 72 dpi, so PT for PT, your fonts will be smaller in OS X.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/17/06, Rating: -1

By Pirks on 11/17/2006 4:25:20 PM , Rating: -1

I changed dpi and some window layouts in vista went totally awry - it's always fonts that don't fit the panes and there is no such thing as layout manager in there to accomodate for dpi/font changes. windows look as if one changed the font inside bot forgot everything else, so letters now look half or quarter rendered, sometimes I can see only a corner or a tail of a letter - what an ugly picture!

btw ie7 can zoom stuff now just like opera, so no need for opera at least for now

try a 1600x1200 21" screen with default 96 dpi and tell me how you like it. 1280x960 looks barely bearable to me, but not 1600x1200.

the part with macos was about its future ability to scale UI in a vector/pixel-independent way. ever heard of vector aero glass thingy that was dropped from Vista as well as all the other stuff? this is where apple is gonna hit ms next :P

and for you my dear downmodding clowns - you screw yourself in a wrong hole every time you downmod me. I just love watching my rating go down - everytime I see my rating coming to -1 I feel how many holes were screwed the rough way today - this warms my cockles, really. please go on my poor clowns, continue screwing yourself, I'll miss the action if you miss your favorite downmod buton ;)

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RE: damn

By liquidninja13 on 11/17/2006 9:04:50 PM , Rating: 2

i have an HP 21" monitor at work and run 1600X1200 in vista with all the other settings at default and sometimes i think the fonts are too big...but i have no vision problems. Overall I like everything ive played with in vista but it has taken a little getting used to...now to get my boss to buy me a better video card so i can test out games on it :-P

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/18/06, Rating: 0

RE: damn

By glennpratt on 11/17/2006 9:08:33 PM , Rating: 2

A 21" LCD at 1600x1200? That would be great... CRT? My mom (She's 50+) uses this. It's really starting to sound like you have bad eyesight.

Programs written correctly can handle DPI changes, regardless of weather they use vector rendering. I used Vista all day today at 120dpi and it was fine. I guess if your anal it has a few quirks, but it was fully usable.

Assuming Leopard delivers, it won't be backwards compatible, your old programs will either look the same or have some ugly scaling. New programs that are witten specifically for it will be great, but it wont be the default.

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RE: damn

By Pirks on 11/18/2006 4:41:27 PM , Rating: 1

speaking of leopard that might be correct, that's why I said I won't buy a shitty mac box, I gonna get some hackintosh magic done and see what this leopard monster is about - you know, testing how it scales when I change dpi or phonts, testing whether it ignores my font settings just like vista and xp (see above) or actually honors them - stuff like that. get real ppl - noone just buys mac and dumps MS like a rich idiot - smart guys TEST things before wallet-voting ;)

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RE: damn

By imaheadcase on 11/16/2006 10:28:35 PM , Rating: 2

I can't get Vista RC2 to ever shut down, or restart from menu. The icons start to disappear in taskbar but never shuts down. Thats the only major bug i've seen with RC2. This is the 3rd computer I tried Vista on and can't get it to shut down without turning off power to case. weird.

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