Microsoft Giving Away Vista Ultimate, With a Catch

Opinari writes "In case you haven't heard, Microsoft is giving away copies of Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit DVD), Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, Microsoft Money Plus Premium, Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008, or Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 — you can choose any one. The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program."

Comments

Re:Upon further digging

[HadesInjustice]

I am sorry if I am a chemical engineer and not a EE or CS major. But if what you said is true, then the RAM usage on a perfectly new computer with Vista shouldn't used up around 500mb of RAM either, but they are. Also, if it already cache the information, then how come every time I open Firefox or Winamp, I see a clear jump in my RAM memory? What I mean is...why is it that Vista sit at idle at around ~500mb, and the moment I open firefox (which I have been using on a daily basis for months), it jump to around 650-700mb? If it is already cached, shouldn't it stay relatively constant?

Make it productive.

[rantingkitten]

Why not install this on a couple VMs (or actual machines sitting around) and then install all kinds of free software on it? Let them chew on the fact that so many people, straight away after installing, go get Firefox and Open Office and GIMP and VLC and Thunderbird and Pidgin.. and never bother using IE or Office or whatever else. Make sure they also see all the useless services you disable and how quickly you can shut off UAC.

Impossible to unsubscribe

[FliesLikeABrick]

I tried to sign up so that I could run my free XP in a virtual machine with this spy software of theirs and see exactly what kind of stuff it reports. I didn't realize they were out of "gifts" and completed their survey before realizing this. I went through the survey and answered their questions honestly, saying that I use Linux and never use Windows anymore. 5 minutes later, I wanted to remove myself from their database for this so that I don't get e-mails in the future related to it when I have no involvement with it whatsoever... being that they had no more software to give out and all.

I looked on their FAQ page and found conflicting information. Two separate sections saying to send a blank e-mail to two different e-mail addresses with 'remove' in the subject. I e-mailed both, and what did I get in return?

I did that. What did I get back? Two NDRs for separate reasons:

: host maila.microsoft.com[131.107.115.212] said: 550
        5.7.1 (in reply to end of DATA command)

-- and --

: host maila.microsoft.com[131.107.115.212] said: 550
        5.1.1 User unknown (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Good one MS, you never cease to amaze me!

Re:Which is the catch?

[Linker3000]

Glad you're not having hassles with Vista. I have just got Vista Business on a laptop at work, making a total of 3 Vista laptops in our organisation:

Laptop 1 is mine (for supporting Vista). Yesterday I installed Adobe Acrobat 8.1 - the installer told me approximate install time was 160 minutes and it was not lying. The other day I installed another app and the same thing happened - several hours elapsed while a single app was installing. When the machine comes out of standby, it occasionally will go slow for about 10 mins (I have 1.2GB RAM). The wifi switch/LED didn't work properly until a driver update was applied.

Laptop 2 is in marketing. The user is currently sitting in their car to be outside our wireless zone because she's trying to finish tidying a mailshot spreadsheet and the laptop keeps freezing. She was working OK on two other sites yesterday where there was no wireless so she's testing the theory that it's network-related. Her wifi switch won't turn off the adaptor reliably and it also works in reverse - when the LED is ON, the wifi is OFF and vice versa - even though the switch event handler puts on the screen 'wireless on' and 'wireless off' the right way round.

Laptop 3 has just been brought in because it stopped making RDP connections and I have just had to hack the registry.

I am totally neutral when it comes to Vista - I don't love it or hate it, but user experience in our office has been poor; there's too many 'rough edges' and annoying little habits - simple things like the power button options not including 'ask me what to do' and sometimes a USB mouse not being detected when plugged in etc. Overall, the support effort for just these 3 laptops is disproportionate compared to the 100-odd desktops, servers and other laptops (ranging from NT4 through 2000 to XP) we support.