Windows 7 Will Be Free For a Year

Barence writes "Microsoft is effectively giving away Windows 7 free for a year with the launch of the Release Candidate. The Release Candidate is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and will go on unlimited, general release on 5 May. The software will not expire until 1 June 2010, giving testers more than a year's free access to Windows 7. 'It's available to as many people who see fit to use it, although we wouldn't recommend it to just your average user,' John Curran, director of the Windows Client Group told PC Pro. 'We'd very strongly encourage anyone on the beta to move to the Release Candidate.'"

Comments

Good idea

[4D6963]

Sounds like a good idea to me! Can't think of anything wrong with it, but I trust someone will come up with something.

Re:Good idea

[platypussrex]

Didn't your mom warn you about that? "They give you one for free, and then when they have you hooked....wham!"

Re:Good idea

[sgbett]

Desperate Co. is desperate.

Re:Good idea

[just_another_sean]

OK, I'll bite.

This reminds of what Bill G. said about people illegally using Windows in China. MS would rather give you the first hit free
so you get hooked. When you come crawling back for more to feed your habit then they'll charge you for it.

Sorry but MS has violated the publics trust so many times I just can't ever see anything good in their marketing attempts.

Re:Good idea

[passionplay]

Did you miss the boat? This is called a loss-leader. It's designed to combat Linux by saturating the market with a "cost-free" variant of Windows, which makes the average user go get it. "It's Windows - it must be good. It's been around for years." Then once they have you hooked, they charge you for the rest because it costs you too much intellectually to use something else. The built-in expiry means that as of 2010, you have a few million guaranteed sales of people that have gotten addicted to their Windows 7 environment. This is how Dealers keep their Junkies at their mercy. See post #2. The first one is free. So that you come back and pay for more.

Re:Good idea

[frozentier]

Actually, to me it sounds more like confidence than desperation. They are expecting people to go out and pay for it AFTER using it for a year and deciding if they like it or not. Quite the opposite of going out and buying a new OS, then you're S.O.L. if you don't like it, and you've wasted $100+.

Re:Good idea

[noundi]

Oh so you really see no relation between adopting the biggest pro (for common users) of FOSS, thus making it free, and maintaining the dependency that's created when the majority uses a standard, so that in the end they may collect license fees from those depended. All this during an economic crisis, not to forget.

Did you even stop to think or did you just flamebait?

Re:Good idea

[ionix5891]

Windows a gateway drug?

Re:Good idea

[MouseR]

Marketing wise, I'm not so sure it's a good idea. Even though it's labeled as "not for everybody", this same group will install it and will have a whole year to complain and destroy any credibility this thing could have had.

I think it's a silly and quite risky move on MS' part.

Re:Good idea

[Kell Bengal]

First they start you on 7, then Windows Server and Vista, and before you know it you have a full install of Windows ME.

Re:Good idea

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

quoting lazarus long:

"Anything free is worth what you pay for it."

Re:Good idea

[marcello_dl]

Bad idea? It implies:
  - blogosphere ablaze with reviews. Just add a pinch of astroturfing.
  - free beta testing.
  - new users get familiar with the interface, it's time to move off xp.

I say this is a good move. Of course it would never have happened if linux weren't good on the desktop. Their management probably panicked seeing a flawless sidux install on hd in under 3 minutes or something like that.

Re:Good idea

[frozentier]

I don't think so (personal opinion here). I bought a new computer 2 months ago that had Vista preinstalled after using XP since it came out. So far for me Vista is every bit as stable as XP. People will download Windows 7 and they will either like it or they won't. If it sucks, it doesn't matter what people are using at the time, they won't switch. And if people are THAT desperate to get away from Vista, they can just go back to XP (something that I thought I would want to do when faced with buying a machine with Vista preinstalled).

Re:Good idea

[4D6963]

So? Good for them, right?

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Lazarus must have been talking about Linux.

Re:Good idea

[4D6963]

Did you even stop to think or did you just flamebait?

Wow, I can't believe the abysmallity of such comments. I'm talking about "good for Microsoft". Sorry I forgot for a minute that what was good for Microsoft was by definition bad for the whole of mankind, therefore making my characterisation as "good" ambiguous.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

No, my mother wasn't so stupid to believe that any drug dealer would actually give their shit away for free.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a good thing. Consider:

1/ User buys PC with Vista. Thinks Windows is free ('came with my PC')
2/ User not entirely happy with Vista for whatever reason or wants shiny new release.
3/ User upgrades to Win7
4/ User happy for 1 year.
5/ User has to pay $$$ to continue using Win7
6/ User now understands that Windows is *not* free.

Very educational.

Re:Good idea

[Gerzel]

ME if you're lucky. MS Bob if you're not.

Re:Good idea

[DaleGlass]

Microsoft doesn't need people to buy their OS. It's not like they have much of a choice anyway.

What they really need is to get people to stop replacing it with an older version, and to stop trying to get the older one on their new hardware.

Re:Good idea

[Amouth]

the only computer i have that is running vista - is my media center PC running ultimate because i really like the Windows Media Center - my wife can figure it out without ever having to ask me a questions - and while XP MCE was nice the vista version has alot of useful updates.

as for the actual vista OS/interface - it is truly annoying and exceptionaly frustrating the hardware requirements for it to run smooth.

i understand that new hardware is faster than older stuff but really

P4 2.8 with HT
2gb ddr 400
ATI 9600 pro
sata cd and hdd

why the hell is the start menu lagging? really it's pathetic.

Re:Good idea

[Rulian]

...or masturbation.

Re:Good idea

[Gerzel]

Except it is not free. It is no-charge for one year.

This is trial-ware. It isn't a free version of Windows.

As soon as that trial is up they will charge the users for the same amount and because very few people use a computer for just a single year the cost is the same over-all.

The word "Free" is just add jingle nothing more. Unlike FOSS where "Free" actually has a definition as in "You do not have to pay to use this software." Yes you may have to pay for training and help using the software but many people have to pay for that with Windows as well.

Re:Good idea

[ShieldW0lf]

Actually, to me it sounds more like confidence than desperation. They are expecting people to go out and pay for it AFTER using it for a year and deciding if they like it or not. Quite the opposite of going out and buying a new OS, then you're S.O.L. if you don't like it, and you've wasted $100+.

Its about getting developers to decide that the platform is worth developing software for. If developers decide due to low market penetration that Windows 7 is as appealing to write for as Mac OS9, the money train will end and Microsoft will most likely fail as a company.

Personally, I don't consider them to be particularly relevant anymore. The exciting new technology doesn't come from Microsoft anymore, and hasn't in years...

Re:Good idea

[Nick Fel]

I don't think they're going to win any extra sales directly. The type of people who install Release Candidates are the type of people who will always have the latest operating system anyway. More likely they're just sweetening the deal to increase the number of bloggers out there building up hype.

Re:Good idea

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

Please elaborate on lagging? My guess is since it is dynamic, your harddrive is slow.

Re:Good idea

[jedidiah]

> the only computer i have that is running vista - is my media center PC running
> ultimate because i really like the Windows Media Center - my wife can figure
> it out without ever having to ask me a questions - and while XP MCE was nice
> the vista version has alot of useful updates.

Yeah, but is this something that would be a problem with any PVR?

Would you still be doing all the driving if this were a Tivo?

Small children take to PVR software when spouses just flee in terror.

Re:Good idea

[Danse]

Personally, I don't consider them to be particularly relevant anymore. The exciting new technology doesn't come from Microsoft anymore, and hasn't in years...

Yeah, but it's kind of hard to consider having ~90% of the market to be irrelevant. They may not be the hip new thing, but they're definitely relevant to most people.

Re:Good idea

[amoeba1911]

I heard MS Bob makes your teeth rot fall out, and makes disfiguring lesions on your face.

Re:Good idea

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

For some values of flawless. Seriously though, I doubt linux has much to do with it. MS is still mostly competing with XP and since Win7 doesn't have the negativity associated with it that Vista did, its a logical extension to get it out there more so that all the "Ooooh!@! Shiney@!@!" Tech Geeks can recommend it to their friends.

Re:Good idea

[PopeRatzo]

This is trial-ware.

No, it is a Release Candidate for an OS.

I bet you understand the difference.

Re:Good idea

[Amouth]

lagging is in the sence of

click and wait oh shit there it is..

click desktop..

click and wait oh shit there it is..

it has nothing to do with the hdd as everything it needs is cached in memory.

it has everything to do with the shiny interface being poorly written.

Re:Good idea

[bonch]

Old meme is old.

Re:Good idea

[c-reus]

7/ User goes to Piratebay and downloads Win7

Re:Good idea

[Saint Gerbil]

People have been saying that for years since 95 (maybe before).

If you look at the differences then you can see the evolution, Every version is criticised for being too like the last.
Lets face if it was given a massive overhaul every 4 years then people wouldnt use since the learning curve would be too great.

Re:Good idea

[ShieldW0lf]

Yeah, but it's kind of hard to consider having ~90% of the market to be irrelevant. They may not be the hip new thing, but they're definitely relevant to most people.

They're like people who run NN4... things don't work right, but they're used to it and consider it par for the course, so they don't complain about it. You don't actually develop for them, you just tack some sort of accommodation in as an afterthought to make sure it's functional enough for them to access it. They're not really that relevant.

I don't know very many people in this age who don't own a television, but it too is not particularly relevant anymore, and in the same fashion.

Re:Good idea

[eheldreth]

I would agree but I don't think it's confidence in there product. I would argue it's confidence in there understanding of the market. Your average human is opposed to change on an almost instinctual level. Most people who try the "Great free OS Microsoft is giving me, for free even" will find it good enough that they will live with any issues and buy W7 instead of looking for a better alternative. Why you ask, because they are use to it. If one of the mathhletes roaming this board set there mind to it they could probably write a formula to determine point at which humans on average will suffer change to correct discomfort. Windows 7 will most likely fall just below that tipping point.

Re:Good idea

[PopeRatzo]

Of course it would never have happened if linux weren't good on the desktop.

Yes, it's "good on the desktop" but there are still quite a few important applications for which there is no Linux app that can do the job. This is especially true in the area of media production.

I would have switched to Linux long ago if there was any possible way I could get my work done on it. In fact, every time there's a new version of Ubuntu Studio, I try it out on a machine in my studio that's just for that purpose. And every time, I realize that there is simply no Linux substitute for the most critical apps I use. And I'm not talking about something that's so esoteric for there not to be a market. There are more than a dozen companies that produce DAW applications for Mac and/or Windows, for example: Steinberg, Cakewalk, Propellerheads, MOTU, bias, Cockos, Avid, Sony, Native Instruments, MAGIX, Ableton, and hundreds of companies who create virtual instruments to use in these DAWs.

How many of them have apps for Linux? Maybe one. How many of those apps for Linux actually work? Maybe none. Cockos' Reaper makes interesting use of Linux machines for offloading resource-hungry processes like rendering, so I can make use that Linux machine, but it is impossible for a professional media producer to use Linux exclusively. And if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of "amateur" or hobbyist media producers, which platform are you going to choose? One on which you can produce something or one on which you cannot.

A similar accounting can be had for video production. So, if Linux is going to make any inroads into this small but important market, professional developers are going to have to be persuaded to develop for Linux.

I'm a broken record about this, but there is a significant need for another professional, well-funded OS in the personal computing market. The need might not be so great if Apple were to produce an OS that was not proprietary to their own hardware. If they can make a "non-iPhone" iPhone for Verizon to sell, then they can produce a "non-Macintosh" OSX. As well capitalized and run as Apple is, they'd clobber Windows. If Apple had such an OS on the shelves last year when Vista was tanking, they would own the PC OS market today. Instead they continue to target elitists and fashionistas. They'll stay rich, god bless them, but as consumers we have to think about what we need, not just brand loyalty.

Re:Good idea

[theillien]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not so I'm going to err on the side of: Heaven forbid your sys admin know what he or she is doing.

Re:Good idea

[theillien]

Actually, to me it sounds more like confidence than desperation. They are expecting people to go out and pay for it AFTER using it for a year and deciding if they like it or not.

Microsoft taking the shareware approach? Possibly.

Re:Good idea

[Anpheus]

Summary:

Whine, whine, whine, I want free stuff, gimme free stuff, I guess guys like me don't deserve free stuff, so because I'm not getting anything for free I'm not gonna spend anything. TAKE THAT M$FT. It's total bullshit that you won't support a nine year old product and continue to sell it INDEFINITELY! TOTAL BULL MAN.

My 02c, YMMV.

Re:Good idea

[theillien]

8/???

Re:Good idea

[Runaway1956]

While the "gateway drug" thing is being joked about, it isn't very far off target. The first exclusivity contract was signed with manufacturers, because MS understood that once the relatively low "learning curve" was behind a user, that user is unlikely to look at the higher learning curve necessary to learn *nix.

Let us remember that MS is a "for profit" corporation. Every decision is calculated to make money in the long run. Sometimes the decision is right, sometimes it is wrong, but it is always calculated to seperate you from your money.

Re:Good idea

[TheDauthi]

I was thinking it was a gateway bug

Re:Good idea

[evilkasper]

Having spent some time with both 7 beta and Vista, there really wasn't that big of a difference. It had some added eye candy and was purported to be more stable, but I run Vista 64 Ultimate... which has not had as many of the stability issues as some of the other versions of Vista. Granted I haven't bean able to spend anytime with the RC but I doubt it will be altogether to much different than the Beta.

Re:Good idea

[Kleen13]

Don't get me started on either... Windows OR Gateway.

Re:Good idea

[nine-times]

The only thing is, I've had Vista on a testing machine since its first public beta, just so I can track the progress they're making with it. I put the first public beta of Windows 7 on my laptop and used it for a while. Both are... fine.

But then I had a problem with my laptop and so I wiped it out and reinstalled Windows XP. You know what? I didn't have any problems in downgrading. What I mean is, there wasn't anything after downgrading where I said, "Shoot, I wish I could do this, but XP doesn't have that functionality, so I need to upgrade again." At least not so far.

If Microsoft wants me to pay for an upgrade, they're going to have to show me something more than what I've seen so far.

Re:Good idea

[evilkasper]

Turns out I read it here http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/11/238222&art_pos=1

Re:Good idea

[3dr]

No, this is trial-ware. We are not confusing "trial" with "beta", as I think you are implying.

MS lets a user try it without paying the cost up-front, and after one year the user decides whether it's worth it or not, then pays up (or not).

This exact practice is what has been posted to Slashdot many, many times before: "I won't purchase XYZ 2.0 until I can try it out in full."

Re:Good idea

[Hambone_dot_exe]

Apologies -- I had to read that twice in order to not read "confidence" as "confidence game."

Re:Good idea

[McNihil]

More importantly it will give virus/worm/trojan writers more time to poke a big hole in w7... and for free and from the get go.

So lets say this malware will be at a holding place until w7 goes pay for play... and then whammo... big big trouble.

IMHO the move is idiotic (Microsoft being a for profit organization and all... deferring 1 year of revenue? no not a biggie with stock holders if they have any brains.) no matter how confident they are in their software.

Yes it stinks of hubris.

Re:Good idea

[peragrin]

good admins who know what they are doing(windows , Linux, etc) are more expensive. So for a company to afford more sever and desktop licenses MSFT engineers Windows to be admined by monkeys banging on keyboards.

The ones who can also shout "developers" while banging on their keyboards. Become help desk techicains. The monkeys who can do all of the above and fling their own poo join MSFT marketing.

Seriously though Windows is setup by bad wannabe admins because MSFT marketing has convinced CEO's that anyone can do it.

Re:Good idea

[mrdoogee]

8/ Profit?

Re:Good idea

[mrdoogee]

Also:

GAMES GAMES GAMES. Until there is an open source DirectX OR game developers decide to use openGL, I will use Vista/Win7. Its not that I have any real affinity for Microsoft, but as long as they make the OS that my games run on, I'll use their OS.

I do use Linux on my servers, but that's where *NIX shines, why people still try to make it a desktop OS is beyond me.

Re:Good idea

[nightglider28]

More work? There are gui's for almost any admin tool.
More knowledge? God forbid you know how to do your job.

Re:Good idea

[nurb432]

Its a little of both.

Re:Good idea

[toetagger]

You just contradicted yourself! First you say that people don't have a choice, and follow up by pointing out that people choose to use older versions... Interestingly enough, MS not only wants to control the source, but also the installed instance. How long before they control you? Oh wait...

Re:Good idea

[maxume]

I think you underestimate how lazy and uninterested non enthusiasts are. And let's be clear, they comprise the majority of the home market (and the closer someone is to being an enthusiast, the less likely they are to get confused by the situation).

Re:Good idea

[ShieldW0lf]

It's a light but true example that Microsoft still holds the game. And no matter how Mac users may cry the end of Microsoft day and night, it wont be the mac and its "exciting new technology" that will be the catalyst, it will be Linux.

Ubuntu passed the "mom" test, it passed the "daughter" test, it passed the "wife" test, it passed the "13 year old who likes games" test, it passed the "professional developer" test, it passed the "professional designer" test, and it passed the "visitor using the computer" test.

Personally, the only reason I use Windows anymore is because I have to run Selenium tests against IE. I consider it a highly overpriced pain in the ass that acts as a barrier to getting work done.

Re:Good idea

[drinkypoo]

They are expecting people to go out and pay for it AFTER using it for a year and deciding if they like it or not.

They are expecting people to go out and pay for it AFTER using it for a year supporting vendor lock-in. There, fixed that for you.

Re:Good idea

[B1oodAnge1]

9/ PROFIT!!!!!

Re:Good idea

[drinkypoo]

Sorry I forgot for a minute that what was good for Microsoft was by definition bad for the whole of mankind, therefore making my characterisation as "good" ambiguous.

That's okay, just don't let it happen again.

Re:Good idea

[MrPhilby]

Also Outlook/PDA/Activesync and Autocad. I wish it wasn't so, truly I do.

Re:Good idea

[DaleGlass]

No, I didn't. Microsoft doesn't need to get people to buy their OS. But they need them to run it.

Most people don't go into a shop and buy Windows. The vast majority of OS sales are going to be from OEMs. So Microsoft loses very little by letting everybody have it for free. I'm pretty sure there will be something that will stop OEMs from taking advantage of that, so they will still pay.

What MS does desperately need is for people to want to use it. Because if people keep resisting and asking for XP, then OEMs will keep demanding XP, and enough of them will be powerful enough to force MS to keep providing it. If that happens, then Win7 really isn't going to sell, and that's going to look very bad on the financial reports.

So it's very much in MS's interest to convince people that Win7 is going to be great, by giving it away for free even, if that prevents people from demanding XP with their new computers.

Re:Good idea

[toetagger]

Why do you assume that someone who will use Windows 7 for free will actually think that its great? It's not like SP2 will be out, all major software will be compatible, and most or all software takes advantage of the new capabilities to the fullest extend during the first year.... Maybe that's what MS wants to happen, but history tells us it won't. But you have a point: Someone who will gladly become an early adopter by getting the product for free, will be unlikely to pay extra for the "downgrade" on their new hardware... So in short, MS is educating the population to expect a buggy, unripe product, as long as its free or doesn't cost any extra. What would be the best way for Linux to compete for this market? I think we are going to get more focus on quality and capability in the future, instead of the "price" or "cost" discussions. This will be the demise of crappy windows, one way or the other!

Re:Good idea

[Patch86]

Well, I'm not sure about that. Desperate is probably too far, but confidence it is not.

It's standard shareware tactics. Give someone a free trial, they're more likely to pay you for it in the long run.

It's a sign of the times that Microsoft feel they need to change their tactics, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. As much as I'm not a fan of MS, it does sound like a clever move.

Re:Good idea

[geekboy642]

Again, ~90% of the market.
If I could put that in bold 72pt flashing courier, I would. You cannot not develop for 90% of the market because you don't like their OS. This (the unwarranted elitism) is a sickness, and it's endemic to the free software community. Whether or not you like Windows/Microsoft makes precisely zero difference. If you want to be mainstream, you cater to those in the mainstream. If you want to be a pathetic niche, that's fine, nobody will stop you. But when your tunnel vision gets so strong that you equate people using the dominant PC/OS setup as "not really that relevant", you harm yourself, and you harm everyone that tries to rely on the work you do.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you have the knowledge, running Linux on servers is really no different than anything else.

I also tend to think overall it is less work.

But like anything different, you just have to take the time to learn it. And when you do, it's really easy to configure and maintain.

I would bet that you started with Windows and so did all your incremental learning on Windows. Then, in switching to Linux, or taking on Linux boxes, you had a lot to learn.

I would argue that if you started with Linux and did all of your incremental learning on Linux, then taking on running a Windows server would seem just as much work to come up to speed.

Re:Good idea

[sgbett]

depends why you have MCE, but have you looked at popcorn hour?

if its for watching 'server-content' then a winner is you.

if you want 'livetv' then move swiftly along. sorry for wasting your time.

Re:Good idea

[aardwolf64]

Ok... Here it goes:

1. They offer you Windows 7 RC free for a year
2. You download and upgrade your machine
3. 1 year later, the install expires and you have to purchase Windows 7
4. Microsoft sells you Windows 7 Basic for $999
5. Profit!!!

Re:Good idea

[Joe U]

I'm mixed on my laptop. I had XP, installed Vista and used it for a while, and it was fine, but occasionally sluggish. Readyboost helped slightly.

After my HDD died, I went and installed XP again, and I'll be honest. I missed some things in Vista, but you're right, nothing was compelling me to upgrade.

When Windows 7 Beta came out, I tried it on the laptop, and it was about equal to XP, so it's staying for now. I honestly think this laptop will die with Windows 7 on it (it's now 4+ years old) and not XP.

Re:Good idea

[geekmux]

Microsoft doesn't need people to buy their OS. It's not like they have much of a choice anyway.

What they really need is to get people to stop replacing it with an older version, and to stop trying to get the older one on their new hardware.

Step #1. Make an OS that doesn't suck so hard it makes a porn star blush.

Step #2. Wipe, Rinse, Reboot, and Repeat.

Re:Good idea

[arcsine]

Uh Ram. At least this will always be an issue with me. The ~3.5 limit is rather constricting and will be even more so in another year. Yes there is xp 64, but it lacks support in drivers.

Re:Good idea

[vk2]

I don't think so (personal opinion here). I bought a new computer 2 months ago that had Vista preinstalled after using XP since it came out. So far for me Vista is every bit as stable as XP. People will download Windows 7 and they will either like it or they won't. If it sucks, it doesn't matter what people are using at the time, they won't switch. And if people are THAT desperate to get away from Vista, they can just go back to XP (something that I thought I would want to do when faced with buying a machine with Vista preinstalled).

You need to upgrade your wife to wife 2.0 or something.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't confidence in W& as a product at all. It is confidence in the fact that once people install it and have it for a year, most won't go back to de-install and re-install XP or Vista--it's just too much trouble. IT is the same reason they bundled IE with Windows--not because they were confident in the product, but the opposite: they knew most people take the path of least resistance, in this being 'free'.

Re:Good idea

[DaleGlass]

Why do you assume that someone who will use Windows 7 for free will actually think that its great?

I don't, it's just my guess of how this is supposed to work for MS. I'm actually a 100% Linux user.

I figure that they think many of those people who don't want Vista never tried it, and simply heard negative opinions from friends. That sort of thing doesn't exactly make you want to pay for it to see if maybe your friends were wrong. So giving it away for free might help people get to try it and see if they like it.

Of course that will only work if it's actually a decent OS.

Re:Good idea

[theillien]

8/ Profit?

That would be 9/

;)

Re:Good idea

[Danse]

They're like people who run NN4... things don't work right, but they're used to it and consider it par for the course, so they don't complain about it.

Big difference between running legacy software like NN4 and Windows Vista and Office 2007. The vast majority of the market is running either XP or Vista right now. Hardly comparable to NN4. The kind of people you're referring to would still be running something like Windows 95, 98, or ME.

Re:Good idea

[TheThiefMaster]

Which drivers?

XP x64 has been my primary/gaming PC's OS (through three (IIRC) PC parts upgrades) since MS did the free XP to XP x64 upgrade for people with "64 bit" PCs which only had a 32-bit XP on.

Driver support is pretty awesome. Even my no-brand webcam works.

Re:Good idea

[lilo_booter]

I would argue that in today's economic climate, they really do want people to buy the OS - people are less inclined to buy new hardware at the moment and as a result, their normal market has shrunk.

Back with windows 95 and 98, they did pretty well shifting shrink wrap boxes, and I would imagine they'd like to recreate that if they can... giving a year's 'free use' seems like a fairly sane attempt to do that, especially in light of the kick back against vista.

Re:Good idea

[Prof.Phreak]

I think he said something along the lines of: MS hates it when Windows is pirated, but if an OS has to be pirated, they'd rather it be Windows.

Re:Good idea

[iamacat]

As soon as that trial is up they will charge the users for the same amount and because very few people use a computer for just a single year the cost is the same over-all.

I beg to differ. Say, bank CD interest is 3%, which is on par with inflation. Say, also, that you carry some credit balance with interest rate of 15%. If you pay $500 to Microsoft now, you are out $575 (or 557 inflation-adjusted) a year later. If you save the money to pay off the credit card, you are only out $500, $485 adjusting for inflation, or $90 post-inflation better off than if you paid right away. Consider also:

1. If you are hard-core honest, you would save $270 for your two desktops and one laptop.
2. If you are a business with 100K seats, you are saving $9M!
3. This doesn't even take into the account that you can always spends $0 at the end of the year if you don't like the OS or your financial situation changes.

Never pay before you have to! 0% interest for 6 months, charge free installment payments etc are all good as long as you do remember to pay on time when the money is due.

Re:Good idea

[Dogtanian]

So? Good for them, right?

Quite possibly. Of more relevance is whether it's good for the rest of us.

Re:Good idea

[PhxBlue]

Microsoft doesn't need people to buy their OS. It's not like they have much of a choice anyway.

Actually, they do: they can stick with the Windows OS they're using now -- they don't have to upgrade. Vista's failure to penetrate the market illustrates that point. Windows' primary competition these days is itself.

What they really need is to get people to stop replacing it with an older version, and to stop trying to get the older one on their new hardware.

In other words, Microsoft does need people to buy their OS.

Re:Good idea

[hairyfeet]

Why I'm being labeled flamebait for daring to point out that the popular myth of "If I buy Vista now I won't have to buy Win7 in six months" is wrong, but what I was trying to point out was that by making it so OEM gets Win7 for free, and ONLY OEMs, it has made the system builders and mom & pop shops avoid Vista like the plague. Why? Because of The Osborne effect , that's why.

Why in the nine hells would I want to give MSFT MORE money than the OEMs do, just to get screwed and have to go buy another OS for full price in 6 months while they get it for free? Does that make ANY sense? And let us not kid ourselves, Vista has been a PR nightmare for MSFT, and the second Win7 comes out they will drop it like a bastard stepchild. Just look what they did with WinME, which was the last PR disaster they had. Sure they SAID they would support it for 5 years, but how many service packs did you see for WinME? How much stuff did you see coming out for WinME after MSFT released XP? Pretty much zip. Anyone who buys a non OEM Vista right now would have to be nuts, because MSFT is going to dump that turkey so fast it will make your head swim.

So mark me flamebait all you want, I got more karma to burn than I know what to do with anyway. I WANT Windows 7, and I would be happy to pay them for it NOW by buying Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit. But they don't want my money, because if I bought a lousy Dell box I would get it free in six months, if I actually bought system builders or even retail I wouldn't. So by giving MSFT MORE money than the OEMs do(which is estimated to be around $50-$70 for Home Premium) I would get LESS than they get. Does that make ANY sense? Why on earth would I want to pay more for less? All they have done by limiting this program to their buddies at HP and Dell is make sure all the mom and pop shops like mine that build and sell PCs wouldn't touch Vista with a ten foot barge pole.

I have tried Vista, I find it irritating. I have also tried Win7, and like it. But by limiting this to a few of their buddies instead of all who buy Vista now they are saying "we don't want you. We think we want their business but not yours" which is fine. I will just use this Windows XP disc that I have had sitting in a drawer for years and MSFT loses more sales when their numbers are already down. Not a very smart move if you ask me, especially when it could drive sales of an unpopular OS.

Re:Good idea

[Kbac]

Hi, My name is Kbac and... I have been... MS Bob free for... three weeks now.

Re:Good idea

[knails]

Hey, I *like* Vista, and the little I've used of 7 (roommate installed a beta build a few months ago) it looks great and I'd have no issues running it. Plus 7 fixes most of the issues that people had with vista at launch (uses same drivers as vista, alters and calms down the UAC), so I'm exited for it.

Re:Good idea

[Amouth]

we use it for live pause/pay multi tuner/chan recording of single shows or movies or complete series.

one thing that is very nice about MCE is it comes with a lifetime subscription for Guide programing that is completely built in and works very very well. put in zip code - then provider (if you have an option) and then pick plan - and 99% of what you need is done. including full support for HD chans and SD chans and again multi tunner.

Re:Good idea

[wall0159]

If it's Free, then how can it expire?

Re:Good idea

[4D6963]

Like I said, good for them. I don't get why anyone just feels compelled to detail precisely what I was talking about as if I had said the opposite.

Re:Good idea

[4D6963]

Not really.

Re:Good idea

[4D6963]

Free has more than one meaning you know?

Re:Good idea

[n0tWorthy]

No different than the 2008 server DVD I have that runs for a year after install EXCEPT that this is a RC and you will want to do a fresh install when the final release comes out. Many MS products will run for 6 months or a year without a license key so that large IT departments can get them through the project development cycle and up to a purchasing decision. W7 is just another tool in the toolbox but it has the lowest learning curve and the most vendor supported products of all the major OS releases so it will win. It also has the simplest application integration of all these OSes. If Linux ever gets decent documentation (most how-tos absolutely suck) plus an integrated directory service and Apple decides to price reasonably and let in some more vendors then we could see a change.

Re:Good idea

[AmberBlackCat]

My first thought was first they start you on Windows 7, then they tell you after a year you have to pay, and then the next year they tell you you have to renew your subscription... Kind of a way to get people dependent on it and then force them into a subscription model. But now it seems it's just a beta test so maybe that's irrelevant.

Re:Good idea

[mdwh2]

All the while people are paying for those XP licences, I don't see why Microsoft would care - indeed, that's actually a brilliant position to be in, something that most software companies would envy: to have people continually buying your old product, without you having to constantly struggle to add new features or otherwise encourage new sales.

I guess the reason why Microsoft continue to innovate is because even though XP may be a cash cow for them, they realise that it will not always be so.

Re:Good idea

[mdwh2]

Personally, I don't consider them to be particularly relevant anymore.

I think the comment up above summed it up perfectly: "The geek looks in the mirror and thinks that he is representative of the mass consumer market".

The exciting new technology doesn't come from Microsoft anymore, and hasn't in years...

I would say the opposite - in the 80s and 90s, there was nothing exciting coming from Microsoft, and they were years behind innovators such as Commodore. But since then, rightly or wrongly, they've died away and Microsoft have become dominant - yet thankfully, in the 2000s they've got their act together and shipped decent products. Windows has been decent since 2000; I've moved from Borland C++ to Visual Studio (Visual Studio 6 was crappy, but since 2005 has been a great product), and recently I finally started DirectX programming instead of OpenGL.

Sure, there are niche alternatives to Microsoft still around, and good luck to those who use them, but nothing to persuade me away from Windows now. The only notable exception I think where Microsoft lag behind is in web browers, where innovation comes from companies like Opera, and the features only end up in IE a few years later.

Re:Good idea

[mdwh2]

Comparing to NN4 is a highly misleading analogy! The stereotype about "people who still run NN4" came about when NN4 was old, and only used by a small number of people, and when newer browsers such as IE 6 and later Opera were available. Suggesting that this is comparable to people who run Vista is ludicrous.

Back in the days when most people ran NN4, are you telling me that they shouldn't have? Were you huddled over your IE 3, telling yourself "It doesn't matter than everyone else runs NN4, it's not relevant"?

They're not really that relevant.

I am not sure what definition of "relevant" you are using. Ignoring NN4 when it was the mainstream browser would have been foolish. Suggesting that any recent version of Windows (yes even 2000, which has more users than Linux for example) is not relevant in the same way as NN4 is ludicrous.

I don't know very many people in this age who don't own a television, but it too is not particularly relevant anymore, and in the same fashion.

In what sense is television not relevant today? And wait - a television is owned by most people, whilst NN4 is used by hardly anyone, and both are not relevant "in the same fashion"? I'm very confused here...

Re:Good idea

[mdwh2]

OOI, do you view all companies as drug dealers for using capitalist means to get people interested in their products, or is it only Microsoft that are bad for doing this?

(And why only talk about drug dealers - do you hate it when bars have a happy hour too?)

Re:Good idea

[fwarren]

Yes, it's "good on the desktop" but there are still quite a few important applications for which there is no Linux app that can do the job. This is especially true in the area of media production.

Lucky for us, that is only a few percent of the Windows PC market. Even at that WINE is getting better at running Photoshop.

Re:Good idea

[gangien]

having been through high school.. i'm wondering about 2 things..

what makes you think a drug dealer wouldn't be stupid?

and i'm wondering why giving you a free sample would be stupid?

Re:Good idea

[sopssa]

Modded for troll, wtf? I know slashdot is open source community, but if you think about it, this is the perfect way for MS to go with their business. Its the reality, and it hurts.

Re:Good idea

[hairyfeet]

THANK YOU! And the MSFT fanboys can keep marking me down all you want, I got karma to last until judgment day. But nobody seems to be addressing my point. I buy a shitty Dell(where MSFT gets MAYBE $50 on a sale) and I get Win7 free. Same with a shitty Compaq, or HP, or eMachine. I actually give them double that or even 4 1/2 times that and I get....screwed.

WTF? Does this make ANY business sense? Show me any other corp where paying double or quadruple gets you screwed, whereas paying them almost nothing gets you the good. This is like the Chewbacca defense, in that it makes no sense! There are a LOT of system builders out there. Gamer shops, boutique builders, mom & pop shops, etc. If I give my customers Vista in six months they are going to be abandoned, and I will have no way to get them off the dead OS, as guys like me aren't given the upgrade even though we are paying more cash than the OEMs are. If I give them WinXP, because of its popularity in business and home I can be assured that they will at least get security updates until 2014, by which time they will be ready for me to build them a new one anyway.

Now, why would I actually want Vista NOW for me or my customers? We all saw with WinME how many security holes and just plain bugs were left to rot when MSFT dumped it for XP. Considering that MSFT has lost a LOT more cash on Vista than WinME, and it has been a total PR disaster to boot, what are the odds that they will actually bother fixing all the bugs when me and my customers got stuck on their dead end OS? From what I've seen in the past from MSFT, not very good.

This is what I meant by the Osborne effect. Everyone KNOWS that MSFT is going to dump Vista at the first opportunity. You know it, I know it, MSFT knows it. Instead of ending up with warehouses full of Vista discs they could actually SELL Vista, and get folks migrating away from WinXP now, by negating their fears of being dumped by giving them a pass on Win7. After all they have already given MSFT MORE money than the OEMs, right? Instead they are going to end up with warehouse full of Vista discs that are going to be more worthless than an AOL CD because everybody and his dog has seen the Win7 hoopla. And by making it so the OEMs and ONLY the OEMs get Win7 free, they have just made sure that those warehouses full of Vista discs will stay right where they are at. I repeat, this is a seriously dumb move when their numbers are down and they have piles of an unpopular OS they need to move.

Re:Good idea

[perryizgr8]

9/Profit!!

Re:Good idea

[Duggeek]

That "something" will be apparent by this time next year... or maybe even by the end of 1st Quarter, 2010.

I can think of several "ifs":

• If you pay to use "7", you get to keep using "7"
• If you don't pay to use "7", it stops. (just... stops... or... pop-up ads)
• If you think using 7-RC for a year will be pain-free, you've got another thing coming.
• If you think that you can just pop XP back in... remember activation? Guess what... no more.

Everyone's making a great joke of it; "Of course the first one's free, that's how they hook you!" In this case, getting "hooked" will mean installing "7" and using it right up to June 2010, while XP silently and gracefully disappeared from under you.

If WGA and MSupdate just "stop working" one day, that leaves XP in the lurch... with nothing to stave off the exploits that follow. MS has the perfect comeback for critics; "Why not try '7'... it's free?"

MS built the empire by being the first, and now they're playing catch-up. I am no sympathizer, but I can appreciate that—as a business—MS is hurting and the world is wondering if they will ever regain that dominance... give us the same kind of complacency that we had back in the 90's.

So yeah, the drug-dealer metaphor is apropos. Just make sure that when you install "7" you use it... don't let it use you.

Re:Good idea

[ignavus]

As well capitalized and run as Apple is, they'd clobber Windows.

Under-capitalized: apple.
Over-capitalized: APPLe.
Well-capitalized: Apple.

By gosh! You're right.

Re:Good idea

[Gerzel]

Prerelease trial-ware is still trial-ware. They are more advertising the product than testing it.

Re:Good idea

[gd23ka]

If an open source project wants to be more 'mainstream' they or someone else _ports_ it to Windows. Only
very few times and very far in between have I seen a substantial project targeting Windows, and then it
wasn't anything useful outside of Windows but a specific system tool or replacements for services
Windows lacks out of the box.

Again, people don't develop for windows, they _port_ to windows.

Re:Good idea

[hab136]

You cannot not develop for 90% of the market because you don't like their OS.

If you're a large software corporation (or hoping to be), I'd agree. This should be remembered every time someone complains about their favorite large coporation only writing for Windows.

However, if you're a small shop, that 10% looks mighty big!

There are a number of Mac or Linux-only shops that do quite well for themselves. They'll never be billion dollar corporations, but not everyone has to be (or wants to).

Re:Good idea

[setatakahashi]

If Microsoft wants me to pay for an upgrade, they're going to have to show me something more than what I've seen so far.

You won't pay for Windows. It will come "free" with your new computer. That's how the mass-market got their copy.

Re:Good idea

[saintlupus]

A similar accounting can be had for video production. So, if Linux is going to make any inroads into this small but important market, professional developers are going to have to be persuaded to develop for Linux.

Amen. I do everything at home on Linux, but my wife and I just bought a Mac Mini as an iMovie appliance. The media stuff just can't be beat on that platform.

(Yeah, Kino is nice for editing something down to thirty seconds to put on Youtube. But even putting together a decent home movie with it, let alone burning it out to DVD with menus and such, is painful.)

--saint

Re:Good idea

[ShieldW0lf]

Again, ~90% of the market. If I could put that in bold 72pt flashing courier, I would. You cannot not develop for 90% of the market because you don't like their OS.

Right. Cause if I do, I'll spontaneously burst into flames?

You're one of those people who says "communism doesn't work" even though most of the population lives that way, aren't you?

Re:Good idea

[Anpheus]

You're paying Microsoft more than the OEMs are?

Have you ever heard of bulk rates?

Trust me, you're not spending nearly enough.

Re:Good idea

[jedidiah]

Some aspects of a PVR are "diffucult" even when you are talking about a "proper appliance".

Like many things, it's useful to use more than just the "market leader" product. It allows you to better understand the problem and the challenges involved in solving it.

OTOH, this could just be yet another example of how Microsoft can't engineer it's way out of a paper bag because the MBAs are all getting in the way.

Re:Good idea

[hairyfeet]

You missed the point. Let us put ourselves in MSFT's shoes. We have a product (Vista) that we actually thought was going to sell big. After all, our previous product (WinXP) sold like mad through both the retail and OEM channels, and so we made a whole warehouse full of retail and system builder boxes and pump up the spin. They way we talk about this thing it is the second coming of Win95....

Ooops......we got a problem. Suddenly we got site after site saying Vista should be avoided and is in fact a flop. The OEMs seem to be agreeing with that as they want to sell WinXP and some start even selling Linux boxes. Now we got some sites saying that Win7 won't be much better. And we STILL have retail shelves and warehouses filled with Vista copies that we thought were going to sell like gangbusters AND our numbers are down. What do we do?

Seems pretty obvious to me, you gotta push out those Vista discs before Win7 hits and makes them as worthless as AOL CDs. But how?By doing what they are doing now with the OEMs. By saying ALL copies of Vista sold after X date gets the free upgrade to Win7, you remove the two biggest hurdles to getting folks to buy your product: That they are going to be stuck with an obsolete OS when you come out with Win7 in the fall and the fact that they hate Vista now. Instead by pushing the Win7 upgrade to the OEMs and ONLY the OEMs, you have just made that warehouse and all those retail shelves full of Vista copies even MORE worthless. Does that make ANY sense? It isn't like they only print Vista discs on demand here. Do they think that ANYBODY is going to buy those discs NOW with 7 coming out in the fall causing the Osborne effect to come into play?

This is just one MORE reason why Ballmer should be fired. Instead of moving as many copies of Vista out of those warehouses in preparation for Win7, and getting more users on the new OS driver design to light a fire under the hardware manufacturers, he instead has virtually guaranteed that the boutique builders, the mom & pop shops, the DIY crowd, the gamer box builders, etc will NOT buy a single copy of Vista. Instead they will stick with the less expensive copies of XP to keep from dumping their clients in a dead end OS. At least with XP they will be supported until 2014, whereas with Vista I have no doubt at all it will be swept under the rug like Winme before it.

I myself just got done building 2 more new XP boxes this evening. If I could have given my customers the free Win7 upgrade in the fall they most likely would have gotten the more expensive Vista Home Premium, as this would have given them the longest support path. Instead all the boxes I build between now and Win7 will ONLY come with the lower priced XP. Frankly boneheaded moves like this is why Ballmer is running the corp into the ground. Mark my words, when Win7 comes out they will be some landfill in New Mexico that will be getting a whole buttload of Vista discs. Because without the free upgrade path they are worth as much as ET carts were back in the day, a big fat $0.00.

Re:Good idea

[Amouth]

i've been far more impressed with the DVR abilitys of Windows Media center than i have with any other DVR software or appliance.

the ease of use the simple learning curve or lack of of the nice intergaration with a veriaty of remotes - and the very good preformace all lead me to using it.

Re:Good idea

[Dogtanian]

I think he said something along the lines of: MS hates it when Windows is pirated, but if an OS has to be pirated, they'd rather it be Windows.

You can bet your life that MS would still prefer someone was running a pirate copy of Windows to a free- and legitimate- Linux distribution.

So close...

[cnvandev]

It's just one more step to open source! I'll start holding my breath now!

Re:So close...

[ionix5891]

i can only imagine what the inside of windows looks like

----------

if( ::isBalmers() == true ){

  throw ChairException();
}
else{

    System.Win32.bsod();
}

Re:So close...

[JustOK]

...waiting for blue face of death...

Re:So close...

[ciderVisor]

+4 Funny. Well, I thought it was funny. Certainly a lot funnier than Ballmer/chair comments.

Re:So close...

[Hurricane78]

You can have that now. Just kill the Blue Man Group. ^^

Re:So close...

[JustOK]

mebbe we should use the Linux Maneuver?

Re:So close...

[VShael]

Didn't you hear? Red is the new blue.

Re:So close...

[not already in use]

It amazes me what passes for funny around here.

Re:So close...

[TheRealMindChild]

So... you think Windows is written in .NET or Java?

Re:So close...

[schmiddy]

It already is open source! Just google for "Windows 2000 Source Code", you'll find big zip files of it floating around. I think the license is GPL3 -- feel free to use and redistrubute as you wish, integrate into other open source projects, etc.

At least a year

[sskagent]

Well it will take me at least a year to get all my drivers updated and installed, so this really doesn't help me.

Re:At least a year

[cbhacking]

Acknowledging that you were trying to be funny, Win7 (and to a slightly lesser extent Vista) have pretty much removed the whole "hunt down and install drivers" part of upgrading. On first boot, it asks you for permission to check Windows Update for drivers. If you accept (and I've yet to come across any reason to do so) it will happily pull drivers for every piece of hardware you have, often even including really esoteric stuff (the network-over-usb driver to interface with a Linux-based iMote2 embedded device was in Windows Update. Color me impressed...)

For certain things like video cards you might still want to select your driver version and userspace utilities from the web site, but for most people it is quite seamless. The drivers will all install together too; there's a decent chance (although certainly no guarantee) that you'll need to reboot once - but I've yet to need to reboot twice.

Re:At least a year

[greenbird]

Acknowledging that you were trying to be funny, Win7 (and to a slightly lesser extent Vista) have pretty much removed the whole "hunt down and install drivers" part of upgrading.

So it's finally caught up with Linux?

Re:At least a year

[hansede]

Seriously though, Vista was beta quality until SP1. This is just an extended beta in the guise of a release. Call it version 1.0 and hand it out for free and everyone will beta test for you and sing your praises. Charge money for the beta testing (a la Vista) and everyone will (rightfully) demonize you.

Re:At least a year

[theolein]

Installed Vista today on a new Mac Mini. It had no network or video until I popped in Apple's driver DVD. The chipset was a pretty standard nForce and an Nvidia 9400M non-discrete graphics card.

I've actually been installing Vista all week on a few machine now and the automatic driver search is pretty much hit and miss in my opinion. Sometimes it works but more often it doesn't.

However, I don't blame Microsoft for this. Apple's a bit better but not perfect by a long shot.

XP Free for a year?

[mc1138]

Will this include XP as a VM for a year as well?

Re:XP Free for a year?

[weszz]

If you do the ultimate, you should be able to download it.

It's for business and ultimate only, plus you need to be able to do hardware virtualization as well, so my work PC isn't able to, my boss picked the wrong processor to buy us... only one in the line that doesn't do it.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[Drakkenmensch]

"It's available to as many people who see fit to use it, although we wouldn't recommend it to just your average user,"

Oh, I see what you did there. By implying it's not for everyone, you're hoping to get everyone to try it so that they feel a cut above the average user. It's a far slicker move than most of Microsoft's last decade of marketing who carpet bombed the PC market to get every single person alive on windows.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[Sockatume]

I believe that the VM is freely downloadable for all users, but none of them come with an XP licence yet. I read somewhere that the final release will only differ by giving Pro and upwards the free XP licence: the VM will be available to anybody who has an XP licence to stick on it. That report is not substantiated though.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I see what you did there. By implying it's not for everyone, you're hoping to get everyone to try it so that they feel a cut above the average user.

Well it works for Linux. Oh no, wait...

Re:XP Free for a year?

[syousef]

Will this include XP as a VM for a year as well?

Yeah, that's about how long the poor old Pirate Bay's got left in it.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[Ritorix]

Yes.

"We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate."
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/business/archive/2009/04/24/coming-soon-windows-xp-mode-and-windows-virtual-pc.aspx

"As part of the upcoming Windows 7 Release Candidate milestone, Microsoft will release a beta version of Windows XP Mode"
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Apr09/04-28Win7QA.mspx

Re:XP Free for a year?

[arkhan_jg]

the XPM beta, including the free copy of XP should be starting shortly. It's anybody's guess as to how long the beta will run for before expiry, though the final release should mirror the windows 7 release.

However, there's little/no GPU acceleration so a big chunk of XP diehards (gamers) won't be switching.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[AnalPerfume]

They're quite right in pointing out it's not for everyone, only those who insist on having a malware compatible flashy environment need apply, or those with pointy haired bosses who have already had their arms twisted by a Microsoft sales rep enough to hand over cash.

Re:XP Free for a year?

[tlhIngan]

Will this include XP as a VM for a year as well?

If you have MSDN, a beta of the XP Mode is already up... (I saw it on the technet RSS feed. Alas, I only have technet, and not MSDN).

Re:XP Free for a year?

[Astronomerguy]

The vast majority of XP games run just fine in Vista and so therefore run just fine in W7. The compatibility must be for certain apps that cannot run in Vista/W7. for instance, I'm running Vista 64 and an older astronomy application won't run in my version because it has some older 16-bit code in it. There's no backward compatibility for 16-bit, only 32. I have to run XP virtualized using VirtualBox to run it. Same with an avi->dvd conversion app. On the other hand Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: World at War run just fine in my Vista set up (Server 2008 Enterprise configured as a workstation).

Re:XP Free for a year?

[elrous0]

How dare you question our geek status symbol!

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you find a way to keep it going by hacking out the time-bomb or setting the date back you still wouldn't have a license to use the software after the 1 year expiration date comes and goes. If you're going to use unlicensed software you might as go in whole-hog and take a copy from wherever torrent sites kids hang out these days. If the penalties for software piracy scare you then consider shoplifting: first offense is community service hours, and that's only if you're caught. If the software is good enough to go through the hassle of screwing around like that then it's worth paying for. If it's not, there are perfectly servicable options from other vendors including various flavors of Linux, BeOS^WHaiku, BSD, Solaris, OS X, etc. There's no need to get your children hooked on Windows before they're in the first grade.

Fascinating

[Millennium]

So you get people hooked in with a free release, then hijack them after a year with no good downgrade path and thus no access to their data (modulo switching operating systems) unless they pay up?

I'm impressed. I didn't think MS could sink any lower.

Re:Fascinating

[L4t3r4lu5]

It sounds like you don't like the idea. It's good that you're not forced to take them up on it.

Unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful.

Re:Fascinating

[Sockatume]

Actually the Win7 RC doesn't have any path to the full, licenced version of Win7 at the end of the testing period, because it's released for testing, not as a freebie.

Re:Fascinating

[cabjf]

They're just scared to death that no one will upgrade, just like with Vista. They probably hope that if enough people are trying for free at home, they'll want it at work and on their next computer. Then they might be able to finally sunset XP.

Re:Fascinating

[PhxBlue]

So you get people hooked in with a free release, then hijack them after a year with no good downgrade path and thus no access to their data ...

One more reason why every family computer geek should stress the importance of regular backups, especially before taking major steps like upgrading one's operating system.

Re:Fascinating

[Junior J. Junior III]

If I install Windows 7 RC on anything, it'll be a virtual machine. If I get downgraded, I just kill the VM, and no harm done.

Re:Fascinating

[Hadlock]

Who doesn't keep all their data on a seperate drive these days? I mean yeah I download crap to the desktop to filter later, but anything I might keep for more than 60 days is immediately saved to the D: drive. Virus? No problem, just reinstall windows + specific apps. 2 hours down the drain, but you know your virus problem is nixed. Windows 7 RC expired? Just re-install XP.

Re:Fascinating

[Evildonald]

Couldn't the same be said of Linux? Hook you for free but then if you want to change OS you're stuck?

It doesn't make sense does it? Neither does your "insightful" comment. Data files are free to roam, however plenty of programs are locked to a particular OS.

Re:Fascinating

[kokojie]

What if the virus killed your files on D drive? You should always keep a copy externally, preferably at a remote location.

Re:Fascinating

[quercus.aeternam]

First off, I love linux, and use it exclusively.

However, this is completely reasonable, although it may cause some support problems. IMO, the only people running this should be the ones aware of the license issues - and if some kid installs this on his parents computer with no plans to upgrade, he's probably going to install the first cracked version he can find.

Furthermore, it seems as if this is a step in the right direction for MS. It seems as if all of their Windows releases have been terribly buggy until at least the first service pack. Having this sort of a RC may give Windows 7 the testing that the other releases have lacked.

It would be interesting to compare the amount of change between Windows releases with how long it took for them to become stable. It might be a reasonably accurate predictor of how long it might take for 7 to become stable, or if nothing else, it would be interesting to see if MS has been able to decrease its paid-for beta period over time.

Re:Fascinating

[Draek]

Anyone dumb enough to store actual, important data on a system running a beta or release candidate OS deserves to be 'hijacked' in such a manner.

It's like the concept of VMs never happened.

Re:Fascinating

[Taibhsear]

So you get people hooked in with a free release, then hijack them after a year with no good downgrade path and thus no access to their data (modulo switching operating systems) unless they pay up?

Unless you have a linux livecd... Or another OS dualbooted on your computer... Or another computer to put the hard drive on... Or you save your data to another drive or media, which you should be doing in the first place since you already know that you won't be able to use the OS after a year...

Re:Fascinating

[Girtych]

This is assuming that someone is utterly brain-dead enough to put vital, important data on a machine that they know will lock up on them in a year.

Re:Fascinating

[Hadlock]

Well then I guess you should have kept all your files secretly backed up on your C, E and F drives along with terrestrial and orbital off site backups. I recommend two satellites orbiting on opposite sides of the earth, that way your data is less likely to be corrupted in the event of solar flares(!).

Re:Fascinating

[marco.antonio.costa]

I think this not-switching thing won't happen. 7 is worlds better than that steaming pile o'Vista.

It's actually fast, as crazy as this sounds.

Re:Fascinating

[SuperAndy]

Damn straight.

I have 7 RC installed on a very very very underpowered Lenovo laptop, the kind of thing that ran Ubuntu with a struggle. 7 however, is very fluid, even the fancypants aero effects, with the transparencies work.

I think Microsoft just may be onto the next XP here.

Re:Fascinating

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You think you are being funny, but you are not. You need at least FOUR satellites to insure at least one is always in the Earths shadow. You also forgot the THREE emergency backups stored at equidistant points around the equator on Mars, just in case things go really badly.
Don't get me started on the preparation needed for a FUBAR or a Supernova level situation.

Re:Fascinating

[Phroggy]

Who doesn't keep all their data on a seperate drive these days?

Most people.

Come on, saving your data to a second hard drive isn't going to protect you from a virus. If it's actually a second hard drive you've physically installed, it'll save you from a hard drive crash on your C: drive, but not from a hard drive crash on your D: drive which isn't any less likely to occur. If it's just a second partition, it won't even save you from that.

I realize that Slashdot is an exception, but among the general population, most people don't even have that much data. They could fit everything on a 4GB Flash drive except for pirated music and movies. The smarter ones do exactly that, making regular backups of anything they consider important.

Reinstalling Windows, on the other hand, takes a lot longer than two hours. It's two hours just to get Windows installed, all the necessary drivers working, and critical updates downloaded from Windows Update. Once that's done, then you have to reinstall all your applications, one at a time, some of which require a reboot after installation. There's your antivirus software, Microsoft Office, a decent web browser, all the little things like Java and Flash and a PDF viewer, a couple of video player apps (I like the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack which bundles Media Player Classic, and of course VLC), your audio player of choice (I use iTunes)... and that's just the standard stuff any PC needs in the 21st century. Then you're looking at reinstalling any applications you've purchased, and downloading and installing the updates and patches for those. Then there are all those little utilities and things you've downloaded over the years to make your life easier, some of which you won't even remember until you notice them missing (and then you have to remember the name of it so you can download it, unless the download site has disappeared because the developer closed up shop six months ago).

For most users, this is a daunting task. For many, it's something best left to professionals.

Of course if you're NOT talking about changing operating systems after a year, there's backup software that can save you from all this pain, but there are so many to choose from and most of them look like they might be complete crap and none of them are free. And of course, that's something you have to take care of BEFORE you have a problem, then continue doing regularly.

Re:Fascinating

[Phrogman]

Yes, although I used to make my files partition the same size as a CDROM so I could easily do a back up, nowadays that would be the size of a DVD for backup (except that I am running OS/X and don't need to worry nearly as much about viruses these days). I still do periodic backups to DVD though. BY making my partition a limited size that matches my back up media its easy to discover when its time to go clean up some junk to make room and I am never in the position of being unable to backup the data. At one point I had 2 CD sized partitions going, although the second was only partially used. This system worked well for me for quite a few years.

Re:Fascinating

[Hadlock]

Just because the average user can't be bothered to keep their OS and personal data seperate doesn't mean its not sound data retention policy.

I don't know about you but I've never had a virus infect my D: drive. I get a virus about once a year, which is a good period of time to reinstall everything, make sure I have the newest software updates (did you know gimp did a major overhaul recently? I just found out in jan... Still on the fence if I like it better than previous versions), newest drivers and all the rest of the stuff you listed. Its like a 60,000 mile tune up for your PC. I archive all the indispensable free utilities I find, usually with a local mirror on my website. Besides if you need more than four productivity apps not directly related to your profession to be productive You're Doing It Wrong.

Re:Fascinating

[Hadlock]

My biggest problem is keeping backups of my mp3 archive and photos, which is something like 30 gigs and 100 gigs respectively. I guess I could invest in a Blue ray-R but its cheaper to just buy or repurpose an existing hard drive. Most of my archived video is throw away divx. Not including music I probably have 60mb of non-media data I need to backup. Most of that is accessible via gmail archives though.

Re:Fascinating

[MrPhilby]

Me too. Boots faster than XP and feels much more zippy. And I am a Vista hater.

Re:Fascinating

[jameskojiro]

I plan on using Sun Virtual Box, that way on my XP 32bit machine that is running on an AMD x64 box I can install the 64bit version of Windows 7 on it.

This is due to Sun's Virtual Box supporting Hardware Virtualization a better than Microsoft Virtual PC.

Re:Fascinating

[shutdown -p now]

So you get people hooked in with a free release, then hijack them after a year with no good downgrade path and thus no access to their data (modulo switching operating systems) unless they pay up?

I'm impressed. I didn't think MS could sink any lower.

Ah, /. at its finest.

If they charged money for a release candidate, you'd be the first to shout about "M$ robbing their users, forcing them to pay even for prerelease software".

Now when the RC is free (as RCs for all Microsoft products have always been, by the way - nothing new here), then it's an evil monopolistic plot to get users hooked up. Right.

Re:Fascinating

[smitty97]

it's a trap!

Re:Fascinating

[BrookHarty]

Yup, and windows 7 lets you backup to a file share, the backup and restore features play nice with linux.

Re:Fascinating

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, Microsoft has already said that you will be able to upgrade from the RC to the released version, but you will have to edit a config file to bypass the version check.

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/07/delivering-a-quality-upgrade-experience.aspx

Brilliant Marketing Plan

[pfleming]

However, Curran believes that Windows 7 has already lifted much of the negativity that surrounded its predecessor. "The positive energy and momentum is quite a bit higher than it was in the Vista timeframe," Curran conceded. "People are excited about Windows 7."

Turn people off to Vista, then when they think you are done and they will never run anything Microsoft again, turn out a decent OS, or at least one better than the one before. Nothing makes this look better than how bad Vista looks.

Re:Brilliant Marketing Plan

[Jeng]

My main problem with the Windows 7 beta so far hasn't been the operating system. Nvidia has no Windows 7 drivers for my motherboard, which is a fairly recent motherboard.

Without adequate driver support I can't gauge Windows 7 performance. With the default drivers it takes longer to move files onto a thumb drive than it does to download data off the net*.

Hopefully Nvidia will release drivers before Windows 7 goes on sale.

*Downloading off cable modem, my download cap is 880kbps

Re:Brilliant Marketing Plan

[PenguinBob]

They have partial support for my 680i motherboard. It doesn't have the network adapter combining feature yet, but it has the other stuff.

Re:Brilliant Marketing Plan

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

Nothing makes this look better than how bad Vista looks.

Obligatory XKCD

Re:Brilliant Marketing Plan

[Dutch Gun]

I thought Windows 7 didn't change driver models. If that's true, couldn't you use the latest Vista drivers?

Re:Brilliant Marketing Plan

[pfleming]

Oh, that's awesome!

its not free

[Anonymous Coward]

MSDN and technet require very expensive subscriptions (never mind the absurdity of paying to test another companies apps)

and does this apply to the public beta testers who dont have the luxury of handing over thousands to test Microsofts apps ?

Re:its not free

[DAldredge]

Technet is 349.00 for the first year / 249.00 per year after that. That isn't expensive.

Re:its not free

[jtdennis]

The public beta will be out May 5th. Paying for MSDN or Technet gets you early access. I wouldn't have a Technet account except my work got it as part of their MS license deal.

Re:its not free

[sed quid in infernos]

Read the summary: it's available only to subscribers until May 5. After that, it's in general release.

Re:its not free

[Anonymous Coward]

Technet is NOT expensive! Look at these figures, it's more expensive than Windows, and you get Windows for free when you pay more than the cost of a copy of Windows more often than Windows is released! See how NOT expensive it is?

Re:its not free

[Churla]

You know that you don't buy MSDN subscriptions to test Microsoft apps right?? You buy it to test your OWN apps and how they interact with MS products.

If you have an application that deals with windows desktops, traffic between exchange servers, traffic on MS-SQL servers, authentication checking against old school domain controllers and new school active directory services that's a lot of MS product to be purchasing so you can make sure your stuff works.

Or you get an MSDN subscription and effectively have one copy of every MS app for your use and testing. It's really very cost effective if used for it's intended purpose.

Re:its not free

[Abreu]

$349.00 USD is about a fourth of my monthly salary, or about a month's rent of a decent two bedroom apartment here in my city.

Re:its not free

[Briareos]

The public beta will be out May 5th. Paying for MSDN or Technet gets you early access. I wouldn't have a Technet account except my work got it as part of their MS license deal.

Not neccessarily - all I get on msdn.com is

An Error Has Occurred
There was an unexpected error while attempting to retrieve your profile data.

You can try to:
Close your browser and retry the operation again in a few minutes.
Contact Support
Read the On-Line Self Help

Reference Id: D34DB33F

This error has been logged with the reference number noted above. Please use this reference number if you contact support.

Oh what fun - I pity those foo-s that wanted to download anything else off MSDN today...

np: Can - Aumgn (Anthology (Disc 1))

Re:its not free

[bastion_xx]

Weird. I saw the announcement via rss.slashdot.org and was able to get in to MDSN (not Technet) and download with no problems. I guess I was ahead of the curve for once. I'm still need to grab that Ubuntu 7.04 tht I just heard about.

Re:its not free

[Creepy Crawler]

And part of that "Agreement" is that you allow jack-booted thugs (BSA) in whenever they please. And you pay for their experience.

Re:its not free

[CAIMLAS]

I think it's somewhat ironic that MS would release their latest, greatest buzz-compliant product for free on the 5th of May (ie Cinco de Mayo or however it's spelled), which is considered a "labor" holiday in many countries as well as a flagship holiday for Marxist/Socialist social agendas.

I wonder if it was intentional. Inside humour, maybe?

Re:its not free

[jtdennis]

I was getting that most of this morning, but it started to work this afternoon.

Re:its not free

[swb]

When you move to the civilized world let us know how you feel about $349.

Re:its not free

[misexistentialist]

Very rarely you can subscribe for $100. Which is still too much; but it's good for people to be aware so that they are reluctant to pay even more.

Re:its not free

[amliebsch]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the "May Day," the labor holiday, is May 1 and pretty distinct from the holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

Re:its not free

[mjwx]

Technet is 349.00 for the first year / 249.00 per year after that. That isn't expensive.

Per user. If you have a dev house of 20 dev's that's US$2,490.00 per year. Technet doesn't cover everything and the licensing terms and conditions read like a motorcycle manual translated from Japanese into English by Russians. Technet doesn't cover any of your production stuff, only test and dev.

Your much better off trying to get into a partner program and MSDN. Partner programs cover your prod as well as your dev as well as providing a few cheap licenses here and there. In my company Dev is 1/3 of what we do but prod staff out number them 5 to 1.

Re:its not free

[Abreu]

I'd rather live here than in a country where carrying a concealed firearm is a human right, but affordable healthcare is not...

Thanks anyway

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Viadd]

Your 4-year-old's account shouldn't have administrator access.

If you gave his account administrator access, neither should you.

Ballmer's strategy

[G3ckoG33k]

This could be Ballmer's strategy against Linux as he repeatedly has said that you can't beat Linux' price.

With this they will surely retain the market share, in a recession, for an otherwise very expensive product; it costs more than one third of a new pc.

Re:Ballmer's strategy

[tero]

I think it's more likely that this is Ballmer's strategy against his own failings with Vista.

They're in desperate need of getting people off XP - it's starting to show it's age from marketing point of view and I'm sure MS would like to move to a new technological platform as well.

It's also nice to see they've really looked at things that went wrong with Vista launch - I don't think they really can afford to bomb Windows 7 launch.

Re:Ballmer's strategy

[im_thatoneguy]

Or Microsoft accurately recognizes that a vast majority of their revenue is from OEM bundles and is willing to take an extremely small hit from a million or so computer geeks who know how to download, burn and install a product they'll have to reinstall in 12 months.

Either you stop using it and wouldn't have payed them anyway, or you buy it and they get your money eventually anyway. Either way they lose no money.

Re:Ballmer's strategy

[cbhacking]

looked at things that went wrong with Vista launch

isn't how I would describe *this* decision, at least. Vista was also freely available in RC form for a year or so. The people who had trouble running the RTM had trouble running the RC (or would have if they'd tried) but the rest of us - myself included - didn't upgrade to RTM for a few months after its release simply because the RC2 did what I needed and was less hassle (cost didn't matter, as a CSE student I get MS software free anyhow).

Re:Ballmer's strategy

[shutdown -p now]

What strategy? Microsoft has always made prerelease versions of its software (betas and release candidates) available for free, with a time limit, which was usually quite generous (not 1 year, granted, half a year used to be more typical, but that isn't an order of magnitude difference). Furthermore, Microsoft makes trial versions of final products with similar time limits; for example, you can get Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 240-day trial. Previously, similar trials were available for Windows 2003, and quite possibly earlier than that (I didn't keep an eye back then). You can also get trial versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, SharePoint, and so on, with the usual trial period of 180 days. I don't see what's new here, at all.

Free?

[Warlord88]

I haven't tried it yet. Is it that good or that bad?

Re:Free?

[reashlin]

It's almost what Vista wanted to be...minus WinFS...though they have tried to bodge similar functionality into explorer...

I actually quite like it...as far as I can like windows.

Its the best version of windows so far - even including server 2000

I'm not really selling it am I :(

Re:Free?

[camperdave]

Are Microsoft trying the Linux business model?

Linux is free as in libre, not gratis. (Although it is frequently gratis, it doesn't have to be.)

Re:Free?

[jcupitt65]

Windows is only free if your time is worth nothing.

Re:Free?

[oneirophrenos]

Windows is only free if your time is worth nothing.

Doesn't that really apply to Linux, too?

Re:Free?

[jtdennis]

yes, it will have the ability to do that.

Re:Free?

[Ash-Fox]

Doesn't that really apply to Linux, too?

No, journalists have shown us that if it doesn't work on Linux out of the box, you give up completely.

Too expensive

[LatencyKills]

Free seems to me to still be too expensive to deal with M$ latest bug laden release (at least up until the first or second serious patch comes along). I didn't move from 98 to XP for my machine until SP1 came out. I wonder if they'd be willing to pay me to live through their forced release growing pains.

Re:Too expensive

[ericrost]

I used to take an even more conservative approach before I stopped using Windows. I would wait for the beta of the next OS to come out before moving to the last one. Generally that signaled that the old release was actually stable. I was actually fairly happy w/Win2k, but I'm a lot happier with Ubuntu.

Re:Too expensive

[King_TJ]

Depends where you're coming from, I suppose.

I have an HP TouchSmart PC at home, for example. Windows XP isn't even a viable option for it, because HP doesn't offer any touchscreen drivers for XP, only Vista. Windows 7, however, is also supposed to have support for its touchscreen and utilities.

Vista has been a nightmare on the system, though. Practically nothing I've tried to use as a peripheral with it has worked properly!

(Ironically, after going through 3 different USB modems I had, trying to get one to work as a faxmodem on it - the ONLY thing I got to work at all was an APPLE USB modem dongle! I had to load all of Apple's "Boot Camp" drivers into Vista to get it to detect it properly, but it worked.)

Other example of spectacular failures include my Canon "Canoscan" USB scanner, which actually claims to have Vista support, but I never got Canon's Vista driver to work properly on it, and my HP 2550N Color LaserJet printer, for which HP seem to have no "toolbox" type utility software for it -- hence I can't figure out why the printer is only printing one test page (of 3 total that should come out), and just blinks an orange "attention" light any time I send it a normal print job.

If Windows 7 RC1 will run on the TouchSmart, it's well worth at least trying it for free, to see if it has more compatibility with the things I need to use. If not, well - it was free to try. If so, great... might even be worth paying for it in a year, if I'm still getting use out of the machine.

Re:Too expensive

[recoiledsnake]

I know I shouldn't be replying to someone calling MS M$, as it reflects on their maturity level, but even Windows 7 beta is pretty bug free. I installed it on my laptop to test it out, but it worked surprisingly well and impressed me, so I am using it as the main OS for the past few months without encountering any major bugs.

Re:Too expensive

[caywen]

This is more like SP3 for Vista (SP2 is just around the corner). No one is forcing you to use software just because it's free for a year. I really don't see the fundamental difference between this, and buying stuff with financing with no money down for a year from Best Buy.

Re:Too expensive

[Lulfas]

I'm sorry the hardware you bought had shitty drivers. Blame HP and Canon, not Microsoft.

Re:Too expensive

[n0tWorthy]

I no longer buy HP or Lexmark. Their driver support for any product has never extended to the next released OS product for anything I own. In fact I have to keep at least 1 XP machine so I can use my slide scanner as there are no other drivers for it.

I have an OLD Tektronix Phaser 560 that I was able to download Vista drivers for (I run Vista 64bit) and it works like a champ. Slow as hell but it still works great.

Re:Too expensive

[perryizgr8]

hey $ucker, who are you calling immature? i'm more maturer than you! M$ is very significant symbolically. it means they want only money, like all of us...oh wait.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Chrisq]

Your 4-year-old's account shouldn't have administrator access.

If you gave his account administrator access, neither should you.

Funny you should say that. A while ago I took my four year old daughter to a museum, and let her play with a touch-screen information terminal. In a couple of seconds she (somehow) had control panel up! It may take a thousand monkeys a million years to write Shakespeare, but it seems to take ten seconds for a four-year old to find any "backdoor access" or other options that should not be available.

Re:Fishing

[CRiMSON]

Don't smoke weed much huh? lol

Errr..

[AlterRNow]

It's available to as many people who see fit to use it, although we wouldn't recommend it to just your average user

If this is a release candidate, they are basically admitting the end product won't be for the "average user".

Re:Errr..

[L4t3r4lu5]

They're saying "Don't use it unless you know what you're doing, we're still bug-fixing. No more new features, but there might be some security holes. Pro's only, please."

Re:Errr..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it's not Ubuntu.

If you install this RC you can't update it / upgrade to RTM.

That's the "average user" part, if you want security updates and don't want to rebuild your system from sratch in a year, this is not for you.

Basically it's not a main

Re:Errr..

[AlterRNow]

Ah, I see.
So basically, it isn't a release candidate as there is no chance of it being released 'as is'.
No wonder people don't trust their programming, they can't even get the terminology right.

Re:Errr..

[huckamania]

"No wonder people don't trust their programming"

They have a software monopoly which required intervention by the US and the EU, and you think people don't trust their programming? Love em or hate em, but don't delude yourself.

Re:Errr..

[Kjella]

So basically, it isn't a release candidate as there is no chance of it being released 'as is'.

Dude, as someone that downloaded the Kubuntu 9.04 RC then apt-get'd to the release a week later I can tell you there was a snowflake's chance in hell it'd be released "as-is". While I'm sure most of the changes were minor, there were tons of packages that were updated. After a release you have patching going on and I find it very natural that the same happens between RC and release, even more so to get patches in before the release. Even if a beta release was feature complete something it rarely is, there tends to be huge patches and regressions going in between beta and release. RC is to me the big "fixes only beyond this point", if it works in the RC it shall not break in the release. Tiny fixes still go in but no major new patches, no regressions, no messing with what works. If you need to fix something do it in the most minimal way and leave the "right way" of fixing it for the next release..

Re:Errr..

[AlterRNow]

Well if only tiny fixes go on in between release candidate and the released version, nothing major would change therefore it *still* wouldn't be for your average user.

isn't this SOP for Windows pre-releases and betas?

[Locutus]

I don't see what's new here. So the latest version will self destruct in one year, then what? Or maybe they are releasing it to the public instead of leaking it like they normally do?

Nothing here, move along. Move along. IMO.

LoB

Re:Fishing

[swordgeek]

*sigh*

At least pick an addictive drug next time.

Free with "minor" caveats

[Ralish]

"Microsoft is effectively giving away Windows 7 free for a year with the launch of the Release Candidate.

It's only free if you don't value bug fixes, security updates, product support and potentially all manner of issues installing software that will be released for Windows 7 RTM on a pre-release version no-one will have done significant product testing on and won't care to help you with if you run into problems.

Keeping all this in mind, and the fact this is pre-release development code, it's not hard to see why this release is free. I do find it odd that it's got such a generous expiration date, but approaching this as a free (time-limited) lunch is probably a fairly bad idea for all the reasons above.

If you like it, but don't want to pay for it, just pirate it. You'll be better off, and so may many others when they don't have to worry about your compromised box congesting their network, because it was exploited by a flaw MS has no intention of fixing in pre-release code.

Re:Free with "minor" caveats

[arkhan_jg]

I do find it odd that it's got such a generous expiration date

The semi-official launch date for windows 7 is Q1 2010; so June 2010 does give them a bit of headroom for overruns, and/or to give people time to backup and do a clean install once the RTM comes out (there won't be an official upgrade path from RC to RTM, any more than there's one from beta to RC). There's also no plan to do another RC.

Many suspect they may try to push the RTM forward, and get it out this autumn but given Microsoft's launch delay history, I'm not going to be holding my breath for a release this year.

Re:Free with "minor" caveats

[LoverOfJoy]

If you like it, but don't want to pay for it, just pirate it. You'll be better off, and so may many others when they don't have to worry about your compromised box congesting their network, because it was exploited by a flaw MS has no intention of fixing in pre-release code.

Yeah, because pirated software has no chance of being compromised.

Re:Free with "minor" caveats

[cbhacking]

Right... because flaws in non-security areas (the pre-release code does actually get security patches for the duration of the pre-release, BTW) are far more likely to get you some malware than a prated copy with $DEITY-only-knows-what slipstreamed into it. I mean, why bother trying to infect people with rootkits when you can just hand out copies that are already infected?

Re:Free with "minor" caveats

[HerculesMO]

Oddly enough, I get updates to my existing Windows 7 Beta, so I don't see why I wouldn't with the RC.

Re:Free with "minor" caveats

[VisceralLogic]

It's only free if you don't value bug fixes, security updates, product support and potentially all manner of issues installing software that will be released for Windows 7 RTM on a pre-release version no-one will have done significant product testing on and won't care to help you with if you run into problems.

So... it's basically like Linux, then? ;)


Flame on...

Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

"freeasinshit"

The level of humour you can stuff into a tag never ceases to amaze me.

Free?

[Wowsers]

Are Microsoft trying the Linux business model? LOL

Re:Fishing

[onkelonkel]

I smokeded the ganja till I was addicted......to Nacho Cheese Doritos!

Time traveling in Animal Crossing

[tepples]

So if I wanted to build an offline gaming machine for my 4 year old, I just have to keep setting the data backwards.

If by "data" you mean "date", you break games whose rules depend on the calendar. I don't know of any specific titles like this on Windows, but one on GameCube, DS, and Wii is the Animal Crossing series.

Like the old gag about the change bank says..

[CrazyTalk]

How do we make money? Volume!

Let's ask the experts

[Minwee]

So, free Windows 7 for a year? What would Frank, the Homeless Guy say about that?

Personally I'm going to hold out for Blake's 7 instead.

You've got to love this

[FritzSolms]

Absolutely love this on today's BBC article on Windows 7. "We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time by slightly trimming the WAV file shutdown music. "It's indicative of really the level and detail and scrutiny on Windows 7."

Re:You've got to love this

[Shrike82]

You can mock it all you want. Those 400 milliseconds will add up, and after a few years you'll have saved enough time to make a cup of coffee, or chat to a co-worker about your plans for the weekend.

Man, that's something to look forward to...

Re:You've got to love this

[recoiledsnake]

What's wrong with that? 400ms is a long time if you factor in the number of users of Windows. A billion times 400ms is nothing to be sneezed at. And every bit counts.

Re:You've got to love this

[TheRaven64]

People shut down Windows? It's been a few years since I had a windows box (and it ran 2000), but I seem to remember hibernate worked even back then (although took far longer than it should do, apparently they didn't do any demand paging on reboot) and the only time I ever shut it down was for Windows Update-mandated reboots. Focussing on boot and shutdown times seems like misdirected effort for any OS; in typical use it shouldn't be more than a tiny fraction of 1% of the user's total computing time.

Re:You've got to love this

[FritzSolms]

What I love is that this is the main if not only concrete enhancement listed in the BBC article.

Re:You've got to love this

[idontgno]

"We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time

BRILLIANT!

That will easily save me.... let's see... um... (google math)... 7.2 seconds in the coming year! YES! Time enough for sex!

Re:You've got to love this

[kseise]

Braggart. We don't like your kind around here. Next thing you will claim is that it is with a woman... some geek you are.

Re:You've got to love this

[sharkey]

He's probably not counting the time he sits on his hand to make it go numb first, so that he can do "The Stranger".

Re:You've got to love this

[raddan]

How do you have sex with the computer off? Wait... I think I need to go back to that Wikipedia article.

Re:You've got to love this

[Sockatume]

Y'know what, in these days of feature-checklist bloat and inelegance, I'm appreciative that somebody actually hires staff who think it's worth knocking off about half a second from an operation if you can do it at no functionality cost. It's just old-fashioned good software design, and it doesn't deserve mockery, no matter how trivial an example it is.

Re:You've got to love this

[VisceralLogic]

Absolutely love this on today's BBC article on Windows 7. "We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time by slightly trimming the WAV file shutdown music. "It's indicative of really the level and detail and scrutiny on Windows 7."

WTF? Why don't they multi-thread so they shut down while the sound plays?

Re:You've got to love this

[dacreature]

7.2 seconds in the coming year! YES! Time enough for sex!(?) You need to get away from the computer and mingle with people my friend...

Re:You've got to love this

[ion.simon.c]

WTF? Why don't they multi-thread so they shut down while the sound plays?

Probably 'cause it would break ObscureApp '95 by Crap-O Soft, Inc. :/

Re:Fishing

[iamhigh]

Weed isn't addicting in the physical sense that you are probably referring to. I have stopped for years when necessary with no trouble. The drug you are looking for is crack/meth/coke.

Death to Pirates?

[goombah99]

Windows a gateway drug?

No it's more of a Dell drug.

This is actually a wonderful idea for them. it lowers the barrier for the transition. Even companies can push their costs forward in time.

But i'm thinking of all the pirates in asia. The street vendors with virus laden bootlegs will be competing against free. this will hurt their market. Then a year later what will the chinese consumer do? He could go out an buy a bootleg and re-install his system or he could buy a keycode and continue with his current system state. in many cases the idea of re-installing a system would be daunting enough to suddenly make the key code seem cheap.

Re:Death to Pirates?

[dov_0]

If my experience with Asians from less wealthy nations (esp. Sth East Asians) is worth anything, the majority of them will still just buy bootleg as that is the only system they really know or its just the way they do things. Unless they actually see a real reason to download 3gig or more, burn it to a DVD etc they'll just go to the market and buy a bootleg for 40 rupees (call it a dollar).

Re:Death to Pirates?

[AnalPerfume]

"in many cases the idea of re-installing a system would be daunting enough to suddenly make the key code seem cheap."

The flaw in your logic is that he would have backed up and installed this version of Windows 7, so having doe it once already I doubt whether having to do it a second time would be anything more than a day's downtime. Besides, why would he go for a lime limited official version when an unlimited cracked version would give more benefits for the same price?

Unless of course that was a funny post and my brain ain't woken up enough to see it yet, lol.

Re:Death to Pirates?

[1u3hr]

Then a year later what will the chinese consumer do? He could go out an buy a bootleg and re-install his system or he could buy a keycode and continue with his current system state. in many cases the idea of re-installing a system would be daunting enough to suddenly make the key code seem cheap.

Or he could download a bootleg key for free. In China software piracy is about 99%, unless it's an OEM install by a big company like Lenovo. This is not going to change anything.

Re:Death to Pirates?

[theillien]

I wonder if this is an experiment in the methods that Linux distros use: provide the OS for free and charge for service contracts.

Re:Death to Pirates?

[Thantik]

Windows is one Dell of a drug!

Re:Death to Pirates?

[Tlosk]

I'd hardly call something free when it requires you to have an MSDN subscription to download and activate, a subscription that ranges from $700 to $11,000 for 12 months.

I don't think the pirates in Asia will have much trouble competing against that. (Or having to download a DVD size installer for that matter.)

Re:Death to Pirates?

[eihab]

This is actually a wonderful idea for them. it lowers the barrier for the transition. Even companies can push their costs forward in time.

I believe the 1 year "free" copy is Windows 7 Release Candidate (from the summary and the article).

I highly doubt any company will be installing RC quality software to replace whatever stable OS they have in place. I can assure you mine isn't :)

For testing purposes and sneak-peak previews, yeah this sounds nice.

Re:Death to Pirates?

[brm]

Here in China, I hear that most people reinstall their system from scratch every few months, anyway.

Viruses are a big problem with the pirated software model.

Competing with themselves.

[camperdave]

Microsoft isn't concerned about "hooking" people. They accomplished that decades ago. Microsoft's problem is that people are hooked on XP. They spent a whackload of money on Vista, and nobody went for it. (By nobody, I mean corporations. Everybody who bought a new machine was forced to get it, but even then many switched back to XP.) Now, they've spent another whackload of money on Win7, and they want corporations to buy it. They want people to move off of the XP platform. This free windows is the bait to get them to switch.

Frankly, I don't know if it'll work. Windows XP works fine. It's an operating system. All it has to do is run applications and manage resources. It does that well enough for most people and corporations, so why switch?

Re:Competing with themselves.

[benwaggoner]

Frankly, I don't know if it'll work. Windows XP works fine. It's an operating system. All it has to do is run applications and manage resources. It does that well enough for most people and corporations, so why switch?

Because it does it better?

In my world (media), it's really hard to use XP after Vista, because it kills me to be using my CPU to be rendering graphics the GPU can do better. Much smoother GUI performance, particularly under load. Aero Glass is probably the most misunderestimated feature of Vista and Win 7, since many assume it'll hurt performance. But with a DX9 capable GPU, it's a very nice boost in both experience and CPU load.

Also, the whole media pipeline is a lot faster, particularly on lower-end machines and with higher-end media. An even bigger jump than XP > Vista was.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[Reziac]

If Microsoft is going to sell NN-many Windows licenses anyway, why does it matter whether they're for XP or some future version? Why not make your customers happy by selling them what they want, rather than what you want them to want?

And people who use older OSs know support ain't forever, and guess what, IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[fishbowl]

"Frankly, I don't know if it'll work. Windows XP works fine. It's an operating system. All it has to do is run applications and manage resources. It does that well enough for most people and corporations, so why switch?"

I have a Toshiba laptop that came with Vista Home. I tried to install XP on it. Turns out that drivers are not available, especially for the video device (!), so I easily made the decision to just wipe it and install Ubuntu, which works better than any linux laptop I've ever had (and I've had a lot of them). Windows XP under VMWare on this laptop works better than Vista did natively.

But my point is, what happens to the person who hits the wall when XP doesn't work on his hardware because there is no driver support? I approached the problem from the point of view of a programmer with 16 years of Linux experience. Not everybody thinks like me.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[Lord Ender]

Actually, XP does this badly. It's just that corporations have substantial existing investment in tools, scripts, processes, and other workarounds for XP's flaws.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[grumpyman]

And yes - MS really gotta think about what other ways to make money other than selling OS to corp. For basic productivity use, XP + some version of Office will do. The user experience for this application is diminishing in return. Re-juggle the UI, look-n-feel all you want but seriously, why change if it all work fine? Maybe MS will make corp to subscribe to software instead of a one-off license?

Re:Competing with themselves.

[cbhacking]

The funny thing is, XP isn't that great of an OS. It's a bitch to use as a standard user. It lacks security features that a platform as freqeuntly targeted as Windows really should have, like ASLR. Its scheduler and memory manager algorithms are years out of date, and cause all sorts of problems such as the case where if you don't use your computer for a long time, you come back and find that all your programs have been trimmed to a tiny working set and everything is paged to disk. Its firewall sucks. Its 64-bit support is barely present. At least half of the standard complaints against "Windows" on Slashdot only actually apply to XP and down (I'm not counting ones aimed at a specific version of Windows) and yet people keep treating an 8-year-old OS as The One To Use, even as they complain about all the things that are wrong with it.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[jackbird]

In the content creation community, everyone I know is sticking with XPx64. I've seen zero problems with 64-bit support except that iTunes won't burn CDs due to a hardcoded path to "program files" that should be "program files (x86)", and encoding with some video codecs only working when running a 32-bit application.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[rve]

Now, they've spent another whackload of money on Win7, and they want corporations to buy it. They want people to move off of the XP platform. This free windows is the bait to get them to switch.

A corporation that will work with an unsupported release candidate of an OS for a year just because it's free deserves the support nightmare its IT department will be looking forward to.

Seriously, the cost a corporate windows licence per seat is not very high compared to the hourly wage of an IT support techie.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[Maximum Prophet]

MS just needs to keep releasing security "bug" fixes that slow your machines down. Written properly, even faster hardware won't fix this. (i.e. wait for N tics on the RTC) Eventually people will have to switch. Of course, when XP stops working, a lot of people and companies will switch to Linux or MacOS X.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[B1oodAnge1]

I've been using XPx64 with few problems for 2 years now.

I'm sure it's not for everyone, and YMMV, but as a pure gaming system it has been great.

Re:Competing with themselves.

[benwaggoner]

I have to say some talk about "bloat" like like GWB talked about "government" sometimes...

Aero Glass is slow like 3D software rendering is fast.

Will it work under virtualization?

[jrand]

There is some free software I've been wanting to run that only works under windows... this might finally give me a reason to install Parallels on my Macbook.

Re:Will it work under virtualization?

[TheRaven64]

I'd advise against installing Parallels. It gave me regular kernel panics until I uninstalled it, and the 'fix' was to buy a newer version. I've switched for VirtualBox, which is free and does everything I wanted Parallels to do.

Re:Will it work under virtualization?

[mrdoogee]

I love VirtualBox. I too ran Parallels and it absolutely sucks. Not to mention that VB has a free upgrade path, and Parallels will charge you for every new release.

Dope?

[dem0n1]

So Microsoft's OS division is now reduced to copying the business plan of heroin dealers?

Didn't microsoft pull this stunt before....

[mark-t]

.... back in the late 1980's with Windows 3.0?

Re:Didn't microsoft pull this stunt before....

[Rod Beauvex]

As the recent election showed, people forget things easily.

Re:Didn't microsoft pull this stunt before....

[lucifig]

And they have been printing money ever since.

I always had my suspicions...

[hAckz0r]

...that one day Microsoft would not even be able to give it away. If the comments to this latest article are taken as truth I believe we have officially reached that crescendo here and now. I now feel vindicated in having my formerly biased opinion.

I'll be nice enough to "give" Microsoft a free clue though. Nobody likes having the rug pulled out from under them. Deje Vous? This HAS happened to me before with those useless OEM re-installation disks. When the "free" installation stops running, and I have erased my older OS's which won't even reinstall, what do I do then? You guessed it, and it won't be Windows(tm).

Re:I always had my suspicions...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's Déjà vu

havn't I already said this today?

Imagine this

[Twillerror]

A story about Windows is posted on Slashdot and all the comments are usless dribble about M$ being buggy and instable. I think I see a parrallel between the way the media is covering the Swine Flu and how Linux users cover Windows stories...Can we please stay on topic here...

What is the (anti)benefit of a company putting out a beta like this for a long period of time?

I installed Linux and I feel so much better now.
 
    Dennis Leary
 

Re:Imagine this

[value_added]

I think I see a parrallel between the way the media is covering the Swine Flu and how Linux users cover Windows stories

You may have a point, but using an analogy that involves virus outbreaks while advocating a Gentler and Kinder perspective on Windows stories may not have been the right approach.

Re:Imagine this

[jellomizer]

To be honest I find more bugs and issues with Ubuntu 9.4 then I have with Vista. At least with Vista I don't get Garbage spread across my screen, if I use any 3d Exceleration.

Re:Imagine this

[sweatyboatman]

all the comments are usless dribble about M$ being buggy and instable

I am not reading the same comments page as you apparently. Very few of the +modded comments here fit your description (and as for the unmodded comments, this is /., home of the troll).

It appears that the source of most of the critical comments here is the word "Free". A more accurate summary would have said MS extends RC period for Windows 7 to 1 full year. Boring, and therefore unlikely to show up on the /. frontpage.

But just as an aside: We're talking about the first RC for Windows 7, or in other words, a beta version. Even Microsoft is saying that it's going be buggy and unstable.

If it was stable and feature complete they would stick it in a box and sell it.

Re:Imagine this

[PitaBred]

Man, and I hate when I can't even install OSX on my Dell. Apple has so many bugs.

Did you check that your hardware was well supported under Linux? Linux is great, but it's not magic, and it isn't custom-tailored to every quirk like Windows is, having drivers written for each separate computer. Ever wonder why at Dell.com you have to download a different driver pack for the same chips on different machines? It's because it's tuned to work with the specific quirks of that machine.

Re:Imagine this

[jellomizer]

The previous version work, the new version didn't. It may be a configuration issue, but Ubuntu is suppose to be easy to use so I don't feel obligated to dig around and fix it, as the other tools may conflict with it. Windows stability is just as tied to the drivers and configuration as Linux is. There are a bunch of really crappy drivers out there for windows too. If everyone used Linux as root there would be a a huge number of virus and malware for Linux, just as in Windows. If everyone ran windows as a restricted user there will be a lot less bugs and errors in Windows.

My point is that Windows isn't that much better or worse then Linux in terms of stability, bugs or security, at least in its programming. It failure was in the implemntation of all the parts.

Re:Imagine this

[SatanicPuppy]

Oh come on, that's not even remotely fair. "It's not Linux's fault you have bad hardware?" Isn't Ubuntu's big selling point that it just works? God knows it's not the zune-esque color scheme.

Go to any forum, and someone will tell you how to get the driver for your hardware, or how to hack up/configure the driver you have so it works better. That is the problem most people have with Linux: you have to haggle with it to make it work the way you want it to.

I've been using Linux for about a decade now, and we've made strides. But people say the same stupid shit now that they said then. If it works, they say it's because of the amazing quality, and if it doesn't work, then it's because you made a mistake somewhere.

Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that Linux driver support is one of the things that we will need to get better about before we're "Ready for the Desktop(tm)." Better than we used to be is a start, but that's it.

Re:Imagine this

[ConceptJunkie]

Is "Exceleration" what you feel when you use Microsoft's Spreadsheet software?

Re:Imagine this

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

3d Exceleration.

I just died a little inside...

Re:Imagine this

[drinkypoo]

Go to any forum, and someone will tell you how to get the driver for your hardware, or how to hack up/configure the driver you have so it works better. That is the problem most people have with Linux: you have to haggle with it to make it work the way you want it to.

Oddly, I've generally had the same problems with Windows. The difference is that on Linux, some ATI and most intel users have access to an OSS driver (up to r5xx on Ubuntu Jaunty) whereas on Windows, everyone has to depend on the closed driver.

Re:Imagine this

[SatanicPuppy]

It goes both ways. I had a creative labs soundcard once where you had to have the original install disk to get the driver for the card...This was a while ago. I'd gotten it from someone else, so no disk, so no sound card.

Ended up installing linux on the machine, and lo and behold, the card worked perfectly, without any intervention on my part.

So yea, it does go both ways. But, as with all things of this nature, people will forgive that crap with Windows because they're used to it, but the difficulty is magnified with Linux because it's different (and, also, because drivers aren't always as easy to install...The first time you have to teach someone how to update X and how to configure SELinux so that you can patch in a driver...Well, you can see the point of people who say Linux is hard to use).

For me, it's 100% about native software. Anythign that runs native in Linux (or even stuff that's compiled to work well with WINE) I'll run it in Linux, just to help show there is a market out there.

Why such moronic ititles and summaries?

[trifish]

They're not giving you Windows 7 for free. They allow anyone to use a beta version of Windows 7 for one year. And, yes, RC is still beta. Microsoft has admitted that they falsely and intentionally label the last few betas as RCs to make hardware vendors to test their hardware and write proper drivers before a RTM build is created.

The only purpose of this /. submission is to make money on ads or something I suppose (I didn't follow any link, I confess, as I don't follow misleading and moronic articles).

Re:Why such moronic ititles and summaries?

[Nimey]

I agree, this was a stupid submission. The RC isn't going to be supported with security fixes, etc. for the year, and I have noticed bugs that also won't be fixed ('cause it's not the release).

Re:Why such moronic ititles and summaries?

[trifish]

Really? Can you cite a source for this

Yes, I can.

Re:Why such moronic ititles and summaries?

[trifish]

The RC isn't going to be supported with security fixes

True. That should be a very good reason to switch to the stable version once it's out.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[houghi]

Please ask her to document it. ;-)

Hmmm

[cdgeorge]

I bet this will convince some of the PC dealers to ship with Windows 7 instead of XP.

Re:isn't this SOP for Windows pre-releases and bet

[caywen]

I doubt it will "self destruct" - they will likely do the same thing as when Windows currently detects it is unlicensed. That is, it will disable a lot of functionality, but you will still have access to your data. After 1 year, then what? Well, either buy it or migrate your data of the machine. You're absolutely right, though. There's no real controversy here, so let's move along.

Re:no thanks!

[recoiledsnake]

That sounds like your own mistake. XP install allows you to format only one partition. You must have messed up by not choosing the proper options during the install.

Re:isn't this SOP for Windows pre-releases and bet

[Sockatume]

Based on the beta, if by "disable a lot of functionality" you mean, "refuse to run for more than two hours consecutively", then yeah, that's how it'll work. You'd better either have your data off there by the time it expires, or figure out how to move it in blocks of 6600 seconds.

MSDN Isn't Free

[Comatose51]

Last I recall a MSDN license isn't free. It's actually fairly expensive but gives you access to most, if not all, of Microsoft's excellent development tools.

Re:MSDN Isn't Free

[TobiasS]

as previously pointed out the public launch is on May 5th, which will not require a MSDN subscription to access the RC.

Re:MSDN Isn't Free

[Tauvix]

The RC is only available via TechNet/MSDN until Tuesday. After that it's available to the general public.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[frieko]

What??? I see absolutely no problem with giving a kid admin access to an OFFLINE machine. Worst case scenario, you have to reimage it.

When I was four I had admin access on my TRS-80. The worst thing that happened was I ended up an engineer.

Re:Fishing

[TheRaven64]

Depends how you smoke it. Often people mix cannabis with tobacco and end up addicted to nicotine. They often then believe that the craving is for for a while cannabis, until they discover that a normal cigarette will work just as well. I know a few people who got hooked on smoking like this, which makes one wonder why tobacco is legal and cannabis isn't.

Perpetual RC's

[shummer_mc]

So, if MS is supposed to be releasing a new OS every couple (2) years and it's SOP to RC them for free for a year... doesn't that mean that we get free MS Windows (RC)? I'll get nailed for this, but really most linux distro's are RC's, too ('LTS' version or the paid version being the actual product).

So, hey, short of 'Free (as in speech),' and 'Open Source' MS is definitely learning from FOSS. hehe. The new MS tagline: It's 'Free (as in beer)' and it's 'software.' So, we're halfway to the FOSS ideal! (j/k)

Re:no thanks!

[TheRaven64]

Either you told the installer to use the entire disk, or you mistakenly believed that GRUB disappearing meant Linux was gone. The NT installer has always allowed other partitions. It doesn't play nicely with other operating systems in terms of boot loader (it replaces the MBR with its own loader), but you can easily restore grub, or use NTLDR to chain-boot other operating systems (I used to do this for a few operating systems with Windows 2000 - just copy the first 512 bytes from the partition into a file and point boot.ini at that file).

What makes this new?

[hob42]

Um, they did the same thing with Vista. The RC was public and came with a year expiration also.

Not only that, but going to the launch expos they had across the country, they passed out free Vista "RTM" discs (confusing because it was not the actual OEM or retail disc) with another year license (plus a full license to Office 2k7).

You know you failed...

[Hurricane78]

...when you give something away for free, and people don't want it anyway. ^^

(Ignore their obviously coming "OMFG! It sells like crazy!!1!one(lim x->0 ((sin x)/x))" messages. They did that with Vista too. And look how it turned out.)

Re:You know you failed...

[drodver]

Windows 7 is a wonderful improvement on Microsoft's previous operating systems. I have been using the beta for over a month on my main PC after previously using XP. There is no way I want to go back to XP.

I didn't care about Vista but finally with Windows 7 there is enough of an improvement over XP to be worth my money.

Re:You know you failed...

[hurt me plenty]

...when you give something away for free, and people don't want it anyway. ^^

Like linux?

Re:You know you failed...

[Hurricane78]

Yes, in fact, I do like Linux. As does nearly everyone on this site. :P

Re:You know you failed...

[Hurricane78]

How is the resource consumption? Comparable to XP and the average Ubuntu system?

Is the DRM/total-encryption insanity any better than with Vista?

Can it beat Linux, console-/scripting-wise?

Is there a real package manager for applications?

And finally: Why in the world would it need it at all? ^^

Mind you that we're talking about considering to pull it via Torrent, as a secondary OS for the games and maybe some professional music software.
Not about actually buying it. I could not imagine ever doing that, after what Microsoft has done to others (eg. Borland, Netscape, Sun, etc.).

Re:You know you failed...

[amliebsch]

How is the resource consumption? Comparable to XP and the average Ubuntu system?

Numerically, it's on par with Ubuntu, maybe a little higher. Subjectively, it feels about as fast as XP. Much faster on some tasks, a little slower a couple of others. On my system it feels a little faster than Ubuntu.

Is the DRM/total-encryption insanity any better than with Vista?

I was never really sure what all the fuss was about, but it does seem that for whatever reason media playback uses less CPU than on Vista. Sometimes much less. Again, just my own observations.

Can it beat Linux, console-/scripting-wise?

I'd say yes, but then again I took the time to learn how to use Power Shell. Just like Bash, it's got a learning curve, but it's very powerful.

Is there a real package manager for applications?

For programs that use it, the MSI infrastructure provides that kind of functionality. No single repositories though, that is a pity.

Re:You know you failed...

[GF678]

...when you give something away for free, and people don't want it anyway. ^^

Yeah, like Linux. Oops!

Mod me down if the truth hurts.

Re:Oooh, NICE counter!

[orkybash]

$250 a year is "free" if you would already absolutely subscribe (or are already subscribed) to the service anyway and the Windows 7 download doesn't provide any more incentive to do so.

Car analogy time: I go into a dealership dead set on buying a car. I know that the car I'm buying is priced competitively with that of other dealerships anyway, lets say at $20,000. Now, the dealer says if I buy now, he'll throw in a better stereo at no cost. Since the car is priced the same as everywhere else, I know the stereo isn't "built in" to the cost. So, if I'm getting the car anyway, and the stereo doesn't raise the price, I can think of it as "free".

Now, lets say instead I've gone in and am just looking around and at first had absolutely no intention of buying a car. But, the dealer manages to change my mind with the free stereo. Since I didn't want the car, I really just paid $20,000 for a stereo.

It's all a matter of perspective...

Wake me up when...

[jDeepbeep]

...they will pay me to install Windows on my box. I might be interested in that.

Service Pack 1

[Mr_Silver]

Maybe I'm just being overly paranoid, but I think I'll stick to the tried and true path of waiting until Service Pack 1 comes out before I decide whether or not to switch.

Re:embrace extend

[Abreu]

Give a regular user a choice between free* Windows and Free* Linux, and they will choose Windows in a heartbeat.

This is designed to get users to upgrade from WinXP to Win7 and not to Linux

I installed it a couple of days ago.

[DragonTHC]

I'm quite impressed with it.

It's a huge step up from vista.

I particularly like the action center.

Re:And worth exactly what you pay for it.

[Ash-Fox]

A Mac OS X Leopard clone, three years later?

And yet they sell so much more than Apple does. Microsoft must have the better copy.

how generous, you can beta test for free!

[wardk]

wow, they just relabel end user testing "free release" and it's somehow different.

this is gonna be fun, consumers will want a real 1.0 and when this beta code eats all of grammas photos there will be a backlash

M$ giving windows away?!

[Nephrite]

Those guys are really desperate

Re:M$ giving windows away?!

[gtirloni]

they are not giving Windows 7 for free. /. can't seem to write decent titles.

Microsoft getting free QA on Windows 7 for a year

[homesnatch]

There... fixed that for you.

Re:no thanks!

[Pie Pan]

Actually, I've just installed a recent build of Windows 7, which not only left my GRUB bootloader untouched, but also gives the option to resize partitions through the built in disk manager. It's the most dual boot friendly version of Windows I've ever used.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Wrath0fb0b]

Actually, Windows uses a finer-grained permission set for the control panel. Limited users (not sure that she was actually running as a limited user) can open almost all control panel items and change a goodly number of them. This is totally logical, since there is no reason to lock a limited user out of changing her mouse speed or desktop background, screen resolution, keyboard preferences ......

If she was running as a limited user, she would not have been able to change any essential settings even if she had read access to the control panel items containing those setting.

MSDN access is hosed right now...

[AustinSlacker]

I've been trying for a couple of hours to get into the downloads section of MSDN and I keep getting the, "Sorry, we were unable to service your request" message. So somebody must be downloading it. Or maybe they are limiting access to make it appear that there is a larger demand than really is... Who knows with them.

they already had me..

[Destoo]

Microsoft already had me at "Mark Russinovich is windows 7 principal architect".
I was given that 'june 1st' date, but it was supposed to be june 1st 2009, not 2010.
Background goes black on june 1st, and starting july 1st, reboot each two hours. (insert bluescreen joke here)

Look, its better than Vista!

[miffo.swe]

"Hey customer! Forget about that DRM thingie we snuck in last version and look at how much better Windows 7 is than Vista! Never mind all those pesky little compatible issues, we give you two OS to fix, hunt for malware and upgrade by shipping XP inside Windows 7! Now that you have crappy Vista to benchmak against instead of XP Windows 7 will look almost bearable!"

Brilliant! The really sad part is that many ppl will swallow this hook line and sinker. Good for them as long as i can keep it off any computer i touch.

Waiting for the pirates!

[TigerTails]

I can vision pirates already preparing to crack the expiration date and so it never expires, just like Vista..

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[adonoman]

First you say:

I see absolutely no problem

and then you say:

I ended up an engineer

Seems like a dire enough consequence to me.

Re:please don't buy an Apple

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Too late.
I already bought a very nice MacBook Pro.
I am very happy with my MBP, it is screaming fast, looks good, has not crashed in 6 months.
I reboot it about once a month, and that is usually because Firefox has started eating up memory.

So tell me again why I am supposed to care about Microsoft's latest crapfest?

Re:Fishing

[SatanicPuppy]

Because you can't make tobacco into rope or paper.

Honestly, there is no good reason. Drug law is by nature arbitrary, since "drug" is an imprecise term. At some point it was decided that cannabis is a drug whose production and distribution should be banned, and so it has remained.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[db32]

My 3 yr old has been playing gcompris on the linux desktop I set up for the kids since she was 2. It started with the push the ball to tux thing and colored duck games. One day she was playing the alphabet train game and was getting 80% or so correct... She found the game on her own, figured out the rules, and was gettin g80% of her letters correct at 2 1/2 years old. Then I came by another time and she was doing the shape matching and puzzle games very successfully. She "fails" more when we are watching just because she likes our reaction when we tease her. Those little monsters just learn WAY too fast.

Re:Fishing

[bothemeson]

And even then the cotton was a poor substitute for the hemp that it replaced - it did have the advantage of boosting the nascent chemical industry, though ;-)

Re:no thanks!

[Creepy Crawler]

How about instead of saying "Unknown Partition", make a driver that allows read access to the FS drivers in the linux kernel?

MS: Linux may have been good for you, but we provide you the tools to migrate your data back to a "Complete MS Solution". We support all fileystems that Linux can read and write to, along with BASH scripting and posix programs by default. We also run a Linux compat layer, like BSD, so we can run native ELF executables without changing.

but no.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Maximum Prophet]

When my youngest was 2 or 3, she was able to shutdown an XP machine with a couple of keystrokes with or without metakeys. I still don't know how she did it.

Free 7-UPgrade

[NicknamesAreStupid]

They will probably offer a free 7-UPgrade to anyone who has a legit copy of Vista. It makes too much business sense. Vista will become an albatross support burden. Giving away bits-on-a-wire to all those who bought Vista and even paid more to downgraded to XP will create some goodwill and begin to phase out older versions of the OS. If XP continues to have a huge installed base as W2K did, Microsoft will be forced to support it longer. That draws resource$ away from new products. They would probably save the 7-UP distribution costs in six months. Of course, I am talking about Microsoft, a company that seems to be living in its own reality distortion zone. Therefore, they might force people who bought Vista to pay MORE for a 7-UPgrade and tell people who downgraded to XP that they must buy an X-Box to get Win7. They also might sue anyone who criticizes them - hold on, there's someone at the door - HEY YOU CAN'T COME IN HERE.......

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[frieko]

http://andrewgentle.com/newsblog/archives/dilbert-the-knack-video/

Re:no thanks!

[FudRucker]

in reply to all that think i am incompetent, horseshit on you! i been using computers for 12 years now i sure as fucking hell know what in the i am doing!!!

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Cyclopedian]

ALT+F4 at the Desktop will issue the shutdown command.

Re:And worth exactly what you pay for it.

[EmperorKagato]

You just proved that you're yet another moron who thinks quality = sales.

mod?

[thestreetmeat]

More of a "+1 tragically funny" I guess. You can reinstall grub from a live cd.

Free?

[gmuslera]

Definately is not "libre" as in open source. Definately is not "gratis" as in free beer.
Sometimes english is not enough to explain a concept.
But still... free with expiration date isnt free/gratis/libre/whatever, is just delayed payment.

At one time

[WindBourne]

Apple owned 90% of the market.
Netscape owned 90% of their market.
Intuit Quicken owned 90% of their market.
Basically, lots of company can own it. Holding it is hard. If the monopoly with OS-Office gets broken, then MS will likely lose that 90% desktop.

Re:At one time

[Danse]

Basically, lots of company can own it. Holding it is hard. If the monopoly with OS-Office gets broken, then MS will likely lose that 90% desktop.

Microsoft is going on 2 decades of being the 900 lb. gorilla. Get back to me when they lose that OS-Office monopoly. Network effects dictate that it will be pretty damn hard to break unless someone else is able to create something that works nearly as well and can read and write the same data formats without any problems. While many have tried, none have succeeded yet.

Re:At one time

[WindBourne]

Funny. That is not how MS broke the other monopolies. In no major situation case did they read-write the others format better. They did do the embrace, extend, extinguish, but that was with minor players. The fact that MS is going to give away Windows free for a years, says that they ARE losing their monopoly.

Re:At one time

[Danse]

The fact that MS is going to give away Windows free for a years, says that they ARE losing their monopoly.

No, it means that they screwed the pooch with Vista and that their own biggest competitor is previous versions of Windows. Apple and Linux are not gonna eat Microsoft's lunch anytime soon.

Re:Not even tempted...

[aardwolf64]

Saving that flight sim for a special occasion, huh?

This is win/win for MS

[CAIMLAS]

This is a win/win situation for Microsoft.

First, they get to have people install their OS for a year - call it Vista upgraders. It's a suckerpunch, though, because after that year expires, those people are essentially forced to upgrade to the 'official' W7, or go back to Vista with significant headache. (Oh, the upgrade process from the RC to the final will be easy, rest assured.) Bait, meet hook.

Second, they get to offer their flagship product (and it is their flagship product, at this point) for 'free' - ie, completely without any support, most likely, on account of its RC status. Chances are they will, however, release updates for it, making it more like a traditional product launch.

Re:Good idea Gateways?

[davidsyes]

Gateway THUG or gateway PUG, or even more scary... gatway to mslug (ms linux users' group)

The real reason Vista & v7 won't get adopted..

[B5_geek]

The real reason Vista & v7 won't get adopted is because of technology.

Win95 -> 32bit CPU support
Win98 -> Proper 32bit support
WinNT -> SMP
Win2k -> Active Directory *
WinXP -> USB
Vista & v7 -> 64bit

-Yes Win98 did support USB but it was VERY buggy and required 3rd party drivers to make work.
-It is true that AD was an "MS idea (copied from Novell)" but it made Big Companies much happier then NT did.
-Average users don't need 64bit yet. That is why the uptake isn't there yet. The one feature that XP should have had out of the box *proper CD/DVD burning* is now in Vista/v7, but people are already trained to use a 3rd party app to do that.

There is no "must-have" technology that requires people to upgrade, therefore they won't.

Living outside the Slashdot bubble

[westlake]

What they really need is to get people to stop replacing it with an older version, and to stop trying to get the older one on their new hardware.

Vista is approaching a 25% share of the market.

Top Operating System Share Trend

It's easy to imagine a 10% decline in XP's share and a 10% increase in Vista's share May-to-May.

The geek looks in the mirror and thinks that he is representative of the mass consumer market.

The HP desktop from WalMart is quad core and ships with 6 GB RAM and 64 Bit Vista. In six months - nine months, whatever - it will be an i7 with 9 GB RAM.

Serious horsepower at a mass market price. Mature 64 bit drivers. Win 7 just around the corner.

What's not to love?

Dual-core is Coming Soon to a netbook near you. It won't be long before XP stops making sense even at entry level.
 

Re:Living outside the Slashdot bubble

[lilo_booter]

Serious horsepower at a mass market price. Mature 64 bit drivers. Win 7 just around the corner.

What's not to love?

Are you expecting a serious answer to that?

Dual-core is Coming Soon to a netbook near you. It won't be long before XP stops making sense even at entry level.

They're here now, and it has already stopped making sense to use XP there - ubuntu 9.04 is working just dandy thanks (just as it does on the older models).

Re:Living outside the Slashdot bubble

[westlake]

Are you expecting a serious answer to that?

Not here.

But the geek needs to be brought to his senses.

4 GB of 2x2 GB DDR2 Kingston Value RAM is $50 anywhere you look. The retail shopper sees a 64 bit system that has very good specs to start with and is easily and cheaply up-graded to a barn-burner.

 

Re:Living outside the Slashdot bubble

[RESPAWN]

Actually, as a recent convert to Vista, I feel I can speak to this a bit. For me, it was quite simple: I ordered another 4GB of RAM for my gaming rig. This was in addition to the 2GB already in there. I obviously wanted to be able to use all 6GB of my RAM, so this of course meant a 64 bit OS. Now, anybody who wants to suggest *nix can stop right there. This is my gaming rig. I use it for games. While I may not be wholly objective in this matter, I don't see that wine can be nearly as good at this as a PC running Windows native.

So anyway, what's a guy to do? XP64 or Vista64? Considering what I've heard about the two, Vista64 seems to have the greatest deal of support and seems to handle legacy 32 bit apps with more grace than XP64. Actually, I haven't heard much good about XP64. Vista it is.

And right there, a simple $50 purchase caused me to convert over to the dark side of windows computing. While Vista certainly has its quirks it gets the job done and I can now use ALL of my RAM.

Lastly, before any *nix trolls feel the need to chime in, I'm very much a right tool, right job kind of guy. I have machines at home running Vista, Ubuntu, OSX, and BeOS (not really the right tool for any job, but it's still there). When I game, I don't want to have to deal with the variables involved with making Linux work. I just want to game and go.

Re:Living outside the Slashdot bubble

[lilo_booter]

But the geek needs to be brought to his senses.

Why? What purpose would that serve? Are you planning something?

Re:Oooh, NICE counter!

[shutdown -p now]

Let me just quote the comments from this thread:

MSDN and technet require very expensive subscriptions

Technet is 349.00 for the first year / 249.00 per year after that. That isn't expensive.

You counter his argument that it is not free by pointing out it is MERELY 250 bucks a year...
Who would have thought FREE would become such a complex concept to some people.

I don't know where you've seen the word "free" in GGP, because it wasn't there. He said "expensive". $250/year is hardly expensive, but that's beside the point anyway, since it's not what you've taken issue with.

Please mod parent Offtopic.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[MikeBabcock]

Windows Key, U, U ... on most systems, without a software package beginning with 'U' in the start menu.

The web. Period.

[theolein]

I don't know what the relevant stats are to be honest, but I'm pretty sure that some 80% to 90% of software development these days is for web based apps, i.e. backend and browser. People got burnt so often by developing for propietry platforms in the past, and I don't only mean Microsoft by that, that I think that client OS development is truly becoming somewhat irrelevant.

Microsoft knows this and tried so many times to lock people into its own web platform technologies, be that ActiveX, IE, Silverlight, XAML etc. But it never worked. The web is no longer Microsoft's backyard and people are tired of being forced to either cow to Microsoft, Apple or Adobe.

Personally, I'm glad and it's abaout time.

Re:Oooh, NICE counter!

[MikeBabcock]

Its not a matter of perspective, its a matter of linguistics.

The 'free CD' that come with your magazine subscription isn't free either. Its just a portion of what you paid for your magazine subscription, and its included on that basis whether you want to use it or not.

Re:Fishing

[MikeBabcock]

For a similarly interesting situation, read the old FDA reports on whether to ban either cocaine or caffeine in drinks like Coca Cola. It was determined that both should be banned until it was shown that caffeine was a flavouring agent, and was therefore allowed in small doses.

Re:And worth exactly what you pay for it.

[Ash-Fox]

You just proved that you're yet another moron who thinks that "quantity = quality" by saying that.

Whoooooosh~

To / too / two

[tjonnyc999]

409 comments as of 03:10:07 EST, and I'm the only one to notice the "to / too" issue in tagline?

And the Grammar Nazi Award goes to...

Take it to the bay baby.....

[splatter]

I'll be firing up the virtual pc this evening and messing around on it:

Here is the all 32bit versions dist I found with the highest seeds. D/L rate at just under 1 Meg /s.

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4866918/Windows_7_Build_7100_RC_x86_(32bit)_-_All_Editions.4866918.TPB.torrent

Re:Fishing

[amliebsch]

It's because generations ago blacks and Mexicans smoked cannabis and whites smoked tobacco.

Pause to play?

[AlpineR]

Wow, seriously? The entire operating system stops while it plays the shutdown sound? I would have thought the sound data could be spit out to the sound card to play autonomously while the operating system cleaned up. But maybe that's just a fantasy from an old Amiga user. Or at least the sound could be given its own thread for the CPU to run while it's waiting for disk IO.

Re:no thanks!

[FudRucker]

my only mistake was trusting that xp install disk to do what i instructed it to do, never again.

Re:no thanks!

[cbhacking]

sed s/"your own mistake".*\n/"a troll"/g

The whole thing is utterly bogus.

re: blame HP and Canon

[King_TJ]

Sure, that's what Microsoft keeps saying about these issues too. But at some point, I think a commercial OS maker has to "take charge" of things. If a major vendor keeps producing products that make your OS look bad, you either DO something to address it, or you suffer from their continual screw-ups.

Why do you think MS bundles so many drivers with the OS itself? They realize what a piss-poor user experience it is, when you install Windows, only to be greeted by a VGA 640x480 display in 16 colors, no sound, no working modem or NIC card, etc. By the same token, the user experience is just as piss-poor AFTER the OS is installed and working with the hardware built into the PC, if other (often expensive) peripherals malfunction with it.

Why.

[Sasayaki]

The answer to this question is very, very simple. Knowledge/experience/equipment for growing cannabis is a lot easier to find and implement than growing tobacco, which means that if cannabis were completely legalized everyone would grow their own. Which means it wouldn't be taxed.

The government (Australian, American, Canadian, etc) honestly doesn't care if you smoke yourself to death. Or get wasted on weed. Really. They just care about taxing you.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[perryizgr8]

There's no need to get your children hooked on Windows before they're in the first grade.

yes there is: video games.

Re:no thanks!

[neonsignal]

Fortunately we now have virtualization, the modern playpen for recalcitrant operating systems.

Sounds similar to OSX beta

[fontkick]

Which means we are only Windows 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5 and 8 years away from a really sweet OS.

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Geminii]

It's Unix - she knows this!

WTF, rupees is a real-world currency?

[jonaskoelker]

they'll just go to the market and buy a bootleg for 40 rupees

So are we going to see Zelda players farm Dollars and trade them for real-world money? :)

They make money elsewhere anyway

[inmytaxi]

Don't they make a great deal of money from forcing people who buy prebuilt computers to take a paid for copy of Windows with it? I can't see Dell, HP, Toshiba et al selling their computers with a beta OS.

Re:Fishing

[inmytaxi]

crack/meth/coke aren't physically addicting anyway, in the sense of painful protracted withdrawal. A little exercise and some food will cure "cocaine withdrawal". Opiates are where withdrawal happens.

Re:no thanks!

[IcI]

Except that by DEFAULT, the WinXP install will wipe out the ENTIRE hard drive.

You clod!

[jonaskoelker]

If you want to be a pathetic niche

But I like Beethoven's Pathétique, you insensitive clod!

Important to whom, why?

[jonaskoelker]

So, if Linux is going to make any inroads into this small but important market

Why is this market important? To what end is it important to make inroads in this market?

Is it because all the media production people are rabid $OS fanboys for the subjectively best value of OS, and so they'll help convert others? ;)

Or... please explain. Thank you :)

Re:Important to whom, why?

[PopeRatzo]

Is it because all the media production people are rabid $OS fanboys for the subjectively best value of OS

Just the opposite. I'm sitting here right now in my studio, waiting for a drummer to show up, and I'm looking at a Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, and two custom-built (by me) Windows machines. My Ubuntu Studio test bed is behind me and there's a Linux server and network storage system over in the closet.

Media Production people are the opposite of rabid fanboys. We'd change OS in a second if it worked better. I've written many times here how I'd prefer using a Mac as my main production machine if I could just use my own hardware.

Just like the Nazis...

[jonaskoelker]

The public beta will be out May 5th

Which happens to be the day of the year when the WWII Nazis officially lost their control over Denmark (actually May 4th, late evening, but we celebrate on May 5th).

Not wanting to Godwin the thread or anything, but this invites so many jokes...

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" ;)

See also http://xkcd.com/528/

Pothead! :P

[jonaskoelker]

iamhigh> I have stopped [smoking weed] for years when necessary with no trouble.

You off the weed right now?

Legal liability!

[jonaskoelker]

If you like it, but don't want to pay for it, just pirate it.

Watch out! The Swedish chapter of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry might sue you for accessory to copyright infringement!

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Maximum Prophet]

Right, but that brings up the "Standby, Turnoff, Restart" menu. If you press Enter after that, you go into standby.

I've seen her bang on the keyboard, and the machine just shut down, gracefully, with no prompting. More than once...

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[Maximum Prophet]

I'll try that on my work machine, but my home machine, an Inspiron 1100 laptop, doesn't have a Windows key, and neither does the Model M plugged into it.

I'll check the manual. Perhaps some combination of Ctrl, Fn, and Alt will stand in for the Windows key.

Re:Oooh, NICE counter!

[theaceoffire]

$250/year is hardly expensive

Objection! Subjective!

Considering that some people freak out over $50 a year, it is not obvious to everyone that 5x that is reasonable. In other words, how "expensive" it is depends on the income and cost of living of each person, and as such very difficult to judge here.

To you, it may be negligible, to others it may be excessive.

Re: Not entirely about the OS

[Douglas Goodall]

It is not so much about the OS as in that year the user will be installing applications and becoming dependent on the solution (hardware,OS,software,training). After a year's worth of data, shortcuts, email, and data, people may not want to change and buying a license may seem easier than the alternatives. A year goes by fairy fast, then its credit card time. You buy the license, and shortly thereafter, a new OS appears. Brilliant.

Re:isn't this SOP for Windows pre-releases and bet

[badkarmadayaccount]

NTFS 3G + SATA/USB external drive enclosure

Re:Offline Gaming machine

[MikeBabcock]

Ctrl-Esc loads the start menu, similarly to the Windows key.

Ctrl-Esc, U, U in that case.