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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.'"
Didn't your mom warn you about that? "They give you one for free, and then when they have you hooked....wham!"
Well it will take me at least a year to get all my drivers updated and installed, so this really doesn't help me.
Will this include XP as a VM for a year as well?
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
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.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
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+.
...waiting for blue face of death...
rewriting history since 2109
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.
First they start you on 7, then Windows Server and Vista, and before you know it you have a full install of Windows ME.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
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."
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?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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).
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Please ask her to document it. ;-)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.