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Windows 7 Pre-Orders Top Vista's In Just 8 Hours

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-in-the-uk-anyway dept.

Barence writes "In order to ensure Windows 7 got off to a better start than Vista in the UK, Microsoft slashed the cost of Home and Home Professional by a third on promotional copies which were sold on a 'first come, first served basis while stocks last.' The promotion ensured Windows 7 shot to the top of Amazon's charts when it was released yesterday, with the online retailer claiming that 'sales in the first eight hours outstripped those of Windows Vista's entire 17-week pre-order period.' The price of pre-ordering Windows 7 has now shot up to £80, after the £50 copies sold out within a day."

13 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Can't say I'm surprised.... by HerculesMO · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not too expensive, it's a great piece of software, and the best OS Microsoft has put out yet.

    Say what you will about Linux or OSX, but I honestly think that Windows 7 is going to have a good future.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
    1. Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... by HerculesMO · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I never compared Linux or OSX as the competition for 7, I just mentioned them in passing, since they are spoken of in rather complimentary terms, I think Windows 7 will also be as the future comes around.

      XP took 7 or 8 years to have the share that it has. Windows 7 in that amount of time may have a similar share. My outlook is favorable to Windows 7, and that's pretty much all I was saying.

      Way to miss the forest for the trees.

      --
      The price is always right if someone else is paying.
    2. Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It's not the "best OS Microsoft has put out yet". That's making room for previous versions being worth half a shit at their release.

      Windows 7 is the only Microsoft OS that is not only markedly better than its predecessor but is the only release they've made where there is not something immediately noticeable as "broken for unknown reasons". That's a pretty big accomplishment for them!

      Meh. Maybe I should just not post this comment. I'd forgotten about the "Windows XP Compatibility Mode" feature. That's inexplicably fucked.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    3. Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... by vishbar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seconded on the Powershell comment. I fell in love. I had most of ours partially scripted in Perl, but replaced it with a far more efficient set of scripts written in Powershell.

      --
      Ride the skies
  2. Every other OS stinks by mprindle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone I was talking to the other day made a good point. Every other OS Microsoft has put out in the last 10 - 15 years or so has sucked.

    Win7 = TBD - Looking good as of now
    Vista = Horrible
    XP = Pretty Good
    ME = Rancid
    2000 = Not Bad
    NT 4 = Not Bad, but severely limited

  3. Re:Long time lurker... by flydpnkrtn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know, if you log in, you can set your preferences up so that you never ever see a Microsoft article....

    Hmm looks like maybe I stand corrected... it why is this article in the "Technology" section when it is very obviously a Microsoft article?

    --
    Here's to the crazy ones
  4. Re:Amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Microsoft slashed the cost of Home and Home Professional by a third on promotional copies ... 'sales in the first eight hours outstripped those of Windows Vista's entire 17-week pre-order period.'

          The Microsoft Marketing Machine discovers the laws of supply and demand, and tries to spin it to Microsoft's advantage.

          Of course this will be immediately modded troll or flamebait by slashdot's resident Microsoft shills. I have karma points to burn, bitches.

    Amazing! (Score:3, Insightful)
    How exactly is this an insightful post?

  5. It is just Vista SP X by Clarious · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... and people are acting crazy. When I used vista, I have absolute no problem with it, so I don't understand what with the Windows 7 hype. From what I have heard, it is just Vista with the retarded parts removed.

    But I have no reason to care about Windows world anymore, switched to Linux half a year ago and now I am a happy Linux user :) There may never be an year of Linux or its market will never go past 10%, but I can use it comfortably now, so it is fine with me.

    1. Re:It is just Vista SP X by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "When I used vista, I have absolute no problem with it"

      Obviously, you ran Vista on a recent high powered machine, with super graphics. Unfortunately, as part of the marketing hype, Vista was sold on new machines that were seriously underpowered, with crumby onboard graphics. So, even on expensive new machines, businesses and consumers found that Vista sucked. Win7, however, rocks along nicely on almost any machine with a CPU over 1 Ghz. You may or may not be able to use the Aero features, but it runs stable, and performance is decent.

      I have found that Vista sucked even harder in virtual machines - but Win7 is perfectly happy inside a virtual machine.

      I just don't know how else to spell it out. Vista was a terribly expensive mistake, and in today's economy, few people or businesses can afford expensive mistakes.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  6. Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Make a good product and people might actually be willing to give you money for it

    Imagine a world where businesses actually made their products better to get sales rather than skimming quality to reduce margins for more profit

  7. BOHICA! by MarcQuadra · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Bend Over, Here It Comes Again!

    Seriously, Win7 just feels like a lot of good press wrapped around Vista to me. That being said, I'm using it at work already (but I was using Vista pre-SP1 too).

    I'm -not- going to enjoy trying to hold-off users from self-deploying this until we're ready to support it. Even with the lead time, there are lots of bits and pieces that wouldn't fit in our environment, and there are far too many 'flavors', especially with the 32 and 64 bit editions for me to handle.

    --
    "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
  8. Re:Great startegy by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ah, but may I mention that this time you don't need to be fooled by believing pre-release hype. You could have tried the beta and you can try the RC. I'm running the RC at home. I like it. If/when/whatever I buy Win 7 it won't be because of hype. It will be because I've run the RC for ~6 months and have found it to work well.

    I hope that's not considered "hype."

  9. Re:Price Gouging by HermMunster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is overpriced. Vista was a horrible dead horse. Essentially a dead horse with lipstick. I have 3 machines with Vista on it. I have 10 machines with Linux and about 8 with XP. The linux boxes run more stably and are more customizable. I can change the look with little effort. Software is easy to install.

    Vista is horrible. I spend my days as a small business owner supporting Windows based products. I make my income off it. I spend a good deal of that time (about 90% of it) cleaning computers of malware and bringing them back to a state where they can run acceptably. Though I don't get many infected Vista boxes I do get them. The reason is that I get so few Vista boxes. People in my community learned early on not to trust Microsoft and Vista. Most are just happy as a lark to stay with XP.

    To this day I have nothing but problems with all my machines running Vista. I'm attuned to analyzing and fixing problems so I see them in Vista more readily than some Joe that may use it for only a couple purposes. I know this because I work on them regularly. I have to in order to learn it and stay up to date. Just as I will with Windows 7.

    But as far as I'm concerned Vista 7 should have been offered for free. No one should be rushing out to pay Microsoft yet again to fix the crap they created in Vista.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.