Using Windows 7 RC? Pay Up Or Auto Shutdown Warned

CWmike writes with a warning that free preview copies of Windows 7 in the wild will start nagging users to pay up in a couple of weeks until ultimately shutting down the PC altogether in a month. "Microsoft unveiled the schedule for Windows 7 Release Candidate's retirement in May 2009, when it issued the early look to the public. At the time, it said Windows 7 RC would expire June 1, 2010. Before that date, however, users are to receive warnings of the impending end. Starting on Feb. 15, Windows 7 RC will display notices every few hours that the machine will periodically shut down beginning on March 1. As of March 1, PCs running Windows 7 RC will automatically shut down every two hours. Those shutdowns will come without warning."

Comments

obligatory ....

[Brigadier]

ok, aaand how is this any different from what happens now ?

"......Windows 7 RC will automatically shut down every two hours. Those shutdowns will come without warning."

Re:I'm glad there's no bias in the reporting on /.

[recoiledsnake]

Let me guess, you're new to Slashdot? This site is not news for nerds, it's news for anti-'M$' nerds. You won't see a story here about Windows 7 increasing Microsoft revenue. Just plain FUD and negative articles about MS abound on here.

The huge success of Windows 7 helped Microsoft romp to $19bn of revenue for the quarter, earning $6.6bn in profit. It was a record three months for Windows sales, with a whopping 60 million Windows 7 licences shifted.

Re:Open Source/Linux's Failure To Capitalize

[Anne Thwacks]

Step away from the chair, Steve ...

This behaviour

[Progman3K]

Those shutdowns will come without warning.

So, um, situation normal, then?

Modded Troll?

[recoiledsnake]

I have enough karma, I don't care, interesting to see the ostrich mentality of the modder though. "Oh no, some pro MS text, let me bury it quick.".

I need Help

[Herkum01]

PCs running Windows 7 RC will automatically shut down every two hours. Those shutdowns will come without warning.

How am I supposed to tell if I have a paid version or not?

Win7 and Vista

[gearloos]

The Problem is, M$oft brought out win7 beta to shut up all the people that were having a disaster with Vista. Now that the "free" upgrade is over, all those people are stuck with buying Win7. What happened to fixing Vista. I am talking about giving the people who bought it a truly bug free experience. Since all the (misguided) hype over Win7, Vista is forgotten and , yet again, M$oft gets away with producing Garbage and sticking the people who paid for it. Are they just expected to forget the $100's they spent on it and spend yet more on Win7 now that they have no other way to actually use the pile of crap computer they bought with Vista?

Re:time...

[sopssa]

While your post makes no sense, it makes no sense.

You get free OS

[DogDude]

Oh, puh-lease. Anybody using the RC gets a free ride in that they get to test the OS and test their software with the OS for free. If you don't want to help test a RELEASE CANDIDATE, then don't use it. Nobody's twisting your arm. Ubuntu is buggier than any modern version of Windows... why aren't you complaining about "testing" Ubuntu for free?

Re:..so?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

We don't ignore them, we understand them to be unimportant.

Translation: I don't like them, so I'll ignore them.

Please take your astroturf campaign somewhere people won't call you out and laugh.

How about, first you take your paranoia elsewhere, so that people won't call you out and wince.

Just means that after a couple of YEARS of pent up demand because of the Vista fiasco retailers had a decent Xmas selling season for PCs despite the generally crappy economy. Almost none of those 7 licenses were actual retail sales in the normal meaning of the word.

Wait, so which is it now? Is it:

a) Vista was crap, and now people are falling over themselves to buy a windows 7, or a PC with windows 7, or
b) Almost all of windows 7 sales were involuntary, and not a product of demand

You can't have it both ways. I suspect it's somewhere between the two Microsoft-bashing extremes. Anyway, however which way you slice it, it's a win for Microsoft and a loss for Linux. It doesn't help Linux for you to deny this.

Meh. At least most Apple users DO upgrade when a new OS ships instead of waiting for their next system purchase to get it rammed down their throat whether they want/like it or not. But Apple is just a niche player and their business model requires them to remain a niche player. Unlike His Steveness who only aspires to be a cult leader, we want "World Domination"

You know, the point of this story was not that Apple released snow leopard (it's not like geeks ignore OSX releases). The point was that windows 7, released at a similar time, was getting more customer satisfaction than snow leopard. A part which I noticed you studiously ignored.

You say that like you guys in Redmond are proud of it or something. It is a sign of a saturated market. Odds are over half of that 10% was people getting a new machine for Xmas because the penetration numbers for 7 before that was still fairly small. Compare and contrast to Win95's release and deployment rate. That was a product people really wanted enough to suffer through the pain of upgrading.

You say it like it's something to be ashamed of or something. No matter how it's deployed, 10% of the huge PC market is extremely large. Hell, it's still early days, and you can still pick up Vista machines, or install XP, or install Linux. Remember, these aren't sales figures, these are usage figures. Face it: people are using windows 7, and by and large, they are satisfied with it.

Even you seemed satisfied with it to certain degree, as rabid a linux zealot as you are.

Re:..so?

[jmorris42]

> And that's Windows 7's fault and cannot be Firefox's? Right? Blind fanboi, much?

1. I was giving my first look at W7 experience. Firefox has never blown up on any previous Windows install I have used and I only use IE to download FF. Microsoft has teams dedicated to making sure key ISV's products work because they know people buy computers (normally never really thinking about the OS, which is exactly what Microsoft wants) to run applications and if popular apps don't work customers don't care who is at fault. If they aren't working with Moz Corp that IS their fault.

2. Guess you didn't/couldn't read the next sentence where I note that while FF blows up on launch on W7 it blows up on close on F12, hence along with the noted different but equally wrong docking behavior merits the Meh! verdict on both.

Although I guess I should rate Windows worse on the docking problem because it is a preload and the dock is advertised as a recommended accessory. Lenovo should get to share blame with Microsoft for not properly testing. Windows KNOWS the new resolution of the docked display but decides to keep running at the lower resolution of the internal panel on a warm dock with the lid closed. In the same situation Fedora believes both panels are active and, worse, that the internal one is the primary so the gnome panel isn't visible, making the monitor control applet hard to get at. On Windows I can quickly fix the resolution and on Fedora I bound a key to pop up gnome-display-properties so it is usable.

The bigger point being neither are perfect but both are about equally usable. Availability of a key app, preferred philosophy (UNIX vs Windows vs Mac) are both more important factors in picking an OS, all three major OS families having long since passed the threshold of being 'good enough' to get work done. In my case I like the UNIX Way and won't use closed source if an open solution exists that doesn't blow. For now that puts me on Linux but I'm threatening to ditch it for BSD if I can't at least find some reliable documentation on some of this new freedesktop *kit/udev/hal/etc steaming piles of xml bullcrap. Fighting the frigin registry is easier, at least it is fairly well documented these days.