-Mike

But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company’s leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.

Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.

The furor over Vista Ultimate has even reached analysts’ ranks. In May, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft urged Microsoft to give Vista Ultimate owners a free upgrade to Windows 7. “It would buy them a lot of good will, and I don’t think it would cost them much,” Cherry said at the time.

Some of the commenters in the latest Computerworld stories about Windows 7 echoed Cherry.

“I am running Vista Ultimate and feel ripped off by Microsoft because … [we] never received the extras we paid good money to get,” said “Hellfire” in a long comment. “The very least that they should do is offer a heavily-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate to those that have lost money by purchasing Vista Ultimate.”

check google for source

Your notations about installing with upgrade media to an empty machine is interesting… although I would bet Microsoft would call you a thief for such practices.

As well, running Win7 Ultimate on 3 machines with only 1 purchased license would put you in Microsoft’s “thief” category just as fast.

So, people should follow your advice here using their own discretion and at their own risk.

The Vista Ultimate thing… here you seem to be missing the point. Yeah, Vista Ultimate was a huge waste since Microsoft’s promised “extras” never amounted to much. And I see your point about doing the research first, although I disagree because the research couldn’t be completed until Vista was deprecated — only then would we know what Microsoft is and is not putting out for Ultimate users.

But my issue isn’t with that; it’s with the upgrade path.

There should be some notion of what people are upgrading from, not just what they’re upgrading to. If you bought Vista Home Basic and are upgrading to Win7 Ultimate, it costs you the exact same amount as if you had bought Vista Ultimate. So, in the end, the Vista Ultimate users get screwed because it costs them MORE to upgrade to the next version of Windows and to stay at their “ultimate” level than it does for someone going from Home to Home.

It’s difficult to explain, but the point is that the extra money I spent to get Vista Ultimate is 100% gone now. I may as well have purchased an OEM version of XP, since the path ends in the same spot: Windows 7 of whatever variety. Microsoft gives no benefits whatsoever to people who were their best/better customers in the past.

I liken it to trading in a used car. If I bring in a perfect-condition late-model Lexus and get the same trade-in value as someone who brings in a barely-running Yugo, I’m going to feel like the extra money I spent on the Lexus is only going to supplement the Yugo driver’s lower-valued trade-in.

And the reality is that upgraders are Microsoft’s best customers in the first place. Well over 90% of Windows 7 users will be getting it with a new computer… they’re not even TRYING to patronize Microsoft; it’s just coming out that way. And to be sure, those versions of Windows (pre-installed) are OEM versions and only put like $50 for each license into Microsoft’s pockets.

But those of us who WANT to move to Windows 7 and WANT to buy the OS and move to it are paying a minimum of $120 (if not a student) for the “privilege” of throwing away our previous version of Windows (however much we spent on it) and moving to the lowest version of Windows 7. In the end, I call that poor treatment of their best customers.

-Mike

@ Michael,
I installed Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade OEM (came with windows vista ult) on a new machine… didnt even need Vista installed. just went right through the install process.

Microsoft has fixed the issue of people using one disc/key to install on multiple computers… 7 ult (only one i know for sure) can be installed on at least 3 computers. Yes, only one of them has an activated license, but the other 2 continue to work perfectly fine after the 3 day activation period. So far, it has been 3 months.

I just purchased 7 Ult… yes for $219, but for me, it is worth the cost. 7 is faster than XP in many aspects.

Why spend the money when it appears to be working fine? I am a web developer that works out of the house, and i cannot afford for my computer to stop working (if microsoft ever fixes that issue).

Ultimate is necessary for me because it includes IIS. (internet information services) and at the $20 price difference from PRO, whats the big deal.

Personally, i am not pissed of at Microsoft. I did my research about Vista, and quickly found out it was total crap. For those that want to complain about spending $400 for Vista ult… you obviously didn’t do your research. I understand that some of you decide to go out and purchase a copy of windows in order to blog about it, thus informing the general public. That is one of those rare occasions that you get screwed. But, at the same time, i don’t believe that 90% of people that bought Vista (not on new machine) were buying it to review it.

Ulitmate Extras… why would anyone trust that microsoft would continue to support its biggest mistake with extras when it was well known in late 07 that windows 7 was being worked on.

Vista SP2… obviously patching a mal-coded OS would fix many problems, but business wise doesn’t make much since. With a OS, such as vista, having so many bad reviews, you wouldnt expect that they just keep the name Vista and hope people flock to it… No, they fixed all of the problems, made it faster than XP, and came up with a new name to get the Vista mistake behind them.
Not saying that they should charge as much as they are, but i do believe that $200 a copy to upgrade from XP is reasonable. Now, upgrading from the extensively overpriced Vista, should not be as much

I am a quasi-journalist with aspirations of reviewing software for readers to get benefit out of my reviews. Since I am only a blogger, Microsoft is surely not going to give me any review copies of their OS, so I had to buy my own to review.

As such, I didn’t have a LOT of choice. And since I was one of the reviewers, if you remove all of those like me, then no one would be reviewing the product for others to know it’s bad before they go out and spend the money. It’s a vicious circle.

In any case, I don’t feel totally screwed on the Vista purchase. I still have a licensed copy of Vista Ultimate if I need to use it.

Which just gave me an interesting insight… what if I upgraded that Vista Ultimate (I didn’t, but let’s suppose), and then I upgraded that machine to Windows 7. Then, let’s say I take my Vista Ultimate and install it on another machine (which would probably require a call to Microsoft to get it activated on the new hardware).

That could mean that I could have 2 machines running legitimately, but one of them was with upgrade software… surely that’s against the spirit of Microsoft’s law.

Hmmmm…

-Mike

It is hard to feel much sympathy for those who bought Vista. Enough people knew it was a dead turkey.

-Mike

-Mike

What goes here? What a ripoff!

Given that almost all Windows users will get Windows 7 with a new computer and probably won’t be buying the boxed version, Microsoft surely wouldn’t lose much $$ if they priced the upgrade extremely low, say in the $30 range. I think Apple had the price point perfect at $29 for Snow Leopard.

I mean, come on, what percentage of Windows 7 installations will NOT be from the purchase of a new PC? 5%? Maybe 10% tops? Microsoft could do themselves a HUGE customer service favor by pricing the upgrade/boxed versions of Windows 7 very low so that almost everyone will upgrade. The sooner they get us off older versions of Windows, the sooner they can stop fielding calls for them.

Just my $0.02.

-Mike

The extras that commenter mentioned refer to “Ultimate Extras,” one of the main features Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the 2007 release of Vista Ultimate to distinguish the operating system from its lower-priced siblings. According to Microsoft’s marketing, Extras were to be “cutting-edge programs, innovative services and unique publications” that would be regularly offered only to users of Vista’s highest-priced edition.

But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company’s leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.

Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.

The furor over Vista Ultimate has even reached analysts’ ranks. In May, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft urged Microsoft to give Vista Ultimate owners a free upgrade to Windows 7. “It would buy them a lot of good will, and I don’t think it would cost them much,” Cherry said at the time.

Some of the commenters in the latest Computerworld stories about Windows 7 echoed Cherry.

“I am running Vista Ultimate and feel ripped off by Microsoft because … [we] never received the extras we paid good money to get,” said “Hellfire” in a long comment. “The very least that they should do is offer a heavily-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate to those that have lost money by purchasing Vista Ultimate.”

check google for source

I agree that Microsoft has an absurd pricing scheme that probably was more of a marketing effort at duping consumers into buying more than they need. A la carte features to tack onto a single version of Windows would seem to be a simpler, smarter solution (especially given Microsoft offers many of the features they’ve eliminated from Vista free a la carte). Hopefully once (if?) MS starts producing decent products, they’ll be able to look at other things they don’t do well, like pricing.

All things considered, I’m happy with Windows 7. I’m seeing significantly better performance than with Vista, with a cleaner look and more intuitive control. Opening the Programs and Features list after install and finding it EMPTY – no Messenger, Movie Maker, random junk, or even MS games pre-installed – made me unbelievably happy. Still, I doubt that I’d pay $119+ for a copy.