THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: border on June 26, 2009, 02:01:55 PM

Title: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: border on June 26, 2009, 02:01:55 PM
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/offers/pre-order.aspx

Current Vista users can get Windows 7 Home Premium as a $50 upgrade pack.  The number of pre-orders is limited, so nobody really knows when the offer expires. 

Windows 7 Professional pre-order is $100.

What is the difference between Home and Professional?  I have no idea.  More multi-sku fun from Microsoft :)
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: The Fake Shemp on June 26, 2009, 02:05:02 PM
Pass.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Brehvolution on June 26, 2009, 02:06:17 PM
Will probably just lift a MSDN lic. from work.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: cool breeze on June 26, 2009, 02:11:43 PM
So, can Windows 7 do everything Vista can? I care mostly about support for games and programs, and Vista covers most of what I want at least.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 26, 2009, 02:42:57 PM
Quote
So, can Windows 7 do everything Vista can?

more or less, plus it has a search function that actually works
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Reb on June 26, 2009, 03:16:02 PM
Setting up a home network was freakishly easy with 2 laptops running Windows 7.
I can usually never get any kind of networking to work.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 26, 2009, 03:20:10 PM
If you use the computer all the time, as I think most of us here do, I'd recommend shelling out for the upgrade, at these prices.  It's not THAT big an improvement from an end-user experience POV, but if your computer is a major part of your life minor improvements are still worth something.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: M3wThr33 on June 26, 2009, 04:04:38 PM
I'm running Vista Ultimate. Would a $50 upgrade to 7 Home Premium work? I'm leaning towards yes, but I'm not sure.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Reb on June 26, 2009, 04:12:34 PM
I'm running Vista Ultimate. Would a $50 upgrade to 7 Home Premium work? I'm leaning towards yes, but I'm not sure.

So you edited out the relevant part?
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: M3wThr33 on June 26, 2009, 04:37:11 PM
Oh, that'll be fine. And I don't know if that shit flies here. I'm sure it does, but it's not relevant.

Before I cared about Vista Ultimate for a handful of games, but it looks like that's not an issue anymore, at least I don't think.

Home Premium has Dreamscene support, right? It's mainly a cross-upgrade path that concerns me.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: ManaByte on June 26, 2009, 04:41:24 PM
I'll wait for the student discount on Ultimate.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 27, 2009, 02:16:17 AM
The Microsoft Store wouldn't take my order for some reason.  It claimed there was a problem with "either my billing address or my credit card information", real helpful error reporting there.  I ended up ordering it from Amazon.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Eel O'Brian on June 27, 2009, 02:31:57 AM
windows 7 ultimate runs perfectly on a netbook, even with all the extra bullshit turned on

 :bow windows 7 coders :bow2
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 27, 2009, 02:58:40 AM
Quote
It should be $50 to go from XP to Seven.

it is, XP users can use the upgrade versions.  though they have to do clean installs.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Reb on June 27, 2009, 06:52:02 AM
windows 7 ultimate runs perfectly on a netbook, even with all the extra bullshit turned on

 :bow windows 7 coders :bow2

It boots up way slower than XP though.
I ended up using it regularly on my laptop, and rarely on my netbook.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Joe Molotov on June 27, 2009, 10:58:45 PM
What is the difference between Home and Professional?  I have no idea.  More multi-sku fun from Microsoft :)

(http://i40.tinypic.com/8yz3tz.jpg)

Meh, I probably just get Home.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 28, 2009, 12:18:21 AM
Just to clarify, most apps that run in XP should run in W7 without any need for the "XP mode" VM that's in Professional.  That's really just meant for uh "quirky" stuff, mostly internal business apps.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: huckleberry on June 28, 2009, 02:21:18 PM
anyone know if I can buy the XP -> 7 upgrade and install it on a BootCamp partition?  I don't see why it couldn't be done but I don't want to purchase an upgrade only to have to purchase a full license later.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: border on June 28, 2009, 02:54:31 PM
Is there any reason an enthusiast/home user would need or want the Professional or Ultimate versions?  I hate to feel like I'm buying the second-class ghetto version of an OS, but then again it doesn't look like the added features in Pro/Ultimate are much to drool over.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Ecrofirt on June 29, 2009, 11:41:03 PM
Is there any reason an enthusiast/home user would need or want the Professional or Ultimate versions?  I hate to feel like I'm buying the second-class ghetto version of an OS, but then again it doesn't look like the added features in Pro/Ultimate are much to drool over.

I dunno, I really like being able to remote into my PC. Can't do that with the Home Edition.

I'm sure they're likely to gimp the Local Users And Groups stuff in Computer Management in Home Premium as well. And they'll probably gimp the Shared Folders snap-in again as well.

Pro all the way.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: Ecrofirt on June 29, 2009, 11:42:13 PM
Fuck, I'll still probably just get our site license for Enterprise from work. It looks like it has all the features of Ultimate.

Is there *anything* missing from Enterprise that's in Ultimate?
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on June 30, 2009, 03:11:57 AM
IIRC, just BitLocker and being able to install multiple language packs.

edit: er wait, it does have those?   :spin

edit 2: googling about, http://windows7news.com/windows-7-ultimate/ says

"Windows 7 Ultimate is the nonplus ultra edition of the Windows 7 operating system as it is the only edition of Windows 7 that is feature complete. All other editions – with the exception of Windows 7 Enterprise which is Windows 7 Ultimate branded differently – lack features that are included in Windows 7 Ultimate."

So I guess Enterprise and Ultimate are the same thing with different names.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: chronovore on June 30, 2009, 11:54:54 PM
A friend who works at Apple says their executive staff and planning departments could not possibly be any happier with Microsoft's handling of Vista's launch, its multiple SKUs, the incompatibility, and the apparent rush to move to Windows 7 and the perception of that move by their customers. Apparently there are a lot of people who switched in the last few years.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: recursivelyenumerable on July 01, 2009, 03:11:04 AM
Quote
the apparent rush to move to Windows 7 and the perception of that move by their customers.

WTF is with that perception, though?  The time between Vista and W7 isn't really any less than most previous versions of Windows, XP to Vista was the exception.  I'm sure MSFT will aim for a similar timeframe for W7 to W8 even if W7 is seen as successful.

Hey, I'll even do a comparison chart (consumer versions only):

Windows 1.0: Nov. 1985
Windows 2.0: Nov. 1987 (24 months)
Windows 2.1: May 1988 (6 months)
Windows 3.0: May 1990 (24 months)
Windows 3.1: Mar. 1992 (22 months)
Windows 95 (4.0): Aug. 1995 (41 months)
Windows 98 (4.1): Jun. 1998 (34 months)
Windows Me (4.9): Sep. 2000 (27 months)
Windows XP (NT5.1): Oct. 2001 (13 months)
Windows Vista (NT6.0): Jan. 2007 (63 months)

Windows 7 (NT6.1): Oct. 2009 (33 months)

Pretty much in line with all the previous non-Vista transitions.
Title: Re: Pre-order Windows 7 for $50, starts today.....
Post by: chronovore on July 01, 2009, 04:29:51 AM
The perception may be the big explosion in computer usage that rolled up with Win 95 and continued to the present. For a lot of users the first OS they'd had was XP, which had the longest run.