Microsoft's Windows 7 pretzel takes fresh twist

Shambles

Wtf is MS up to? They generate lots of favourable press with the Beta and Rc then proceed to do their best to fusck it all up with their Random pricing generator.

First we have the original limited prices starting around £45 for Home Premium. Then we have the E versions debacle. Now we have the prices drop of Home Premium back to £65.

Plus we have the will they/wont they saga of an EU release of the family pack. At this point even seasoned MS watchers must be having a problem figuring out what prices Win 7 is retailing at.

They are a complete joke. Is anyone in charge over there?

WTF are they on?

buh...

Could this be any more complex?

First they provide multiple crippled versions of windows simply to ensure that anyone buying a cheap PC will probably end up paying more money in the future to have it un-crippled (sorry, upgraded).

Then the un-crippling process is such a clusterfuck that it most consumer sheep will probably just end up ditching the PC and buying a new one.

TOP MARKS FOR MICRO$OFT

Fenestra blues.

A computer mag had Fenestra7-RC on a DVD for the price of the mag, $10. Instead of buying mag, first I decided to to try and download it for free, which I could and try it. After and hour of using Fenestra7, I was sure glad I didn't waste a tenner on the mag for the DVD.

As far as OS'es go, XP does a good job of starting my 'puter so I can launch an "interesting" application. Operating systems just aren't "interesting".

Operating systems

Clever people use Linux. Dumb people use Macs. The rest try to figure out Microsoft's pricing.

Pot Luck

Tombolas: The only other place you can pay a comparitively large amount of money for a mystery prize.

This would be good news if it weren't for the fact there's still plenty of time for them to change their mind yet again.

Windows 7 upgrade or just new central unit.

With pc's so cheap these days I will just be buying a new box with win7 on it. And get an upgrade all internals while at it.

Fascinating!

>...Microsoft said pricing, upgrades, and the planned Family Pack would all be made available in EU countries...

...customers in the UK ... can place pre-orders... in June of £79.99.<

Yet the family pack will be selling in USA for $149, no idea of exchange rates, but say, £110? so for £30 you can get another two upgrade installs of Win7 Home Premium. Some people scored the preorder for £45 off Amazon (strictly number limited offer of course).

From ZDNet: The standard retail pricing for Windows 7 will be £149.99 for Home Premium, £219.99 for Professional and £229.99 for Ultimate.

These numbers strike me as being plucked from thin air. Instead of taking them to task for having a stupid browser in their OS (exactly like Ubuntu and Mac does), perhaps the EU should have gouged them for price fixing.

And that extra £80 for the ultimate edition will give you:

Recover your data easily with automatic backup, BitLocker and Multilingual User Interface, seamlessly jumping among 35 supported languages.

Or, you know, Truecrypt and any number of freely available backup utilities out there - and why is backing up not a necessity for home users? Inquiring minds want to know.

Before all the US Microsoft fans start moaning about the EU

I'd just like to thank the EU for getting me a full copy of Windows 7 for £45.

Cheers!

FAIL!

Just fail. I actually found it hard to follow the upgrade maze logic. Are they doing lab rat tests on the Windows population to see who keeps following?

This gets more of a farce as each day goes on

I pre-ordered Win 7E at the promotion price, but I have since installed Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit and it runs nicely for most parts so, I think I will stick with it. It'll save me some money and if I need Windows then I'll run my licensed copy of XP from within a virtual machine as I am doing now.

Avoid the balls-ache...

if you have to get windows, only buy windows 7 with a new computer. Then there's a good chance that the bits have all been tested together, and your network card (for example) won't suddenly and mysteriously object to the new version.

Win7 upgrade's - just say no

Personally I think Microsoft should just continue doing what they're doing - offering the 'full' package for the 'upgrade' price. After all doing so keeps things simple, _and_ gives the XP/Vista folks a chance to legally run dual boot (because you've effectively got a Vista/XP license _and_ the Windows 7 one) which means that there's a clear "transition" from old to new OS.

I definitely wouldn't buy Windows 7 Pro at the 'list' price - but the "extra special offer" price of about £90 was an offer too good to miss - so I jumped at this like a shot. Heck, I'd probably still be interested at £140. So, it's a good piece of software (I tried the RC version) at a reasonable price. So unlike Vista! ;)

What I'm thinking is that MS will now blow away their accumulated good will by generating so many versions (and pricings) that people get confused (again?). I find this amusing given that Ballmer et al usually point at Linux and make merry about the plethora of versions of that OS.

Plus ca change,...

Not value for money

It's just simply silly dear. I would, I think for the first time ever, be interested in legitimately upgrading the OS on my PC this time - Win7 is a bit better than Vista and XP is obviously going to start falling by the wayside more and more now. But I'm not going to upgrade either at the prices being asked for Win7, it is just not near value for money at all. I can see myself being pushed off to look at the Linux alternatives, in the near future, instead. Or the mac OS even, which I notice is only £29 for the upgrade. MS just never seem to get it really

I hate these comment pages

honestly, why of why oh why does every single article's comment section end up about linux? why is there always some tosser saying something about linux? No-one cares! Linux is completely irrelevant - 1% of desktops use it, yet every comment section I seem to read has some loser going on about linux! The other day there was an article about the PS3, and lo and behold, some gimp was spouting on about how linux can't be installed on it and how that is a huge "FAIL" for sony. As if anyone gives a shit! I really wish there was a filter on the word linux, honestly. I might even make a Firefox add-on that blocks comments with the word "linux", "GNU", or "dildo". How much noise can 1% of the people who visit this site make?!?!?

Linux - you can't give it away.

1%

@AC14:28

Its a tech magazine

generally the more advanced a user - the more likely they have tried multiple os's and therefore you do tend to get a lot of linux users on tech sites

(NOT that all advanced users are linux users mind)

so although it may only be 1% of all desktops run linux

linux users usally make up high numbers on tech sites

BTW the ps3 allready runs yellow dog linux

even as a gnu/linux user I do often find the fanboyism irratating as hell but frankly

I consider most ,if not all "my os is better than yours" purile dick waving.

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The price of win7 doesnt appear too bad and despite my freetardidness Im going to have to buy a copy so I can support my family , friends + neighbours when their problems will inevitebly occur - pity about the IE-free version - Its usailly the first thing I get rid of on a fresh XP install

as my wife once quipped : whats the one use for IE? - downloading firefox!

@censored

"At £80 I'd probably have bought it. At £150 there's no chance, so if I need it I'll get a cracked copy."

It's £64.99 on Amazon until the end of the month - link on the homepage of Amazon.co.uk. According to Amazon: "This version of Windows 7 ships as a full edition, suitable for both new Windows users and Windows Vista users looking to upgrade."

There you go - a full copy for £15 cheaper than you would "probably have bought it" - go get it! I have; it's a lot less hassle than trying to find every way round the inevitable "you're using an illegal copy of windows" annoyances.