News Microsoft retreat on Vista upgrade restictions

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/11/03/Microsoft_retreat_on_Vista_upgrade_restictions/

 

The change only affects retail, not OEM, by the way.

 

Listening to the consumer again? Someone's been putting something in Redmond's coffee supply .

<A88>

 

Good for Microsoft - a section of their customer base didn't like something and instead of just saying "oh, everyone else will be fine" they change it to suit. Huzzah!

 

Props to MS.

 

I'm suitably impressed with their stance on this. Perhaps now they will start listening to people that tell them its too damned expensive?

 

nice.

now they just need to fix ie7, that sucker got uninstalled an hour after i started using it

 

Good news to be honest - they're appreciating how many of their beta testers they would alienate by keeping that up, not to mention (I would imagine) many of their own programming staff.

 

I CALLED IT!!!

To quote Stephen Colbert: I CALLED IT! WOOOO!!

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=1357919&postcount=14

 

hell has frozen over.... or maybe MS are more human than i thought.

 

Sadly part of me was hoping Macro$loth would mess this up and drive people to Linux, But to MicroSoft for fixing this.

 

Well this new makes me actually consider getting Vista now. I'm on the fence still, and will probably wait to see the fallout from Vista. Ah nevermind, I'll buy it the second its on the shelves of Fry's!

 

I know I'm being really cynical here, but I'm very sure they're only doing this to preserve their image. Everyone knows a geek... that pale kid they go to when their computer breaks. Microsoft has been irritating us for who knows how long, and now that Linux is approaching a point where it's usable for your average joe to get his email and porn fox, not to mention Apple , we're starting to recommend that people just dump Windows.

The problem I see here is that, presumably, you're going to need to deactivate in order to transfer the install, just like Photoshop, even iTunes (at least for the store, though it's not strictly necessary). What's our first suggestion when something goes wrong? Reinstall Windows. You usually get that suggestion after something's gone wrong to the point where you can't boot, much less deactivate first. If they handle it properly in the sense of activating it in one place will automatically deactivate the other copy, it's not a huge problem, but I doubt that'll be the case.

I mean, props to MS for doing this, but I really think that it's them still trying to save face from the people who are giving out all the computer advice. And it sure seems to be working. Start off with all of the draconian unfriendliness and then lift restrictions a bit for PR... they'd have received just as much flak if they'd started here, which is probably what they'd have planned. In any case, I'll keep on recommending Macs.