Tech News
Windows install glitch could save hundreds of dollars
By Steve Ragan Feb 4, 2007, 19:46 GMT
On the Web
Latest Headlines in Tech
- 1. Report: Apple plans mini-iPad
- 2. Nerd striptease: Unboxing lets others watch you unwrap your gadget
- 3. An online notepad? Your smartphone as a notebook
- 4. Spring cleaning for your computer: Get the gunk - and the germs - out
- 5. Repeaters help get around wi-fi hurdles
Older Talkback
page: 1
keep it really real.
DTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Buying the OEM version does NOT, in fact, violate the EULA--practically anyone in the world is qualified to buy, install and use it. See Ars Technica for the details: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070130-8730.html
I did a 'clean' install of Windows XP using an upgrade version. So, what's new?
Howard ...Did you install it twice too?
Given Vista's hardware demands does it really matter if you're running a pre-XP operating system? You'll have to buy a new computer to run Vista, and the money you spent on the upgrade will have been a total waste. Another sneaky way for Microsoft to vacuum your wallet clean. I wonder how many folks will get suckered into buying the upgrade, thinking they're beating Microsoft?
Payback is a beautiful thing.
This just barely makes up for all the Microsoft software that never worked even half as good as Bill Gates said they would. The truth is, even if they gave Vista away for free they will still make more money than they should.
Is the glass half-empty, or half-full? What does it matter when it's the only water you can get your hands on?
I'm not interested in Vista anymore, Bill Gates in his recent interview with newsweek made me think he is all smug claiming the Mac OS is less than secure, full of bugs, hackable......and yet, 72 hours later we are full of vista glitches.
I'll skip the 360 Xbox now as well, if he's going to stoop to Sony type lies, then I don't need MS anymore.
I'm a student, so I hope I don't risk my 'Product Key becoming invalid' because I qualify for the Student version.
In da house!
Even if MS came to my house and politly asked me if I would allow them to install Vista for me free of charge I would refuse. I have no interest in anymore M$ bloat/spyware.
Whatever else anyone thinks of Bill, his wife is finding excellent ways to help lots of folks who really need it, but would get it no other way than her philanthropy, and Bill, seeing how terrific this is, has also jumped on board, which is also excellent.
They are doing such good things, in fact, that Warren Buffet is getting in on it too, feeding them about 3 billion a year in Bershire stock for up to 30 years, as long as one or both of them are in charge of their foundation.
This benefits mankind, even if you dont like Microsoft, much the same as Hughes Medical Research Foundation, originally intended as a tax loophole shelter for Hughes, eventually got fully funded helping mankind from Hughe's estate. Again, all towards the greater good, true philanthropy.
I don't think Apple needs to advertise anymore. Gates Seems to be talking himself into a deeper and deeper hole as people keep matching up the inconsistencies between what is happening and all his interviews.
Not buying into the Vista experience just yet anyway. Let the easily fooled waste their dollars and go forward. I'm finding the early MS Vista hype and hysteria amusing. XP will suffice for the next 18 mos to 2 yrs. Web browsing, email, IM, cd and dvd ripping still works just fine. Gaming...still works too. Wait for the multiple service packs and workarounds (hacks) that are sure to follow.
Ah, the good old days of Microsoft Vaporware are here again. Long drawn out descriptions of how good it's going to be when it finally gets released, followed by endless months (or years) of waiting around for bloated virus magnets to hit the market in orchestrated mega-releases.
I was a Windoze loyalist well into the 3.xxx years, then switched to a Mac and never looked back. Take your time and pound your head against the wall, we'll be here waiting for you to gently help you cross over to the light.
Remember this one? Windows '98 is Mac '86
http://boskolives.wordpress.com/
A 50% chance of having your profiles erased? Really? Well, I guess five years wasn't enough time to get it right :)
ima hustlah ima ima hustlah.
also, who likes meerkats?
cause i do.
Stick to XP!
I'm seriously considering bying an iMac.
Does anyone else see this as a purposeful move on Microsoft's part?
'Buy Vista today, if you wait till tomorrow, MS might fix the loophole'!
The reason for this work around is simple. Think about how many times windows crashes/fails or hardware failures or just simply the need to do a fresh install of windows every few years. Without this 'workaround' every time you format you drive you would have to re-install the old OS (which would probably be lost by then, or incompatible the newer hardware) then upgrade it. The bottom line is that all this confusion is due to MS greed: there should be one price for the OS (probably closer to the upgrade price/OEM price) instead of 2 prices - 1 for power users who know better and another to cheat un-savvy users into paying hundreds of dollars extra (the upgrade price is NOT a discount, the full version is a surcharge). And then you add the 10 different versions in an attempt to further segment the market and squeeze every cent from an os that is guaranteed to RUN >90% of machines in the future and it's just unnecessary greed. I'm so tempted to switch to the Mac.
Being a user of Windows since 3.X days, I have seen many improvements.
Also, being a system builder and working with pcs since the original 8086 appeared many moons ago has taught me this fact.
Like all things everyone will say that 'I have made a better mousetrap'.
With that said, PC user's will always defend Windows, as well as Macintosh user's defending Mac's, and so on and so forth.
The fact is that it costs a lot of money to pay folks to create the hardware and software that all of use.
The point is this. We all have the choice to choose which OS we want to run, and which applications we want to run on them. It all boils down to what you want to spend your hard earned money for and what your needs are. The choice is yours.
Whether one is better than the other is strictly each person's individual view. It would be better if we would simply enjoy the fruits of our labor, rather than to knock someone elses had work.
After all who is to say that a better mousetrap won't appear tomorrow?
Submitted via a home built system running Windows Vista Ultimate.
that was awesome.
I'm a computer science major, and as such, I am inherently biased against Microsoft. However, I decided to try out Vista because my school's CS department lets us download it for free (business edition). I'll have to admit, despite a series of all-too-familiar Windows bug-fix updates and a few other issues, I'm actually pretty impressed with Vista. On my wife's computer (my old computer), not all of the nice visual aspects were enabled because its graphics card isn't quite up to par, but on my computer, it runs very nicely with transparency, shadows, and all. Now, on to what I started this post for: the upgrade loophole obviously has no effect on people with 'pre-XP' OSes (as someone said earlier). The fear of such a loophole would be caused more by hackers and hacker wanna-bes (obviously, it doesn't take a real hacker to figure this one out). These are the type of people who have built their own computers, and either have not yet installed an OS, or have just been running Linux, FreeBSD, or some similar OS, just because they can. Then, they use the upgrade loophole to get Vista on their high-end, self-built machine, and proceed to get all the programs they need (including MS Office '07) through a BitTorrent client and some keygen action. I'm not saying this is new news, I'm just saying that you have to realize the loophole isn't going to be taken advantage of by your grandma upgrading from Windows 3.1 on her old 400 MHz Micron PC. That's why Microsoft doesn't really care; they're making tons of money either way. Vista will come pre-installed on just about any computer you can buy in stores, and I'm sure Bill Gates knows that anyone who can figure out how to use the upgrade loophole would probably find a way to get a free copy of Vista anyway if they cared enough to do so. Microsoft's key demographic is made up of all those people who buy a Dell PC, and then actually pay for someone to come hook up the keyboard and mouse for them because they don't know how. Fortunately for Bill Gates, those same people will spend millions (if not billions) of dollars on Vista this year. I hope I haven't offended anyone, I just hate seeing people waste money on hardware, software, and tech support when they don't have to. I would never pay for Vista, just like I never paid for XP, but fortunately for me I can get them (legally) through my school for free. After I graduate, I still will never buy a Microsoft OS, I'll just wait until I buy a computer that comes with it pre-installed. I hope this information helps someone.
I like many others know that 'Microsoft is evil'. The way they conduct business is not in the interest of consumers, but instead to further their Iron grip on the desktop PC. For example: If you want to play games that required DX-10 you will have to run Vista. DX-10 will not be compatible on MAC-OS or Linux Platforms.....or XP?....Vista is nothing but a cash cow!!!!
Si, it appears that they won't allow us to operate duel OS's...It looks being able to go back to 98, 2000, or XP if my newest version was giving me heck - but guess those days are over. Seems that it would have been easy for them to do.
Will
Actually, Will, you can dual boot all you want. I'm currently running Vista Ultimate x64 along side of XP SP2 x86.
this loophole might be incentive to lure users into upgrading to Vista since there are almost no benefits to upgrade
Microsoft is just so petty i have had to reinstall windows xp about seven times most of those because of an issue with symantec anti virus and once because my mother board got fried so i had to replace it in my system had to reinstall because i got error messages saying that my hardware had changed to much so i had to reinstall xp. I am going to switch over to linex
To the person who said Microsoft don't care about the consumer because they won't release DirectX 10 for Mac OS or Linux, you're an idiot. DirectX 10 is absolutely integral to the way Windows works and there is no possible way (at all) to run DirectX natively on any other platform. DirectX and Windows are intrinsically linked. The best you'll get is emulation via a virtual machine on a Mac platform, which we already have. Learn your facts.
The Mac vs Windows argument will NEVER be solved. Personally, I like both OSes and, in this instance, find Vista 64-bit to be quite a bit superior to MacOS X in quite a few aspects. For the moment.
As regards the loophole, the real issue has already been adressed. Microsoft don't care.
ps - Microsoft money-grabbing!? Bill Gates and his wife set up their own charity helping thousands of people in poverty. Not only this, Microsoft retail Windows in poverty-stricken nations at ridiculously low prices just so they can get on the computer ladder. I don't see Steve Jobs (Apple) donating to charity or releasing Mac OS for peanuts in those countries below the poverty line.
I owed a PC for many years, still have a laptop and desktop running XP. I hate them both. Connect them to the net and even with a hardware firewall and numerous protection software and OS updates and you still get hacked. I was spending way too much time keeping my systems running.
I tried Linux. Dont bother. Again you will waste your time on a steeper learning curve. Oh I got good at it, but Linux Ubuntu still got hacked. Free has its costs....it will also suck you dry of time.
For $600 I bought a mac mini and it was like a steel beam that fell on me was finally lifted. Easy to use and I have been running it nonline 24/7 for 2 years without hardly wasting a minute updating or anything. Hackers try to break in but its relatively stable and to be frank I cant remember the last time I rebooted the thing. Enjoyed it so much I bought a second used mac. A mac tower off of ebay searched g4 450 etc and picked one up for $55 cheap! Moved my old PC ram and hard drives into the mac and have built a great movie/music machine. Dont be fooled by the lower processor speed, it still rocks. OS X doesnt need you to buy a new computer and frankly OS X does everything Vista promises only better.
I spent thousands on protection software, backup equipment and routers etc to try to keep XP online and its like swiss cheese...its an impossibility to keep a flawed OS from not getting hacked.
Why spend $$$ upgrading to Vista? XP never delivered and neither will Vista.
I have saved so much money since switching to mac its not even funny. Everything I did or that you could want to do on a PC I now do on a mac for less cost...it runs better and its easier to use.
I have also gained back my life....no more scanning for viruses...updating and patching constantly.
The MAC is solid. Just change your thinking and pretend your buying the new windows from the year 2023. LOL
I should have switched to macs years ago. I die hard fan of the PC learning the hard way that macs are just better....easier, faster and cheaper by a mile. My mac is like a high end car top of the line leather interior and comes standard with a blonde babe.
Never looking back.
Oh well. It's hopefully their last OS anyway.
Let's hope Linux will not end up the same way (bloated and useless).
well i'm still not prepared to shell out for even the upgrade version until things calm down. my current (and possibly permanent) solution involves ubuntu linux (edgy) and wine, the free version of the windows api which allows me to run any windows program i feel like. Linux has come a long way since i last fiddled with it and whilst i still wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a command-line phobia, such activities are only necessary to install certain programs. sure, it's not perfect but for the outlay (zilch), it is an excellent alternative to all this getting out of paying money, cracking, hacking nonsense i was accustomed to with xp. and whilst i agree with one of the previous posts that this is really going to help people shelling out massive to upgrade their previous system or dodgy characters with cracked versions of xp (like me), it's not like microsoft to look at the piracy situation in a rational manner. i can see some sort of web-validation of the old cd and key being included: on failure reverting to a 30 day trial
i must say, i really like one of vista's features: The Photo Gallery application.
It's blazing fast even on my barely-adequate-for-vista PC now that the indexing is done, and my 15,000 image photo libary is easier to deal with this way than it is on my quad G5 with Aperture, Lightroom, or iView Media Pro 3, all of which I've spent some considerable time using. For tagging and sorting images, the Photo Gallery that comes with vista is so excellent. Even my wife is taking part in the metadata tagging marathons now, because it's so easy to do and there are no weird 'synching' quirks to deal with. When you add a new tag to an image, it's attached to the file, not to some database somewhere that has to be merged with the files...so you can move the files around and they're up-to-date all the time.
It works really well with the photo slideshow screen saver, as well...just pick some tags you want (and even ones you don't) and it will display those photos...If I want to see pictures of my nieces and nephews that have 3 stars or more, and use that as a screensaver, it's as simple as asking for it. Want pictures of the dog instead? click. Pictures of the dog, but without the cat? another click. It's brilliant and simple and so unlike anything I'm used to seeing from Microsoft. It's, to be honest, mac-like. except that it works better than any of apple's current solutions...
i wouldn't say vista is worth buying for that one reason, but it certainly has my attention, as dealing with photos is about 1/3 of what i do with my computers these days.
i'd still rather use a walkman than put my music on the MS media player, though. iTunes has it beat hands down.
Why do so many people feel the need to spout off on comment forums without doing a little fact-checking and spell-checking?
Who is this guy who has spent *thousands* of dollars on security software for XP and gets 'hacked' regularly? I've spent zilch on mine and have been running virus free since 2003, connected via cable-modem 24/7. All I use is AVG Free, a hardware router, and common sense. Before XP, I ran 2000, 98se, and 95. The only time I've ever had a virus was my own fault, way back before I knew anything about security.
I agree with the guy way back who said this argument will never end, and that windows and mac users will always defend their respective OS choice. Why does everyone get so fired up about it? Are they really that insecure in themselves? Give it a break. Macs are good for stuff, and so are PCs. End of story.
And this whole Mac ad campaign issue reminds me of a political campaign. One party starts the negative ads, and the other party has the choice to return the gesture, or try to take the high road and still run positive ads. Mac's choice of strategy is insulting to PC users, and in no way makes me want a Mac.
I have never had a good experience with any Microsoft product like Windows 95/98/2000/XP (none were what they said they would be) NT was probably the only OS they have released that actually worked, but then again Microsoft didn't even develop that they just bought and resold it!
No, I've had enough now. I'm not going to shell out for Fista and neither should anyone else. The Linux guys seem to be making good progress and there's one version that looks really good - Ubuntu. I'm going to switch over to them - it's copmletely free (bonus!) and I don't want to give Gates any more of my money
Sounds like 1995 all over again.
'Microsoft is Evil'
'Linux is Better'
'Microsoft ripped off Mac'
'95 won't run my 8 bit software'
'Bill Gates is Greedy'
Get over it
Microsoft is here to stay. They OWN the market. They WON
Don't like it, don't buy it
Dog
Microsoft didn't WIN.There are still people fighting...fighting in the OS war.I support Linux,in fact.Get over it:Windows s-u-c-k-s.Too much viruses,spyware,exploits...get it?I use Ubunt,which rocks.
Darkdude
page: 1
Your Talkback on this Story