Should licensed Vista users get free upgrade to Windows 7?

[Darwin]

Oh, I also hate the new folder icons in Vista, they're ugly.

-f0dder (November 07, 2008, 10:27 AM)

  I don't mind those, either 

[Shades]

When I was installing a Wifi network for a girlfriend of mine so she could surf with her brand new Vista laptop (Acer) I had to work for a longer period with that laptop.

Man, talk about slow! Not only hardware wise, but also clicking wise, first of all it took me way more clicks to go somewhere in Vista and had to click away the security screens as well.

Although I kinda like the look of Vista, productivity wise it's a definite no-no for me. Actually, that girlfriend was requesting/begging/offering herself to me to put XP on that laptop. :-)  Unfortunately the drivers for the hardware from the laptop were Vista-only. No XP drivers were available at Acer or the manufacturers.

Because of all this I (strongly!) dislike Vista in any shape and/or form. Actually, the future for Windows in my household is becoming bleaker with each new incarnation. I do like Windows 2003 Server though.

[Carol Haynes]

Plus there is a known bug in the networking in Vista which seems to affect laptops badly. Basically if you have more than one network adapter Vista can't decide which one you want to connect with - even if only one network is actually connected and consequently refuses to connect to anything. The only workaround is to disable unused adapters - hardly useful on a laptop where you may wish to choose wired or wireless depending on your location! As far as I know this has been a known issue since RC1 and still isn't fixed.

[KenR]

Vista-SP1 is actually quite fine, if you have the hardware to make it sing. After Win 7 comes out, just once I want John Hodgman to kick the Apple schmuck in the onions; commercial ends with him writhing and crying on the ground! 
 (see attachment in previous post)

-zridling (November 06, 2008, 10:11 PM)

My God Zaine, I can't believe you said that. Maybe you are talking about Vista 32, rather than x64, which I have. I can't print to any driver in Quicken. Many programs won't install at all and I have some kind of problem with about 10% or so of those that do.

Yeah, installing XP is an option - IF - you have XP drivers for your computer hardware, which I don't.

Anyone beginning to sense that I despise the refuse that is Vista?

Ken

[zridling]

Hi Ken! No, fortunately, my only personal experience with Vista has been has been with the x64 version, although I've installed a dozen or more 32-bit copies on others' computers.

Although I'm a Linux guy now, I see the role of the OS being diminished by what "I do" with a computer, which is access info via a browser, download porn, word process, text editing, photo editing, and video watching/some minor video editing. I can set up Linux to do all this comfortably and then the OS updates itself from then on, even kernel updates — all free of charge. You could also do the same with BSD, OS X, very well with Windows.

However, I want Win7 to be a success because so many of friends and family's hassles will be reduced. They deserve a good OS, and damnit, Microsoft should get serious about improving the user experience, not merely adding more layers of eye candy and DRM to the system. Win7 is a second chance to get it right, and for Microsoft not to spend the next year allowing the marketing department to hype non-existent features or enhancements. I will never forget Feb. 1st, 2007 after loading Vista, my only response was: Five years and this is what I got for my $299?

[Stoic Joker]

People should only get a free upgrade (Vista -> Win7) if they're willing to ware an "I'm too Stupid to Own a F'ing Computer" T-Shirt.

There is nothing wrong with Vista that a half ounce of common sense (on the users part) won't fix (e.g. Loose the 3rd party CrapWare).

[jgpaiva]

Stoic Joker: I don't think calling someone "stupid" only because they had problems with Vista is correct.
Personally, I really really like Vista, but I've seen people have troubles I can't fix, and personally, I only like it because I disabled UAC, if I hadn't, I'd gone crazy already.

Let's try to keep it polite, ok?

Anyway, I voted "No", because I don't think it'd be fair for MS. I consider Vista a solid peice of software, and MS deserves to get paid for their job. Now, if 7 isn't a major improvement over Vista (like vista was over XP), then I'd agree with the question

[Lashiec]

Plus there is a known bug in the networking in Vista which seems to affect laptops badly. Basically if you have more than one network adapter Vista can't decide which one you want to connect with - even if only one network is actually connected and consequently refuses to connect to anything. The only workaround is to disable unused adapters - hardly useful on a laptop where you may wish to choose wired or wireless depending on your location! As far as I know this has been a known issue since RC1 and still isn't fixed.

-Carol Haynes (November 07, 2008, 02:43 PM)

Hmmm, I wonder if this is the reason why a girlfriend of mine is having problems connecting to the college Wi-Fi...

[jgpaiva]

Hmmm, I wonder if this is the reason why a girlfriend of mine is having problems connecting to the college Wi-Fi...

-Lashiec (November 09, 2008, 09:57 AM)

Is that through eduroam? I'm having some trouble with my univ's wireless too..

[Darwin]

Just to note that on my notebook I've not experienced the networking problem that Carol mentioned. In fact, I've found Vista to be much easier to configure for networking and to be much better (than XP in both cases) at both maintaining a connection and to reconnect if it disconnects...

Vista Home Premium Sp-1

I wonder if this is a driver issue? My notebook is an OEM install on a Centrino platform.

[Darwin]

Hmmm, I wonder if this is the reason why a girlfriend of mine is having problems connecting to the college Wi-Fi...

-Lashiec (November 09, 2008, 09:57 AM)

Is that through eduroam? I'm having some trouble with my univ's wireless too..

-jgpaiva (November 09, 2008, 10:02 AM)

Not sure what eduroam is, but just to add that I've had my Vista notebook "in the wild" and connected to secure networks on a college campus and to open public networks (public library).

[jgpaiva]

Darwin: Eduroam^w
It's an authentication infrastructure which allows an university student to use his longin on any of other universities across europe.

[Lashiec]

Is that through eduroam? I'm having some trouble with my univ's wireless too..

-jgpaiva (November 09, 2008, 10:02 AM)

I don't really know, it's the first time I heard about eduroam . We are part of the program according to the site, so it's probable though. I have to take a look at her hardware to check for multiple adapters to be sure. Besides, I think she said Wi-Fi does not work under Linux as well, so it could be something different, maybe a problem with the Wi-Fi network in itself.

[Darwin]

I have to take a look at her hardware to check for multiple adapters

-Lashiec (November 09, 2008, 10:11 AM)

Doh! I forgot to mention that, not surprisingly, my notebook has wireless, ethernet, and bluetooth built in...

Thanks for the link about EduRoam, João - very nice.

[biox]

Is that through eduroam? I'm having some trouble with my univ's wireless too..

-jgpaiva (November 09, 2008, 10:02 AM)

I  Besides, I think she said Wi-Fi does not work under Linux as well, so it could be something different, maybe a problem with the Wi-Fi network in itself.

-Lashiec (November 09, 2008, 10:11 AM)

At my previous uni I had to buy a Linux compatible router myself as I was the only one using it. Generally, when I mention Linux to the locals I get a 'well, yeah and what is that?'. No way can I convince my students to switch, not even to Open Office.

[Hirudin]

I would love to join the fray and bash on the Vista haters of the world, but instead I'll just say that I've been running Vista X64 since about a month after it came out (if memory serves me correctly) and it's been great! All the computers I've owned have probably crashed on me a total of 5 times (and I'm on my computer practically every waking hour of the day).

Why have I had such great luck while others have had the opposite? I chalk it up to a few things...
- I used a fresh install of Vista, none of the crap OEMs get paid to bloat up computers was ever running on mine.
- My hardware has been higher end (2.4 ghz AMD dual core and 2.4 ghz Intel quad core, each with a decent video card (7800GTX and 8800GT respectively) and 2gb of RAM) (They were home-built computers - maybe the motherboards/PSUs were better?)
- I gravitate to "portable" software, maybe that has something to do with why it works?
- I can't stand programs like Acrobat Reader, Nero, and Microsoft Office (which seem to get more and more bloated with each new pointless release) so therefor don't install them... don't get me started on iTunes and Quicktime... They will NEVER be on another one of my computers if I have anything to do about it.

I don't even mess with the install that much... For instance I leave UAC turned on. I do disable the indexer though (am I the only one who doesn't have to search for their own files?)

Hmmm... I've had this copy (Business x64) installed for more than a year probably and my Windows directory is just shy of 9gb.


Oh yeah, about the free upgrade... I guess free doesn't make a lot of sense, but a $50 "we want you to buy this right away" discounted price sounds like a good idea to me.

[Darwin]

Oh yeah, about the free upgrade... I guess free doesn't make a lot of sense, but a $50 "we want you to buy this right away" discounted price sounds like a good idea to me.

-Hirudin (November 16, 2008, 03:48 PM)

Hear, hear!

[kartal]

Recently Vista update disabled one my of my laptops`s wireless and all the usb ports, which i could not get them back.  I tried updates, reverts,system restore etc. I just installed XP and everything  started working like charm. I was nearly going to send my laptop to Toshiba and later I figured out that it was not the laptop itselfs. I do not know why people think that Vista is a great Os. I even had alot of networking problems with my other non vista machines, while xp machines were way easy to setup.

[Josh]

kartal: You do realize that 90% of problems encountered with windows updates are conflicts with drivers not with the OS itself right? Vista updates, in fact windows updates back to win95, have never affected me negatively. Not a single patch has messed up my system that wasnt due to my own fault or the fault of me using a beta/non-official driver.

[Shades]

@Josh:
Although I'm inclined to agree with you, I'll side with Kartal on the Windows updates. Mainly because of my own experience fixing/working with army computers, ISP servers, helpdesk computers, POS systems and ICPC's (ICU = Ignorant Client P.C.), ranging from Windows 3.11 till Vista (including Server editions).

Consider yourself lucky if you yourself did not experience (self induced) Windows update problems. Especially in the army (with certified computers) updates were feared...the POS systems were also a headache but that was mainly because of the POS software itself...created by an official Microsoft Business partner using certified hardware.

After a force fed update by MS on an ISP server (read: traffic monitor) we lost two days of data because there was a fix for the force fed update required (netto result: 15.000 euro's of lost revenue...and a dramatic increase of Linux servers replacing the Windows systems).

Yes, with the ICPC's I agree that drivers and their (mis-)use were the main reason for failure and a good source of income I might add...so you could consider me a little biased  

[kartal]

Josh, my system got scrambled due to the fact that I forgot to disable auto updates. On the contrary Microsoft pushes users to turn the auto update on, and it is a default behaviour during os installation as well. So please do not pretend that i updated wioth some beta drivers or unknown drivers. the funny thing is that I had the laptop on all night, and when I got up the d..n thing was not working in the morning. Because it updated itself. What is my fault in this whole thing?

I myself never auto update, I generally wait service packs for my work computers.

Anyways I think that Vista suck to death after having it on my laptop over a year. It was slow, headaches, randomly disabling features, uneven network performance, network problems etc. Now with Xp , my laptop is like twice as fast.

[40hz]

I would be happy to forgo a free update and pay a reasonable amount of money ($150-200) for Windows 7 if it was secure, worked correctly, and Microsoft would stop stonewalling when there were problems being reported.

I have no interest in punishing Microsoft. Or in proving the critics are right. All I want is for the Microsoft products I buy to live up to the marketing copy and do what Microsoft says they will do.

[Darwin]

would be happy to forgo a free update and pay a reasonable amount of money ($150-200) for Windows 7 if it was secure, worked correctly, and Microsoft would stop stonewalling when there were problems being reported.

-40hz (November 17, 2008, 11:04 AM)

Yes! This is more or less in line with my "MS should emulate Apple's licensing scheme" rant from earlier... My issue with Vista is not that it doesn't work (I love it), but that there are far too many versions and that they are too expensive. I'm also annoyed that to get from Win XP Pro 32-bit or Vista Home Premium 32-bit to a 64-bit version of Vista I'm expected to pay full price! WTF?! But I digress.

My dream is that Micorsoft produce and market a single version of WIndows 7 that acts will upgrade older Windows installs and install the full version on new equipment and that ships with all functionality that is available at the user's discretion. Then, charge a realisitc price for it. The MSRP on OS X is $179 for a single licence and $199 for a family licence (5 or 8 installations, I forget) and it's available at cheaper rates from 3rd party vendors. The DVD set that you get is the same for everyone... Nirvana.

[zridling]

[Darwin]: My dream is that Micorsoft produce and market a single version of WIndows 7 that acts will upgrade older Windows installs and install the full version on new equipment and that ships with all functionality that is available at the user's discretion. Then, charge a realisitc price for it.

I've never heard anyone argue in favor of multiple versions and price schemes, except for Server/Workstation. Same for sensible, affordable pricing. So can anyone explain why Microsoft does it? (other than for more cash)

[40hz]

I've never heard anyone argue in favor of multiple versions and price schemes, except for Server/Workstation. Same for sensible, affordable pricing. So can anyone explain why Microsoft does it? (other than for more cash)

-zridling (November 17, 2008, 12:50 PM)

There is no other explanation for it. It is all about wringing more cash out of your customers. 

Microsoft has wanted to go over to a subscription model for years. They first started talking about it back in the mid-90s. The backlash from just about everybody combined with the DOT-Bomb meltdown scuttled their plans.

IMHO: it was probably more the crash of "New Internet Economy" than anything that did it. For those who followed the story, Microsoft's basic attitude towards people who didn't like the "subscription" (i.e. leasing) idea was little more than a not too nicely worded TFB!

Sad really.