Posted on 02/29/2008 6:33:47 AM PST by raybbr
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) will cut the price of some versions of Windows Vista, the software maker said late Thursday.
The move came a day after court filings revealed internal dissent over which Windows XP computers would be considered capable of running the new operating system - and a feeling on at least one executive's part that the company had "botched" the marketing of computers as "Vista Capable."
Only copies of the year-old operating system that are sold in boxes directly to consumers are affected by the price cuts - not the versions pre-loaded on personal computers. The cuts will range from 20 percent to 48 percent.
The reductions are to coincide with the late March release of Vista Service Pack 1, a collection of security fixes and other improvements.
Microsoft said the new prices will apply to the Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Vista, in both their full editions and the editions that upgrade an older or more basic operating system.
Both versions serve the tiny percentage of users who install an operating system on their own; most people get the latest version of Windows only when they buy a new PC.
Windows Vista's January 2007 launch was plagued by delays. To keep consumers buying PCs in the holiday season of 2006, Microsoft and PC makers promised free Vista upgrades later to shoppers who bought Windows XP computers.
At the launch, Microsoft was widely criticized for offering too many versions of the operating system - including Home Basic, which didn't have the snazzy new signature look called "Aero" - and for setting the price too high for the high-end versions.
Brad Brooks, a corporate vice president for Windows marketing at Microsoft, said in an interview that the company has since tested lower prices and found "product was moving much, much faster."
Brooks said he expects so many customers to buy Vista at the new prices that the price cuts will increase Microsoft's revenue, not subtract from it.
A federal judge recently said consumers could pursue a class action suit against Microsoft for labeling PCs as "Vista Capable," even though many were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the Aero interface.
Company e-mails produced in court chronicle Microsoft settling on a plan to market a wide range of XP-based PCs as "Vista Capable" after company officials realized in early 2006 that 30 percent or fewer of computers on the market could run the full-fledged version of Vista with Aero.
That realization apparently caused computer makers like Dell Inc. (DELL) to worry that people would stop buying PCs for almost a year - until Vista launched.
The e-mails also showed Microsoft lowering the bar for "Vista Capable" to protect Intel Corp. (INTC)'s sales of some widely used chips that weren't powerful enough for the full Vista experience.
Microsoft employee Anantha Kancherla was particularly blunt in his March 2006 response to a question about whether a certain PC configuration would be considered "Vista Capable."
"Based on objective criteria that exist today for "capable," even a piece of junk will qualify," he wrote. "For the sake of Vista customers, it will be a complete tragedy if we allowed it."
According to the e-mails, Jim Allchin, the executive in charge of Windows at the time, wasn't involved in the decision to brand a wide swath of XP computers as "Vista Capable."
Upon learning the details, Allchin wrote, "We really botched this."
I have Linksys and Vista, as well as XP. A WRT54G.
I never had any issues setting up. It did it all automatically with my only entry being to set the auto button and type in my 128bit password.
It has never lost the connection, and always resets on power failures and reboots.
No problems at all, and I change my PW occasionally to keep any potential hackers from spending too much time trying to break into my net.
There's a series of M$ internal emails over on slashdot that clarifies some of this.
Apparently. M$ required vendors to use these stickers.
I have both, but find that vista is way more intuitive and better organized.
Just how much MS founder's stock do you have?
Vista sucks, no matter what the price. Microsoft should be sued relentlessly until they agree to keep selling and support XP.
You'll simply LOVE the new menus in MS 'awful-us' 2007.
That happens to be my setup as well (add in 98 and Linux too), and I know for a fact that my Vista box screws with the Router somehow- The nic in the Vista box will fall off line and the router will need to be reset for any box to get to the network thereafter.
If I leave the Vista box off, I have no problems at all for days, but with the Vista box on and running (wireless), the problem reoccurs, and that with multiple known good routers (all linksys).
Can't figure that one out, but it is legitimate to say that Vista has issues with networking..
Nahhhhhh.
Vista is perfect.
You’re just too stupid to figure out how to use it properly...
They allowed the vendors to use the stickers, after being assured that the vendor would put basic on the ones that were short of memory.
What happened is that some consumers never added memory and also upgraded to premium, or they simply trashed the OS in public and blamed MS for selling a bad product.
I upgraded my unit to 2G's of memory before I put it to work. I had some problems with third party apps at first, early in the release, but all those difficulties are fixed, and they were not the fault of the OS or MS. The last one to be fixed was Adobe (for example) They took their sweet time updating their program for Vista users and some of these laggards, caused some difficulties for Vista users. But all has been fixed, that I am aware of.
For me, Vista is now the best OS I have ever used and I feel the same way about it, that I felt about Win98, 2nd ed, when it came out.
I don't really understand the hatred being expressed here against MS, and can only trace it to Apple heads and people who despise Gates.
VISTA is a complicated, yet elegant OS that does everything I have asked it to do and then some. And I care not about the interface and the bells and whistles. It just runs very well at the core level, and it manages the systems resources like nothing I have ever seen before when you run multiple apps at the same time. It's flawless now.
“Just how much MS founder’s stock do you have?”
Zilch.
Am I supposed to have nonstop issues with Microsoft’s products just because that’s the slant that exist on the internet?
I never said they were perfect. Nothing I’ve ever used has been.
My learning curve is nearing completion. I have been personally using Vista for 4- months now, not including RCs. I do not agree that the interface is more intuitive, and neither do my clients, to judge from the increase in stupid help desk calls.
I also find automated maintenance to be exactly as grievous as a win box has ever had- Defragging is now supposed to be automated, but still must be run manually to maintain real performance. The same goes for chkdisk. I am still doing all the manual maintenance I have always done, except for auto discovery of vid resolution... But XP does that too.
I have both, but find that vista is way more intuitive and better organized.
I just have to disagree. Things may need to change. If so, then change them. But as a technician who must deal with SOHOS and residential users, changing the settings interface so drastically is a giant PIA.
OK. Fairly answered.
I have barely seen the thing. I moved all my clients off of Office XP and on to Open Office. The only thing I still have problems with is e-mail. Some of my clients are locked into Outlook for PIM and Exchange purposes. So far though, they are all still running Office 2k-XP.
:D
It's the first I've heard of it. Are you using a third party app for your connection monitoring?
If not, I think what is happening, is that your router will link to the computer for a number of minutes in spite of a verification between the two. If the verification is not recieved, then it drops the link until manually re-established by reboot or reset.
Run your set up program that came with the router, and make sure you have entered or clicked the required buttons for auto setup of the routers address. If I recall, it is the very first option, and you click Auto DCH or something with a "D" as the option. If you don't it will lose it's link after the timer times out. The router has a built in option that turns of or on for broadcasting of connection data, and if inadvertenly turned off, the computer will never recieve the routers permanent address.
There are two or three other issues like this that could very well be your problem and can occur on both ends. Just make sure both the router and the computer are set for the same options.
Another problem I ran into and this is not inherrant with just Vista, is the signal strength moving back and forth from weak to excellent. I had this happen once on a laptop and it turned out to be a bad antennae. I had to purchase a new wireless card for the external slot.
I would try to reset your routers setup first, and then look at the computer, making sure the auto DCHS...(?)not sure of the name....and the SSID is being sent out.
I just bought 8GB of DDR2 at Newegg for $180. But people still whine about a resource hog.
Those were sold from around 2001-2003 I don’t think you find any company updating drivers equipment that old.
Not from what I've seen. I can't understand why you would take a perfectly decent OS and try to turn it into your competition. People use Macs for a reason; people use Windows for a reason. Maybe the i-Pod and i-Phone stuff scared them, who knows.
I was thinking it might be time for a new laptop soon, but I wouldn't look forward to getting one with Vista.
Vista will manually defrag at any time, just turn the automatics off, but it will not defrag if the disk is clean.
Secondly, it also looks at every disc on the grid, automatically. I have multiple USB drives and it maintains them as well without my input which is great!
Another thing, is the registry. I have never needed to get into it, because the OS maintains it. XP does not do that very well, and I love not having to screw with it. But you can, if you want to.
For over a year, I've never had to run disk check, defrag or anything! I have nearly a terrabyte of data that it is managing and serving to other computers, and it's friggin cheap laptop. All I did was add two G's of ram.
It has a 1.6 ghz dual core and it by far, outperforms my fast 3.4 Ghz desktop. It does twice the work in the same time on my folding @ home application. i run two of them while I also run multiple video and audio podcast downloads and storage. Plus mail, forums, and other apps that are all running and sharing.
I don't get all this constant whining. I really don't.
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