Locked out of Beta.

[John E. Carty]

I am a CPP person. I joined the program in the assumption that I would get
the production version of Vista free. Why else would I put myself through
hell and high water only to the have to shell out $600 or so to upgrade my
system or reinstall XP ?

How would you assume that when even the testers didn't know this was coming
until the week Vista went gold?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

How would you assume that when even the testers didn't know this was

coming until the week Vista went gold?

Absolutely right.

We TechBeta folks were explicitly told not to expect it. Repeatedly. The
question was asked often enough in the longhorn.beta_program newsgroup. The
program managers weren't just evasive or mum in answering. They were
explicit. Obviously, they changed their minds.

It is worth noting that Jim Allchin spoke of the decision as being based on
the performance of the group. The gift was to the group because of the
group's performance. That is why anyone who submitted at least one bug got
the gift. It wasn't for his one bug, it was because he was part of a group
whose contributions AS A GROUP had made enough of a difference to merit the
gesture.

 

[Rock]

I am a CPP person. I joined the program in the assumption that I would get
the production version of Vista free. Why else would I put myself through
hell and high water only to the have to shell out $600 or so to upgrade my
system or reinstall XP ?

I am on a buggy RC1 version. To my horror I found that I could not get
RC2 -
what kind of rubbish is this ! I now have the situation where unless I
shell
out bundles of cash I am stuck on RC1 and next July it will expire. I also
see somewhere that the prodiuction version may not upgrade from RC1. So I
may
be up for a full re-install. Cheee.

I am not happy.

<snip>

Well, you assumed wrong. Why would you even have assumed that? The purpose
of beta testing is to help the product get better and learn about it. It
was never stated or even implied in either CPP or the Techbeta that anyone
would get anything for free in this. Yours is a situation of your own
making.

 

[King Cnut]

So I sweat my nads off for MS and get nothing - while a whole bunch
of lazy SOB's many of whom probably made little or no effort at all,
get a big fat Windows Ultimate Licence?

Fill yer boots man !

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032314416&Culture=en-GB