Microsoft supports piracy

[molitar]

Yes you heard me right. With Ultimate edition being the only TRUE new
windows out since you won't get extra's with the premium.. And probably
can't even control your sharing like the BS XP Home edition is now, which
sucks even for home networks.. The price being $399.00 all this is going to
do is FORCE more users to pirate windows. The operating system is now
costing most users half the cost of the entire computer built from ground
up. Most people don't have that kind of money to throw out for an upgraded
OS so two things will happen. XP will remain popular and not decline with
most users because upgrade is too damn expensive.. and the other will be
that more people will run a pirated operating system. I will be a former
and stick with XP myself since I can't afford the Ultimate and all the other
editions are a big joke!

What the heck is M$ thinking?? I don't think M$ thinks at all with the
ridiculous version structure and pricing at all. The ultimate is $250.00
higher than the XP Professional Home Retail and now they just about
increased the price by nearly 75%! With all the new activation process
PRICES should go DOWN not UP! Since supposedly there is suppose to be less
piracy meaning less loss of revenue but NO what does M$ do but increase the
price by another 75% over the currently top operating system. M$ thinking..
let's make the licensing structure even stricter for our paying customers
and on top of that pain let's increase the overall cost of the product by
another 75%! ONLY M$ gets away with this and I don't UNDERSTAND WHY? If
your favorite restaurant increased prices by even 50% you would stop eating
there! If stores increased their prices by even 20% you stop shopping there
and go elsewhere. So why do computer customers who are suppose to have
some literacy take it when it comes to the operating system which is a
software product that's licensing gets stricter and prices don't go up a
small percentage but alot!

Stopping piracy is suppose to help the consumer by saving them money on the
cost of the product! But instead it's hurting us by costing EVEN MORE than
it did before as well as making issues with licensing so complicated that
there has to be debates on what is and what is not allowed!

Marvin

 

[Max]

There is no such thing as "XP Professional Home Retail ".
Where do you get your percentages from--what (1) are you comparing to what
(2)?

 

[Guest]

Now that it is out, I have a feeling its being pirated as we speak

 

[Paul-B]

Now that it is out, I have a feeling its being pirated as we speak

It's been pirated for months...

 

[molitar]

Oops my bad.. Home shouldn't of been in there.. Just a typo there in my
sentence.

 

[Kevin Young]

If you don't plan to transfer Vista from PC to PC buy the OEM version for
half the price of the retail version. www.newegg.com:

Ultimate Retail: $399
Ultimate Upgrade: $259
Ultimate OEM: $199

 

[Beck]

If you don't plan to transfer Vista from PC to PC buy the OEM version for
half the price of the retail version. www.newegg.com:

Ultimate Retail: $399
Ultimate Upgrade: $259
Ultimate OEM: $199

I think this is the wisest choice. Yes it is a risk as you won't know if
your PC will die but its a cheapo risk. I just paid £70 for Home Premium
OEM, there is no way I was going to pay more than that because I simply
cannot afford it.
I have never understood Microsoft pricing plans for their operating systems,
I don't understand why they can't have "one size fits all" policy. One OS,
one price and one version (retail, not oem aswell).
I am sure they will sell more copies if they for example had only the
Ultimate version and priced it at around £100. People would be chomping at
the bit to buy it.
Now all we have is confusion amongst the end user and very expensive
ultimate versions which cost more than a new PC. Microsoft recently said
they reckon they will sell more Ultimate than the other versions. I reckon
they are living in cloud cuckoo land. I reckon Home Premium is going to be
the top seller.

 

[Mark-Allen [160825]]

Marvin,
on the cost of the product!

Although I can understand your frustration about pricing, 'piracy' has no
real "direct" connection with the point of "saving money".

To be more precise, it appears to me that Microsoft's "activation"
requirements is supposed to reduce the amount of piracy of Windows products,
which in turn increases the likelihood of people buying the product and NOT
getting a pirate copy. So, stopping piracy just adds to their bottom-line;
it doesn't force them to lower their prices.

... The operating system is now costing most users half the cost of the
entire computer built from ground up.

Perhaps. But it is more likely that as users buy newer computers, they'll
have an installed OEM version, so the question is moot.

I do not know of a large number of users who "build their own" think much
about the price. Most "builders" I know of and hear about are spending
hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to get a perfect machine that
runs the applications they use most. Read "gamers" here.

Of the possible number of low-end builders, yes, your observation may be
true. But MS isn't probably worried about them in the short term. When
they need a new machine, it'll probably be one with an OEM installed.

... XP will remain popular and not decline with most users because upgrade
is too damn expensive..

I think that it will be the cost of *hardware* that will keep people on XP,
more than the OS cost itself. The hardware requirements for Vista are much
higher to get a comparable performance to XP. And there are so many web
sites, retailers, low-cost outlets, OEM version, upgrades available that it
is probably in their best interest to look around for the best price for
them.

... and the other will be that more people will run a pirated operating
system.

Well, perhaps for 30 or 45 days, then the activation issue becomes more
apparent.

I will be a former and stick with XP myself since I can't afford the
Ultimate
and all the other editions are a big joke!

Price is relative to the person and their own situation.

However, I agree with you about the number of editions. It was mentioned
many times in the beta that MS was clearly making too many versions. And if
you add in the additional version *types* (full versus upgrade) and 32-bit
versus 64-bit (some with 2 DVDs and some with only 1 DVD), the confusion
borders on insanity.

The MS marketing people are a strange lot; clearly not in touch with the
average user. After reading a thousand or so threads here and on the beta
site, it appears a very large percentage deal with this specific point; if I
have X, then which version to I get? Y,Z, A, B, and is the OEM versus
....... well, you know the problem.

As for the pricing.... I think it is very, very expensive to upgrade to
Vista. And I am a Beta Team member who got my 1 copy for free. But I need
to purchase a French version for my wife, and have seen the prices here in
CH. It's way too expensive for what you get. But at some point, I'll buy
her a new laptop (early birthday present, perhaps) and get it pre-installed.
She needs a new laptop anyway. So, I can wait, although she does ask about
it now. For the games.

But it also appears that the UK prices are proving to be tough to swallow
from what I read, so it looks to be XP all over again. The US has the best
prices and the rest of the world pays the piper.

I understand your point of view, and the only suggestion I can close with
is.... choose another OS. Go get a Mac. It can do a lot of things that
Windows does, and a lot that it can't. Vote with your money. And write a
letter to MS (Steve Ballmer, for example) and let them know how you feel.
MS people only read these forums occasionally and they're not the ones you
need to address.

I hope this helps a bit.

--
Mark-Allen Perry
160825 / 1112165
Windows Vista X64 Ultimate
RTM Build 6000.16386
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen @ mvps . org

 

[Guest]

I have to agree with you, there will be more piracy because of the price. I'm
not sure if there gonna stop duplicate activations, like they haven't with XP.

And I more than understand your frustration level, I used to hit these
newsgroups with all kinds of anger, but i've learned to tone it down and get
to the problem at hand. Don't let me stop you though, it's good reading.

The price is actually $259 for the upgrade, there is no reason whatsoever to
ever buy the full version. You can always work around that.

And for anyone listening, don't waste your time with anything other than the
Ultimate version, you'll only start to figure out in the end that "something"
is missing.
jf

 

[Tom]

And for anyone listening, don't waste your time with anything other than
the
Ultimate version, you'll only start to figure out in the end that
"something"
is missing.
jf

I disagree for nearly 99% of typical PC users, unless of course you are not
happy unless you have to have something just because it is included.

If you don't need a disaster recovery back up system (Windows Complete PC
Backup and Restore), Bit Locker for your drive(s) (which requires a USB
Flash Drive and a system with a TPM 1.2 chip which most folks don't have
those equipped on their PCs) and networking Center and Remote Desktop,
you'll do just fine with Home Premium Upgrade.

 

[Dale]

Most single-pc owners don't need ultimate but if you have a home network you
should definitely have ultimate. I am constantly accessing other PCs on my
network via remote desktop. I think it was pretty rotten to remove it from
home premium.

Dale

 

[Tom]

Not to sound condescending, but why would anyone need RD at home on their
network? The point of RD is to work on another PC from afar. For that
reason, it isn't worth it when you can just as easily go to that PC and work
on it.. The only reason I got XP-Pro was to be able to configure the user
accounts on my PC to the level I wanted, Home didn't allow but two users
(Admin and Limited). With Vista, that is possible on all flavors.

 

[Guest]

Mark-Allen Perry,

Stopping piracy benefits the end users of Microsoft Genuine Products.

Piracy creates so many *not-justified* user complaints that are wrongly
assigned blame toward Microsoft because too frequently the user
understandably and wrongly believe they have Genuine Microsoft Products.

So, who benefits the most from concluding piracy?

--
Windows Vista
Become Part of The Legacy!

 

[Guest]

Tom,

Vista's BitLocker does *not* absolutely require a TPM 1.2 chip.

Just as you stated, many PCs do not have a TPM 1.2 chip, BitLocker functions
perfect absent a TPM 1.2 chip.

Respectfully, read BitLocker's Setup information...

 

[Tom]

Respectfully do as you speak and read the documentation:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...8ae6-4957-b031-97b4d762cf311033.mspx?mfr=true

"Hardware and software requirements
..A computer that meets the minimum requirements for Windows Vista.
..A TPM microchip, version 1.2, turned on. (Scenarios 2 and 3).
..A Trusted Computing Group (TCG)-compliant BIOS (Scenarios 2 and 3).
..Two NTFS drive partitions, one for the system volume and one for the
operating system volume. The system volume partition must be at least 1.5
gigabytes (GB) and set as the active partition (Scenario 1).
..A BIOS setting to start up first from the hard drive, not the USB or CD
drives."


Again as I said before, this is something (unless someone just wants to have
it for the sheer sake of having it) 99% of home users would not use not
need.

 

[Jane C]

BitLocker can indeed be used without a TPM. The following from the link
that you posted:

Scenario 3 provides the procedures to change your computer's Group Policy
settings so that you can enable BitLocker Drive Encryption without a TPM, or
enable one of the BitLocker advanced startup options: using a TPM with a PIN
or using a TPM with a startup key.

 

[Dale]

My Media Center PC doesn't have a comfortable desk in front of it. The
monitor sits at about 5 feet high. It has a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
that sort of help if you want to manage a PC from the sofa and on your lap
but it really isn't as easy as it sounds. It isn't practical at all as a
workstation.

My laptop screen and keyboard absolutely suck. I almost never use them
directly at home. I use my laptop through remote desktop from my own
workstation.

My wife's PC is at her desk in the same room as my PC and desk. There are
times when she may be doing something else at her desk and I take the
opportunity to access her PC to check update status or for whatever reason I
may need to. While this is more of a simple convenience, it is still a good
reason for me.

These are pretty common scenarios in many homes today.

Both as an IT professional and as a developer, I have often worked on
projects that have involved monitoring activities in more than even two PCs
at the same time. I have had, at my own desk, as many as 4 PCs working at
once. While these aren't situations for every home, there are certainly a
large number of homes where one or more members of the family might need RDP
here as well.

Dale

 

[Mark-Allen [160825]]

Jonathan,

I agree with your post. However, the only point I made was that it doesn't
necessarily means cheaper products. Yes, there are some tangible and some
intangible benefits but 'saving money' isn't really going to be on the list,
or at least maybe way down.

Just my observation.

--
Mark-Allen Perry
160825 / 1112165
Windows Vista X64 Ultimate
RTM Build 6000.16386
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen @ mvps . org

 

[Guest]

In this world of digital cameras, who does NOT need :

disaster recovery back up system (Windows Complete PC

Backup and Restore),

I have seen FAR too many pics of the new born baby lost to the HD crash.
I think backing up should be a religion for pc users... yes they can go get
Acronis or Ghost. But to have it built into the computer should be standard.
IMO (in my opionion). Microsoft screwed up by not making that standard in
all versions...
The ability to roll back to previous file versions is also something
EVERYONE should be entitled to.
They screwed up.. they'll know in the long run... I do THINK they read this
stuff here...

jf

 

[Dale]

Well, with all this new anti-piracy, perhaps we should be buying Microsoft
stock. That's where the money is intended for from these changes - and
that's ok. It's business.

Dale