November 6th, 2009

Seven perfectly legal ways to get Windows 7 cheap (or even free)

Posted by Ed Bott @ 6:21 am

Categories: Licensing, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Developer Network, License, PC, Student, Microsoft Corp., Subscription, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems

Only suckers pay retail.

If you’ve read any reviews of Windows 7, you’ve seen references to its price list, which ranges from $120 for a Home Premium upgrade to $320 for a fully licensed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.

Well, guess what? You don’t have to pay that much. Most people have much better options available, if you know where to look. As I’ve detailed here, the best deals go to PC manufacturers, which you benefit from if you buy a new PC.

But there are plenty of other discounts available as well. In this post, I’ve researched deals in three separate categories: upgrade offers available to anyone, special deals just for students, and subscriptions intended for technical professionals and developers.

Most of the details I include here apply to Windows customers in the United States, but some offers are also available in other countries. Where possible, I have tried to track down those details and include the names of countries where equivalent offers exist. If you live outside the U.S., follow these links to find prices and terms for your country.

My goal in this post is to point you to deals that customers legitimately qualify for. I am not trying to encourage attempts by anyone to get away with something you’re not entitled to. If there are restrictions for a specific offer, I’ve noted them here.

[Update 6-Nov 1:00PM PST: Several people in the comments have asked why I didn't iunclude the Microsoft Action Pack in this post. Two reasons: First, it is available only to bona fide system builders, and that's a fairly small group of people. Second, and more importantly, the licenses it includes expire and must be decommissioned if you fail to renew your MAP agreement each year. Every other example I have here includes Windows licenses that are good in perpetuity. I will cover System Builder pricing and licensing in more detail next week. Stay tuned.]

Ready to get started? Pick a category and go.

Page 2: Upgrade offers You can save as much as 58% off the regular cost of a Windows 7 upgrade if you know how to buy smart. I’ve found three options.

Page 3: Special deals for students If you’re enrolled in a college or university, even taking a single course at your local community college, you can get Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional for $30. Students in technical or design majors can get Windows 7 (and many other Microsoft programs) for free if their university or college is signed up for the right programs.

Page 4: Windows (and much more) by subscriptions Are you an IT pro, a Windows enthusiast, or a professional developer? For a surprisingly low annual fee, you can get access to a staggering amount of Microsoft software, including every version of Windows or Office. There are some restrictions, so be sure to read the details carefully.

Next page: Easy (and cheap) upgrades –>

June 26th, 2009

Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard: How much do upgrades really cost?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 5:00 am

Categories: Apple, Microsoft, Windows 7

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Upgrade, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Snow Leopard, Upgrade Cost, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Operating Systems

In one of its brilliant “I’m a Mac” ads recently, Apple lampooned the complexity of Microsoft Windows with a dizzying display of fine print that eventually filled up the screen and covered up both characters.

I thought of that ad when I saw Apple’s recent announcement that it was going to make its next Mac OS X upgrade, Snow Leopard, available as a $29 upgrade. That sounds so much better than the broad range of prices that Microsoft is going to charge its customers for Windows 7 upgrades. Too bad the $29 upgrade is not that simple. In fact, according to my analysis of Apple’s own sales figures, 57% of Apple’s customers who bought and paid for new Macs in the past five years are ineligible for those cheap upgrades.

That hasn’t stopped casual observers and even some seasoned analysts from falling for Apple’s ruse. Michael Gartenberg, for example, issued this critique in response to Microsoft’s announcement of Windows 7 pricing:

Apple showed the way. Snow Leopard is also not [a] major update but rather an enhanced version of Leopard. With an upgrade price of $29, that’s about where MSFT should be for the Home Premium version of 7…

Yes, $29 for an OS upgrade sounds like a great deal, if you qualify. But do you? I looked at the fine print for this offer, and was shocked—shocked, I tell you—to discover that the majority of Mac owners don’t qualify for that pricing. In fact, a significant number of Mac owners won’t be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard at any price.

Details after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

January 7th, 2009

Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7

Posted by Ed Bott @ 6:15 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Window, Backup Program, Backup, Microsoft Windows Vista, Option, Preview, User Account Control UAC, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows

I sometimes wonder how Microsoft’s interface designers find the strength to go to work every day. It certainly isn’t for the external validation. In the past two-plus years, I’ve read countless complaints about the Windows Vista user interface. It has too many options for ordinary users. It doesn’t offer enough options for advanced users. It’s dumbed down and overcomplicated, sometimes all at the same time. To listen to the critics, Vista’s designers succeeded in making every feature worse than XP. In fact, the latest complaint is that Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 are even worse than Windows 98.

Or maybe not. I’ve been using Windows Vista full time for more than three years, and I’ve been running various builds of Windows 7 on a daily basis for the last couple months. Maybe Microsoft’s software designers have learned something from all that criticism, because I see plenty of small but significant improvements in Windows 7.

In this post, I’ll show you six specific annoyances from Windows Vista that are fixed in Windows 7. Each one represents an easier, more efficient way to accomplish a common task. Collectively, they constitute some pretty persuasive evidence that “have it our way” is no longer the controlling design principle among Windows’ designers.

Read the rest of this entry »

January 5th, 2009

Five things Steve Ballmer won't tell you about Windows 7

Posted by Ed Bott @ 7:00 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., Hardware, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

On Wednesday night, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is going to step on stage at the Venetian Hotel’s Palazzo Ballroom to give the keynote address that kicks off the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s the first time for Ballmer, who’s taking the slot that his predecessor Bill Gates has had for years.

It’s widely expected that Ballmer will publicly unveil Windows 7 Beta 1, just as Gates used the stage to announce previous Windows versions. He’ll no doubt have an entourage of product managers to help him do the actual demos, hopefully inspiring a wow or two from the assembled throngs.

I’m looking forward to the demo, even though I don’t expect any surprises. Mostly, I’m going to be listening between the lines, paying attention to the things that Microsoft chooses not to talk about. In the spirit of the occasion, I offer up the following predictions of things that Ballmer will take great pains to avoid saying.

Read the rest of this entry »

December 16th, 2008

A new record for Godwin's Law

Posted by Ed Bott @ 3:45 pm

Categories: Apple, Microsoft

Tags: Apple Inc., Godwin, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Ed Bott

Everyone knows Godwin’s Law, right? The longer a heated discussion goes on, the probability that someone will compare someone else to Hitler or the Nazis approaches certainty. The original rule applied only to Usenet newsgroups, but it has since expanded to include any sort of online discussion, including comments on blogs.

Usually, when Mac-versus-PC arguments are involved, it takes some slow simmering, followed by a few back-and-forth insults that eventually burst into flames, before someone lets fly with the Hitler references. And I’m usually gone by that point, because flame wars between mindless fanboys are, frankly, boring.

But today’s comment section beneath a post on BusinessWeek’s Byte of the Apple blog sets a new record for invoking Godwin’s Law. The discussion centers around an article in today’s Wall Street Journal that claims Apple’s sales declined year-over-year in November, indicating that perhaps Apple is subject to the same economic pressures as every other company selling pricey consumer goods.

Even Apple Inc. is beginning to suffer in this year’s dismal holiday season, and worries are mounting the recession will weigh on its business next year.

Apple, which has outpaced the overall personal computer market this year despite its strategy of eschewing discounts, showed its first signs of weakness in November.

Sales of Macs in U.S. stores last month declined 1% from a year ago, while industry-wide PC sales rose 2%, according to research firm NPD Group Inc., which tracks retail sales.

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek disagrees that this means bad news for Apple, arguing that the comparison is skewed by unique factors, including the launch of new MacBooks in October of this year. Obviously, when interpreting economic data, reasonable people can disagree.

Oh, wait. Did I say reasonable people? The very first comment beneath this post heads straight for Godwin-land. Here’s what commenter Zato wrote:

The Wall Street Journal will say whatever it can get away with to discredit Apple and Google. Both are marked for elimination in Rupert Murdocks [sic] and Microsofts’ plan to control the internet and build the fourth Reich.

In 20-plus years online, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen someone go Godwin on the very first post. An awesome performance indeed. A mere two weeks before the end of the year, I believe we have a winner.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with my decision to skip CES and Macworld next month. Anyone taking bets on which show folds first? And how long will it take before the TalkBack section beneath this post slips into Godwin territory?

December 1st, 2008

With Vista SP2, Microsoft is back on track

Posted by Ed Bott @ 5:05 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Tags: Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows Vista, Service Pack, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows XP, Operating Systems, Software

Update 2-December: An alert reader points out that the original version of the graphics for this post used an incorrect date for the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. I have corrected the graphics to reflect the correct release date and interval between RTM and the estimated arrival of SP2.

From the other side of the world comes a report that Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will be released to manufacturing in April 2009, roughly a year 14 months after SP1. The Malaysian website TechARP has a pretty good track record with this sort of prediction, and my sources tell me that schedule sounds about right.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S.A., some people are inferring more Vista doom and gloom from this schedule. My buddy Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle says “SP2 is being rushed out the door” to keep up Vista’s momentum. Eweek’s Channel Insider calls SP2 a “last-ditch attempt to drum up sales for [the] beleaguered [Vista] operating system.” The Register says “Microsoft seems to be in a hurry with this release.”

They all need to dust off their Windows history books to see that the reality is exactly the opposite. If Vista SP2 does make its official appearance in April, it will mark a return to normal development and release cycles for Microsoft, which lost its way badly with Windows XP.

I’ve got the proof, in easy-to-read chart format. Here’s a timeline of every Windows service pack Microsoft has delivered since the release of Windows NT 4.0 in July 1996. Each color-coded bar represents the number of days between each service pack and its predecessor (RTM, in the case of SP1 releases). See any patterns?

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October 10th, 2008

Are there really too many Windows editions?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 10:23 am

Categories: Licensing, Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Vista

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., Edition, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

Ask any Windows pundit about all the different editions of Windows Vista that Microsoft offers and you’ll invariably get the same response. There are too many! Consumers are confused! It all needs to be simplified!

To which I say: Be careful what you wish for. The case for reducing the number of Windows editions to one or two sounds convincing in the abstract, but the argument breaks down quickly once you start to examine the details and consider how such a change would affect the way you and I buy Windows on consumer and business PCs. In fact, if Microsoft were to try, it would have a devastating effect on the low end of the market.

The latest to jump on the too-many-versions bandwagon is my friend and ZDNet colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. After tweaking me for “sweating the small stuff,” in my conjecture about what Windows 7 will ultimately be called, he writes that he’s “far more interested in how many different flavors of the OS we can expect to have to deal with.“ And like so many others who write on this topic, he proposes a simple solution:

Now, ideally I’d like to see Microsoft return to a situation where there’s one consumer and one professional flavor of Windows. In fact, why not take it a step further and adopt the Mac approach and go with a single version.

That’s a bad idea, in my opinion. The next time you hear someone make this suggestion, here are two questions to ask:

Read the rest of this entry »

October 9th, 2008

Look who’s buying Vista Home Basic (hint: it’s not home users)

Posted by Ed Bott @ 4:02 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Vista

Tags: Dell Computer Corp., PC, Microsoft Windows Vista, Small-business Buyer, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

Who’s buying new PCs with Windows Vista Home Basic? Judging by the name, you’d assume those OS editions would be loaded on underpowered machines headed for tract homes in the burbs and studio apartments in the city. But you’d be wrong.

Based on my observations of the PC market over the past year or two, I think consumers have rejected Home Basic in favor of Home Premium. But small, budget-conscious businesses have embraced the low-end OS.

In one large sample I looked at, nearly three out of every five machines destined for small business included Windows Vista Home Basic. Small-business buyers are apparently able to look past that name, and PC makers are happy to accommodate them. The primary appeal of Home Basic isn’t technology, it’s cold hard cash. Vista Home Basic runs Windows apps just fine, and it’s dirt cheap. Dell, one of the world’s two largest PC suppliers, in fact, is pushing Home Basic as the preferred option for many computers aimed at the small business market.

Take Dell’s Vostro 200, which is aimed squarely at the small-business market and starts at $269 with a Celeron 430 processor, 512MB of RAM, and no monitor. A much more capable machine with a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 19-inch monitor sells for $449. All three machines in this line come with Windows Vista Home Basic. To upgrade to Vista Business or downgrade to XP Pro is another $99, which represents a huge percentage of the system cost.

The phenomenon is equally pronounced if you look at the Vostro notebook line, where more than half of all available configurations, 13 out of 24, include Vista Home Basic. By contrast, Dell’s consumer notebook line offers 34 separate configuration, of which only three start with Vista Home Basic. The remaining 90% come with Vista Home Premium (only one model includes Vista Ultimate by default).

You can see the same mix of Windows versions if you go to a business-focused reseller like CDW and look at a list of the cheapest available desktop computers, sorted by price in ascending order. Five of the 10 PCs on the list, including models from HP Compaq and Lenovo, come with Vista Home Basic. (Once you get past those low-end PCs, however, almost all computers sold at CDW include Vista Business.)

So how popular is Vista Home Basic, and who’s buying it?

Who’s buying Vista Home Basic? See the details by segment –>

September 21st, 2008

How long will Microsoft support XP and Vista?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 6:00 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Tags: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., Security Update, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

In the Talkback section to another post, a reader asks a question about when Microsoft plans to drop support for Windows Vista. I hear variations on this one all the time, so I figured it’s worth covering here:

If MS is pushing up Win 7, what is going to happen to all the Vista users? Are they going to get screwed by a short term OS? It seems that MS is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. If Vista becomes a speed bump, then the Vista users will be angry. If they don’t then all the people who hate Vista will be angry. While in total numbers Vista users are small in number now it still is a large number of people.

I might quibble with the characterization that the total number of Vista users is small. Even if you discount Microsoft’s numbers by 50%, you still have 100 million people using Vista today. That’s a huge number by almost any standard and is only small when you compare it to the billion or so Windows machines in existence. So, are those millions and millions of customers out in the cold when Windows 7 comes out?

In a word, no. Microsoft has a well-documented support lifecycle for its software products. It’s part of the agreement that the company makes with everyone who installs Windows, especially business customers who want some assurance that they’ll be able to get updates and support for operating systems and applications even if they choose not to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Here are the high points and how they relate to Windows Vista.

The lifecycle includes two main phases:

• The Mainstream Support phase includes security updates, non-security hotfixes, no-charge incident support, paid support, warranty claims, design changes and feature requests, and access to online resources such as the Knowledge Base and Microsoft Help and Support.
• In the Extended Support phase, Microsoft continues to provide security updates, paid support, and online information. Customers who want hotfix support can purchase an extended agreement within 90 days of the end of the Mainstream Support phase.

After the Extended Support phase ends, you can continue to use online self-help resources, but all other support has to be provided through third parties or through custom support agreements such as those enjoyed by some large corporate customers.

So how do these support options map for you? That depends on whether you’re using a business or consumer product.

• For Business and Developer products (which includes Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Vista), the Mainstream Support phase runs for a minimum of five years or two years after the release of the next edition of the product, whichever is later. Assuming that Windows 7 ships in 2009 or 2010, that means Vista will enjoy mainstream support until at least November 30, 2011. The Extended Support phase runs for an additional five years, so you can count on security updates for Vista until at least November 30, 2016.
• For Consumer products (which includes Vista Home Basic and Home Premium), Microsoft provides Mainstream Support only. Because the launch of the consumer version of Vista was two months later than the business launch, the support lifecycle provides for full support until at least January 30, 2012, or two years after the release of Windows 7, whichever is later.

Good news for consumers is that security updates apply to all Windows versions, so any Vista security updates made available via Windows Update should be delivered to consumers and businesses alike, even during the Extended Support phase. So your copy of Vista Home Premium will continue to receive security updates for at least eight more years.

And what about XP? When Vista came out, conspiracy theorists were quick to predict that Microsoft would abandon it and force customers to switch to Vista. I debunked that notion shortly before Vista shipped. A few months later, in January 2007, Microsoft officially expanded its support terms for XP, covering home editions under the Extended Support phase (see “XP gets a new lease on life”  for details). So, if you use any XP edition, you’re covered through April 2014.

By that time, of course, Windows 8 will probably have been released, which means that Microsoft will be actively supporting four separate desktop editions of Windows.

September 8th, 2008

Should Microsoft get into the PC hardware business?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 7:07 am

Categories: Hardware, Microsoft

Tags: PC, Microsoft Corp., Hardware, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

I really enjoyed watching this recent interview with Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich on Microsoft’s TechNet Edge. He covers a wide range of topics, but the one that got my attention is a two-minute snippet near the end, when the interviewer asks whether Mark feels that Microsoft needs to make its own desktop hardware. (If you want to see and hear this discussion for yourself, skip ahead to the 34:03 mark in the video.)

Do you think Microsoft needs to make desktop hardware or certain desktop/server PC hardware?

There’s a lot of discussion about that – not just in the industry but also within Microsoft. Should we be developing the Windows notebook or the Windows desktop? My opinion is that what’s made Windows so successful is the fact that it’s got an ecosystem with partners that are developing software and doing different things with hardware and software. And for us to kind of block all that [pause] innovation – hate to use that word because it’s so overloaded by marketing these days – to block out that playground that people have to do cool things for customers that we can’t think of or don’t have the agility to do, I think, is not the way Windows has gotten successful. I don’t think it’s even the right thing to do now, even in response to what people see as market pressures coming from other people that are doing that. …

[O]ne of the things that you have seen Windows doing over the last couple years is reaching out and working more closely with the hardware partners, with the OEMs, to make sure that the systems they deliver to users provide a good Windows experience, and not one where it’s Windows loaded up with a bunch of junk. And also that the hardware is designed and capable of running Windows the way it should be run and not “Hey, let’s save a few dollars and put in 512 meg of RAM” instead of the couple gig that really make Windows [perform well] … because when you talk about the amount of cost for that these days it’s marginal but the difference in user experience when you look at that is pretty drastic. So, I think that’s the way that we should continue to operate is to have these deeper partnerships with companies to make sure customers do get a great experience.

The fact that these discussions are happening within Microsoft doesn’t surprise me. It’s one of the most obvious responses to Apple’s success, and it’s also in keeping with what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote in his all-hands memo that was leaked to the press back in July:

In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises.

Apple makes a handful of systems using basically the same parts, and they sell the hardware, software, and support as a package. That makes it easy for them to deliver systems that work reliably and can be supported at their stores by technicians with a minimum of training. But it also means that I have limited choices if I want to buy a system running the Mac OS. I can’t buy an Apple-powered tablet, or a small and light notebook (the MacBook Air is thin and light, but it’s not small), or a powerful and expandable small-form-factor desktop. All of those choices are available to me in the PC marketplace, but they come with other tradeoffs, such as crapware and driver hassles.

I’m skeptical that a strategy of “deeper partnerships” with OEMs can really accomplish the goal of providing “complete experiences with absolutely no compromises.” Better communication can make the next generation of PCs better than the current crop, but the nature of these partnerships means that hardware makers have different goals and philosophies and levels of execution. All those engineering meetings take time and cost money, and it takes time for the results to make it into new systems. That’s why it’s tempting to suggest that Microsoft begin manufacturing its own PC hardware. Unfortunately, that would mean Microsoft would have to compete directly with its hardware partners at the retail level and maybe even in enterprise sales. Those hardware partners bring in the majority of Windows revenue by installing Windows on new hardware. I really don’t see any way that Microsoft could work through that conflict successfully or make the risk worth the reward.

But maybe there’s a way around that roadblock. For years, Microsoft has created reference designs for hardware when it introduces a new category. They’re typically done early in an OS development lifecycle, as a way for partners to see what the new technology looks like in operation. At Microsoft-sponsored hardware conferences over the years, I’ve seen reference designs for remote controls, for Media Center devices, for phones, and for home servers. What if Microsoft created reference designs for PC hardware? What if any manufacturer could license and build PCs based on those reference designs? You could have reference designs for notebooks, for desktop PCs, for home theater systems with CableCARD tuners. The reference design would specify not just the hardware, but the software as well, meaning that customers could count on crapware-free installations and easy-to-update drivers. The idea is to build a machine specifically designed for the current version of Windows and, presumably, guaranteed to show off the operating system at its very best, with no compromises. Contract manufacturers could build the systems and make them available to any OEM, large or small, so that even small-town system builders could deliver a product that would compete with the big guys.

With Microsoft one step removed from the process, the existing OEM business model would be preserved. Reviewers would have a chance to compare big-OEM designs against the Microsoft Reference Design so that measurements of OS performance could actually concentrate on the hardware and not become muddled by variables introduced by third-party hardware and software.

Finally, this would give those big OEMs a chance to put up or shut up on their “innovation.” (and yeah, I hate that word too). Is that new Sony notebook faster or slower than the Microsoft Reference Design? Do those HP diagnostic tools improve performance or drag it down? Does Dell’s wireless utility do a better job than the built-in Windows tool? With a standard hardware platform, everyone would have a baseline against which to compare, and the real innovators would stand out

So, what do you think? Would you buy a “designed by Microsoft” PC?