BestBuy Unveils Windows 7 Upgrade Plans

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=B13XQPZAQHTRSQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=217800056' target='_blank'>http://www.informationweek.com/news...cleID=217800056</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The memo states that Best Buy (and presumably its competitors) will launch a "Technology Guarantee" program on June 26, under which anyone who purchases a PC running Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate can install Windows 7 at no extra charge when the latter becomes available Oct. 22. "</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1244574667.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Back when Vista was just around the corner, Microsoft and partners started offering a similar guarantee, with customers buying a computer with Windows XP able to upgrade to Windows Vista.&nbsp; The goal was to prevent customers from holding off on their computer purchases in anticipation of the great Vista bonanza.&nbsp; Of course, the whole upgrade plan went awry, and lots of us were left wanting when our "Vista Capable" computers slowed to a crawl.&nbsp; This time, I think the story will be a bit different for several reasons.&nbsp; First, manufacturers have hopefully learned their lesson and will not try to castrate their computers with the bare minimum specifications.&nbsp; Second, computing horsepower has doubled, or dual-cored, rather, in the past few years, meaning that even the cheapest computers tend to have much more oomph.&nbsp; Third, Windows 7 definitely seems to be a leaner, slicker Windows over Vista.&nbsp; I see the upgade plan a bit of a red herring with most people who will buy a computer will be so entrenched in their personal touches, etc. that they will probably end up not bothering with the upgrade.&nbsp; Has anyone actually upgraded their computer from Windows XP to Vista through one of these programs?</p>

[Jason Dunn]

I think to some degree these programs are about psychology - it removes the excuse about "waiting for the upgrade" from people who want to buy a computer today, but have heard about Windows 7. I have to wonder how many people that get the next OS actually install it...

[Reid Kistler]

After growing weary of building our own boxes (5 of last 6!), bought a small Acer system with XP Installed + Free Vista Upgrade offer.

(AMD X2 Athlon, 250GB SATA HD, 1GB RAM, DVD R/RW, on-board graphics (nVidia) & sound, 17" LCD, spkrs, kb, mouse, etc: it was actually less expensive - after MIR - than what the parts would have cost - !)

In any event, it took some months for the Vista Upgrade to arrive, and although it was loaded quickly, it took ANOTHER 8 months (or ? longer...) before I actually began to USE Vista (system is set up as a Dual Boot) - but for past several months have been Normally Booting To Vista as opposed to Normally Booting To XP. (Only Major Diappointment: neither QuickVerse version we own runs under Vista.... :()

Added an extra GB of RAM, a second SATA HD, a Gigabyte SilentPipeII (nVidia based) PCI video card, and upped to a 22" LCD (also Acer - the 17" screen has found a home as part of a dual-screen setup...). All of these would have been picked up even without Vista, but felt the RAM & Video Card would be needed in order to run Vista with any speed.

Set the system up to share Document & Thunderbird folders, along with Temp, Download, & Media partitions ("drives"), and left the XP portion to sync with my old Axim, while Vista syncs with my Fuze (it was actually Using The Fuze that was the final decision point to begin Using Vista!).

Am very happy with the system to date: not a gamer, and do only rudimentary editing with PhotoShop Elements/Premiere Elements, but overall system performance seems just fine, & document handling is not a problem, even with multiple apps open. (Do a fair amount of Scanning / OCR work, & this machine WITH VISTA handles those tasks better than any other we have - including This Machine With XP - although it is possible that the new version of OmniPage is partially responsible for the improvement).

All-in-all, would consider the "Upgrade" to Vista a success (Quotes on "Upgrade" because I DID hedge my bets by leaving XP available through Dual-boot option) - and have already advised people to hold off UNNECESSARY system purchases until some sort of "Technology Guarantee" is announced for Windows 7.

Am certain my recommendations have not caused the Slightest Blip in system sales, but guess is that a fair number of Potential Buyers at least THINK ABOUT holding off until 7 is available, OR some sort of Upgrade Policy is announced....

Whether they actually MOVE to the new OS (7, in this case) is, of course, another question - but personally think it is nice to Have The Option.

[Jason Dunn]

Am certain my recommendations have not caused the Slightest Blip in system sales, but guess is that a fair number of Potential Buyers at least THINK ABOUT holding off until 7 is available, OR some sort of Upgrade Policy is announced....

Thanks for sharing your story! :)

[Sven Johannsen]

Has anyone actually upgraded their computer from Windows XP to Vista through one of these programs?
Yea, and I put it back. It was a Sony TX that just ran like a dog with Vista. I think I actually paid like $30 for the upgrade media. Was worth getting the stuff from Sony as they seem to have a lot of proprietay drivers that would have been hard to run down and get everything loaded. The stuff from Sony was a simple 'run this' and it built me a Vista system, with everything working like it came out of the box that way. It was just slow. Still using that machine. Works great. Might go through the effort of putting Win 7 on it. I've played with it on older, less powerful laptops and it ran well. Wouldn't have any reservations about upgrading a system that came with Vista to 7 based on what I've experienced with the Beta and RC.

[Hooch Tan]

Might go through the effort of putting Win 7 on it. I've played with it on older, less powerful laptops and it ran well. Wouldn't have any reservations about upgrading a system that came with Vista to 7 based on what I've experienced with the Beta and RC.

I'm sort of with you on this. Windows 7 does appear to less resource hungry than Vista. Also, I'm seeing a lot of low end systems now coming with 2 or 3GB of RAM, which should be enough to handle everything people normally run on computers. When Vista was about to come out, many "Vista Capable" systems were being sold with 512MB of RAM which would pretty much guarantee swapping if you wanted to run something like Notepad or a Windows Explorer window let alone go on the Internet. Vista and programs can easily chew up 1GB of RAM.

[firedog]

Apple decided it's OS upgrade (Leopard to Snow Leopard) will cost only $29. Unfortunately, Microsoft never gets it - they apparently plan to charge the regular $125 or so for a Vista to W7 upgrade.

I bought a Vista PC 2 months ago and am very happy with it. No problems, and I think Vista's much better than XP. But I certainly won't pay $125 for the upgrade, even though W7 is supposed to improve PC performance. If MS would charge only $29, like Apple, I'd do the upgrade without a second thought.

Microsoft would make much more money that way, but they just can't bring themselves to price an OS like that.

[Jason Dunn]

Apple decided it's OS upgrade (Leopard to Snow Leopard) will cost only $29. Unfortunately, Microsoft never gets it - they apparently plan to charge the regular $125 or so for a Vista to W7 upgrade.

I guess the question is whether or not "Snow Leopard" is a truly new OS or just a "service pack" for Leopard - I don't know enough about it to know, but there has to be a reason Apple is breaking away from their typical upgrade charges on it, isn't there?

Windows 7 on the other hand, really is a new OS - it's been three years in the making. That doesn't make it easier on your wallet mind you... :)

[firedog]

I don't know, but many professional reviewers have referred to it as "Vista SP3".

It is obviously the same basic code, as you can load it on any Vista machine and it works, apparently with the existing drivers. I'm not an expert, but I'm doubtful it's really any more of a new OS than the Apple OS.

In any case, it's the same MS system: release version one of software, which doesn't work well, and is full of bugs. Then release "new" software, which is essentially a fix of the previous version, and charge full price. This has happened with releases of Office and IE (although IE is free), as well as other programs. It's definitely their MO with Windows. In some cases we get free updates which fix many problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place - such as Vista SP1. In other cases we don't.

Don't get me wrong: I bought a PC with Vista SP1 64bit. I'm very happy with it. It's a big upgrade over XP and worth the money. I just think MS customers (especially those who bought the original Vista) should get a break and not have to pay full price to fix something that shouldn't have been broken in the first place.

[doogald]

I guess the question is whether or not "Snow Leopard" is a truly new OS or just a "service pack" for Leopard

From a UI standpoint, there is little different, but the underlying code is completely changed. Among other things, they've added OpenCL and Grand Central for developers, added Exchange Server support to Mail and iCal, and reduced the size of the code in half. And this seems to be on Apple's typical OS release schedule; it'll be 23 months after Leopard was released. Leopard was 30 months after Tiger, Tiger was 18 months after Panther, which was 14 months after Jaguar. And now it'll be a full 64 bit architecture that can address up to 16 terabytes of RAM while still supporting old 32 bit code.

Windows 7 on the other hand, really is a new OS - it's been three years in the making. That doesn't make it easier on your wallet mind you... :)

See, I disagree with that. Every analyst I read seems to be calling Windows 7 "Vista done right". And, since Vista was 6 years in the making, that suggests that Windows 7 coming 32 months later makes it more like a Vista service pack than Snow Leopard is to Leopard. ;) Based on the RC I'd certainly say that Windows 7 feels far more like Vista than Vista feels like XP, or XP feels like 2000, from a UI point of view.

I don't know enough about it to know, but there has to be a reason Apple is breaking away from their typical upgrade charges on it, isn't there?

My guess is that the pricing is a shot across Microsoft's bow, daring them to low-ball Windows 7 upgrades, and, if they do not, certainly an issue in a future ad to counter the laptop hunters ad campaign. I recall reading recently that since that ad campaign was started that Microsoft has been surveyed to be a better value than Apple, but here is something that Microsoft will actually price, and if it is an integer multiple of $29 (not to mention the $49 family pack!), that might counter that public opinion a bit.

[Sven Johannsen]

Responding to some of the above. One old machine I shoved W7 on was a 1GHz Dell with 768M or RAM. Single core obviously. Below recommended, but it actually runs reasonably, certainly better than the Vista upgrade on the Sony TX. That's one reason I'm not concerned about upgrading the TX.

At the risk of sounding like Apple bashing, sure Apple can discount the next OS upgrade, look what you pay for the system in the first place. That's just a fact. They can afford better tech support because their customers pay for it in the initial cost of the machine, and there are fewer of them too. Nothing wrong with that. MS isn't subsidizing their OS with hardware profits, so you are going to pay more for it if you buy it directly.

About W7 being Vista SP3....well, maybe, if you just consider the minor, but cool, UI tweaks, but the performance increase is significant. I just think they are doing a better and better job of detecting the cornucopia of hardware possible with a Windows based PC, rather than thinking the drivers are all just the same. I've had to download some stuff from the web to use some hardware. Some via MS, some assorted experiments from OEMs and hardware sites. For the most part though, each revision of Windows seems better and better at just finding and supporting the hardware.

[Jason Dunn]

I don't know, but many professional reviewers have referred to it as "Vista SP3".

I'd say those "professional" reviewers are just creating flame bait, looking for traffic. Service Packs from Microsoft are all pretty much the same: no UI changes, tweaks here, patches there, etc. The biggest service pack in history was XP SP2, but it didn't fundamentally alter the way XP works.

In any case, it's the same MS system: release version one of software, which doesn't work well, and is full of bugs. Then release "new" software, which is essentially a fix of the previous version, and charge full price...
Don't get me wrong: I bought a PC with Vista SP1 64bit. I'm very happy with it. It's a big upgrade over XP and worth the money.

You seem to be contradicting yourself - in what way is your Vista system broken or buggy? Why is it so bad that you feel justified in getting a discount on Windows 7? The biggest problem with Vista wasn't the bugs - it was the hardware drivers that vendors were slow to update, partially because Microsoft didn't give them enough time to create the drivers. But that's not the same as software bugs.

Windows XP is far buggier/broken than Vista is - there are gobs of things in XP that never got fixed until Vista. No OS is perfect - that's why there are service packs - but to claim that Windows 7 is service pack for Vista is simply ignorant.

[Jason Dunn]

From a UI standpoint, there is little different, but the underlying code is completely changed.

OK, you've convinced me: Snow Leopard is a full-fledged OS upgrade. :)

Every analyst I read seems to be calling Windows 7 "Vista done right". And, since Vista was 6 years in the making, that suggests that Windows 7 coming 32 months later makes it more like a Vista service pack than Snow Leopard is to Leopard.

Vista was definitely not six years in the making...one of the reasons it was so late was that Jim Alchin pressed the pause button on Vista (Longhorn) and moved nearly 100% of the development resources onto XP SP2 - there's a reason why PC security took a huge leap forward after SP2. It was the single biggest SP in Microsoft history.

There are two reasons why Windows 7 came faster than Windows XP:

1) The public perception of Vista, thanks to the help of those Apple commercials, stinks. I've lost count of the number of people who say they don't like Vista, but have never used it. The just "heard" it was bad. People got to used to XP, they didn't want to change, no matter how good the new OS was.

2) Microsoft realizes they really screwed up with how long they took to release Vista, and they don't want to wait that long again for major OS releases. Windows XP got stale. Just like Windows Mobile did...

Based on the RC I'd certainly say that Windows 7 feels far more like Vista than Vista feels like XP, or XP feels like 2000, from a UI point of view.

Absolutely - Windows 7 is based on the same codebase as Vista. If it wasn't, there would be driver nightmares all over again. Vista to 7 is more like 95 to 98.

My guess is that the pricing is a shot across Microsoft's bow, daring them to low-ball Windows 7 upgrades, and, if they do not, certainly an issue in a future ad to counter the laptop hunters ad campaign.

Could very well be - but what's interesting is that it's not going to win Apple any new customers, right? At best it might keep current customers - but making an upgrade $29 only matters if you've already got a Mac. So it doesn't seem like an effective strategy against people upgrading to Windows 7, even if that upgrade is $120 or whatever...