The Grinch's name is Vista

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alfred Kaufmann
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Alfred Kaufmann

I was just listening to the TV news; someone was recommending that if at all
possible hold off on purchasing your new computer until February! The
reason was because they should wait for Vista.

I know how they feel, I am building a couple of Christmas presents very very
slowly and I hope that Vista OEM will be available or at least a free
upgrade coupon when buying current XP Operating systems before Christmas.

Al
 
Uh-huh - in my opinion the newest and greatest improvements in an OS
suggest waiting until Vista are available.

I don't perceive it as a "Grinch" it seems more of a cinch?

I am postponing hardware and software purchases until after Vista
becomes available and, when asked, suggest my friends do the same.
 
Thanks for that information. I even confirmed online that the coupon is for
a free upgrade and not just something like $10 off. (Their website is not
really clear on the coupon)

Now I just have to wait until a Canadian company offers the same deal.

Al
 
Al;
Starting a few days ago, 26 October, most if not all computers sold with
Windows XP are available with a free or cheap upgrade for Windows XP.
Ask the manufacturer/seller before purchase.

Even if the computer seems to meet the Vista requirements, there is no real
compatibility guarantee from Microsoft since Vista is still in development
and could change after a computer was build.
Any guarantee of Vista compatibility would start and stop with the computer
seller/manufacturer.

That said, now could be a good time since the computer would come with both
Windows XP and the equivalent Vista upgrade.
 
NewEgg's deal is for a CD copy of Vista RC1 which is a trial version that
expires on June 1, 2007. You will then have to uninstall it or buy a new
copy.
 
No, if you look for Windows XP on Newegg, there are some that say they come
with the Windows Vista Upgrade coupon.
 
Staples kicked up their offerings on HP computers. The speed is higher; AMD
5000+, instead of 3800+.
 
"What about the other 299 OEM named partners and MSFT pressure..."
The pressure is actually from the consumers.
OEMs have several options.
One of the cheapest is no CD and many customers simply look for the cheapest
while ignoring possible consequences.
As long as price is a major factor, OEMS will do whatever they can to cut
every penny from the cost so they can get something with their already slim
margins.
 
This is an interesting link Chad.

Part of me wondered if an organisation with a huge online presence
should do some roadshow stuff?

Of course, in the EU Dell have a strong presence but I wondered about
higher end geek stuff.

Would a couple of wagons rolling across the continents with high profile
roadshows showing top of the range kit at or shortly after Vista hits
the consumer high street be a neat thing to do?

The other model that springs to mind (the fruit) seems to be doing well
with centralised retail outlets. It is a great way to see new stuff
(quite a lot of indirect retailers seem fazed on kit imo).

Maybe a roadshow with corporate invites at special times with direct
sales to consumers ultimately to be self-financing? In other words, it
starts off as an ad budget but has its own sales targets as well?

Interesting stuff?
 
One of the most damaging Grinches around for the last 6 Christmases and
rearing its head this one is the policy of MSFT to urge OEM partners 300
named partners that Scott diValerio presides over as OEM VP ***not to
provide OS media with the entire OS on it, CD XP, DVD Vista to customers for
their hard working bucks.***

His name is Scott di Valierio and he is an accountant who works on the
Redmond campus. I call him the Quintissential Grinch--who minimizes the
customer experience and is the enemy of providing a competent recovery
mechanism to customers for Windows Vista.

I would love to take him on in a recovery of Vista or XP contest his
computer and mine and any of his homeboys and girls but they won't stand up
and take the challenge. He can use OEM recovery CDs and DVDs and partitions
and I'll use the operating system they make at the Redmond campus, XP or
Vista his choice/their choice. Comeon Softies get up and take the challenge!

This is the Grinch in Chief--he has a face people and he lives near Redmond
and works on the MSFT Redmond Campus--he's not IT career based--he's an
accountant. Make sure you get this. Accountants weigh in heavily on your
licensing not the upper management at MSFT who run Windows as trained
engineers. It's not about making software available to you for a fair price
right now. It's take a course in making as much money availalbe for MSFT as
possible.

What is particularly disturbing is that all the people who build computers
on their own that aren't in factories for a living or for pleasure and it's
always an amalgam of both when it works well, are going to be heavily
restricted unless MSFT rethinks the EULA as they are now rethinking it and
the result shows they did it contstructively.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/scottdiv/default.mspx

Scott di Valerio OEM VP MSFT at Redmond--the company who makes Windows,
pressures OEMs not to give you a copy of it on media--that'd be a DVD for
Vista and a CD for XP--the last two OS's I've seen the company make with
5840 in Escrow close to what will soon RTM and with many bugs ***unfixed.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/scottdiv/default.mspx

Dell has shown a positive sign in this direction. When I talked to Dell for
policy at Round Rock last week, they said the pressure not to provide this
has come from the highest levels at Microsoft which to the best of my
understanding is the company who makes XP and Vista and the code and is
located at Redmond, Washington. Mr. Allchin is well aware of this; as are
hundreds of developers and Product Managers some of whom have personally
voiced their regret that this keeps MSFT customers from using a Repair
Install in XP when F8 Windows Advanced Options Fail and Win RE's Startup
Repair in Vista.

Dell's Blog Promise to Ship an *OS that'd be Windows Vista rather than a
crappy born to fail born to take you to the OS morgue recovery CD or
partition like PC Restore (which they were shipping because of huge pressure
from Microsoft the company at Redmond who makes Windows)--Scott di Valerio
the Accountant is head of all the talented OEM system builders on the
street--could Scott build a computer?--one Wonders!
http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/category/1014.aspx

Win RE/Start Repair
http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/default.aspx

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img_vista02ctp-installSysRecOpt2.bmp
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui/images/2014/500x375.aspx

I believe a good time to upgrade would be the time when MSFT who is
currently reviewing their EULA and its ramnifications towards prices that
skewer a nuclear family of four get modified to become a little more market
conscious along the lines outlined here by MVP Robert McLaws:

Windows Licensing: The Price of Success (Quoted Material from Robert McLaws'
helpful analysis of MSFT licensing sales policy pending
modification/clarification)--I find this quintissential Grinchisity or
Chronic Grinch Syndrome CGS or CGS/ QG as it's called in DSM IV.
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/archive/2006/08/11/16576.aspx

Get Facts not Spin on Windows Licensing
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=158

Sneaky Change in Windows Licensing
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=156

Ed Bott's Tips and Tricks Windows Licensing
www.edbott.com/weblog

CH
_________
 
Deebs--

On the link I didn't see anything about getting Vista Media--a DVD with the
OS on it. That's what I've been driving at. The recovery discs the OEMs
provide or partitions rarely ever will repair the OS. A repair install in
XP or startup repair in Vista can.

CH
 
Maybe, just maybe things are going in the right direction?

The moduslink page gives some idea of how huge resources seem to have
been made available.

Maybe the vendors should also support by one free fix-it should one be
required?

I am sure not all purchasers are/will be as computer savvy as most (if
not all) of the people posting & reading here
 
Deebs--

Here's my experience along those lines. Because MSFT refuses to ever
discuss in person or by email or on a group or chat their tech support--it's
the skeleton in the closet they never want to admit, a lot of us help
knowing their phone support is horrendous, that Dell's phone support is
horrendous despite they claim in Dell's case they poured 100 million into
it. MSFT contracts to a company called Convergys of Ohio --google it-- or
use the less powerful search engine MSN Search by a company at Redmond with
a distinguished scientist who is a search expert at MSFT research Dr. Gary
Flake hired from Yahoo and given the title Distinguished Scientist, one of
the few with that title at MSFT fwiw. The outsourced minimum waged butts in
seats barely speak English and it is part of the trend of American companies
to take jobs away from Americans and outsource where the minimum wage in a
foreign country is the prime consideration and the quality of support is a
joke.

Just gettting them to complete a sentence in English with an inflection you
could understand would be the crowning achievement.

That's why MSFT won't discuss it and their customers hate it.

I have participated in hundreds of no boot XP scenarios and many no boot
Vista scenarios without the media that has the OS on it--in the case of
Vista with people who don't have it yet because they used Daemon or some
Virtual method to mount the iso.

Any time the full OS on media is not available, a repair install in XP or a
startup repair will fail. That means that recovery discs and partitions are
a cruel hoax on MSFT and OEM customers that pay hard earned money for their
computers and this is pushed at Redmond by a gentleman named Scott di
Valerio. He is an accountant without significant training in computer
science and those who have computer science backgrounds have their head in
the sand and pretend not to know about their PSS (phone support) or pretend
not to know what a phone is or pretend not to know what support means when
questioned.

You will never see Jill Zoeller [MSFT] or Darrell Gorter [MSFT] or Corey
Snow [MSFT] or Nick White [Product Manager on the Vista Launch team] or Jim
Allchin [MSFT] jump in here or anywhere else where they have been directly
asked in their inbox to take a challenge to break Windows XP or Windows
Vista both made by MSFT to the best of my knowledge and go one on one in
fixing it when they have OEM recovery media that is not the OS and I have
the OS on a CD using every tool they can muster besides those. I'm not
talking about them getting the $250 that Sysinternals has been making
(Sysinternals is now owned by MSFT and their talented people work for MSFT)
or expensive 3rd party media or applications.

I'm talking about a contest between OEM provided media that is *not the OS
and media that is the OS either XP (Repair Install) or Vista Startup Repair.

Not going to ever happen. I'd like to bet them for some software or money
but they don't dare take the challenge.

You alluded to a one support episode. I know people who have no boot
situations that are more than once and a lot of them.

They need an OS on CD period and MSFT fights tooth and nail to ensure they
don't get it.

I call this the height of hypocrisy for a company full of brilliant
innovative people who have great MSDN and Technet blogs and profess to care.

It's a prodigious disconnect and it's quintissentially disigenuous or as I
learned to say growing up as a kid "What a ripoff!"

CH
 
Gosh! There is a lot there!

1 - I too have experienced support from overseas. I also received
mainland support. I thought that the differences were partly linguistic
but I also received excellent first class support from overseas compared
to tardy mainland stuff (honest!) I concluded that on a principle of
meritocracy let the most customer focussed service win and, perhaps with
a tinge of sadness, i have to say it was overseas every time in my own
experience.

2 - two of the computers I purchased (one in '96 and one in '005) came
with a non-compliant OS. Conclusion: always purchase with a credit card
as both suppliers went out of business within the 12 month warranty
period. Interim conclusion: C'mon Dell! Get wiv it!

3 - repairable media: sure as heck it should be easy-peasy for a
purchaser to make the computer into the state it was at purchase.
Afterthought: my ISP install stuff used to have a grey EULA (I don't
know if it still has) and I suspect that some OEMs put a bit of stuff
there that is best removed too?

4 - most stable OSs I can recall using were always retail variants.

I don't know if the above helps at all in terms of understanding,
discussion and openness. I'd love to do more but am now wrestling with
a 3-year return to base warranty on a monitor that is based on a
principle of faulty is replaced with refurb/recon. The world is
obviously not perfect in many respects.

5 - Mac OS is out next year as well and if i recall correctly it seems
favourably inclined to home networks

Chad said:
Deebs--

Here's my experience along those lines. Because MSFT refuses to ever
discuss in person or by email or on a group or chat their tech
support--it's the skeleton in the closet they never want to admit, a lot
of us help knowing their phone support is horrendous, that Dell's phone
support is horrendous despite they claim in Dell's case they poured 100
million into it. MSFT contracts to a company called Convergys of Ohio
--google it-- or use the less powerful search engine MSN Search by a
company at Redmond with a distinguished scientist who is a search expert
at MSFT research Dr. Gary Flake hired from Yahoo and given the title
Distinguished Scientist, one of the few with that title at MSFT fwiw.
The outsourced minimum waged butts in seats barely speak English and it
is part of the trend of American companies to take jobs away from
Americans and outsource where the minimum wage in a foreign country is
the prime consideration and the quality of support is a joke.

Just gettting them to complete a sentence in English with an inflection
you could understand would be the crowning achievement.

That's why MSFT won't discuss it and their customers hate it.

I have participated in hundreds of no boot XP scenarios and many no boot
Vista scenarios without the media that has the OS on it--in the case of
Vista with people who don't have it yet because they used Daemon or some
Virtual method to mount the iso.

Any time the full OS on media is not available, a repair install in XP
or a startup repair will fail. That means that recovery discs and
partitions are a cruel hoax on MSFT and OEM customers that pay hard
earned money for their computers and this is pushed at Redmond by a
gentleman named Scott di Valerio. He is an accountant without
significant training in computer science and those who have computer
science backgrounds have their head in the sand and pretend not to know
about their PSS (phone support) or pretend not to know what a phone is
or pretend not to know what support means when questioned.

You will never see Jill Zoeller [MSFT] or Darrell Gorter [MSFT] or Corey
Snow [MSFT] or Nick White [Product Manager on the Vista Launch team] or
Jim Allchin [MSFT] jump in here or anywhere else where they have been
directly asked in their inbox to take a challenge to break Windows XP or
Windows Vista both made by MSFT to the best of my knowledge and go one
on one in fixing it when they have OEM recovery media that is not the OS
and I have the OS on a CD using every tool they can muster besides
those. I'm not talking about them getting the $250 that Sysinternals
has been making (Sysinternals is now owned by MSFT and their talented
people work for MSFT) or expensive 3rd party media or applications.

I'm talking about a contest between OEM provided media that is *not the
OS and media that is the OS either XP (Repair Install) or Vista Startup
Repair.

Not going to ever happen. I'd like to bet them for some software or
money but they don't dare take the challenge.

You alluded to a one support episode. I know people who have no boot
situations that are more than once and a lot of them.

They need an OS on CD period and MSFT fights tooth and nail to ensure
they don't get it.

I call this the height of hypocrisy for a company full of brilliant
innovative people who have great MSDN and Technet blogs and profess to
care.

It's a prodigious disconnect and it's quintissentially disigenuous or as
I learned to say growing up as a kid "What a ripoff!"

CH
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