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Microsoft Giving Away Vista Ultimate, With a Catch
Posted by
kdawson
on Tuesday December 11, @11:48PM
from the no-free-lunch dept.
from the no-free-lunch dept.
Opinari writes "In case you haven't heard, Microsoft is giving away copies of Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit DVD), Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, Microsoft Money Plus Premium, Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008, or Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 — you can choose any one. The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program."
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Microsoft Giving Away Vista Ultimate, With a Catch
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Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Cause let's be real.. it's Vista.. it certainly won't suck less...
Re:Free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Informative)
To quote from the second page towards registration:
"Choose the program(s) you would like to join
Automated feedback program (Windows Vista and Windows XP only)"
and further on in the uninstallation instructions.....
"Windows XP Instructions:
1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then click Change or Remove Programs.
2. Select Windows Feedback Panel, and then click Remove.
"
Re:Free... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Informative)
Right here [microsoft.com] shows what must be done. You can sign up for either, or both, of the programs (for those to lazy to read the page, the two programs available are the "spyware" and the surveys -- I opted just for the surveys).
Here is the text about the survey feedback program:
When you join the survey feedback program, you'll be invited to take a survey on a regular schedule. If the survey arrives at a time where you are busy, you can skip that one and take the next one instead. You will not receive more than one survey every two weeks.
Hell, I signed up for it. I have access to a computer I can install it on for 3 months that can just sit in a corner idle (whether I decide to use the "feedback program" or not).
And yes, they will be the first against the wall when the revolution starts (apology mr adams).
Re:Free... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Free... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Free... (Score:5, Funny)
The only requirements are that your home PC is running the Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system, and that you have an Internet connection. That's it!
Which is the catch? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Which is the catch? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to trumpet the impending arrival of Linux dominance but there is the reality that people and companies stick with what they know -- even if it's a PITA. MS would have to give them a major kick in the ass for them to see the hassle of moving from Windows as worth it. And I don't see even Vista doing that. At worst, companies and people will stick with XP.
Which from Microsoft's financial perspective isn't that bad.
Fine, let them monitor... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Which is the catch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Laptop 1 is mine (for supporting Vista). Yesterday I installed Adobe Acrobat 8.1 - the installer told me approximate install time was 160 minutes and it was not lying. The other day I installed another app and the same thing happened - several hours elapsed while a single app was installing. When the machine comes out of standby, it occasionally will go slow for about 10 mins (I have 1.2GB RAM). The wifi switch/LED didn't work properly until a driver update was applied.
Laptop 2 is in marketing. The user is currently sitting in their car to be outside our wireless zone because she's trying to finish tidying a mailshot spreadsheet and the laptop keeps freezing. She was working OK on two other sites yesterday where there was no wireless so she's testing the theory that it's network-related. Her wifi switch won't turn off the adaptor reliably and it also works in reverse - when the LED is ON, the wifi is OFF and vice versa - even though the switch event handler puts on the screen 'wireless on' and 'wireless off' the right way round.
Laptop 3 has just been brought in because it stopped making RDP connections and I have just had to hack the registry.
I am totally neutral when it comes to Vista - I don't love it or hate it, but user experience in our office has been poor; there's too many 'rough edges' and annoying little habits - simple things like the power button options not including 'ask me what to do' and sometimes a USB mouse not being detected when plugged in etc. Overall, the support effort for just these 3 laptops is disproportionate compared to the 100-odd desktops, servers and other laptops (ranging from NT4 through 2000 to XP) we support.
Re:Which is the catch? (Score:5, Funny)
I picked up a brand new really fast Toshiba with a bunch of RAM, brought it home and it ran like crap, kept crashing and accused me of stealing something or other.
I did a little Googling and learned that the problem was bad drivers. You need to install this set of drivers named "Fedora". I popped in the "Fedora" disk, rebooted, answered a couple of questions (it must be really intelligent, since it didn't even want my Activation Key again), and everything worked great!
Tomorrow, I'm going to call Toshiba and find out why they didn't just ship this "Fedora" update automatically.
Not accurate. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What happens if you STOP participating? (Score:5, Informative)
Webcam + Wood Maul (Score:5, Funny)
This is how I would go about this. I would get a free copy of vista. Then, I would set web cam up outside on the driveway. I would grab a wood maul and just go to town on the disc, and do my best to savor the thought of MS technicians staring on in horror.
They'd be pretty happy, I'd think. (Score:5, Funny)
They're still going to count it as another person "using" Vista. I'm guessing they'd be pretty happy. I can see the marketing spin now. "Even a skeptic like Jared found that the Vista user experience was extremely satisfying."
Re:Webcam + Wood Maul (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled "longing".
Be Helpful (Score:5, Funny)
No longer available (Score:5, Informative)
"What happened to the free product option?
Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to overwhelming response, the supply of gifts have been exhausted so we have closed our free product offer on 12/11/2007 at 2pm. Thanks to everyone that participated!"
Re:No longer available (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of an offer I got in jail (Score:5, Funny)
Honeypot (Score:5, Funny)
Hide your own habits... use a VM! (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of letting them see every single thing you do on your computer for a whole 3 months (or longer... who knows what stays on your computer after installing the software), why not install Windows XP in a VM, install their crap, run it once or twice a week to "check your email" or whatever, and then after three months, collect your software? They only see what goes on in the VM, you get your free Vista and everyone's happy. Well, if using Vista can be considered as something that would make you happy.
Just to show how bad their monitoring actually is:
They're basically looking at everything you do. Here's my favorite bit from the whole thing:
This sounds like spyware? Yeah, I'll say. But noooooooo, it's not at all harmful for your computer. Rigghhhtttt....
Re:Hide your own habits... use a VM! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hide your own habits... use a VM! (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, you will not be able to look at your specific data. We designed the Windows Feedback Program software specifically to avoid any interference with your work or how your computer functions. To do that, the data you are sharing is stored in a binary format (zeros and ones) rather than in text format. Storing the data in binary format makes it very small and easy to share with us, but difficult for you to translate and interpret.
Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
i don't see the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Upon further digging (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Upon further digging (Score:5, Insightful)
There are legitimate reasons for disliking Vista, there's so many in fact that you don't need to be using this false one to pad your list of complaints. When you do, it weakens your argument and makes it look like you don't have any idea what you're talking about.
Re:Upon further digging (Score:5, Interesting)
2girls1cup (Score:4, Funny)
I would setup a dedicated box with XP on it that would just sit their with their spy software installed and 2girls1cup running on replay. Stuff it in the basement and forget about it for three months :D
Aikon-
My thought process was as such... (Score:4, Funny)
Vista Ultimate? That's bad!
Monitoring? That's bad!
Can I downgrade it to Windows XP Pro and get a free Windows XP Pro license that's legit? That'd be good!
Just seems you can't even give Vista away.
Re:My thought process was as such... (Score:4, Funny)
That's bad.
But it comes with a free legitimate license!
That's good!
The legitimate license also contains monitoring software.
That's bad.
But you get your choice of XP or Vista!
That's good!
There are no more copies of XP, only Vista.
Can I go now?
Alright, so they're watching you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it productive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Impossible to unsubscribe (Score:5, Interesting)
I looked on their FAQ page and found conflicting information. Two separate sections saying to send a blank e-mail to two different e-mail addresses with 'remove' in the subject. I e-mailed both, and what did I get in return?
I did that. What did I get back? Two NDRs for separate reasons:
: host maila.microsoft.com[131.107.115.212] said: 550
5.7.1 (in reply to end of DATA command)
-- and --
: host maila.microsoft.com[131.107.115.212] said: 550
5.1.1 User unknown (in reply to RCPT TO command)
Good one MS, you never cease to amaze me!
A fair look from a Microsoft-neutral observer (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways, just in the in case there's anyone actually curious about this and not just interested in kneejerk reactions about poorly-written, inflammatory summary.
I've actually RTFA (and a page linked off of it) and here's something the summary completely neglects to mention:
The automated data collection is one of two different options you can pick; the other is to be asked to fill out a survey not more often than once every two weeks. It sounds like you can pick either option.
Now, that all said, there's also one more big thing: They're giving away FREE copies of EXPENSIVE software* which many people NEED** or WANT with a perfectly reasonable caveat. They're being open and honest, and they're providing both a manual and an automatic method of data collection. The latter is particularly appealing to many, because it basically means they can just forget about it. Those who are worried about their privacy can take the surveys.
Disclaimer: I am a fanboy of many things, including Xbox 360, but not Microsoft in general. I like Windows XP and hate most everything that MS has put out which isn't an OS (i.e. office, internet explorer, etc). I'll definitely not be participating simply because I'm not interested in any of the offerings.
*Expensive for a typical end user, I don't care how much your company paid for its graphics design software
**Again, typical end user who doesn't know what OpenOffice is and just wants to be able to open their files at work without thinking about converting file types.
Geez... Such Cynical People (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tactic to gain more ground? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a tactic to gain ground. It is a strategy commonly used to gain survey information. It is exactly like how you will often see a survey that says, "Get a chance at winning an ipod after completing this survey" kind of deals.
Why would Microsoft need to conduct a survey that requires generating statistics on how you use your computer? Simple, it is to determine usability statistics. That type of data can then be used to influence the design of the user interface.
For example if the data shows that for a particular window in say the control panel, the most user's mouse movement is dramatically higher than with some other window, that means that the window with high mouse movement is a candidate for reorganization. That is because the longer you take to move your mouse, the less efficient you are.
You can also see what functions your users are using the most and what functions they rarely use. So say you have a toolbar with 10 buttons and out of those 10 buttons only 2 are used by almost everyone while the other 8 are rarely touched. This suggests that you may want to make those 2 functions that are used always to be more accessible either with a hotkey or by making those specific buttons bigger so they are easier to click and you may want to evaluate if the other 8 buttons are even worth having there. Likewise if you see people always using the menu functions rather than using the toolbar buttns you may want to investigate why this is or consider labeling the buttons.
Big software companies including Microsoft typically conduct in-person usability tests. But these types of tests can only go so far. That's probably why they are turning to these larger usability tests so they can get more general data about the greater population rather than a small set of people they can get into their labs.
For the uninformed in-person usability tests work as follows: You have a piece of software that you want to evaluate the usability of. To test how usable it is, you come up with a list of tasks for the user to do, like say open their email software and write a hello email to their buddy, or say deleting files named "a", "b", and "c". After you have the tasks you want your user to perform, you people unrelated to the project with varying degrees of knowledge about computers and your software to perform each task. As they attemp the task, your objective is to observer--that is you don't tell them anything even if they are obviously having issues getting the task completed or even if they ask you a question about how to do it. You simply tell them what they're supposed to do and watch, and if they look at you and give up, you say "that's fine" and just note that they were not able to complete the task.
The results of usability testing are pretty amazing for first time usability observers even for some very simple tasks with common software and gadgets. You will also recognize that there are lots of moments where people just sit there and do nothing, times when they keep repeating actions, and times when they keep clicking on something because they think it does something but it doesn't. Some really simple tasks also will show many users all with different ways of accomplishing it. For example if you delete a file how many ways are there to delete it? Well one way is to drag the file to the recycle bin. Another way is to click on it and hit the delete key. Another way is to right-click it and use the context menu delete option. And yet another way is to first open your trash bin and then drag the file to the opened trash bin. All of these ways are valid and I'm willing to bet there will be even a few more ways of deleting files that you'd never have thought of (besides the rm command).
The nice thing about in-person usability testing (as I just described) is that you can ask questions and probe for information about what the person is thinking while they're doing the task. Normally you ask them to think out loud so you can get an idea of what's going on in their mind.
The Catch (Score:4, Funny)
"The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program"
So they'll monitor my activities when I sell it on eBay?
Under Wine.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what kind of "useful" data Wine reports...
Tomorrow's headline... (Score:5, Funny)
I wish I noticed who posted this story (Score:4, Informative)
Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Insightful)
Help me out here guys, I'm trying to see what right is involved.
No free software (Score:4, Informative)
Surprise surprise microsoft is being misleading. Also, the FAQ says that in order to opt-out you just send a message to winsurv@microsoft.com but when you do the message bounces with
So you cannot ever get out of the programme after you find out that microsoft was screwed you.
This information includes, but is not limited to (Score:4, Informative)
From the privacy statement fineprint, they say what information they are collecting.
"This information includes, but is not limited to:"
Then they give a list of "harmless" things such as driver types, hardware, errors encountered. But where is the "not limited to" list? Can't find it on the site. They really don't want you to know what they are collecting.
And, of course, Office has its own set of things, which you helpfully have to look for yourself:
To display the privacy statement for Office 2003, please search for "Privacy Statement" in Office 2003 online help.
Plus, the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program has its own set of things it collects.
Very Big Brother. Then again, most of my information is already out there floating around... Might be nice to have a free copy of Vista.....
Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I would actually like to see open source projects such as Gnome and KDE to do a similar thing (As long as it is volentary). Knowing how the users use their is essential to create good usable systems, and very few usability tests are performed on software in the FOSS world, so something like this would probably be even more beneficial to these kind of projects. I would also think that more people would be prepared to volontear this kind information to e.g. the KDE or Gnome team than they would to big evil Microsoft. After all very few Gnome or KDE users would worry about that a big evil company might discover unlicenced software on their systems.
Microsoft is no longer giving Vista away... (Score:4, Informative)
What happened to the free product option?
Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to overwhelming response, the supply of gifts has been exhausted so we have closed our free product offer on 12/11/2007 at 2pm Pacific Time. Thanks to everyone that participated!
Don't Give a Flyin' (Score:4, Funny)
So when this doesn't work... (Score:3, Interesting)