Will Microsoft offer free upgrade coupon if you buy the Office suite alone in a store??

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what Windows Vista has that Windows XP doesn't. Here is a good guide to the changes at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...es_new_to_Windows_Vista

Check it out and decide for yourself.

thats nice i guess if your buying a new pc from an oem.

I would never upgrade to a new os, fresh install was always a better approach from my experiance.

And since I build my own crap this deal is worthless to me.

Vista is going to sell like crap.

I mean it's going to just bomb.

We have over 1200 PC's where I work and I'm a network/server guy.
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Vista won't sell like crap. People will flock to get it just as they did with Window 95 when it came out; flaws and all. Same with all versions of Windows since then. Bomb? I don't think so.
As for the work environment, Joe? I haven't seen very many businesses yet that want to make the switch right away, particularly one with 1200 PC's. It's simply not cost effective. So, it's not surprising that where you work won't be switching over any time soon.

Will they extend this offer to countries outside USA ?

Vista is going to sell like crap.

I mean it's going to just bomb.

We have over 1200 PC's where I work and I'm a network/server guy.

We are NOT going to go to Windows Vista. It doesn't give us anything we don't already have except "prettyness", which we don't need in a corporate world.

Heck I don't need Prettyness at home. I'll stick to XP thanks.

No wonder they are offering all these coupons. Nobody wants the crap.

Dang, missed it by 4 days. Just bought 4 new PC's on October 22nd. Would be nice if they would allow those of us who just recently bought PC's to participate also.

i guess u haven't been keeping up with vista news. this has been known for months. not about office 2007 but about vista at least.

most stores have 14 day return policies on computers purchased. So, just return the pc and then buy it again five seconds later with fresh clean new receipt. That was EASY

Now, Office 2007, there's a upgrade worth having. The Office team made good improvements in functionality and the new interface simplifies finding and using the features that most people need most often. Office 2007 is an program to look forward to.

8 years after office 2000 came out, I think people know how to find and do the things they need to do within an office program.

While the eye candy may look purty, it means actually retraining your users, which is expensive and initially brings a productivity drop. You might as well retrain them to use open office and you save on long-term license fees.

For Home users, 99% of the features they need are in Open Office and free versus $200-$800 is no chump change.

As for functionality across the suite, unless you invest heavily in all Microsoft way of doing things, there is a point of diminishing returns. for example, without sharepoint there is no need for Office 2003 or higher. Powerpoint 07 is, oh, 99% the same as Powerpoint XP.

Clock is ticking on Microsoft.

actually I like the new office interface. I like the new excel and powerpoint. Word, uh, since I only use the basic functions, I didn't notice THAT much difference other than the interface.

btw, a lot of friends around me rather pay for the same thing they can get for free, just because they can complain if they paid for it. If it's free, you can't really complain you know, since it's free.

So...

Just because people are used to a clunky and overburdened interface, MS should stick to it?

"Yeah, it's wrong, and badly done...but everyone's used to it...."

No thanks. The new interface is a welcome improvement. Welcome to the 2000's, man.

As for functionality, using the MS product line through the entire suite is pretty much the point. No other suite puts it all together quite as nicely, easily, or functionally.

OO doesn't cut it in an enterprise environment unless you're looking to depend on hacks and second-rate functionality, and 3rd party apps to cover the functionality OO lacks.

Just saying that "All Vista has is just a pretty GUI and Directx10," well it makes me wonder about how little you have to research something before you criticize it. Before you backhandedly complement a product, I suggest taking a deeper look. If this is the standard for product analysis, I am going to have to go with... "All Apple did in 2005 is introduce two mouse buttons instead of one."

"All Vista has is just a pretty GUI and Directx10"

Actually, that sounds pretty accurate. Clear, concise, not overly dramatic...yup, sounds good.

Even after looking at the list of changes, and using vista for a month now as my primary home OS, I tend to agree with the GUI comments.

Your bias is showing....

Your user experience is showing...

There, fixed that for ya. ;o)

you're starting to sound as ignorant as pc rat.

All vista has is a pretty gui, directx 10, WPF, WCF, W_F, HD-DVD support, UAC, IPv6, Superfetch, the thing that uses flash drives as extra ram, parental controls, games for windows support, and the list goes on and on. you probably don't even know half of what windows XP has.

Part of the OS is the APIs available for creating a huge amount of completely new and unique user experiences. The OS is just a lower layer, so you can't judge exactly how different it is, until you see the types of programs that can be developed, and how easily they can be developed, for a brand new OS.

For people who aren't developers, this doesn't make them go gaga at first. But for developers these things are HUGE. And without the developers, you would have nothing to do on a computer.

Meaning I've actually used it?

Ya got me.

It's more than a pretty UI and DX10. You and I both know that. ;)

The venom of your reaction is a bit over the top, but since I am not a software developer I can't dispute that the improvements you are looking for, and apparently see, are different than those from my perspective. Of course, without users you would have no one to develop for, so you had better hope that users see significant performance and usability gains, too.

Amen to that,
All Vista has is just a pretty GUI and Directx10, which wont appeal to everyone except hardcore gamers and people looking for a better entertainment feature.

gonna be interesting to see how MS is planning to market Vista, wonder what they'll have to say to business people

uhh.. enhanced security, better functionality, as well as better features and the fact that it runs programs faster then its XP counterpart ... golly .. gotta love these MS haters lol

LOL! You must be making a wish list, because I've used it and what you're claiming isn't there, and I'm no Microsoft hater. I might be a Vista hater, only because I expect a lot better than what Vista offers.

Name *one* of the features he listed that *isn't* there, troll.

Yeah, there are features in there that *aren't* better. But the enhanced security? There. Better functionality / features? There. Runs \ install faster than XP? In many folks experience, Yes.

Do things like their draconian licensing and pricing overshadow these improvements?

That's pretty subjective. For me, yes, it does. I won't be buying Vista for quite some time. For others, it makes little difference.

Expecting more? Fine. Ignoring or denying the improvements made? Stupid.

But go ahead and "call me on it", spongy. I'm waiting...

The "enhanced security" is clunky and doesn't function at even typical beta2 levels yet. It does NOT run faster than XP, even on brand new state-of-the-art equipment. Better functionality, I suppose, could be a matter of opinion, but I haven't seen anything that comes close to the Vista hype we heard 2 years ago.

As for the licensing; I wasn't even considering THAT in this post. However, add that on and Vista is even worse than I described. And then there is the addition of product hype, represented by selling me new hardware if I don't get a good enough score on the "hardware analysis" or maybe selling me a few Ultimate extras or a membership to a music store. I'm sure Microsoft marketing sees these as functionality improvements, but I don't see them as adding to MY user experience.

I'm not denying or ignoring the "improvements." I use Vista and XP on a daily basis and I don't see the "improvements." In fact, I see XP as a clearly superior product. I'm still waiting for the Vista "improvements." I obviously don't share your level of satisfaction with the Vista product.

Decent post though, raised some good questions. If only you could have avoided the tired use of "troll" and "stupid," we might have had a productive conversation going here.

Which build of Vista are you referring to when you say it doesn't function at typical beta 2 levels? If you're using beta 2, that's why. RC1's performance is way better than beta 2. I haven't tried RC2.

For all of those who don't see the difference between XP and Vista, it's because the vast majority of the difference isn't in the UI. It's in the parts that you can't see.

I'm using RC2(5744).

I'm not denying or ignoring the "improvements."

Let me direct you to the post you made directly above mine:

You must be making a wish list, because I've used it and what you're claiming isn't there

Denial. Hence my response.

...we might have had a productive conversation going here.

Based on your first reply, I find that *very* doubtful.

Couple of things:

Vista hype. Heh... That's why they call it hype. Nothing ever lives up to it.

Your user experience isn't everyone elses. In fact, a majority of users would like said functionality(extras, music store, etc..) Brings back a point I've made elsewhere that MS isn't making the OS for us "tech" types, but for the average consumer. You and I couldn't care less about the music store and want additional installation options. Almost the exact opposite of what the average consumer desires.

I obviously don't share your level of satisfaction with the Vista product.


Never said I was satisfied, In fact, I believe I stated the opposite. I will not be buying Vista until it's necessary. I simply cannot accept the current licensing situation. I will have to wait and see how it pans out once it hits the real world. I cannot see how MS can run with that.

Not to start another argument, but there are newer builds out there. Perhaps a great deal of our contention here is related to the fact that we are using different builds?

Cannot remember is 5744 was the last one "officially" released to the public or not..

As far as I know, 5744 was the last official public release. Certainly there may "insiders" who have a later release, but I haven't seen anyone claiming use of a build later than 5744.

Re: "Improvements" - Not much more than semantics. I'm not denying that Microsoft intended to make improvements (hence the quotes)and that you feel they are there, I simply disagree that they represent a real improvement over what previously existed.

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"'...we might have had a productive conversation going here.'

Based on your first reply, I find that *very* doubtful."

You're comparing "troll" and "stupid" to my comment, which was followed by what was meant as a friendly ;o)? Sorry you took that wrong.

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As for the rest, I think we are pretty much in agreement. However, as I said in a previous discussion, I think a lot more "average" users are going to be influenced by the opinions of people like you and I. If that is true, then Microsoft has a problem. If I'm not buying it out of dissatisfaction with improvements and you're not buying it due to licensing, then they have to battle word-of-mouth on two fronts. Oh, and I too think the licensing is a real downside, too.

Just got back form the house. Yeah, got 5744 installed. Didn't sound right for some reason.

*shrug*

Haven't run benchmarks, but I gotta tell ya, Vista seems faster on that machine than XP does (Dual booting). This could very well be due to the fact the XP installation has been on there a lot longer than the Vista install. XP could simply be bogged down.

Still...I would think that would mean that even bogged down, Vista would at *least* be on par with XP on that specific machine.

Vista uses the newer tech to a greater efficiency than XP did, I believe. I haven't thrown Vista on my ancient Dell for a while, but I imagine it would probably perform a bit worse than XP on that machine simply because the newer tech like SATA2, USB2 and such are not present for Vista to utilize.

You have read the extremehardware article on Vista that details the "under the hood" improvements to Vista, haven't you?

Google "Why Vista won't suck".

I can understand not thinking that it's enough of an improvement to justify the switch, but there have been *vast* improvements to the core system, the memory handling and the APIs which are actually long overdue.

It's worth a read, even if your mind is already made up. Calling it semantics isn't giving them enough credit. They actually do make the differences between XP and Vista a bit more than just 'a pretty UI and DX10'.

I read that article when it first came out and it was informative. However, I tend to to care more about my own user experience and that of other users. I always like it when an article mentions the "great new apps" that come with an OS, because so often they turn out to be such bad iterations that no one uses them.

As for my mind being "made up," I, like you, am unlikely to buy Vista when it is released. I intend to wait until at least SP1, because I think it will take that long for the bugs to get worked out and, frankly, I'm tired of paying to be a beta tester. Beyond that, the licensing is something I find pretty unpalatable and if that stays the way it is, I may stick with XP even longer.

I look at Vista the way I would look at any cost/benefit analysis, and right now I don't see the value for me as a customer.

I'm pretty sure you can change the interface to look like XP if you want to. It's not Microsoft that is scared it's the people like Dell and Gateway who want to sell a lot of PC's for Christmas.

This all sounds like a pretty good deal. But it also tells me that MS might be running pretty scared on how VISTA is going to be recieved. I'm not convinced with it yet, I like the fact that it's supposed to be more secure, but I really don't like the User Interface and it's pretty slow. I'm stiking with XP till I see VISTA in the wild for a bit longer... Alot longer!

on my system a clean install of vista is quicker than a clean install of windows xp.

Hmmmm...I'd have to disagree and I'm running it on brand new hardware (yeah, certified Vista ready).

64-bit Vista RC 2 takes 10 minutes to do a clean install on my computer. It also does everything faster than either 32-bit WinXP Professional SP 2 or 64-bit WinXP. It doesn't matter if you're using Microsoft Office, watching streaming video over a broadband internet connection or watching a DVD using the built in DVD decoder in Vista.

Here's my system configuration:

Asus M2NE Motherboard w/nVidia nForce 570 Ultra chipset
AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ Processor
3GB PC-4200 DDR2 SDRAM
nVidia GeForce 7600GT PCI-E graphics w/256MB GDDR3 memory
Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA hard disk w/tagged command queing
Plextor PX-755SA Serial ATA DVD burner
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum

My specs are bigger than your specs (feel the machismo)!

In spite of that, and with the caveat that you might get some better results running 64-bit, I'll still have to disagree with you. I'm using both OS's on the same machine and I don't see any significant difference in speed.

I just got back from a technet briefing and TS2 and talked to many people there. What peopel fail to reliaze is that MS is not targeting the XP user in this upgrade to staqrt with. They are looking at those users upgrading in the next couple of years. Yes there will be a lot of people upgrade to vista from XP. MS is targeting those that are at least 2 generations behind. There are still a lot of 98, ME and 2000 users out there. Those are the people that will benifit the most from the upgrade. Another thing, MS is eating their own posion. They are 100% running Vista as well as Office.