RSSMicrosoft: Europe customers must wait to upgrade Vista to Windows 7
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published June 26, 2009, 2:08 PM
Microsoft spokespersons have confirmed to Betanews, contrary to press reports earlier today, that at some point it does plan to provide European customers with a Windows 7E upgrade package -- a way to upgrade Vista installations to Windows 7, while enabling customers to leave out Internet Explorer 8. In all cases, that means uninstalling IE from Vista, which current builds of the Win7 upgrade are not capable of doing.
"As part of Microsoft's decision to offer Windows 7 without a browser in the [European Economic Area], we also had another hard decision to make: Offer both Full and Upgrade retail packaged product and delay the entry of Windows 7 into market, or not offer the Upgrade packaged product at launch," the spokesperson told Betanews. "At this time, we will not offer an Upgrade packaged product in Europe, but in a way that does not penalize our customers."
The key phrase here is at this time, and Betanews was told that it means exactly what it implies. Microsoft has intentions of making an upgrade version available at some point, and the spokesperson's elaboration indicates that point should fall before the end of the year.
"We will start a price promotion effective immediately that will discount Full retail packaged products for E editions of Windows 7 to the prices of our Upgrade products," Betanews was told. "This promotion is planned to last at least until December 31, which will give us time to work through the best offers and approaches going forward without impacting our customers in the EEA, Switzerland, and Croatia in the meantime."
Microsoft's UK spokespersons tried yesterday to inform British press sources of essentially this same news, though perhaps without the reference to December 31. But in a stunning misread, many sources interpreted the news to mean that the company would never offer European customers upgrade editions for Windows 7E.
Yesterday, Betanews was informed by Microsoft that upgrade availability and pricing for Windows 7 in Europe, including the UK, would be announced on July 15. Part of the reason for that delay, it was clear, was the company's effort at complying with a decision made at the behest of European regulators, to offer customers the option of not installing Internet Explorer 8.
But that poses an engineering problem, one which Microsoft will have to work overtime to solve: For consumers with Vista already on their PCs, full compliance would mean creating an option for consumers to choose Windows 7 without IE8 -- which in all cases would mean uninstalling IE7. As of now, there is no formal process for uninstalling IE7 from Vista, although there already is a way for users to uninstall IE8 from Win7 on demand.
Thus a typical upgrade edition of Windows 7E, free or otherwise, will not be available on October 22. Certainly Microsoft has to make something available in Europe on "GA-Day," so it will present Windows 7E's full retail edition on October 22, for the price it would normally charge for the upgrade edition. Those prices will be revealed, we're told, on July 15. However, customers purchasing the earliest Win7E on that date will not be able to use it to upgrade their Vista-based PCs and keep their programs -- only a clean install will be permitted.
But that led the BBC to lead its story with the remarkable statement, "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe," based on a comment from UK company spokesperson John Curran which the BBC ran as follows: "We will not be able to offer an upgrade product within Europe."
The part about October 22 was omitted, thus making Curran appear to say that a Win7E upgrade would never be available.
Microsoft's spokesperson did make it clear to us the company is keeping its options open, which may mean a real Windows 7E upgrade edition could be pushed past the end of the year. "We are still working through our best approaches to the market," the spokesperson said. "We will provide more details on future plans when they are available, but we are committed to making sure that existing Windows customers in Europe continue to have a choice of 'Upgrade pricing' options available in the rest of the world." UPDATE Late Friday evening, the spokesperson offered a clarification, stating that this sentence referred to the company's intent to offer pre-order deals, such as those first offered to US customers on Friday.
That may be especially difficult now that US customers who buy HP or Lenovo PCs with Vista pre-installed, from today forward, will be eligible for free Windows 7 upgrades. The North American editions of the product will not include the option to leave IE uninstalled.
From what I read on the MSoft page, upgrade versions that have to be cleanly installed will be available. That is a good thing as an upgraded Vista > Win7 is noticably slower than a clean installation
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|FixXxeR Jun 27, 2009 - 8:20 AM So...Will the EU get a Windows 7 N E version without Media player or IE? Or will customers have to choose whether they want a media player OR a browser bundled with their OS? hmmm.....
Sock it to em microsoft. The EU and Opera need to learn that in the modern age, a browser is a necessity and Microsoft should not be forced to advertise it's competitors products. Nothing has stopped OEMs from bundling other browsers in the past, they simply chose not to.
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|Windows 7 and the "I'm A P(iece of chinese)C(rap)" is so totally bogus. I can only chuckle at the billion$ that Windose hypnotards toss to Microbaloney for a fixed version of Vistaline that was already a complete RIPOFF to begin with :)))~ . And only to receive an OS where most of the development effort has gone into protecting it from their own (half witted) users! Meanwhile, Apple just continues to enhance a fantastic eloquent single version UNLIMITED OS which is three times as enjoyable to use as the already outdated Microsoft mess at 1/3 the cost and confusion of the "Unlimited" MS offering.
Ballmer really loves to give it to you up the A and you all just bend over. (falls out of chair laughing....)
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|Lack of grammar and poor sentence structure aside, I would rather pay every 4 years for a new Windows OS than pay every 6-12 months for the next point release of an OS that restricts me as to the hardware I can run it on. Thanks thou.
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|Bad Troll..wow worship at the altar of Steve Jobs much?
Because you probably are 10 and just don't know better, Apple is a PC too! OMG say its not so! This revelation is too shocking to comprehend!
The only difference between the two is the OS - It has been shown on the various hackintosh's including the successful dell mini 9 - Apple locks the hardware, that's it! If Apple allowed OSX to run on anything you would be complaining about your oh so glorious apple computer as well.
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|Yo, jink.
Welcome to the board.
Hey, one tip though...
Try to leave the irony out of your future fanboy rants. Calling 80%+ of computer users "half-witted" while not being able to spell a good majority of the words in your post *or* being capable of making a complete sentence is the very definition of irony.
Thanks!
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|hmmm
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|Hey Fix, Term, and PC_T, your retorts are all valid. My post was purposely troll and kitschy. I'm actually 11.5 though it certainly doesn't always show.
There are the obvious benefits (quality control etc.) and drawbacks (lack of choice / price etc) to having sway over the hardware a company's software runs on. I think which is best really boils down to the user's OOBE and p(ost)OOBE. WinPC and Mac have both been somewhat of a rollercoaster through the years. However, having used both (and Linux) relentlessly since the age of two, I think I could make a very convincing argument that Apple clearly has the OOBE and pOOBE advantage at this stage of the game (generally speaking of course). To analogize my own experience...
The Apple pOOBE -> "creationing" from a swanky island cabana overlooking a thriving Caribbean coral reef with a tasty breeze delighting my pores.
The WinPC pOOBE -> working in an (ironically) windowless basement office with a poster of the Caribbean on the cement wall to my left beckoning me to work harder for 'the man' so that I can retire in 25 years (hopefully) before I have a fatal heart attack . And then finally to wheel-chair to that Club Med of a poster I've been glancing at for the last 40 years - senses dulled with barely a pulse. Grimm, I know, but that's how the "I'm a PC" deal feels to me.
By all means, enjoy your cellar. It's worth it for the handful of bucks you save wrestling with your McPC. Only 24.364 years left until that Pina Colada ;) Come to think of it, likely another 6.5 years for me too :(
Honestly, if MS cared even in the least about us, Windows 7 would have been a free upgrade to the Windows7 beta testers (aka Vista owners) to say thanks and apologize for all the wasted time, mind, blood, and money.
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|Ah...at least you took the advice. ;)
By the way: I just got back from 3 1/2 days in the Bahamas. Sure, not quite the Caribbean, but us "WinPC" folk aren't doing all that badly, eh?
Oh, by the way, if you ever go there once you actually become a productive member of society, don't talk to *anyone* until you are at least 1/4 mile from the boat. Trust me. ;) It's just safer for everyone that way.
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|O yes Apple are so innovative. So much so they take something thats Open Source make it proprietary and then its legions of fans and there 10% market share gloat like hypnotised sheep at how cutting edge their product is? Its nothing more than a Unix hack. And just incase you didnt realise MS own 20% of Apple. Jobs isnt stupid. He knows he hasnt reinvented the wheel hence the plethora of law suits Apple are always fighting and why he has resorted to working with MS numerous times. If you can beat em join em.
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|So...Will the EU get a Windows 7 N E version without Media player or IE? Or will customers have to choose whether they want a media player OR a browser bundled with their OS? hmmm.....
Sock it to em microsoft. The EU and Opera need to learn that in the modern age, a browser is a necessity and Microsoft should not be forced to advertise it's competitors products. Nothing has stopped OEMs from bundling other browsers in the past, they simply chose not to.
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|I think that overall, this will be a wonderful thing for competition. This will soon (2-3yrs) force IE to "play nice" with Firefox (that is, support current/future standards) which obviously will help the American/rest-of-world's users as well. REAL competition in the browser market is a GOOD THING(TM).
This doesn't take away from the fact that the Euros are a bunch of American-corp haters/enviers and will obviously try to take this a few steps further (as usual) towards completely outrageous demands from MS and clearly other future big successful American companies -- attempting to rape their cash cow without vaseline even (well, cash mule hehehe)... We'll probably have to go to (holy) war with Europe anyway in next few decades... Let's enjoy life while we can...
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|Why wait to downgrade to a Mac rip when you can upgrade to the real thing? I know Europe is smarter than this.
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|Windows 7 pre-orders claim Amazon's top sales spots
Now beat that endagered OS--Snow Leopard
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|People don't know what they're missing. Snow Leopard is the best desktop OS that has ever been created. Windows 7 can't hold a candle to it. I would love to hear some of the things that Windows 7 can do better than Snow Leopard. I highly doubt there are any.
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|Windows 7 can run on a variety of systems and brands. Snow Leopard can run on only one brand.
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|Interestingly enough I bet it matters not one bit which OS you use when posting your drivel online.
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|@rebradley - Hardware support for Mac OS X is more limited than for Windows, but not as limited as you seem to think. Go to www.efi-x.com.
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|Sarcasm? Its the exact same thing with new features that have been around forever for Windows and Linux.
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|"Hardware support for Mac OS X is more limited than for Windows, but not as limited as you seem to think. Go to www.efi-x.com."
No laptop support and only a very limited selection of two Logic board brands supported....and *that's* your argument for hardware compatibility?? Seriously?
Have you ever actually been to that site?
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|Well, the old adage, "You better watch what you wish for, you might get it." is certainly true here. EU Bureaucrats run amok and the people pay the price.
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|The EU havent got a clue what there doing. Iv never heard of anything so stupid in all my life. Seeing as Firefox practically own the browser space on most Linux distro's the EU might want to round them up to.
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|backlash from M$ because the EU forced ie8 to be excluded from the setup ?
y-e-a-h.......
: )
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|MS please wake up!
in the Vista era the problem was in one way or another Vista itself, whether the accusations were myth or true.
Now they have the chance to do it right and it was all going fine, but they strip IE for the whole europe?! they are so shooting themselves in the foot!!
PD: 2009 will be the year for linux :P
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|Blame europe for shooting themselves in the foot.
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|"will be the year for linux"...yeah ok, haven't heard that one before.
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|Not MS's fault. Stupid EU saying they want Windows 7 without IE8. Just like when they wanted Windows without Media Player. It sounds like the regular European version of Windows 7 without IE8 will be out on time. It sounds like the problem is with the upgrade version for those who actually want to upgrade to Windows 7 without IE8 and have it uninstalled.
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|MS did not do anything to Europe.
Europe did it to themselves....again.
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|When is Mac OS X without Safari shipping? ;)
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