Hidden Fees Discovered For "Free" Windows 7 Upgrade 406
An anonymous reader writes 'Thousands of recent computer purchasers who are expecting to receive free upgrades to Windows 7 when it is released on October 22 may be surprised to learn that some big computer makers are quietly tacking on hefty processing fees as high as $17 to mail out those disks to some buyers.' How about they process $0 to click a link and download a file?
Digital distribution has been needed for a while (Score:5, Interesting)
The RTM of windows 7 has been out for 2 months now? 3 by the street date of Oct 22nd.
This time is of course used for manufacturing, marketing, etc.
Meanwhile they should be offering fully updated ISOs directly on the windows site for everyone and anyone to download - the OS itself contains its own validation so there's no harm in letting anyone download it. Then you buy your key digitally with a steam-like system, this would even benefit Microsoft by serving as a key registration system.
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They still might charge you a handling charge. If you look at this week's Staples flyer, they put their Vista PCs on clearance, with a free upgrade to Windows 7..... but then the fine print says you have to pay shipping and handling to get it. Great.
Staples is not an honest company. I recently bought some printer paper from them minus a $25 mail-in rebate. They never bothered to tell me that it's on a credit card and therefore I have to spend the money - I can't just cash it and put it in my savings lik
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Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Informative)
Can't you just put $25 from your checking account in savings and use the credit card to buy groceries? I hate the MIR dance as much as anyone does, but you win if you get the rebate.
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If somebody offers me, in writing, $25 back if I buy something, I damn well expect to get $25 back.
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So his bitch is that he got $25, but not in a form that would have allowed him to "make" it $26.25 via a reward scheme at his bank.
See why he comes across like a complete douche?
Frankly, no. They offered $25, and if it wasn't a cash or cash equivalent, they should have said that on the advertisement.
Unless there's some way to cash the credit card like a check (instead of spending it), in which case I'll concede that it's a cash equivalent.
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I suggest you look up the word "fungible".
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Informative)
and it's not like they don't have the resources in place already. my company has an agreement with MS that allowed me to purchase - legaly - a copy of office 2007 enterprise for R$ 26.00 ( that's $ 15.00 american bucks), download an instalable .EXE and run it. it's now working under wine on my personal notebook.
at the company, for business use, we have access to ALL microsoft software products free. all available for download as instalable .MSI, .EXE or burnable .ISO
this handling fees, this is plain old greed IMHO.
one more way that shows how apple handles this much better. you can buy snow leopard upgrade for a few bucks, then install it on top of tiger. tiger users are not eligible for the cheap upgrade, only leopard users are. but apple didn't put any verification on the upgrade. they just trust tiger users will do the right thing and buy the full package. wanna bet it's paying off ?
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I don't know of anyone who actually purchased boxed copied of Windows
How do Mac owners who use Boot Camp or Parallels ordinarily get their genuine copies of Windows?
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With the OEM copy that came with the computer they quit using when they bought the mac. They may be not quite 'legal' due to OEM licensing restrictions, but they are genuine.
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I did buy a boxed copy of Windows 7 Pro Upgrade for me, and Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for my son at half price during the upgrade sale before July 11th. I preordered and have to wait until October 22nd.
But it looks like I'll have to wait until I can afford to upgrade the RAM, and my son's TI Wireless card does not have Windows 7 support as far as I know, so I might have to buy him a new wireless card.
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that exposes the truth of copyrights to consumers a bit too clearly for corporate comfort.
Windows has traditionally been about receiving the product. You go to the store, give them that ungodly sum that they charge, and then come home with your shiny box and DVD. Now, online distribution is coming up, and Microsoft likely will go that way, but allowing them access to the whole thing before buying a key puts the issue into the spotlight too much. They've already downloaded the system for free, and now they'd be paying several hundred dollars for a code to unlock it. At that point even the simplest minded consumer will put together that all they really paid for was that key and the other stuff costs really nothing (which has always been the case, but it's not been so obvious).
If Microsoft only allows a download after paying the fee then there's still some level of abstraction. IE, the consumer feels like they're buying at least a big file.
Just my take on the issue anyways.
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You go to the store, give them that ungodly sum that they charge, and then come home with your shiny box and DVD.
Seriously, what is UNGODLY about what they charge for their product? You spend more in a MONTH on cable TV than what it costs to buy Vista Super Premium. And don't give me the "It's expensive because it doesn't work" BS. If it doesn't work, don't buy it.
Personally, I run one of each (Win,Mac,Ubuntu) at my house, and i have no problem with the cost i need to pay for Windows or mac. Different tools for different uses.
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Insightful)
Every product has hidden costs embedded into the price. In Microsofts case, it's dev time and marketing, and yes, a profit too. If you don't think the dev time yielded a high enough quality product, or a product you're interested in, by all means, go buy a Mac or download *nix. But, just because it costs next to nothing to create "keys" doesn't mean there weren't some very real expenses in delivering this product that need to be recouped.
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wow - did someone piss in your cereal this morning?
The OP did not say anything about copyrights being right or wrong, and didn't seem to to overly anti-copyright, and his point about microsoft's motives (or part of them) is arguably correct. He did mention that he thought the price of Windows is a lot, and he is free to think that if he wants. He didn't imply that it should be free or pirated.
I'm sure Microsoft is quite concerned about the abstraction between product and cost. People don't want to think a
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Informative)
That's actually how MS does its student offers, at least in the UK. They sell you a licence key for £30, disks for about £10 if you want them, and give you a link to a .iso file or an installer.
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil (Score:4, Informative)
Retail scheme disallows it (Score:4, Interesting)
Both MS and Apple won't do it since it makes software retailers (dealers) obsolete. Not like they don't have bandwidth or technology to do it, Apple sells petabytes of content every week or so over the net.
In Apple case, they want their country distributors sell it, localized in some cases (like .TR) and with the real prices which translates 1$=1Euro. MS has a way more localized way of doing things, for them, Windows is released in a country when their distributor packs a local language DVD and puts on shelves.
Of course, I hate these old fashion things which only helps DVD plastic manufacturers as much as you do but it is not piracy or anything both are afraid from. In Apple's case, they could even release .ISO without DRM and they would trust their customer base who would still buy the legal one. That customer base is one thing MS can only dream about.
similar to Snow Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
It's annoying but it's not hefty.
And in this (Win7) case the price seems to be a manufacturer thing and not a MS thing. Ranging from $0 to $17.
Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
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Can you find "Microsoft" anywhere in the title or synopsis? A shiny gold dubloon the the first person who can do that.
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"Thousands of recent coMputer purchasers who are expectIng to reCeive free upgRades tO WindowS 7 when it is released On October 22 may be surprised to learn that some big computer makers are quietly tacking on heFTty processing fees as high as $17 to mail out those disks to some buyers"
Where's my dubloon?
Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it is DEFINITELY implied. Windows 7 is a Microsoft product, and probably a registered (TM) of Microsoft Corporation or one of its subsidiaries.
It isn't Pella Windows 7, it is Microsoft Windows 7 (TM).
Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes because it costs nothing to dedicate floor space and people to package and label and track products, and make sure they get on the right UPS/FedEx truck.
Sure, it could be built into the item's cost, but it doesn't cost the same to ship an item to New York or to Zimbabwe. Which is why it's usually listed as a separate charge. But hey, if you feel "ripped off", then don't buy it.
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Yeah, but how much does that cost, really. I mean.. if Ubuntu can afford to send out pressed CDs of the the current LTS for no charge at all (that come in a nice, glossy sleeve with Ubuntu artwork, btw), why does it cost MS and/or the OEMs so much do do something that should have been folded into the asking price of the products to begin with.
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Because transportation wants to be free! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Shipping and Handling" is a scam in whatever form it takes. This is especially true when those charges are excessive.
Yes - charging shipping to pass along a variable, customer dependent charge is outrageous!
Get back under your bridge.
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Charging fixed shipping for a variable customer cost IS outrageous.
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If it is many times higher than the customer dependent charge. Yes, then it is outrageous.
To tell if it is too high, compare the average fee for shipping a DVD to $1. If the fee is higher, then it too high, if it is lower, it is probably right.
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Nope, nothing like it. More like paying your neighbor's kid to go to the store and buy the upgrade disk. Only the store promised it would be free, so you're just paying the middleman.
Why should a middleman profit by selling you something prematurely, making it your responsibility to purchase and install the software at a later date? That's your time and money, for a free upgrade. I understand the part about installing it yourself - if you don't want to do that, then delay your purchase. But paying any
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Well, if you'd just been a little more patient and waited until what you actually *needed* was available, you wouldn't be in this situation either, would you?/
Not Hefty? (Score:2)
Now I get the bit that as someone else rips you off for a similar amount then its standard practice, but not hefty?
People out there sell games for $5 and that is to get something new. $9.99 or $17 is a rip-off as there is clear margin in the work.
1) The DVD printing is already done
2) These guys should have an automated warehouse for shipping
3) That means the only element is shipping cost
Remember that Media costs et al should be excluded as this is a "free" upgrade so its just the processing costs that you
Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah except Microsoft and the stores are saying Win7 is a free upgrade. Misleading and deceptive. Like when I visited a car dealer and "won" an 1 gigabyte MP4 player for "free". Yeah the actual item may have been technically free, but the S&H cost $30 so basically I paid for it.
I returned it and now I'm going after paypal to get a refund, since the battery only lasted 15 minutes. What good is that?
Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score:4, Informative)
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Get rid of Vista for $17? (Score:5, Funny)
When I mentioned this to my office colleague, he said $17 was a quite a bargain if that's what it takes to it makes Vista go away.
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Oh, and hey, if you have an email address ending in .edu, you can get another copy [win741.com] of Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional for $30!
Or your first copy if you didn't just buy a PC.
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For many university users - including me, if I cared - Windows 7 will be available as a free download from Microsoft. As have been Vista, XP, and 2000 before.
Microsoft makes a staggering amount of software available for free to academic users.
$0 to click and download a file (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of course the infrastructure to serve 3gb of data to each customer doesn't cost anything?
Not that I'm defending the practice of charging for a free upgrade, free upgrades should be free, postage free too, but suggesting doing it digitally means there would be no cost is ignorant. In the UK with the extortionate costs of bandwidth I think posting a CD first class via Royal Mail might in fact be cheaper.
A lot of people would just want to stick the Windows 7 DVD they receieve through the post in the drive too. Downloading an ISO and knowing how to burn an ISO rather than copying the file across like they do usually when writing CDs (if they've ever even written one before) would be too much for some users.
Re:$0 to click and download a file (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$0 to click and download a file (Score:5, Funny)
--If you are not of the computer literate and want to upgrade to Windows 7, the $17 shiny thing seems like a bargain.
--If you are of the computer literate and don't know a method for downloading the Windows 7 iso, turn in your Slashdot ID; you are banished.
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Actually, I think he was saying that they would be more likely to snail-mail ship you the CD for free, rather than allow you to download it for free, because snail-mail shipping is cheaper than the requisite bandwidth.
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You can't be serious. I pay $15 a month for a 750k connection, or 240 gigabytes* total data if I max it out. If you do the math that's 19 cents for a three gigabyte download of Windows 7, and therefore not "a lot more expensive" than shipping a disc.
*
* By a strange coincidence that's Comcast's maximum allowable download, except they charge $50 a month. Hmmm. I'm glad I picked the cheaper $15 Verizon instead.
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Only you won't be able to max that out by probably more than 2-3 days. They'll cut you off saying you're flooding someone or you have viruses. The price is cheap because they figure people that want to download stuff a lot will get faster connections and you won't use your connection to download stuff.
Well, this is in US... here I have 24/4 cable in Romania and once every 2-3 weeks I download 50-60GB over 24 hours with no problems whatsoever and I pay 20$ for it..
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Internet connections are charged at both ends, and businesses pay a hell of a lot more than consumers
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One 1000 mbps unmetered server in Europe (NL) is about 1600 Euro a month (quad core, 4 to 8 GB of memory, SAS/SCSI raid drives, the works).. Even colocated, the price is still reasonable, about 6-8000 Euro a month.
In US, choopa.com has unmetered gigabit at 3995$ a month.
That's 330 TB or about 338.000 GB or about 110.000 downloads... Let's say 100.000 downloads and 10.000 Euro for the server(s) and bandwidth and it still costs you only 10 cents for each download.
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It definitively does not cost $17 to server 3 gluon-bits (gb) to a customer. Neither does it cost much to serve 3 GiB to a customer.
And if bandwidth is that much of a problem then serve it over a password-protected bittorrent. Or non-protected bittorrent, relying on the windows key for security.
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Downloading costs you £10 for 3GB? You must live in a really horrible place, because I've been complaining about my £60/mo ISP even though I could download that in under an hour...
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No, that's not what I was saying. I was saying it's pointless them setting up a download infrastructure and not charging you for it because if they were going down the not charging route they could do it cheaper by snail mail due to bandwidth costs.
A 1st class stamp in the UK is 36p, 3gb of bandwidth on an ISP like PlusNet outside your allowance would cost be £2.61. Of course inside my allowance you could argue it's cost me nothing, but at £19.99 a month I'd disagree- I'm still paying for that b
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3gb of bandwidth on an ISP like PlusNet outside your allowance would cost be £2.61. Of course inside my allowance you could argue it's cost me nothing, but at £19.99 a month I'd disagree- I'm still paying for that bandwidth.
That's your cost to download it. You can't compare it to the cost of a stamp, which is the cost to actually ship it to you.
The cost to set up and maintain the infrastructure to actually serve the file to you is unrelated to the cost your ISP charges you to download it (and probably much lower on a per-user average than £2.61).
Re:$0 to click and download a file (Score:5, Informative)
See here for costs on the current generation network:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2111-cbc-pricing-by-bt-wholesale-holding-back-uk-broadband.html [thinkbroadband.com]
At absolute best (which no ISP ever manages to achieve), it costs them 52p per gigabyte of data, so around £1.56 to allow you to download Windows 7. Realistically, if you check somewhere like PlusNet their out of allowance charges are £1.74 per 2gb of data, so around £2.61 to download Windows 7 for an end user at retail.
Oh and er, a 1st class stamp in the UK costs only 36p, envelopes cost next to nothing in bulk, so around 40p so far, call it 50p once you've printed the labels and posted and that's ignoring Royal Mail's bulk discounts and such.
21cn costs are here, but this isn't rolled out to most of the UK:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2111-cbc-pricing-by-bt-wholesale-holding-back-uk-broadband.html [thinkbroadband.com]
However, it's still well over the 36p price.
The reason you don't know the first thing about bandwidth costs is because you probably use consumer ADSL or similar and don't actually use that much bandwidth. If you do then you're likely being subsidised as that's how many ISPs work, low end users don't use anywhere near their bandwidth limits so are paying to subsidise other users.
Still, at the end of the day my point stands, it's much cheaper to just post the discs first class than it is to setup an infrastructure (which costs on top of the bandwidth costs) for downloading. The above of course is just the costs for the consumer also, chances are you'll have your own bandwidth charges on top at the server side. If you provide a download then, the consumer may be paying 3 to 5 times as much as if you post it and charge them for the stamp and envelope etc.
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Customers still pay for their bandwidth in many parts of the world, particularly if they're outside their inclusive monthly allowance.
hidden? (Score:2, Insightful)
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i never quite understood how fees can be hidden... do they sneak into your apartment and take the CA$H hidden by the XYZ fairy under your pillow, or something?
Generally if it wasn't mentioned in the literature provided or it was only in the small print, then its is considered 'hidden' since you had to look for it to find out.
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Or if the retailer says "Qualifies for a FREE upgrade to Windows 7", that's a hidden fee. The cost is $0 and if you have sales tax, the tax is on $0 (as opposed to a gift like on The Price Is Right where the receiving party is responsible for sales taxes and/or licenses).
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Another example of a hidden fee is when you consolidate your 2 bank accounts into 1 bank account, and ask the manager to close the empty one, but instead he leaves it open...... so when you get your monthly statement, you discover not only is your "closed" account still open, but you've been charged a $10 fee for being under the minimum balance. Grrr. Funny how the manager never mentioned that hidden fee when I was talking to him.
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Looking at HP's press release (for example), it's not all that hidden.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090625xa.html/ [hp.com]
The program will enable customers who purchase qualifying HP PCs to enjoy the benefits of a new Windows-based PC immediately and receive a free(1) upgrade to Windows 7 when it becomes available in October...
(1) Shipping and handling fees may apply depending on retailer/reseller.
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Not exactly. It's like this: Distributor sells a product and says it comes with an upgrade once it is done. Normally you would expect that the price for shipping, etc. is already calculated within the original sales price and one day a packet arrives with no additional hassle or cost.
Adding shipping costs afterwards without explicitly mentioning it (no, page 83 of the small-print is not explicit) is simply ripoff.
how many people know how to burn an iso? (Score:2)
i can imagine all the calls to Dell. i burned the iso to a dvd and it still won't boot
HELP! (Score:2, Funny)
How to burn the ISO?
I burned three already. The wife's cat is charred and my fingers have bad blisters.
And I still cannot upgrade after three reboots!
Re:HELP! (Score:4, Funny)
"Record? I don't have any blank records. How would I hook up the record player to my computer!"
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i can imagine all the calls to Dell. i burned the iso to a dvd and it still won't boot
Then they should provide an executable binary which upon execution upgrades. No need for an iso.
But I don't have Vista... (Score:2)
Since I don't have Vista, does that mean I don't have the privilege of paying for that fee?
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Sure! As long as it's not some of those patent-infringing copyright-adverse socio-communistic free and open-source software CD. It would be a waste of a good CD, since I can already download them -- and mostly likely, I'm already using it ;).
Is this news? (Score:4, Informative)
I am sure I read when they announced that the free upgrade doesn't include shipping. Also the Vista upgrade, I got with my laptop didn't include shipping. Maybe the manufacturers and sales reps aren't being clear, I don't know. I do know when I was talking to my sister about free upgrade when she purchased her new computer, I definitely told her she would need to pay the shipping.
Oh nos! (Score:5, Funny)
Digital Dist is NOT FREE! (Score:5, Informative)
I don't get in today's age of informed individuals how people still think digital distribution is "free". Maybe your personal site is dirt cheap, but larger companies that use a ton of bandwidth pay a fortune for that bandwidth and the management and guarantees that go along with it. I work for a small company that doesn't have a large website and we do nothing like digital dist, but our bandwidth still costs over $2m per year. I agree downloads vs sending disks would be cheaper, but saying it would be free is just plain ignorant.
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Yeah, true.
In fact, if i look at the bulk rates, its about the same price to mass produce and bulk-mail DVDs than to offer them to download.
Still, both prices are well below this processing fees...
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Bandwidth is still relatively cheap. 1TB costs from $35-80 depending on the service provider, higher requirements come with cheaper rates. Even "cloud" services are pretty cheap, Amazon was about $170-250 for 1TB that last time I looked. If your bill really is $2,000,000 a year, you should investigate your network as stop employess from running torrents 24/7.
Re:Digital Dist is NOT FREE! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are paying $2million/year for the bandwidth of a small company that doesn't have a large web site and doesn't do digital distribution, you're overpaying by a whole lot.
It sounds like:
A. you're getting majorly ripped off
B. your company claiming to be spending $2m/year but in fact paying a lot less and pocketing the rest of the money
C. all the computers in your company are a zombies spamming 2 million emails per day and performing dos attacks
D. your employees are undercover couriers for 0day warez scene
E. you're an idiot who really doesn't know anything and you make up nonsense
http://gigaom.com/2008/10/07/wholesale-internet-bandwidth-prices-keep-falling/ [gigaom.com]
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And it's not just posters on /. - a guy from Wired wrote a whole book on this misconception. The funny part is that his ebook is for sale on Kindle.
Torrent is... (Score:2)
Ok, I think I'll grab me coat now....
Same goes for GPL software (Score:2, Insightful)
Open source projects can charge reasonable fees for distribution of source code. Why are these any different?
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Because there are generally other options for getting it?
The issue is informed consent (Score:2, Insightful)
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I'm sorry my friend, but this is the 21st century and a lot of things these days are done this way...
Yes, because sheep like you just bend over and take it whenever a corp feels like screwing you.
Heft? (Score:5, Funny)
While not the free promised, the terms hefty and $17 haven't been used together since the 1930s.
Re:Heft? (Score:5, Funny)
While not the free promised, the terms hefty and $17 haven't been used together since the 1930s.
Excellent, I have a volunteer.
I shall be at your door shortly with a sock and $17 in loose change.
Strange I Wasn't Charged Any Fees (Score:4, Informative)
Upgrad (Score:2)
News: Hidden Fees Discovered For "Free" Windows 7 Upgrad
You dropped an 'e'....Hey is that you: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1390085&cid=29617177 [slashdot.org] ?!
Online Distrubution is lacking IMO (Score:2)
I don't see why it would be so difficult to have a website where you can buy Windows 7; download it as a customised ISO wrapped into a CD-burner program for the OS of choice, and burn it yourself complete with auto-generated serial.
Just my 2c.
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I don't see why it would be so difficult to have a website where you can buy Windows 7; download it as a customised ISO wrapped into a CD-burner program
The DVD that arrives by post will be stamped not burned.
You'll have what the geek always claims he wants - a staple, permanent, back-up copy of your initial install.
wish i got the upgrade... (Score:2)
i bought a laptop from acer this summer thinking i would get the windows 7 upgrade, but mine was one of the ones that were unsupported as I guess they discontinued it at the same time. Strangely some other people with the same model were seemingly granted the upgrade. It kind of sucks that I'll have to pay $100 or so to keep using windows 7. I'm kind of hoping that microsoft gives another round of cheap upgrades out again, otherwise. I don't think I could ever go back to vista, and now that really isn't an
linux is still cheaper than a free windows upgrade (Score:2)
Ubuntu is available free of charge and we can send you a CD of the latest version (9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)) with no extra cost [ubuntu.com]
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Since the PC manufacturers are advertising the free Vista-to-7 upgrade, the CD you receive is probably custom-tailored to work with your machine and its installed drivers. So it's not really any more difficult than popping-in the Win7 Restore CD and waiting.
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So they can keep running Windows Vista until it is EOL'd then. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade to Windows 7 and you could have just as well have waited until after October 22nd to buy your new PC to receive it pre-installed with Windows 7 if it worried you that much that you needed to have it.
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>>>We should all be running (ancient obscure OS that makes me sound cool)
You mean like Commodore=64 GEOS, the AmigaOS, and Windows 98 on an a 300 megahertz cpu? Does this make me look cool? "Survey says!" Bzzzz. Sorry that's not up on the big board. How about: "Silicone implants"? Ding-ding-ding. We have a winner!
(Actually I think implants make a person uncool but I know I'm in the minority.)
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Well, they do tend to be designed to increase surface area(without increasing tissue volume) and thus radiate more heat, so technically...
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NetBSD?
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Well, it was supposed to be the bee's knees in it's day.
What happened between then and now besides a little time passing?
Re:The OS is free, not... (Score:5, Funny)
But, yeah a download or something would be a neat idea, but then it would likely be hacked in like 2 seconds.
As opposed to any other software ever released by MS?
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