Leaked Best Buy memo offers Windows 7 details
Engadget brightened up a slow news day on Friday with a leaked memo from Best Buy that offers a number of Windows 7 details.
Most notable is the fact that the memo puts a date on when people can start buying Vista-based machines and qualify for a free upgrade to Windows 7. According to the memo, June 26 is the magic date--and I'm hearing that date is correct.
The memo also says that on June 26, Best Buy will start preselling upgrade versions of Windows 7 Home Premium for $49 and Windows 7 Professional for $99 via its Web site. It's not totally clear whether those are standard or promotional prices, although the memo says the pre-order program will run only for 16 days.
Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte did say in an interview this week that the software maker was considering requests from Vista owners to have a free or cheaper way to upgrade to Windows 7, so perhaps this pre-order option might be that program.
Best Buy also offers its marketing pitch for Windows 7 in the memo. "This new operating system isn't just a 'Vista that works' program - it's a new operating system with improved productivity, functionality and creativity that uses less computer resources."
A Best Buy representative was not immediately available to comment on the memo's authenticity.
When it announced October 22 as the official ship date for Windows 7 earlier this week, Microsoft also confirmed that it planned to have such a tech guarantee program, however the company did not say when it would start. A Microsoft representative said on Friday that the company had nothing more to add about the timing of the program.
Update 11:05 a.m. PT: No word back from Best Buy, but I did get independent confirmation of the memo, which was released on June 1. I've included a copy below.
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(Credit:
CNET)
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
I don't think you've got this 'ingoring' concept nailed just yet. I know what ignoring looks like and believe me, within 40 minutes isn't it.
The only thing that bugs me is how there is no task-bar integration for the "Scan and Fix" for flash drives, etc like how there is when you copy a file
As well, many customers will likely move from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit. There is no in-place upgrade available for this scenario.
In general I do agree - I prefer clean installs to upgrades. Having said that, I upgraded from Vista SP1 to Win7 Beta and then later from Vista SP1 to Win7 RC and both times the experience was extremely good.
My hardware is fairly recent - it's a 1.5 year old XPS 1530 laptop. The upgrade path does take a bit longer than a clean install (the step where your settings & data are saved takes a bit of time) -- but it's nowhere near the hassle of a clean install + re-installing apps.
I never had problems with my laptop due to Vista, and it is working flawlessly.
But I got it on a new laptop, which has enough horse power to run it (2g ram, 8400m, Core 2 duo 2.0gHz).
I think that people with old machines may have had problems with Vista.
Lookup Google for Vista Problems or better try Microsoft's Bing
enough said
It was mainly people who had OLD, crappy computers (more than 5 years old) who were having problems and really.... if your computer (unless it was gaming class when it came out 5 years ago and is a desktop that is easily upgraded) is that old....you need to get a new computer, because computers have gotten MUCH faster in those 5 years, to the point where sometimes a 400 dollar NOTEBOOK can smoke your old computer on everything but graphics performance (If your old computer has a discrete graphics card from ATI or NVidia).
ALL HAIL THE GOD THAT IS STEVE JOBS
STOP DRINKING THE APPLE KOOL-AID
Ok now that all 3 sides have been expressed, lets hope this thread stays on topic.
Isn't this what Vista promissed?
I love how fanboys defend Vista yet Microsoft themselves consider it a failure !
@Knight, that is not what Vista promised. It promised to bring computers to the next level. It was the foundation for a better and improved OS. From Vista to XP, there was many core changes that took place, which were necessary to make the OS that much better. Windows 7 is similar to what XP was the the version of Windows before XP. It builds on the core foundation of Vista, and gives it enough tweaks such that the performance has become far better, along with many other improvements.
On a system with 4GB's memory (3GB's usable), about 25-30% of the memory was used at idle with no other programs installed, after I disabled some of the things that are enabled in Windows XP, Vista and 7 that no one uses or that there are third-party solutions for (i.e. Windows Firewall, etc.) and pared down on some of the 'optional features' in XP, Vista and Windows 7 that no one uses.
So, Vista didn't 'suck more memory' than Windows XP did (they are honestly about equal). Windows 7 beats it by a LITTLE on memory usage, but as to general 'speediness'..... Windows 7 comes in with the win, followed closely by XP and then Vista a very small bit farther back than XP.
To sum it up.... people were being whiny babies about certain older hardware not working with Vista (big surprise, I had to buy a new printer because there were no drivers for my older parallel port printer for Windows XP even though the thing came with a parallel port!) and not looking to see "Do my programs have FREE updates to make them Vista compatible! Oh yeah, they do! DUH! (Homer Simpson voice for the DUH!)"
All other features are just Vista enhancements or bug fixes.
That's just my opinion.
Can't wait to get my grubby little hands on it.
Canon even has 64 bit Vista drivers for my old i850 printer. Every 32 bit app I have that was designed for XP has installed with no problems. I upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64 for $65 through Microsoft's student discount program. Through the same program I was able to get MS Office Ultimate 2007 for $60.
I'm very happy with Vista and I'm also glad I ignored the naysayers who just spread lies and FUD about anything Microsoft. If you're a high school or college student check out Microsoft's DreamSpark program. They offer a bunch of full version software for free including Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008 as well as Visual Studio Pro versions 2005 and 2008.
BTW, I am dual booting with Win 7 RC but I like Vista x64 better at this point.
I am also waiting for these Apple vs Microsoft wars to flame even higher as soon as both of them release OS's in October....I bet everyone is gonna be staying up day and night for the first couple of days trying and figuring out new stuff and gathering all the details so they can come on here and start the fight....LOL
Seconded.
openSuSe
I also hope that updated price applies to 64-bit versions. Either way I think I'm going to go for it.
And get this: the MINIMUM, absolute MINIMUM memory for Windows 7 is going to be 1GB of RAM! So, if your computer has less than that in it.... order the ********* memory to upgrade your system right now, or if your system cannot have that amount in it...... break down and buy a new computer come October!
Also, Microsoft is PUSHING HARD for 64-bit ONLY to be installed on computers from now on. I have yet to find a program save GameTap (which uses a proprietary DRM that doesn't work on 64-bit OS's) and a few japanese games that won't work on a 64-bit OS, and neither has Microsoft.... so they are pushing to 'phase out' the 32-bit now, since all systems in the past 4 years support 64-bit OS's, no problem.
Actually, I have 4 gigs of RAM, a quad core processor, and a 768 meg video card, and at idle Vista takes around 45-50% of memory. So why don't you go stick your head up your ass you wannabe-know-it-all little ****.
While I'm not completely hating the Vista currently installed on my HP HDX18, I believe that Vista is making the computer run slower than it should with the specs that I have (and the money I spent to get it).
Heres hoping that I can purchase an upgrade off of a RC copy of Windows 7.
I thought my father's new Gateway P-7811FX computer was running a little 'slower' than it should... went online..... problem was linked to Gateway's proprietary drivers for NVidia's graphics chips. I waited for NVidia to release their 'generic' drivers for the video card in that machine.... problems disappeared, MUCH faster than it was before.
You have to weed out the 'old drivers causing problems' thing before you can 'harp' on Windows Vista. Once that is done, most times people are astonished at how much faster their machines are than before.
Now, Windows 7 IS going to make your machines even faster than XP and Vista: networking speeds (thus far) have been GREATLY increased.... I'm getting near the absolute fastest speeds on my Wireless-G router that it can possibly get with Windows 7. Graphics speeds? Increased again, and I'm honestly at a loss as to how Microsoft managed that! Memory access speeds? Again, increased (must have been some programming bottlenecks in a few areas).
And the usability is DRASTICALLY improved, though it will take a little getting used to Windows 7's new menus for XP and Vista users.
Everything that used to go smoothly for me on XP, has turned into a nightmare of scouring forums for work arounds, 3rd party drivers etc... Yes I realize that bad drivers aren't microsoft's fault, but it sucks when all of the sudden my Audigy 2 sound card is basically useless when used in conjuction with Vista.
I could also go on and on about how I had to turn off something like 15 microsoft 'services' just to get my hard drive from constantly chugging. Yes I finally got Vista to stop doing whatever the hell it thinks it doing when it 'determines' that my computer has enough resources to process its BS, of course now my search function is even worse than XP's but I'll take it just so my computer can actually be responsive when I use it.
I realize there are people who have had no problems with Vista. Believe me when I say I'm happy for you, maybe you got lucky or maybe you just don't do the same things on your rig that I do on mine. I do a lot of 3D work, Video Editing, Sound recording, Motion graphics, and to top it all off, some gaming too. Please trust me when I say the move to Vista was a NIGHTMARE trying to get all those programs actually working. I've had to turn off so many so called 'services' to get those programs to work, that now my Vista has basically the same or worse functionality than XP did.
Anybody remember 'Games for Windows'? Ya I bought into that BS too, oops! Oh and I love the new update feature on Vista too, I love how certain updates will just randomly fail, and how my computer will crash and freeze trying to install those updates, AWESOME!!!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the point of upgrading to a new operating system be to have an improvement over the one you used to have?
Windows 7 IS what Vista should of been all along, I just wish I saved my money instead of buying a freakin lemon. Unless Microsoft offers the windows 7 upgrade for free to Vista users (which they should if they want to keep any kind of respect from their customers) I am not giving any more of my money to them. Anybody can attempt to tell me why I'm wrong, and who knows, they may be right, but would I not be considered an idiot if I willingly made the same mistake twice?
FYI, I have an Audigy 2 and it's complete crap hardware and driver wise.
As for the others, stop buying cheap chinese crap and you'll be loads better off - or buy hardware that's been made in the past 5 years.
Fortunately, Windows 7 will be compatible with practically ALL Vista drivers and such, and most of them are built in so you won't need to go scouring for them. Unlike what they did with Vista, Microsoft isn't listening to Intel's BS on Vista-Ready computers, and Microsoft is working together very well with the people that will be selling you the PCs, and in this way have they made the process far smoother. I've seen many Microsoft partners say that with Windows 7, Microsoft has really let them into the know, unlike with Vista.
I hope you will find better experiences in the future, but I do not think they will be giving away free copies of Windows 7, because I think a large portion of users don't have problems at all, or on the same scale as your problems. My suggestion would be taking a look at reviews of the companies that produce your sound/graphics/other cards or hardware, and making sure that they have a record of being complacent.
I just don`t be you here.......There are reasons why OS dont load correctly. and being a expert you known this........BUNK!
- by tipoo_ June 7, 2009 7:47 AM PDT
- I'm assuming both Vista and XP can be upgraded to 7 without any of your stuff being deleted?
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