Best Buy loads up for Windows 7 launch
Cages at Best Buy are stocked with new models preloaded with Windows 7: behind bars until October 22.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)Best Buy is locked and loaded for the Windows 7 launch.
And I don't use the phrase "locked and loaded" figuratively. "Locked" in that all the new Windows 7 machines are locked down behind cages. And "loaded" in that all the cages are full. (See photos.)
I visited a Best Buy Friday night in Southern California where the cages were loaded exclusively with new models preloaded with Windows 7. And I learned a few odd tidbits from a stoked salesperson who had definitely been drinking the Windows-7-is-totally-awesome Kool-Aid. Let me add that the information was conveyed to me at one store in Southern California and may not necessarily apply to all stores nationwide.
--Best Buy can theoretically sell you a Windows 7 machine before October 22. However, the store would get fined if it does so. One figure thrown out by a salesperson was $5,000 per sales violation.
--Almost all of the shelf space had been cleared. In other words, when I walked into the laptop section, all of the counter space that typically holds 50 laptops (or more) was empty. The space will be repopulated on October 22.
--Why the empty counters? Best Buy had sold virtually all the Vista machines in the store prior to Windows 7 launch.
Windows 7 laptops behind the cages include an HP dv6 laptop with a 16-inch screen (model: dv6-1352dx), a Dell Inspiron with 15.6-inch screen (model: i1545-4203), an HP G60 (model: G60-535DX), and a Sony Vaio VGN series (model: VGN-NW270/FS). Note that most of these models do not show up in a Google search or in the Best Buy database yet.
I was also ushered to one box that stood out by its size (about three times the height of other laptop boxes). This, I was told, contained an 18-inch class Asus laptop packing a quad-core Core i7 processor with killer graphics, though the salesperson wouldn't disclose which particular graphics card it used.
Dell Windows 7 laptops are under lock and key at Best Buy.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)
Don't touch: 'The hard release date on all Windows 7 products is Oct 22 and we cannot sell any units in the store until that day.'
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)
Counter space that usually contains dozens of laptops has been cleared.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
Endangered OS SL aka new Vista of Mac, RIP :)
Watch out you Mac users, keep your windows and doors shut at night, Charlie Miller is about!
Once again shelly, I`ll celebrate by leaving my Mac running without a firewall and I`ll invoke the great demon Charlie Miller to come take possession of my Mac
I dare you to turn off YOUR firewall and anti-virus.. DARE YOU!!
"I'm not going to give up using my Mac no matter what Microsoft puts out. So the Mac community will never die! On the other hand, if Windows 7 turns out to be good. I might actually get a Windows 7 netbook just to mess around with"
Well should there come a time when MicroSoft makes an OS that is superior to OSX then it might compel to switch from Mac as my primary OS. However, it would require a major leap in corporate culture for MicroSoft to create something isn't so clunky to use as Windows.
I have two notebooks running XP and they meet our occasional Windows needs. I won't get a new notebook/PC running Windows 7 until it is necessary.
So now you might know why hackers are after Windows, not after the new Vista of Mac
And shelly ASLR would have no effect on a POSIX compliant OS, so once again I await good ole Chuck to come and PWN my machine
No AV?, right! no firewall too I bet?
Come and get me Chucky!!
Others won't ship it until 10/22/09.
Yes, WIndows 7 doesn't have splash graphics, annoying popups bouncing around, or spending its time trying to get your attention or do things for you... regardless if you want to or not.
The real value of Win7 is that it just works quietly in the background and lets you get back to your real intention- the applications you have loaded.
Your comment demonstrates just how successful it is in that regard.
Completely agree. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig.
Its also worthless to compare the two,other than the features they have. If a mac works for you then fine,if a pc works for you then fine. We all use our computers differently,. You can include the different flavors of Linux above as well... use what you use and quit bs'ing.
...they try.
"annoying popups bouncing around"
...except the ones that and decide to pop up windows or shutter the entire frickin' screen when running your cursor across the taskbar. There's also the popups that come along every time you plug in an external device or geek stick, pop a blank CD/DVD in, use IE when it's not the default browser, and occasionally demands to know why you're not using Defender or Live Essentials...
Or were you talking about some other Windows 7 that only exists in a Seattle lab somewhere?
"or do things for you..."
Yeah, I hate it when as OS doesn't do things for me - like run apps that are normally compatible in XP or Vista (e.g. VMWare's vSphere Client).
"The real value of Win7 is that it just works quietly in the background..."
...so when does it get around to actually doing that? I've been a month on with it and I'm still waiting for that to happen.
After all - I don't dislike or hate the little Pontiac that I drive to work each day, but I'd rather be driving a new Hyundai Sonata, y'know?
I gotta give you credit though. At least you aren't demanding a free upgrade like some people. Asking for a discount for the buyer of the expensive versions is one thing, but asking for free upgrades is another.
Chevrolet won't discount the price of a new truck because I bought a previous version.
McDonalds just laughed when I showed them the receipt of a Happy Meal and wanted a discount on the next one.
I even tried your logic with the power company and you know what? The electric utility said they coudln't help me with that discount just because I had purchased power from them previously.
Maybe I should go back to Apple and try again. I bought hardware from them- they should be required to discount my next MacBookPro since I paid them money for the last one. It's only right.
(Sheesh, you'd think people would get a clue, but... well, then you have posts like those above. *sigh*)
anilsudh, it depends on the person, some freak may dress up a pig.... you know what I mean
Yes, you can get upgrade for Vista U and you need not pay full price. I suggest going to MS site for all the break down on various versions.
Note: Vista Home Premium upgrade to WIN 7 PRE. Vista PRE the same but there were articles about WIN 7 U that was inconclusive. I do believe there will be a version of WIN7 U available.
Vista Business will noe be WIN 7 Pro. All versions can be upgraded to the next higher by purchassing an upgrade key at anytime.
"It will be interesting to see if Win7 can boost PC sales"
Well that would be the case for me as an occasional Windows user. My two notebooks can not run WIndows 7 so I would need to buy a new PC.
First the recession. Spending has been down because of it. PC sales have been at a all time low. However there are some financial analysts are saying that the recession is starting to lift (dow is certainly up) and that consumer spending is kind of pent up.
Add to that its near the holiday season, so spending does increase normally. Pent up spending + holiday season.
Lastly I do know more than a few people that have waited to get 7. They are on old PC's and would have bought a new one 6 months ago but did not want Vista.
This combination should show a big spike especially compared to 1 year ago. The problem will be Windows fan boys will attribute it all to Windows 7.
A real comparison will be sales from fall 2009 compared to fall 2010. That way, provided the economy is still good, the pent up spending will be released, users that waited so long for a new PC will be sitting on a year old PC and we should be back to normal sales cycles.
While I don't expect there to be a huge demand for people to keep buying Vista post Windows 7, I think that it is silly to basically give up on selling any computers for a few weeks. I remember working at a Best Buy competitor right before Vista launched and we got plenty of people coming in who wanted to buy a computer because Best Buy didn't have a computer they wanted presuming that they had virtually any. Most average users don't care much about new operating systems. For home consumers any post XP OS was going to be a tough sale because XP was so stable relative to Windows 9x. Business users meanwhile have been a tough crowd to upgrade since Windows 2000. I still periodically see Win2K even now in some small businesses because it runs on such old hardware.
All other things being equal I would generally recommend Windows 7 over Vista or XP, but don't presume that you can't still sell a few refurbs with an older OS.
CBSCowards- 1. Computer manufacturers DO NOT PAY BEST BUY(or any other store) to make sure computer aren't DOA. If that is what a sales associate told you, That is a lie.
2. If you want to avoid the "sales pitches" at Best Buy, buy the product online and pick it up in the store.
3. Regardless if the store checks out the PC or not, you have 14 days to return it (plus a 15% restocking fee if the box is opened). Now, since the store opened the box, you're now liable for that 15% restocking fee if you decided the next day you didn't want it even if you didn't take it out of the box. Had the box not been opened and you simply decided you didn't want it within that 14 day period, you woudn't have to pay that 15%.
And finally- the second reason I recommend buying on bestbuy.com and doing instore pick up is because many times the instore price is more than the online price. If you don't know that, you pay more. If you do know that you have to get them to do a bestbuy.com price match and some stores won't (which is against the law since BB has already been sued for that). BB isn't the only store with underhanded tacticts... Office Depot too (just google it). And at OD, if you buy something, YOU OWN IT unless it is broken and then you can only exchange it (many stores charge a restocking fee for that too).
In closing, I've come to love newegg.com and tigerdirect and Amazon
I do see people in stores all the time asking questions and I constantly here questionable advice being given. I can't save the world from themselves, so I just do the best I can to take care of me, my family, and our own businesses.
For all the fanboys who want to see the demise of Apple, consider this: MS has a pretty sweet deal -- they are almost 100% guaranteed that every non-Apple PC sold will include Windows. If MS had no competition, they could sit back, save all those R&D dollars and PCs running XP would continue to sell. They could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year without much loss of revenue. But when Apple brings out a product that has a superior (IMHO) user interface, then MS must continue to improve their product to avoid losing that comfortable position.
So welcome the competition. Whether you are a Windows or Mac fan, it's good for you.
I can understand the anticipation of computer users waiting 'chomping at the bit' for a new operating system to come out.
I remember drooling for Mac's new operating system (Snow Leopard) and all I can say is 'go get it when it comes out.'
as writing this post, i'm encrypting my drives with BitLocker on my Win7 laptop. Nice feature!
I'm not one of those Mac fanatics that think that PCs suck.
Before I got a mac I had a few HP technical UNIX workstations but wanted a more mainstream computer.
I checked it out and decided on a Mac computer.
I checked out the comments on this site and saw that there is a lot of negativity and that's not 'my bag.'
If there's any people around here with a more positive attitude I sure would like to hear from you.
As for the person that is enamored with BitLocker check out what wikipedia.org said on the subject.
We dropped Vista because Snow-Jobs Leopard IS the NEW Vista ; )
LOL
And our home-builts can kick your Mac`s A**
www.redneckpoet.com
Who would be dumb enough to buy anything at BB.
By the way Micro$soft is now secretly installing malware plugins threw windows update into Mozilla FireFox, Windows Presentation Foundation - FF Warning, But No Add-On!
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23198266-Windows-Presentation-Foundation-FF-Warning-But-No-AddOn
Go, M$
CHARLIE MILLER!!
LOL
firewall off, no anti-virus, dare to follow my lead?
you know you`d be raped in minutes
Yes, I did turn off my firewall for about a day and guess what? it's as is. It's not been raped!! Got anything to say?
- by jz33040 October 17, 2009 8:13 PM PDT
- Haha. We are in a blog that mentions the release of Windows 7, and 30 mac users show up, ROFL! And a nervous, defensive bunch. I'm no fanboy of either, but have both osx leopard and windows 7 at this point. They have really worked hard to polish 7 up, and I don't mean just pretty graphics either. Snow leopard is nice, but I'd be lying if I said it's better than windows 7. I'm serious. 7 has many new features that make osx look a bit dated if you ask me. They have this cool addition to the task bar that lets you see little "TV" screens of what each window is doing.
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- by shellcodes_coder October 17, 2009 9:50 PM PDT
- Completely agree with you.
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- by The_happy_switcher October 17, 2009 11:12 PM PDT
- Let's see how 'fast' it is after you've had to patch 30000 times and your registry is clogged from all your app crap files and some virus turns your machine into a pile of liquid bits of *****.
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- by lazycat202 October 18, 2009 4:43 AM PDT
- happy_swither
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- by ckh1272 October 18, 2009 8:21 AM PDT
- @jz33040--I agree with most of your post, however I wonder if you'd make that same statement ("We are in a blog that mentions the release of Windows 7, and 30 mac users show up") on the Apple articles that have 50+ Windows users populating the posts. There sure is a lot of double standard and double talk going on around here. In regards to BestBuy, I would never buy any system from them (Mac or Windows). Unfortunately, most of those employees were burning fries the week before. People should just take the time and research. After that, buy online through Newegg or TigerDirect (just examples) and enjoy your purchase.
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (149 Comments)Like if you have 10 browsers open and 4 have running videos in youtube, you can see all 4 updating in real time. If it's paused, they of course they are paused. But whatever happens, you see it. If it's a regular web page with some java graphics or something, it will show that too. IT's really useful to be able find the pages you are looking for visually instead of reading a text title like, "youtube - kitten jumps". And No, as much as osx fan boys want to think, that is not copied from apple, lol. Leopard has nothing like this. And the plain taskbar has been in windows for 14 years or so....
I don't want to write a book, but point is windows 7 shines. It's fast too. After it loads windows and displays the desktop, it's usable right away. I open drives and they open in a blink. It's much faster in that regard than predecessors. It seems like microsoft has been really working on this one. Maybe it's because they want to make sure it all goes good this time around.
rather having no patch, i prefer to have more patches. I just don't like companies hides the truth and tell their customers that theirs software are always secured.
i'm not defending Microsoft and I think Win7 is on its track. I've 3 computers installed with Win7 and they're running smoothly. And YES! I dumped IE and using Chrome and FF.