Windows 7 Upgrade Programs Will Start Soon, Vary by Vendor

I just noticed that Paul's article says it was published at 12:30 PM on June 13. It will be 12:30 in 22 minutes. MS better get the clock fixed in Windows before they release it.

kent That's a known bug in Paul's site's attempt to adjust times to your time zone. You can fix it by tweaking your settings if it bothers you. In either case, I'd suggest using either the clock in your Windows PC or a watch rather than Paul's posting times to determine when you can upgrade to Windows 7.

Why pay the upgrade? Install Win 7 RC on your current computer and wait to buy a new one until Oct. 22. Do vendors really charge for recovery disks? No wonder PC's are so cheap.

rickhuizinga said: Any word on what Microsoft is going to do for Vista Ultimate owners that never received what was paid for? Yes, They are going to let you pay another $200 for Win 7 Ultimate and not give you what you paid for.

"Since Paul takes any opportunity to dis Mac, I thought I would dis MS in kind. Just having some fun." Sure. It would help if it made sense too.

rickhuizinga Can you say what you paid for in Vista Ultimate that you didn't get? I know I got all the features of Vista Home Premium plus all the features of Vista Enterprise plus the couple of dozen MUI packs plus some extra utility and game programs plus some background and sound packs. Is there something on that list you didn't get?

"Any word on what Microsoft is going to do for Vista Ultimate owners that never received what was paid for?" You will get a signed CD of Jim Allchin's latest album. It was supposed to be part of the Extras.

I think I'd rather have an upgrade coupon than waiting to buy anyway. That way, you get an actual Windows 7 CD. You wouldn't get that if you waited. Also, Paul doesn't take every opportunity to dis' Apple, like some sort of vendetta. Paul is just honest about what he thinks, regardless of what company it is. He calls out MS stupidity as much as he does anyone else. Example: Paul's criticism of Win Mobile. Only reason he uses it is because he has to in order to have credibility when he talks about it.

This worked once, so what the heck: "You know Mike, you're 100% right."

Lindy, Actually, I just quoted Paul's comment as a response to kent explaining how a $10 cd is why PCs cost less. But since you want to bring up the 15" MacBook "Pro" do your really think a sealed battery is a good idea for a laptop? To someone like me who travels internationally, takes spare batteries and buys new ones when they start losing capacity as they age that seems quite insane. Now I'm sure that it makes sense for some people but, really, removing the choice and then tagging the unit as "Pro" after stripping it of key features? Just odd. (btw: an equivalent unit at Dell or HP is under $1,000. That buys a lot of spare, fresh batteries over the life of a laptop)

...even more if the laptop costs $399 ;) Sorry, I couldn't resist.

WazNeeni said: Also, Paul doesn't take every opportunity to dis' Apple, like some sort of vendetta. Paul is just honest about what he thinks, regardless of what company it is. He calls out MS stupidity as much as he does anyone else. Example: Paul's criticism of Win Mobile. Only reason he uses it is because he has to in order to have credibility when he talks about it. When an article appears on the Internet saying how many people downloaded the new release of Safari and Paul writes an article questioning the validity or the meaning of that article and does so on a Windows centric website, who is he talking to? He is speaking to the base, he is attempting to continue to promote the general public's choice of Windows over Mac. Why? Because he makes his living off of Windows. Do you think a publisher would publish a book of his called "Mac OX 10 Secrets"? He needs Windows to continue to succeed. I am not saying that what he is doing is wrong, but it is not really necessary. Windows and MS provide ample material to keep him busy writing only about Windows. He is a Windows authority and I look to him for accurate assessments of MS etc. I get no value from dissing Apple news articles. If you watch the local weather show you want to know what the local weather is not what it is in another city. Before I bought a Mac 18 months ago I did not care one iota about Apple and what they did or did not do. Vista was problematic enough to make me look at Apple and the Mac and I am glad I did. I try to keep my posts here light hearted and in the spirit of friendly kidding, which is the only thing appropriate. If people really want to focus their indignation there are plenty of injustices in the world to look to. Perspective people.

kent You make the, frankly bizarre, assumption that a $1500 mac is the same as a BMW (I'm guessing you'd say a 6 or 7 series while you're at it) while a virtually identical windows PC is a Geo Metro. You'd really need to make a case for that more than just "It's expensive so it's better". And that's hard to do with 90% of the parts being identical and with assembly of those parts at the same factories. I'd say it's more like the 1970s General Motors where the difference between a Chevrolet sedan and the equivalent Cadillac sedan was double the price, some extra velour upholstery, some out of fashion chrome and a Cadillac badge. (Disclaimer, Cadillac's turnaroud from those days to the current very high tech, very respected vendor that's a jewel in GM's tarnished crown should be a business school case study in how real value add can restore a tarnished brand)

mike You make the, frankly bizarre, assumption that a $1500 mac is the same as a BMW (I'm guessing you'd say a 6 or 7 series while you're at it) while a virtually identical windows PC is a Geo Metro. You made the assumption not me. Let me state it in simpler terms. A $1500 computer is a better quality computer than a $500 computer, regardless of weather it is a PC or a Mac. A $1500 computer( Mac or PC is not made with the same components at the same factories) as the $500 PC. Example: When Texas Instruments makes an integrated circuit it is tested when it comes off the production line. Some fall smack dab in the middle of the specification and some come in near edge of the spec. Some uses of these chips demand that they fall in the middle of the spec and some uses it is not so important. Texas Instruments sells the IC's that fall in the middle at a higher price than than the ones that fall on the edge. Capacitors are all made to meet a 1% tolerance, a few do, some meet 5%, more meet 10% etc. The looser the tolerance the cheaper the part. So the 5% parts and the "middle of the spec IC's go into the $1500 computers and the outliers end up in the $500 PC. There are also quality systems like Six Sigma that put very specific failure rates on components and assemblies. To obtain lower failure rates better quality parts and processes are needed. It costs more for those controlled processes. So those are built in different factories than the ones that pump out cheap consumer throw away priced products. Early on when the first personal computers came out, none of them cost anywhere near $500. They got faster, more memory and storage but they held their pricing over time. Then they finally started to drop in price. I thought that this trend was great. I bought a $500 computer and I will never do that again.

Actually gents, most PC's without an included recovery disc usually gets free blank disc to create a recovery disc themself. Often they are prompted to create one upon initial startup, although OneCare prompts us too!

Every Dell including mid to low range laptops I've ever bought have come with reinstall disks. My Latitude XT came with both XP Tablet and Vista Business editions, they also came with a drivers and application disks. Even my daughters budget Gateway laptop came with reinstall disks. Most Sony's, HP's and Acer's I've had did not come with disks unless you go back to pre XP times when every computer came with the reinstall disks.

Lindy " I am sure there are few people that carry batteries around. " I agree and that's why I wouldn't make the individual number of battery options a major factor in a selection for a general review. But, not having a choice AT ALL is not the same as it's a less popular feature. Think of it as saying, most people don't use Firewire so lets not only remove it but lets make sure the people who need it can't even add it on. (Like, say, removing the addon card slots.

Regarding Mike's ramblings about IE's "features" -- if full-screen is all you have over the other browsers (ones that are actually superior is many other areas), then you know you're on the losing team.

Looks like Anandtech quoted Apple propaganda Gizmodo actually tested it and got the usual 50% of advertised (or less) not having the choice is typical Apple.

I guess I meant the latter doesn't necessarily add to the... Ah, nevermind.

"Looks like Anandtech quoted Apple propaganda Gizmodo actually tested it and got the usual 50% of advertised (or less) not having the choice is typical Apple." Couldn't find anything like that on Gizmodo, feel free to link. Anandtech has done some testing of their own, though: http://anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3580&p=4 "8:24 remaining"? Wow. Someone here said that there's no compelling technical features for people to be buying the new MacBook Pros. Well, I can't even think of many more compelling features for a laptop than 8 hours of battery life.

Whiplash please link the gizmado article so we can compare the depth of each. If you bothered to read the Anandtech article you see that the 8 hour results were lite usage, and that under heavy usage, streaming video etc it got around 5, which is still incredible for a notebook. Also the Anandtech article went into depth about how the batteries in these notebooks is quite different that the typical round like batteries.

Lindy The (very pro-Apple, btw) Gizmodo review is at http://gizmodo.com/5287179/macbook-pro-2009-review and they get 3:31 which won't get you through a cross country flight and even on a shorter flight would leave you with a dead laptop until you could plug it in. The battery test criteria and results sentence: In our test, the 13-inch MacBook Pro got 3:31 of battery compared to the 3:46 of the 15-inch MacBook Pro. We used the same metrics as the previous MacBook Pro test—medium brightness, Wi-Fi on, keyboard backlight on low, H.264 movie—and got about an hour more on each machine.

"The (very pro-Apple, btw) Gizmodo review..." Either Jason Chen or Jesus Diaz is the "robertsjoe" of Gizmodo. I don't know which one. Probably both!

I think Apple's new battery technology is great, they just negated it by not making it removable. Battery advancements are the new hurdle technology needs to overcome for many reasons, but I wonder how much improvement Apple made if they had to make it in such a strange shape it can't be popped in and out like a decent battery needs to be. Even 8hrs isn't enough for a flight from the west coast to London and if you need to work on the flight you're screwed. And as Mike pointed out how well will the battery work 2 years out, and beyond? I can't see any scenario where a non-replaceable battery is a good thing. I think if Dell had come out with this, and Apple had criticized it for the reasons I stated we all know what the reaction of the Mac Fanbois would be, don't we.