I found this while checking out Business 2.0's 101 dumb moments in business list and decided I should post here and share!

It appears Microsoft is a bad secret keeper. No really! Today, they seemed to have prematurely posted lots of good information about the operating system.



Apparently Microsoft is making six primary editions and two special ones for Europe without Windows Media Player to comply with some antitrust settlements.

Hahaha!! Go Microsoft.

I have my own small technology business that I run and sure, I want to give my clients the best support possible but I don't post information like that! At least, not online!


(Source: http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/21/technology...reut/index.htm)

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404

It seems that history is beeing re-written, and in the new history, the info was never leaked, and chockolate rassions went up to 30 grams (from 50 gramms)

<< 1984 joke >>

Joking Aside... It seems Yahoo is still hosting the Story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060221/tc_nm/microsoft_vista_dc

Six primary editions?!! Wow ... that's quite a bit. And one without Media Player? How dumb! I mean, if you don't want Media Player, just remove it after installation. That's what Add/Remove programs is for .

Hmm...six versions here in the States alone ... that's almost too many options for consumers. We can barely figure out which fast-food restaurant to visit at lunch!

Then again, I hope that one of these versions is actually very close to what I'll actually want and use. Yeah, that would be nice, as it would mean less playing around with the "add/remove programs" menu. *snickers*

I assume the media player issue will be more of a hassle then its worth... the reason they have one without is assuedly DRM related. Hopefully they don't jack the price up alot on version with WMP haha.

But yea, things like this are enough to convince me (more then I already am) to not move to vista until necessary. Giving two options for a "basic" and "advanced" version would be fine as you just think ok, I can barely turn on my computer, I should go with basic". But 6 versions? Come on, that's just retarded haha. That much choice will just piss off alot of people wanting to upgrade.

I wouldn't be surprised if most stores only carried one or two, from the two extremes so they are the most different, and basically tell people "you either want A or B". Maybe a handful of copies of the others in the back for people who sound technologically competent.

I personally don't think it is down to stupidity, but rather a devious plan to increase the population investing in new PCs and buying new software that will run on Vista as well as buying the Operating system itself.

The fact that Vista will be a modular O/S (as far as I am aware), it would make more sense for there to be several versions of it. For example, MS Office, is a modular package of softwares. You can get various ones, from Student and Teacher, Small Business, Enterprise, Standard and Professional. Each has it's own set of components, with Enterprise having them all.

Modular software also allows updates to be created more specifically and reduces the risk of damaging other parts (unless they are shared).

As for the removal of WMP. I am not surprised. The number of legal battles they've had, as well as buying out one company that attacked them, was phenomenal. I personally don't understand why the likes of Real media took MS to court, when us the end users couldn't see the surface the infringement.

Jacking up the price for WMP included would be stupid. No offence to your idea, but they would not even bother changing the price. WMP can be downloaded for free, as it is a Windows component (you could say) so if they shoved onto the disk and pushed up the price, then people wouldn't buy it - therefore they would stand to loose out on money.

The versions of Vista can be found here:
http://www.astahost.com/windows-vista-t10701.html

That's due to some antitrust actions in EUROPE ONLY. Else, I think WMP is going to be included in the other versions. If only Microsoft would quit trying to take over the planet, things like this wouldn't have to happen.

Vista requires too many system resources so just to run it, you need to have like a 3 GHz CPU, 1 gig RAM and like the best graphics card available. lol, ok, maybe that's a little too high, but todays hardware WILL struggle with it.



I'm quite happy on my Windows XP Tablet, Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home, and Windows XP Media Center PCs! They won't be getting Vista because they won't have enough resourses to do so.

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This post has been edited by nightfox: Feb 26 2006, 07:47 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4754462.stm

Confirmed.

the 6 versions are....



So really, their are only 3 choises for home users, and 3 for buisness.

Starter for low end PC's ( for developing countries, hopefully to stop software piracy )

Basic for everyone else.

Premium for people willing to pay extra for things like Alpha Blended start menu.

Personally, i dont think Starter will work very well.

In developing countries, people will now have the option of an affordable legal OS, or a cheaper, pirated Full version of the OS.

In a world where the authorities dont enfoce software laws, and the poor have little sympathy for the richest man in the world, i cant see them choosing Starter over Premium.

The fact that they are releasing a version without that super-intense GUI is actually a nice surprise to me. I expected them to push that thing haaard but if they don't have it implemented for the basic Windows package then at least alot more basic users will hopefully be able to run Vista (I know it's always optional assumedly, but the barely comp literates who upgrade to Vista would likely assume it's stuck on and wouldn't know to disable it to increase performance) so I think that's a good choice.

I'm still not big on that many versions but at least the devisions seem pretty damned logical. They could have done alot worse I guess...