News - Microsoft starts making Vista-era Ultimate Extras available for free

[HEXUS]

With Windows Vista fading into memory, Microsoft is making two of its so-called Ultimate Extras freely available to all.

Read more.

[Singh400]

Well good, Tinker was a nice little time waster of a game.

[Tattysnuc]

Now I feel even more cheated. I think I paid around £200 for my copy of Vista Ultimate on offer from Scan when it first came out, and got absolutely no benefit from these promised "extras".

I shalln't be buying any of their value added products ever again. There's no benefit to upgrading to Windows 7 even, so after falling well short on "extras" they still don't even recognise that they've ripped poeple off.

Shame on you MS.

[Syllopsium]

Can't say I'm bothered about the loss of DreamScene. It only ever got as far as 'your resolution is too high to use this'. I rather suspect they expected you to use it with one monitor, rather than three..

Have used the language packs though, which is why I had to buy a Windows 7 Ultimate license.

PK

[0iD]

So, apart from bit locker & the spartan extras...what was the point in Vista Ultimate?

[vicar]

None IMHO.

[Syllopsium]

So, apart from bit locker & the spartan extras...what was the point in Vista Ultimate?

Actually, Vista Ultimate had a bit more of a point than Windows 7 Ultimate does. Vista Ultimate is basically Home Premium+Business, and includes the media centre and DVD decoding from the home side and all the networking and the Subsystem for Unix Applications on the Business side.

With Windows 7 all the media functionality got rolled into Business. Language packs remain an Ultimate only facility, but probably aren't that commonly used (I want to learn Russian, so I'm keeping to Ultimate). Bitlocker is also in Ultimate but probably should have been put in Business - plenty of laptops have a TPM chip, and encryption would be quite useful.

In an ideal world there would be only two versions : Home, and Business - rolling the Ultimate functionality into Business.

PK

[adam.mt]

I really don't understand the bashing Vista Ultimate got - who on earth was stupid enough to believe the 'extras' would ever amount to much?

Sure, they were worse than Microsoft initial planned and a bit of a disappointment but surely no one bought the Ultimate edition of Vista based purely on some undisclosed extras?

Surely, people bought it for it's feature-set like I did, ie. wanting both the network domain joining ability from Professional (plus some other stuff) and the Media Centre from Home Premium.

[Microsoft have wisely fixed this for 7, making each edition a superset of the one below. Consequently, hardly anyone needs to buy Windows 7 Utlimate since it offers very little more than Professional (Businesses will use the Enterprise edition due to Volume Licensing). That said I've seen 7 Ultimate selling for like only £10-15 more than Professional so there's little to loose!]

Just wondering if Microsoft or Stardock will make Dreamscene available for free to Win7 owners now?

[adam.mt]

In an ideal world there would be only two versions : Home, and Business - rolling the Ultimate functionality into Business.

I agree since would increase the use of BitLocker. Guess Microsoft want that feature as a bonus for Volume Licensing though (Windows 7 Enterprise is what's available on Volume Licensing and it shares it's feature-set with Ultimate).

[Volume License users also get the 'Desktop Optimization Pack' which IMO would also be nicer if made available to all. The boot disc from it, aka SysInternals ERD Commander, is pretty useful for all IT pros]

[SoSoSo]

"Vista Ultimate users fume, rant over Windows 7 deals...

"Those suckers that bought Vista Ultimate, myself included, are screwed," said yet another commenter. "There isn't a chance in hell that I am paying $219 for what should really be Vista SP2. We were promised 'extras' which we never got, now we are being excluded from the pre-order special. Anyway even at $49, it is still too much to pay."

The extras that commenter mentioned refer to "Ultimate Extras," one of the main features Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the 2007 release of Vista Ultimate to distinguish the operating system from its lower-priced siblings. According to Microsoft's marketing, Extras were to be "cutting-edge programs, innovative services and unique publications" that would be regularly offered only to users of Vista's highest-priced edition.

But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company's leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.

Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.

The furor over Vista Ultimate has even reached analysts' ranks. In May, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft urged Microsoft to give Vista Ultimate owners a free upgrade to Windows 7. "It would buy them a lot of good will, and I don't think it would cost them much," Cherry said at the time.

Some of the commenters in the latest Computerworld stories about Windows 7 echoed Cherry.

"I am running Vista Ultimate and feel ripped off by Microsoft because ... [we] never received the extras we paid good money to get," said "Hellfire" in a long comment. "The very least that they should do is offer a heavily-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate to those that have lost money by purchasing Vista Ultimate."
... " source from google

[SoSoSo]

double post double post double post

sorry

[this_is_gav]

Yeah... as above, who was stupid enough to buy Vista Ultimate without any guarantee to the extras they were getting. Some (like me) bought Vista Ultimate because it merged Home Premium and Business together, the only edition providing both domain support and Media Center, both necessary for me.

You don't spend £120+ (OEM) buying a Windows license without knowing what you're buying.

"Those suckers that bought Vista Ultimate, myself included, are screwed," said yet another commenter. "There isn't a chance in hell that I am paying $219 for what should really be Vista SP2. We were promised 'extras' which we never got, now we are being excluded from the pre-order special. Anyway even at $49, it is still too much to pay."

Ultimate will now be a very, very rare purchase. Now that each edition is a supersede of the previous one, Pro has replaced Ultimate for 99% of the people who needed Vista Ultimate.

[ajones]

The extras that commenter mentioned refer to "Ultimate Extras," one of the main features Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the 2007 release of Vista Ultimate to distinguish the operating system from its lower-priced siblings. According to Microsoft's marketing, Extras were to be "cutting-edge programs, innovative services and unique publications" that would be regularly offered only to users of Vista's highest-priced edition.

But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company's leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.

Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.

Let's face it... Miscrosoft can't win whatever they do.

They can waste time releasing fancy extras for an OS that by an large is a flop, or they can fix the OS. They chose to fix the OS with the release of Win7 but are now getting flamed for not delivering the promises they gave for Vista...

Technically those complaining are correct; MS screwed up and one can't help but feel that they should have done something to ease the woes of those that got burnt. On the other hand though, I can't help that itch at the back of my mind egging me on to say "stop winging and get on with it... You bought Vista, live with it or upgrade". Wonderful word "upgrade"... it suggests moving forward.

If you want to derisk a purchase, get premium.

[Syllopsium]

Yeah... as above, who was stupid enough to buy Vista Ultimate without any guarantee to the extras they were getting. Some (like me) bought Vista Ultimate because it merged Home Premium and Business together, the only edition providing both domain support and Media Center, both necessary for me.

You don't spend £120+ (OEM) buying a Windows license without knowing what you're buying.


Ultimate will now be a very, very rare purchase. Now that each edition is a supersede of the previous one, Pro has replaced Ultimate for 99% of the people who needed Vista Ultimate.

Actually, although I bought Ultimate because I wanted both the networking and media functionality it was a no brainer. At the time the price differential between Business OEM and Ultimate OEM was minimal.

This time, however, I've taken advantage of the preorder pricing to go full retail because I don't want to be locked to my motherboard for years again..

PK

[CyberChris]

Something for nothing is always welcome, will download these for my machines when available, thanks for the info.

[aidanjt]

So the Vista Ultimate customers get double boned (after a trickle of mostly useless 'extras')? Nice.