Today at Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report on ZDNet, I listed some of the upgrade scenarios that will be possible when Windows Vista ships. All three consumer versions – Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate – will be included on the same CD or DVD. You don’t need to go to the store and purchase a new shrink-wrapped box to upgrade; all you have to do is go to Control Panel and run the Windows Anytime Upgrade program.
I’ve just installed Windows Home Basic on a test computer here and snapped some screen shots to show what the process looks like.
Here’s the opening screen:
When you click past this introduction, you get to the step-by-step upgrade path shown here:
Note the text in step 1, which makes it very clear that you’re about to go to “one of our partner’s websites to purchase a license….” Microsoft clearly has no desire to upset its retail and OEM partners by trying to sell licenses directly to Windows customers. I suspect that in the final release big OEMs like Dell, HP, and Sony will have a custom version of this upgrade utility to send customers back to their website to purchase the upgrade license.
If you try to upgrade using one of the current beta test versions, of course, you get sent to a placeholder page, which contains no pricing or other details.
A very interesting approach, to be sure.
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It’s a good idea, since the differences between versions appear to be a few additional apps and the removal of limitations. The amount of software you need to download for an upgrade is probably less than the size of a typical payload on Patch Tuesday.
Hmmm, I wonder if they’ll put shortcuts to the missing functionality in the Start Menu and elsewhere, then treat upgrades kind of like a “install on first use” scenario.
Let’s hope that the initial pricing isn’t so insane that we have to consider buying Home only to take out a small loan to upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate.
Wonder when they will release an easy to use side by side feature comparison chart…
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Free upgrade online! Note to all investors and tech mavens. I would like to start a betting pool on how long it will take for the l337 among us to Haxxor this to hell and back. Because really, isn’t this just needing a few good key generators and a leak inside the Beast that is MS to lead to a good hack that will allow you to buy your licensce from God directly? I’m just asking this question as one who is on the lowdown with the l337 and a refular digg.com reader. I think that the key thing is, be careful! I can see this going well for most of the population of the U.S.A. say, but here in Canada, I predict *much* lower sales. Please, correct me if I am wrong, but I see this move by MS as a very double edged sword!
This is funny, I’m pretty sure someone will crack the CD/DVD and you can install what you already have.
The downside of this approach is that it will only curb piracy. Imagine having all three editions on one DVD. Now all you have to do is wait for some patch to get released which lets you use the other more enhanced versions.
And yeah, there is no full proof solution. These things always get cracked. Even Valve said Steam cud not be beaten and we had no_steam patched versions of Half Life 2 within a few days of release.
The other day I came across a link to a patch that converts your Windows Vista beta 3508 into no trial version that never expires. Microsoft’s got to do better than this
Not bad but I agree, someone will surely crack the cd/dvd
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“The downside of this approach is that it will only curb piracy.”
I think you mean “encourage piracy”. CURB is definately the wrong word to use and means the exact opposite.. sheez!
I think many commentors are missing the point a little. Stopping the hackers is not the purpose here. We and I’m sure MS already know that people who want to steal software will do it regardless, they’ll make it awkward, but it won’t stop it.
What it does make easy is enabling legit users to upgrade, and I’d assume allow people to become legit – I could imagine this layered up with “windows genuine program” for example.
(PS. Militant, XP SP2 was 272Mb)
I like the idea. The more I hear about Vista, the better I’m feeling. Call me the eternal optimist, I guess.
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No need to buy another box *of software*. Another _box_ actually capable of running the new bloat-ware, now that may be a different story!
Zeke: “Wonder when they will release an easy to use side by side feature comparison chart”
The tables near the bottom of this page may not be completely accurate but they do have a typical MS-think pattern:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_editions.asp
The most interesting is “Processor and Memory Support” near the bottom. Notice that none of the Home editions support dual processors, although they do support hyperthreading. There are a few other artificial limits like 5 network connections for the low-end Home SKUs.
Most of the other differences are just software, which they can easily install from the DVD, apply relevant patches from the Internet, and you’re good to go.
MS is everybodys favorite thing to hate. It’s the “cool thing to do”. If it wasn’t MS it would be all the different falvors of Linux, or apple, SCO gets what it deserves. As long as we have dorks out there that don’t have anything better to do with their time than to create problems for other people, it won’t matter what you run on your sys. MS will continue to improve their product. They will continue to charge too much for it and we can probably thank the mental masterbaters, you know the ones that every one seems so in awe of because they crack,hack, and write viruses that cause all of us that are just trying to make a living problems, for the increase in cost. Not just MS products, everything we use to create a secure enviroment. Now I know that every one thinks “this guy must be Bill’s butt buddy”. No, I’m not. I just have to deal with patch Tuesday, and all the great wads of patches that come down for most of the linux versions as well, because some ass monkey has nothing better to do. Why don’t people get as upset about that as they do about MS. How odd human nature can be.
In response to Buwana: what we are seeing is an evolutionary process. It may be a hassle, but the code is being strengthened with every patch. Over the course of years, all these attempts at hacking will bring us into greater levels of code competency, and reliability. I’m curious how our code would look now if we hadn’t been fighting hackers all along.
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I doubt it will be that easy to crack, it will most likely require activation online within so many days else it will lock up, so simply a key generator wont do. And okay so someone will probably figure how to hack it but at the end of the day the effort of that is only similar to the effort of pirating a current version.
Also a lot of people buy PCs with the OS preinstalled, and Microsoft sell a lot of versions of their OS in this way.
So you’ll be able to “instant” upgrade, fine, but then you’ll have to wait for all the service packs etc to download and install for the upgraded version. I just find it interesting that all-on-one-dvd is being stressed, when in reality online OS updates will continue to come at us faster and faster, there is no way around it.