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Windows 7 customers still paying for Microsoft's Ultimate mistakes | |
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| Time: 09:04 EST/14:04 GMT | News Source: ZDNet | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Earlier this summer, Microsoft announced special limited-time Windows 7 upgrade pricing deals, with Home Premium going for $50 and Professional edition offered for $100. So where was the special upgrade offer for Ultimate edition? A complete no-show. So far, at least, the cheapest option for upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate is $220, which is the estimated selling price for an upgrade package. | ||
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| #1 By 21912 (71.83.109.74) at 8/18/2009 10:25:09 AM |
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"So far, at least, the cheapest option for upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate is $220, which is the estimated selling price for an upgrade package."
Actually, that price can still be beat under certain circumstances. If you can use a full Windows 7 Family Pack, the price for each of 3 Home Premium seats is $50, and any of those can be upgraded to Ultimate for an additional $140 using the Anytime Upgrade option. That same price could have been obtained on single licenses with the limited-time Home Premium upgrade that was selling for $50, but that deal expired before Anytime Upgrade pricing was announced, so most Ultimate users would not have known to go that route. It still remains to be seen whether a better deal will be made available to Ultimate users before launch day, but these people should not be left twisting in the breeze (oh, the humanity!). Hopefully, this can be settled without taking to the streets in violent protest ;-) |
| #2 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 8/18/2009 11:20:14 AM |
| Vista Ultimate buyers deserved FAR FAR better treatment than this. |
| #3 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/18/2009 2:22:10 PM |
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Opinion:
Microsoft couldn't simply dump Ultimate and they could not emphasize it under Windows 7 either. The company has chosen to deemphasize Ultimate with teh 7 release - offering a few compelling features like DirectAccess (VPN-less direct connections to internal shares and apps under RemoteApp), BitLocker To Go (TPM-less encryption of removable storage devices) and AppLocker (the ability to approve a white-list of applications end users can install without higher authority). All of these are attractive to businesses and professional users that are on the go and away from managed networks, which include small business networks (or should - it isn't hard!!!). We have to consider a few things... Direct comparisons to Vista Ultimate are inappropriate - they are entirely different products and under Windows 7 Ultimate "enthusiasts" are abandoned in this context. We have to again realize that buying Vista Ultimate for the "Ultimate Extras" only, was the wrong reason to choose that version of Vista. We can review all the features and special offers that were in Vista Ultimate and there were a lot offered that could provide real savings - none were marketed well, but all clearly would be of interest to enthusiasts. Some months ago, I shared a hope, that Microsoft would reward Vista Ultimate buyers with a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. They have not yet, but they should. With Windows 7, Microsoft is communicating more clearly than ever that they have abandoned "enthusiasts" power users and gamers. They seem to have given up the high end of the con/pro-sumer market to Apple. It is a disaster. They could have turned a small army of enthusiast users (the 1% that bought Ultimate) into an effective source of viral marketing and advocacy. Instead Microsoft turned on them, ignored them and left them with nothing to feel enthusiastic about. It's not just sad, it's very dumb. It's not that this will cost them, it is that it has and will cost them even more. They need to act right now to reverse this and add very significant offers to Ultimate buyers. |
| #4 By 17855 (205.167.180.131) at 8/18/2009 3:45:22 PM |
| #3 I agree to a point. My personal experience was that Ultimate wasn't so Ultimate and should never have targeted enthusiast. The PC I was running at the time was a P4 650, 3.4GHz with 2GB RAM. Not so Ultimate hardware, yet I wanted the best OS. Interestingly enough when I realized I never used any Ultimates, yes they were duds, I downgraded to Home Premium and performance improved due to fewer services running. Having all that overhead does not make a good enthusiast OS, performance does. I for one can see why Microsoft has repositioned Ultimate. To me it makes sense. |
| #5 By 143 (216.205.223.146) at 8/18/2009 9:27:01 PM |
| The lesson is never trust anything from Microsoft that has the word "Ultimate" in it. |
| #6 By 17855 (205.167.180.131) at 8/19/2009 7:18:05 AM |
| MS Office Ultimate... :) |
| #7 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/19/2009 8:33:53 AM |
| #4, I think many enthusiast and power users are going to control all processes on their machines regardless. As for Vista Ultimate only features that would run processes that would impact performance over home premium, would be DreamScene, which pauses when any full screen application is run and BitLocker. BitLocker would appeal to a different type of power user - one not necessarily interested in raw performance, but maximum data security (like on a notebook or a workstation housing sensitive data). |
| #8 By 17855 (205.167.180.131) at 8/19/2009 9:27:09 AM |
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#7 In theory you are correct, however my experience was a little different even after manually setting services. I support Vista and consider it a very good OS, but it is for from perfect.
In regards to Bitlocker, businesses are going to be more interested in security than a home enthusiast. I enjoy reading your insights into Microsoft lketchum. Thank You, AW |
| #9 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/19/2009 9:44:51 AM |
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#8, It is indeed, far from perfect and it takes a good image on a proven baseline to run at its best. This is true of any OS/Windows version and most OEM and custom, or system builder designs do reflect proven configurations.
One thing I've been meaning to ask the Awin community is relevant to Windows 7 (all versions), which on occasion, following a cold start, or restart, will fail to load the selected profile. I've seen this with alarming regularity with the RTM build. The OS will load a default profile. A restart solves it and the selected profile loads properly. It's interesting and we have no specific data indicating why this happens - so far, it is configuration independent and it happens on 32 and 64 bit versions of the new OS. Have you seen this behavior? Anyone else? We're still assessing why this is happening and any ideas, or added data would be welcome. Thanks, Lloyd |
| #10 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 8/19/2009 9:59:31 AM |
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#9: Iketchum, so far I have not seen the issue you mentioned; I have W7 RTM installed on five machines, 4 64 bit and one 32 bit in order to use our HP scanner. What I noted is that RTM seems not so "snappy" as previous builds which is weird because Beta builds have more telemetry services than the RTM one.
Do you see this behaviour in several machines or just some specific ones? Upgrade or clean install? I personally use only clean install but obviously as a system builder you have to accomodate the needs of people that may not be willing to go this way. The last thing that comes to my mind is to check the MBR. |
| #11 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/19/2009 10:27:15 AM |
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#10, Fritzly,
11 Test machines. All RTM bits. 6 clean installs and 5 upgrades of different types - over, parallel custom, etc... half in each group are 32 bit - the others, obviously, x64. All are at least Core 2 Duo, and higher. There are sub-groups for different AV solutions and mixes of SW. For example, some have Blu-ray/HD DVD software on them and others have a mix of applications. All systems exhibit the behavior from time to time - domain joined and unjoined. Some have mapped shares and some do not. So far, the only consistent variable is Windows 7. Also, as I have said, Windows 7 feels no quicker than Windows Vista SP2 on identical hardware. Yes, 7 does boot a little quicker and it does not pre-fetch as much, so the desktop is there quicker (big deal!) - as such it uses less RAM - UNLESS you have 4 GB, or more and then it uses about the same after a few hours. Yes, it is slower under the mouse than the RC and yes, test RTM systems are identical to those used during the BETA and RC test phase. One note to mention. All Windows 7 test systems have UAC adjusted upward (to Vista defaults) to always prompt when changes are made. All test systems are run as standard users requiring a standard user's (runninging in admin approval mode) credentials to elevate. We've captured all processes and transactions at start and when affected, local user apps data fails to load. We're looking at the credential manager/cache specifically. So far, no answers... |
| #12 By 8556 (173.27.241.123) at 8/19/2009 3:57:02 PM |
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Lloyd: How many of the 11 machine are using AMD processors? The latest 45-nm Core 2 Duo systems I put together seem slower than older 65-nm Core 2 Duo machines with clean installs. Too bad I never benchmarked the older machines. I intend to do so with 65-nm and 45-nm Core 2 Duo's on the same board to see if its my imagination. However, using Foxconn boards (Intel - Intel chipset; AMD - NVidia chipset) the AMD 2.7-GHz Athlon 64 (single core) runs rings around the 2.8-GHz Core 2 Duo Intel chipset build. Any thoughts other than to use more expensive motherboards?
Edit was to correct the number of machines form 12 to 11. Not a good day for my typing. This post was edited by bobsireno on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 15:58. |
| #13 By 8556 (173.27.241.123) at 8/19/2009 3:57:22 PM |
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Lousy accidental double post!! Sorry!! This post was edited by bobsireno on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 15:57. |
| #14 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/19/2009 8:25:36 PM |
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#13, Hi Bobsireno,
None are AMD processors. We do not use, or build on them. Four of the machines are X38 based chipsets (ASUS). The remainder, less one notebook, are X58 chipsets. All are high end ASUS boards - including the notebook, which is a custom board designed to house a socket 775 CPU (in this case, a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo clocked up to 3.26). 5 x are 65nm process based, 6 x are 45nm based. All are running the latest BIOS revs and drivers released 20 to 27 July, 2009 (ASUS has released all new drivers for socket 1366 boards and WIndows 7 x64). The 65nm Core 2 Quads ran circles around the 45nm based X58's until the new drivers were released. They also STILL feel a lot snappier. Very sadly, disc I/O just stinks (311 MB/Sec.... I know... I know.... that seems great, but trust me, it is not... we get a lot more out of our systems normally). V2 Raptors in RAID 0+1. I am starting to think the issue is going to be related to the ASUS IO.SYS drivers on largely 1366 based boards. We'll try other boards and see what we get, but as you can imagine, moving off of our baseline in any great numbers, would be very difficult. Needless to say, I am pretty furstrated. I can't sell, or ship systems I would not be more than happy to use myself. Any ideas, or test data would be appreciated. Thanks, Lloyd |
| #15 By 17855 (98.156.78.242) at 8/19/2009 9:42:45 PM |
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#14 lketchum Just food for thought. 1) The raid driver, was it downloaded from Intel or Asus? 2) Are the optical drives SATA and are they on the same controller? Did you use the USMT or some other method to import the user data? This post was edited by awiltfong on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 22:02. |
| #16 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/20/2009 3:00:27 AM |
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#15, RAID drivers are either from ASUS (but we have tried intel), or third party controller drivers (3ware) as applicable (we often do not use on-board). Optical drives are SATA and on their own controller. We did not use the USMT for custom installs - e.g., where a parellel install was made, creating a Windows.old dir. In some cases, we did in-place upgrades and others, clean installs, and as shared, custom/parallel installs. Where parallel installs are made on joined machines, we either manually copied older files, or manually copied the entire profile (for test scenarios, etc... as one might when migrating a user on one domain to another and one desired to keep all user settings, but load them in the context of the new domain).
The issues seems to be independent of any specific configuration and the behaviro can be reliably reproduced by logging in immediately after user names appear on the log in screen - the quicker one logs in, the more likely it is to happen. (unjoined). The same can be reproduced on a joined system when the cache/last logged user login screen appears on cold, and or hot restart. If one waits approximately 10 seconds after a cold or hot restart, the behavior can be avoided, but not always. All data we have so far suggests that the problem is related to IO.SYS and how 7 caches (or not) data to the disc cache. I should mention that we use WD Raptors (V2/RE3), but have tested Seagate 7200.12r and WD Caviar Blacks (750's and 1 TB's). Thanks all for your ideas and insight. |
| #17 By 17855 (205.167.180.131) at 8/20/2009 7:29:52 AM |
| #16. Can you cut and paste the Event entry in the application log corresponding to the Profile failing to start? |
| #18 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at 8/20/2009 11:27:48 AM |
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#17, the relevant service is the Windows User Profile Service
(path, C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs) I'll clip a representative example below my post - since no specific or consistent combination of user registry handles leaks and unloads when a machine displays the behavior on a Windows 7 RTM based system. NEW: Of note and interest here: We do elevate UAC controls from their defaults in Windows 7 to "Always notify" (the Vista Default). After many rounds of testing, we have been unable to reproduce the behavior when the defaults for Windows 7 UAC are left as is. This is significant, as we do not endorse the new default Windows 7 UAC setting and setting it to the maximum level is a baseline requirement. Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-User Profiles Service Date: 8/18/2009 4:59:57 PM Event ID: 1530 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: LKWIN7T6 Description: Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards. DETAIL - 5 user registry handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004: Process 516 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\lsass.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004 Process 516 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\lsass.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004 Process 516 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\lsass.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\Disallowed Process 516 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\lsass.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\My Process 516 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\lsass.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1093197620-4113523326-1371958913-1004\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\CA |
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