Microsoft have said that there WILL be an upgrade option, for Windows XP users wanting to buy Windows 7. However, it’s not an upgrade in the usual sense of the word!
Windows 7 upgrade from XP – NOT really an upgrade
According to a post on The Register, a Microsoft spokesman has said:
“I can confirm that customers will be able to purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 – however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7. This requires the user to back up their data, install Windows 7, re-install the programs and restore their data.”
Obviously, this is a clean install and not an upgrade!
I think I know where the confusion comes from. Microsoft have decided to offer Windows 7 to XP users for an ‘upgrade price.’ Then, in a typical crappy Microsoft PR move, some bright spark has decided to call the process an upgrade.
Obviously, Windows Vista users will be able to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 in the usual way; as the OS is pretty-much the same. This, of course, is prompting many people (including me) to ask whether Windows 7 is REALLY just a big service pack to make Vista the OS we were promised when it launched.
Every time Microsoft do something dumb like this, I am left wondering how come the biggest company in the world has what must be the worst marketing and PR in the whole IT industry.
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It’s things like this (not to mention the Vista fiasco) that make Microsoft such a laughing-stock. For God’s sake Microsoft, why do you have to make to make every little thing so darn difficult? :-s
Funny way to PR Win 7 :)
“however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7. This requires the user to back up their data, install Windows 7, re-install the programs and restore their data.” Do MS think we are so dumb to believe that`s an upgrade !!!
I have to agree, how can a company that had such a great marketing presence with executive management in the 90’s fall down like this so quickly. Products that work well are hardly known and Windows is falling apart. Windows 7 (or 6) looks more like a SP than an upgrade to me. It’s shameful, they have some great stuff but they continue to fumble in communications and sales.
Yea, typical. However,
“Every time Microsoft do something dumb like this, I am left wondering how come the biggest company in the world has what must be the worst marketing and PR in the whole IT industry”
.. and every time someone makes a thoughtless complaint like this, I am left wondering how they can be so dumb. Bad marketing? Are you kidding? Microsoft has one of the most successful marketing track records, precisely because they pull moves like this. Sure they piss off knowledgeable people like us, but they WORK on the (far more numerous) lay users. Bad PR, yes. Bad marketing, NO. Marketing > PR. Thus, net gain.
We agree this is a rather d*ck-move by MS to people like us, but to also say they have terrible marketing is to simply be ignorant of how and why marketing works, or at least of the goals marketing tries to achieve.
“Obviously, Windows Vista users will be able to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 in the usual way; as the OS is pretty-much the same. This, of course, is prompting many people (including me) to ask whether Windows 7 is REALLY just a big service pack to make Vista the OS we were promised when it launched.”
Seriously? If Windows 7 was a service pack to Vista, and you can upgrade from Vista to 7, then you would be able to upgrade from XP to 7.
The truth is that XP and Vista are very different, and Vista and 7 are very different, although the team took the time to code an automated upgrade from Vista to 7 but not from XP to 7, because it would have taken twice as much work.
Who the fuck uses performs upgrade installations anyway? And why are you QQ’ing about it?
Backup your shit on XP, install 7, and put your shit back. Upgrade installations don’t do anything you can’t do on your own; they’re just there to hold your whiny little hand.
just like moving from Windows 2000 to Vista. You know, I have upgraded from Mac OX 10.0 up through 10.4 Tiger and never had to reinstall anything. Apple will have 10.6 Snow Lepord out before whatever MS decides to name the new widows virus anyway.
I don’t see a problem. A clean installation is still upgrading.
If you have XP, then you get rid of it an install Windows 7, you’ve upgraded your OS. If you have 1GB or RAM, then you get rid of it and install 4 GB RAM, you’ve upgraded your RAM.
That’s what MS hope people will think.
Reinstall!!! This is big pain i think with so much data and programs installed already. This is clear MS guys do stupid things, lol it is expected from them in 2009.
Exactly it, Microsoft’s way to get more cash from the XP users, I installed 7 and it seems very stable, I had no problems with it.
http://tech4000.blogspot.com
Why move from XP x68 or XP x64, they are still MS’s best OSs to date.
Correction: Not the biggest company in the world. Maybe the biggest unethical company in the world. THE biggest company in the world has an annual profit equal to the MS gross.
Unethical ? naaaaaaa hahahaha!
Well, I can see it quite clearly from where I stand at the moment:
1. Microsoft was started by a man with a vision and no team.
2. The man with the vision hired a bunch of programmers to continue to work of the guy who wrote DOS.
3. At a time where computers were expensive things for only very wealthy people (back when apple was educating itself about its public), this madman called bill gates was venturing into a world of having many clients who knew nothing about what they were acquiring.
4. Microsoft didn’t have Microsoft as an example of poor management in this knew world, and being big and inneficient and inflexible, it grew in disorder, while a parallel world developed in the opposite direction: Slow, consistent growth.
5. Microsoft’s team of old style businessman with both eyes on profit, and the poor habit of hiding it’s problems by trying to cover them up with lies, dragged itself around, being occasionally beat up by the organized clan, like a bee trying to sting an elephant.
6. As Microsoft tested the market with poorly thought of solutions for problems it was creating along its journey, the organized clan was coming up with much better solutions, that were developed more slowly and carefully, but often inaccessible for the general public because, well, if you’re a noob, your should RTFM.
Today, we see the result of a giant which was trying to tend to its client’s problems by throwing a huge ammount of money in wrong directions, while a very well organized world developed alongside it.
For the future, we will see how the organized guys will try to look more and more pleasing to the customer (as Microsoft has failed at trying to be), while the giant tries to become structured well enough to compete with it’s organized friend.
Both monsters are on a journey to a single place, of balance.
Microsoft will learn that it’s operating system has to be free of charge (as it has been for the majority of its users), or it will perish.
The organized guys will learn that they must look at people who don’t eat and breathe and sleep computers with a kinder eye (as they are successfully doing already, after some time of blind failure).
The line between them is ever growing thinner, and they will become one. One way, or another.
I am LAUGHING so hard , OK lets start from the top , vista sucked nobody wanted it “still dont” now we have windows 7 without a xp upgrade this = no large xp base moving upto windows 7 anytime soon = no extra or new revenue for microsoft . I can only wait to hear the PR from microsoft 1 year from now when they are on tv wondering ?? what went wrong .. Like dumbasses without a vision they alienated all their xp user base from Window 7 ,(nice going you stupid people) This is exactly why microsoft has “bad marketing” “Bad PR” . I guess I have no choice to just upgrade everything to linux or mac , Im so sick of waiting for microsoft to fart a decent idea out somewhere .