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Jun 05, 08 - 01:56 pm Comment from: John

Wow---I can downgrade? For FREE???

Awesome!

I think this is the first time I've ever heard such idiocy come out of a real company....

I know how you can do better than Windows XP and/or Vista . . .

OS X . . . in all of its forms . . .

Jun 05, 08 - 02:00 pm Comment from: John

.... and just to add: can you imagine Steve Jobs having to say something like this??

"Hey, folks, just buy OS 10.5, and--free--you can downgrade to OS 10.0."

Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

I'm still not buying Vista. Or XP.

Can I get OS 8 with Snow Leopard?

so if i downgrade, i think i shud get refunded for the difference!!!!!

Gee, I wonder what Sarbanes-Oxley has to say about "free" downgrading?

Jun 05, 08 - 02:12 pm Comment from: Bunsen Honeydew

Is it just me or is this a sad sad gimmick to pad your "Vista Sales" stats to the share holders? Instead of going straight to XP, Visit Vista first.


"you are coming to a sad realization; cancel or allow?"

"Allow"

PS; i'll be throwing chairs in boardrooms till jr. goes to college!!!

Steve Balmer: Throwing chairs since 2001

Jun 05, 08 - 02:14 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

"through which a few disgruntled customers"

what's he smoking, and where can I get some?

Jun 05, 08 - 02:15 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

Gawd.... this is priceless. Please SJ, make a "Hi I'm A Mac" commercial outta this.

Jun 05, 08 - 02:20 pm Comment from: IANTO

buying that POS vista and then down-grading still counts as a sale -

- "hey we sold X million copies" ( 1 installed user - the others downgraded )

Great sales incentive.

Only a company with a "Start Button" to "Shut the Computer Down" could think this is a strategy.

And only blind followers of such ineptitude would see it's brilliance.

War is Peace

Jun 05, 08 - 02:36 pm Comment from: MacNScott

How about satisfaction or your money back.

I'd like to see that.

Gee, it's like ordering the forceable sodomy but getting the wood plank with the rusty nail in the groin for free!!

Jun 05, 08 - 02:42 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

And they'll count every single one of the downgrades as a Vista sale.

Is this only for boxed copies bought off the shelf or will pre-installed versions do the downgrade, too?

Jun 05, 08 - 02:45 pm Comment from: MacLovin

@Drunk Cheney: They fixed this "minor problem" with vista, the start menu, I mean "windows orb" is what you click to shut it down now...

And I can't wait do downgrade to XP!! All I have to do is buy Vista, which is $200 to get XP which originally cost $99! wow! what a deal!!! Great job ballmer!! Way to keep thinking on your feet!

Jun 05, 08 - 02:48 pm Comment from: ken1w

Kinda like, if you don't like the new iMovie, you can download the old version for free, isn't it?

Microsoft is now even copying Apple's bad moves...

People forget he was and is a salesman. Anything for the sale, huh monkey boy?

Buy Windows Vista - $200
Fix Windows Vista - $300
Downgrade to an ancient operating system - Priceless.

MDN Magic Word - arms

As in - All of the current Vista customers were up in arms over the quality of their operating system.

Or - Microsoft charges an arm and a leg for a system that requires hours to make operational.

"'Customers get both,' said Ballmer ... simply purchase Vista and exercise the downgrade option ... 'I don't know how you can do better than getting both,' he said."

Great. So customers can have the outdated and insecure OS or the bloated and slow one with the baked in DRM. Or they can have both turkeys.

I know how you can do better, and so do many of Mr. Ballmer's ex-customers.

The cynicism and the contempt of Ballmer for his customers are astonishing !
I suppose that is the kind of attitude you would expect form a guy who thinks his company is shielded from the constraints of a truly free market...

MDN Magic Word : Force
«We will force you to get Vista, whether you like it or not !»

@wings2sky
... And i am very sad! I can't install even Tiger on my Mac IIfx 33Mhz Motorolla!!! Isn't that a shame?

Jun 05, 08 - 03:27 pm Comment from: Ampar

"a few disgruntled customers"

Save the gruntled ones first.

Why stop at XP, downgrade all the way to DOS! It screams on recent pcs, I hear.

Jun 05, 08 - 03:42 pm Comment from: It's About Time

Perhaps Microsoft's board will ask Ballmer sometime soon to downgrade to the unemployment line.

Apple did do this with OS X. You got OS 9 as well. It was called "Classic". However, you did actually get both in that you could use both at the same time and pretty near seamlessly. You might get both Vista and XP with this, but you can't use both. Classic was a bridge to enable legacy programs to run until OS X replacements could be written. Vista is supposed to run XP programs. There are not supposed to be any legacy programs.

As for iMovie. Don't like iMovie '08. Download iMovie '06. You get both programs and can use either or both simultaneously. Extra cost of '08 vs '06 is zero. Not operating systems, so not comparable.

Jun 05, 08 - 03:46 pm Comment from: since1985

John said: .... and just to add: can you imagine Steve Jobs having to say something like this??

"Hey, folks, just buy OS 10.5, and--free--you can downgrade to OS 10.0."

Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

----------------

Hey, John. Hope you don't mind. You had such a great comment, I posted it as a comment on the original article. I only annotated it with "that's how old XP is". (Unfortunately, the brackets in which I put the comment caused it to format as a URL.)

Can anyone tell me how this downgrading process is actually done? Is there XP code on the installation disk that can simply be activated, or does the consumer have to download a (or purchase a hard) copy of XP from Microsoft? I am assuming that Vista is not simply an upgraded version of XP that can have the upgrade components deleted.

I was going to ask the same thing about how to downgrade, then I realized I didn't care since I won't be buying Vista ever, and I don't even know where my XP cd is anymore, gotta love Leapord, and Ubuntu.

Jun 05, 08 - 04:40 pm Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

I don't know why everyone is making fun of Ballmer on his offer. He could have charged for the downgrade. In fact, being the salesman he is, I'm sure $100 for a downgrade makes sense to him.

Jun 05, 08 - 05:11 pm Comment from: ChrisW357

OMG... I just... wow. I wanted to laugh my ass off but, in reality, it's sad that they're under that much pressure to let users downgrade. I think we can count, on one hand, all the Leopard users who wanted to downgrade to Tiger (or any other version preceding).

No, if Balmer was any good at marketing he'd relaunch XP as Windows Classic.

There's so much WOW! with Vista people are queing up to downgrade.

Microsoft software assurance program is making so much business sense now! For a "small" annual fee, upon release of Windows 7 you are allowed to downgrade back to XP free of charge.

Ballmer didn't go to Harvard for nothing. What brilliant marketing: We'll charge you even if you don't buy something from us.

Jun 05, 08 - 05:53 pm Comment from: Gandalf

I don't understand how Ballmer can be called a salesman, who would buy anything from this guy, ever.

I don't know how you can do better than getting both

Perhaps ONE solid, well-built OS that people WANT?

What next? Buy one "edition" of Vista, get the other five for free? MS could count all those as Vista sales as well.

This is not just a case of attempting to cover up a bad software release or a matter of disrespect toward their customer base. This becomes a legal matter now. By promoting this "loophole" in the license agreement, Ballmer is actually misrepresenting Microsoft's financial reporting to their share holders by declaring Windows XP purchases as Vista purchases. If share holders could see the reality of the Vista install base versus the Windows XP install base disguised as Vista, confidence in the future of the company would waver and the stock price would drop even more than it has already. I'm surprised a stock share holder hasn't already filed a class action suit against Microsoft for this little stunt. Not to mention the possible SEC violation it could possibly represent.

As far as I'm concerned, buy Apple stock, you won't be sorry!

I can hear the beginnings of a worldwide gasp. A gasp of the previously blinded windoze masses coming to the realization that they've duped, misled and blindly following Bill the Piper.

Hasta La Vista, Baby!

Jun 05, 08 - 10:13 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

Now every Windows sale is a Vista sale. The man is just a GENIUS with numbers.


...!

Downgrade? It thought Vista was actually a downgrade from XP.

Jun 06, 08 - 02:55 am Comment from: doc

"I tried to downgrade and all I got was this lousy blue screen," Dodgers said.

Duck Dodgers

"Gee, I wonder what Sarbanes-Oxley has to say about "free" downgrading?"

LOL

They have to charge the customer! LOL

This is just a blatent attempt by M$ to pad the numbers and make Vista appear to be selling well and not stinking so much. It could also be the only way Balmer can find to save his job. "See Bill, Vista is selling like hotcakes. You're welcome very much. Let's do lunch in 20 years after my last kid graduates from high school."

Jun 06, 08 - 03:29 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

I think what is going on here is that XP sales have been eating into M$'s desired Vista sales. Obviously the PC marketplace, particularly the Enterprise, consider Vista to be a POS and would scream bloody murder if access to XP disappeared. With this sneaky plan, oh so Microsoft, the company can turn lost Vista sales to XP into statistical sales of Vista, thus making the numbers look happy smiley as desired. And as noted, there will deliberately be no accounting for how many of those 'Vista' sales are in fact XP sales.

Way to go MegaloShaft.

Jun 09, 08 - 11:29 am Comment from: MacRaven

'I don't know how you can do better than getting both,' Ballmer said.

Yeah, Ballmer should get it at both ends, he deserves it.