Free upgrade from Winows Media Center to Windows Vista....Why??

pijetro · Member Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Location: Oskeeweewee Ontario

I'm noticing all the local shops are offering new computers with free upgrades..
Question..
Assuming Media Center is a dedicated O.S., used for people with centralized multimedia entertainment in mind, why would anybody want to trade for Windows Vista??

I mean, as far as i understand, that would be like apples and oranges.....right??
What gives besides the obvious 64bit support that Vista offers?

yoda313 · POLLSTER Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: the real world

Vista has a Media Center version of its own.

The deals are to get people to buy a new computer now but still have them use VISTA when its finally released.
_________________
Live long and prosper - and rock on dude!!!!

TBoneit · Member Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: USA

Why, The sellers are afraid that if they don't offer Vista as a free upgrade no-one will buy their XP equipped computers now. If I were going to buy a new computer now I'd be looking for the vista upgrade version for down the road and stay with XP for now.

We had a customer in our shop that ordered a custom computer, Then she must have gotten to talking with here friends and came back and wanted to know if we were going to give her a free Vista upgrade? After she had beaten the price to to near cost, no thanks. We refunded her deposit. I'd bet she went out to badmouth us because we wouldn't give her a free upgrade and only gave her a refund. The free Vista upgrade costs us money as near as I can tell. One of our Wholesalers sent us the forms to give out for a Vista upgrade via Microsoft. Only for Pro or Media center. And you need to pay MS some $$$. Since this woman wanted to save money on home we would have as far as I can tell have to eaten the increase to XP Pro, and paid MS for the upgrade after haveing been beaten down on theprofit margin to where it was hardly worth doing anyway.

Oh well, got to go get some some sleep. I have to assemble a Used P4 3.2 Ghz computer tommrrow, I say used since it will have some new parts and some used parts so we will of course sell it as used.

pijetro · Member Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Location: Oskeeweewee Ontario

Okay, a bit confused. Let's fill in the blanks....

There's Windows XP..
There's Windows Media Centre
There's Windows Vista..

Is that to say that Media Centre is built on XP platform, and a Vista platform or is it a totally separate O.S. to begin with??

painkiller · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Planet? What Planet?

Don't forget that Vista locks down copyrighted content even moreso than ever before.....
_________________
Whatever doesn't kill me, merely ticks me off. (Never again a Sony consumer.)

yoda313 · POLLSTER Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: the real world

TBoneit · Member Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: USA

pijetro · Member Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Location: Oskeeweewee Ontario

Got it...
So the costumers need to be aware that the upgrade from XP Media Centre to Vista needs to be Vista Home Premium, and not just home basic...

I need to do some independent reading on how differently Media Centre performs, as opposed to what any old O.S. can't do...Asides from friendly GUI...

EAO · Member Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Location: United States

Can't believe what a bunch of dumb asses the general public is about Vista.

Oh and fwiw if you like to build through upgrading a single case like I do please stay far far away from the OEM XP versions that get's sold with upgrade coupons. I called M$ twice after the issue to reinstall Vista multiple times was settled.

The upgrade coupons are considered OEM versions of Vista. Thay are still tied to your first build. Any upgrade that needs a re-register ( except for catastrophic failure - good luck proving that) needs a new Vista purchase.

Only retail copies of Vista will allow you to re-register future builds in a single PC.