I hate Microsoft. Vista release is a debacle.

[Grminalac]

The other day I login to eopen and lo and behold I have keys for Windows Vista and Office 2007. How nice I say I will contact CDW and have them send me the media kit.

I call CDW, they do not have the media kit, but claim you can download the software from the eopen site. (which normally doesn't have software downloads.) I cannot find any way to download, but do see evidence on microsofts website that media is available for download to those with software assurance. You see CDW is currently selling office 2007, they have the licenses in stock. But no media kits... What good is the license without the media? In fact my rep stated that they don't even sell the 2003 licenses anymore.

So I call Microsoft and spend about two hours on the phone being transferred around. I talked to about four people who said the media was available and about six who said it wasn't or had no idea. Of course, noone actually knew how to recieve the download and referred me back to CDW.

I am somewhat confused.

Why is it that you spend a couple hundred thousand on software licensing, but cannot even get any information on the products you just purchased?

 

[drag]

This is normal for any large business.

Say you have a small business with a few hundred people. You can still get away with the small business sort of management were you have the CEO in charge and him and a couple other people know everything that is going on and can go to any part of the company and change things and straighten problems out.

But with a company that gets large you can't do that. Everything has to be delegated and every section must be made semi-independant otherwise it's impossible to manage. If you try to put one guy in charge then there is no way he could have enough time in the world to get his job done.. The company would be paralized. So you end up with one part of the company doing something and it's going to take a long time before other parts are able to react. People make deals, situations change, people try new stuff, people get laid off, new products, new announcements. Each change gets rippled through the company like a tub of jello. Nobody in a large business is realy in charge anymore. Maybe you can look at the CEO has as much authority as a kindergarten teacher in a class of 20 or 30 kids; Sure she is in charge, but she can't afford to piss of the kids either.

This sort of thing is why if you want to be a early adopter you better be willing to put up with some pain.

 

[stash]

The other day? The thing just RTM'ed on Wednesday, and from my understanding nobody outside of MS would have access to it until today at the earliest (talking about Vista, I have no idea on Office).

Do you have a TAM?

 

[coupland]

Ahem. Nobody *inside* Microsoft has access to it, either. As stash says, it just RTMed. RTM != release so I'm not sure it's appropriate to call it a debacle. Chill, I'm sure the bits will be available shortly.

 

[stash]

Nobody *inside* Microsoft has access to it, either.

?

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: coupland
Ahem. Nobody *inside* Microsoft has access to it, either. As stash says, it just RTMed. RTM != release so I'm not sure it's appropriate to call it a debacle. Chill, I'm sure the bits will be available shortly.

someone on another forum mentioned they talked to an MS salesperson and they are running Vista on their laptops and the RTM is a lot better than the betas were

 

[coupland]

Originally posted by: alent1234
someone on another forum mentioned they talked to an MS salesperson and they are running Vista on their laptops and the RTM is a lot better than the betas were

Well, there was a MASSIVE improvement between Beta 2 and RC1, an incremental improvement in RC2, and I'm sure RTM is improved as well.

To be honest with you, 90% of the problems I've had with Vista were driver-related. I'd love to say they were tiny glitches but I've found some big-name drivers that just don't work properly -- and I'm talking top-3 companies in video and sound.

 

[stash]

Well now that Vista is done, you can expect the big ISVs to release RTM drivers around the time of general availability.

 

[Grminalac]

All is good, the links to download the software. Office 2007, exchange 2007 and vista are now in eopen.
(of course it says the site is down for maintenance until Sunday night)

Go figure

 

[stash]

Exchange hasn't RTM'ed yet, so I'm not sure what that link is about.

 

[Grminalac]

I have posted a picture of what the eopen download link provides.

link

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Grminalac
I have posted a picture of what the eopen download link provides.

link

What is exactly the issue here? Your upset that keys are available already but the images are not? Pretty normal for any MS release. I have trouble seeing where the 'debacle' is.

 

[Grminalac]

No I'm not upset about the keys. Its just when I call Microsoft support, half of the representatives have no idea that the software will even be available for download. Some have even insinuated that I don't have access to the keys even though I can see them on my site and tell me that I will have to wait until January. What upsets me is that a company spends a lot of money for software assurance and I cannot even get a straight answer from support on their product purchased. I was transferred around four times before I reached someone who was willing to even tell me which versions of the upcoming product I will be eligible for.

I am not upset because I did not have access to the software itself, I'm disgusted with the disinformation recieved. I realize that I don't work for the largest company and that we are small fish in a big ocean, but that doesn't change the fact that we spend over 67 grand for software assurance on top of normal licensing costs. I call it a debacle when you blow that sort of money and recieve that type of service.

I fully expect poor service when you spend 399 on a dell. But when you blow beaucoup money I would enjoy just being able to understand what the rep is saying without the use of a translator.

 

[bsobel]

I am not upset because I did not have access to the software itself, I'm disgusted with the disinformation recieved. I realize that I don't work for the largest company and that we are small fish in a big ocean, but that doesn't change the fact that we spend over 67 grand for software assurance on top of normal licensing costs. I call it a debacle when you blow that sort of money and recieve that type of service.

You'd have a case if Vista WAS available and it wasn't available to YOU even tho your paid for your sa. Come on, you think they were trying to screw with you? The OS isn't available yet and the call center you reached only knows what their script says. You jumped the gun and wasted your own time looking for something you should have known wasn't available yet.

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: coupland

Originally posted by: alent1234
someone on another forum mentioned they talked to an MS salesperson and they are running Vista on their laptops and the RTM is a lot better than the betas were

Well, there was a MASSIVE improvement between Beta 2 and RC1, an incremental improvement in RC2, and I'm sure RTM is improved as well.

To be honest with you, 90% of the problems I've had with Vista were driver-related. I'd love to say they were tiny glitches but I've found some big-name drivers that just don't work properly -- and I'm talking top-3 companies in video and sound.

nvidia and ATI both have vista drivers

vista even has nforce5 drivers as part of the OS

 

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by: alent1234

nvidia and ATI both have vista drivers

vista even has nforce5 drivers as part of the OS

And yet somehow there were any number of networking problems due to nforce2 and nforce4, and dual-screen support wasn't there for NV, and....

Yes, they do have drivers for the OS. That said, they are not fully functional drivers and are not up to the normal standards.

And of course, Creative is the worst. As usual.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Grminalac
The other day I login to eopen and lo and behold I have keys for Windows Vista and Office 2007. How nice I say I will contact CDW and have them send me the media kit.

I call CDW, they do not have the media kit, but claim you can download the software from the eopen site. (which normally doesn't have software downloads.) I cannot find any way to download, but do see evidence on microsofts website that media is available for download to those with software assurance. You see CDW is currently selling office 2007, they have the licenses in stock. But no media kits... What good is the license without the media? In fact my rep stated that they don't even sell the 2003 licenses anymore.

So I call Microsoft and spend about two hours on the phone being transferred around. I talked to about four people who said the media was available and about six who said it wasn't or had no idea. Of course, noone actually knew how to recieve the download and referred me back to CDW.

I am somewhat confused.

Why is it that you spend a couple hundred thousand on software licensing, but cannot even get any information on the products you just purchased?

The root cause of this problem is here:
"I call CDW, they do not have the media kit, but claim you can download the software from the eopen site."

Why on earth did you listent to them? If MS had said CDW has magical beans for sale that turn into computers when you add water, would you go round and round with CDW for hours and hours and get yourself into a rage trying to find these beans? No. You know better. Same applies here. You know this thing was just RTM. That means it's off being printed on DVDs and at some point will be available for download. Last I heard end of November was corporate customers.

It does not surprise me at all that the people you talked to at MS didn't know what you were talking about. It would have been the same as calling for the download link to magical beans. Try to cut the guys some slack

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: masteraleph

Originally posted by: alent1234

nvidia and ATI both have vista drivers

vista even has nforce5 drivers as part of the OS

And yet somehow there were any number of networking problems due to nforce2 and nforce4, and dual-screen support wasn't there for NV, and....

Yes, they do have drivers for the OS. That said, they are not fully functional drivers and are not up to the normal standards.

And of course, Creative is the worst. As usual.

my x-fi drivers work fine...

 

[A5]

At least Creative has tried to put drivers out. I haven't used the betas at all because M-Audio doesn't have a Vista driver of any kind available.

I'll probably just nuke my Vista partition and throw ubuntu on there just to mess around.