Basically, if you’ve bought a PC that came with certain versions of Vista installed, from June 26, 2009 to January 10, 2010, you get an upgrade to Windows 7 for free! According to the Microsoft Press Release:

“There is a lot of excitement for Windows 7 in the marketplace today. However, many consumers need a new Windows PC for school, work or home before October 22,” said Brad Brooks, corporate vice president, Windows consumer marketing at Microsoft. “So starting June 26th, any customer who buys a PC from a participating computer maker or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate will also receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Window 7 at little or no cost.”

In other words, only Vista Home Basic users are exempted from this program. Micro Center has compiled a list of manufacturers included in the program, with relevant links:

Windows 7 OEM Upgrade Info

Acer
Upgrade Info

Averatec
Upgrade Info

Compaq
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Dell
Upgrade Info
Support Info

eMachines
Upgrade Info

Fujitsu
Upgrade Info

Gateway
Upgrade Info

HP
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Lenovo
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Retail Box Upgrade
Upgrade and Support Info

Sony
Upgrade Info

Toshiba
Upgrade Info

Velocity Micro
Upgrade and Support Info

Announced today, the official pricing of Windows 7 is as follows:

Retail

• Home Premium $199.99
• Professional $299.99
• Ultimate $319.99

Upgrade Packages

• Home Premium $119.99
• Professional $199.99
• Ultimate $219.99

Courtesy Wikipedia

In other words, $120, $200, and $220 respectively. Before you get excited about the lower prices (when compared to Vista), remember that only 1% actually buy retail OS copies. The rest download bootleg copies from torrent sites get the OS when they buy a new computer.

Still, it’s great seeing Microsoft slashing their flagship product prices a bit. Maybe we’ll see less people call the company “M$” on online forums.

Some bad news for Windows XP users though: Windows 7 will insist on a clean install, allowing no upgrades. Any Windows 7 upgrade package will work with XP though, checking first if the XP installation is legit before installing itself onto the same partition as XP.

One more thing to keep in mind: upgrading to Windows 7 from a higher edition of Vista will also require a clean install, as in the case of a Vista Ultimate user wanting to install Windows 7 Home Premium.

The $10,000 Internet Explorer 8 Promo: Follow clues laid down @tengrand_IE8 on Twitter, to find “a cleverly concealed webpage that only Internet Explorer 8 can view.” Seems straightforward enough, except the promo makes sure to ask you to “Ditch the web browser you’re using. If you try to find the $10,000 with Firefox, you’ll get nowhere.” The promo details are here.

Screenshot of Promo Page

Hopefully Microsoft is trying to promote how well IE8 properly displays web pages, being so faithful to existing web standards that it can reveal what competing browsers can’t. This so-called hidden website had better not be dependent on any special web rendering functionality available only through IE8. That would validate critics’ long-time assertions that Microsoft refuses to play the web standards game just to maintain their dominance of the browser market.

Case in point: Internet Explorer 6. The browser, still the most widely used today, continues to give web designers nightmares, thanks to the non-standard methods Microsoft insisted on using to display web pages.

Since StatCounter started tracking Microsoft Bing’s online presence last June 1, the search engine has grabbed a market share of 5.56%—about 0.39% higher than Yahoo as of June 4.

Courtesy of StatCounter

No doubt, Microsoft’s marketing push has helped. I’m sure Bing has benefited from the relative success of Windows 7 to grab the attention of the more tech-minded, while more casual users probably try Bing out of curiosity.

It remains to be seen if Bing will maintain its momentum. Google after all retains its stranglehold on search at 87.66%. Yet it’s actually lost almost two percent market share over the June 1 - June 4 period (Yahoo lost “only” 0.14%, ending up at 5.17%). If StatCounter is an accurate tracker of US online search habits (the figures cited here only cover that country), and if Bing can manage to sustain its growth over the next few months, Microsoft will definitely have a winner here.

Yahoo, on the other hand, ends up losing face again. A search pioneer drops to third to a relative newcomer.

Is it just me, but is the second Lauren Laptop Hunter (the one with mom) cuter than the first?

Video: Laptop Hunters $1700 – Lauren and Sue get a Dell XPS 13

Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion

So, based on the brand preferences of 5,000 people, it seems Microsoft’s Laptop Hunter ads are working:

At least that’s the findings of a study done by BrandIndex, who asked 5,000 people whether or not they believe they get good value for their money from a PC or Mac.

Apple had its highest BrandIndex rating in late winter, according to Ad Age, with a score of 70 on a scale of -100 to 100 (zero means neutral). Apple today sits at a much lower rating of 12.4.

Microsoft sat near zero in early February to a value-perception score of 46.2 presently, noted the report.

However, as noted by Tom’s Hardware, it’s also possible that the PC’s lower prices appeal more to consumers during these relatively hard economic times. Turns out Microsoft’s campaign could’ve made its debut at just the right time.

Here’s the latest one, showing “Sheila” supposedly spending $2,000 of Microsoft’s money to find the perfect laptop for video editing:

Microsoft’s Laptop Hunter ads have attracted attention online for its subtle attacks on Apple, and as more proof that Microsoft is taking marketing more seriously. Personally, I can easily point out flaws in the Laptop Hunters’ messaging (which is not helped by its simplistic presentation of computer realities), but I doubt if anyone can. The fact remains that Microsoft is starting to become more concerned with appearances, rather than just the cold, technical specs.

Sure, Sheila glosses over the realities of her laptop hunt. But that was for the sake of cramming everything into a minute. Besides, how boring would it be for her to boast “Oh wow, it’s got workstation-quality dedicated graphics?!?”. This new appearance-oriented approach apparently extends even to Windows 7, with Gizmodo reporting in its Windows 7 RC 1 benchmarking post:

What’s really interesting is that in regular usage, Windows 7 still feels faster and more responsive than Vista, even though the objective numbers say otherwise. It’s more than just a simple “hey, it’s not Vista” placebo effect: It points to a slicker, refined user experience that makes you feel like the OS responds more hastily or smoothly to your whims. And that’s what really matters, more than the numbers.

Amen.

To rebut a wall street journal article that declared Verizon Wireless and Microsoft were on an iPhone rival, Microsoft spokesman John Starkweather said “Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone. We’re deepening our relationships with our hardware partners”, as reported by PC Mag.

The last sentence of that money quote does make sense. After all, if you’ve spent years licensing—and earning—off manufacturers who want to use your mobile platform, you don’t kill that kind of Golden Goose. This remains true even if your mobile platform has steadily lost market share and presence to Apple’s offerings, and even a yet-to-be-released smartphone from Palm.

What makes more sense are rumors of Zune functionality integrated with Windows Mobile 7, due for release in 2010. Which of course, is another way of saying “we’ll improve Windows Mobile’s media player.” If ever Microsoft was just pulling our leg, and a Microsoft-phone is actually under development, I don’t think it will be this bad:

I don’t really care if Microsoft decides to drop Internet Explorer or not. As a frustrated web designer, all I ask is that the company make future browsers even more compliant with the standards established by the W3C. Read more

It’s a great idea: instead of offering troubleshooting users steps to take, why not automatically apply the fix?

That’s the point of Microsoft’s new “Fix it” button, which has started showing up on some of the help pages available through the company website:

“If we know what those 15 steps are why shouldn’t we just script it,” said Lori Brownell, Microsoft’s general manager of product quality and online support

The “Fix it” option is still fairly rare, showing up in around 100 different help documents. The effort is growing rapidly, though, up from just four such fixes when the program quietly began in December.

Microsoft continues to offer users the option of doing things on their own if they either don’t trust Microsoft or just like being in control.

“We’re not trying to hide anything,” she said.

Unfortunately, the Fix it button will probably do more harm than good for Microsoft’s reputation. Read more