David

Think you've sent the MS phone lines into partial meltdown:-).

I eventually got through on the UK number to offer my polite and constructive comments on the AP OEM issue.

The lady at the other end of the phone had obviously heard this complint before i.e. "we've had lots of calls on this particular issue".

Could changes be afoot in the next update?

Be good.

David,

Call is made!

Thanks,

Philip E.

I phoned in Microsoft in December when it looked like the Action pack may contain less action than expected and was basically told we will give you what we think is best. I sent an email and got the standard lame excuse last week, no indication at any time that officially there was any care. Do you think phoning again will make any difference, it seems Microsoft have made a decision and are spending a lot of time defending a weakening argument. In some countries they do not even offer an upgrade option. The only reason you are seeing traffic on blogs is we are getting support and some discussion where going through the official channels appears pointless but I would be more than happy to be proved wrong. I still cannot understand what Microsoft has to gain by clearly antagonising their partners. Are they hoping to make a windfall from all their partners paying for an upgrade if in fact they can in their country?

Thanks David, I appreciate your human face to Microsoft and clear talking. Maybe I mix in the wrong circles but the Action Pack is not very well known where I am. So if you have to be a registered business to get the pack are you saying lots of subscribers are giving away or selling surplus licences? In my experience Windows XP pirate software installs are people running pre SP1 versions and are at a high risk to themselves.  Vista goes a long way to solve the simple methods to avoid the shortcomings of activation in XP but I think people will still work their way around it. These people in my opinion will not purchase Vista upgrades anyway. Piracy in Vista will more than likely exist with people with lots of spare time fiddle and no money or in countries that do not respect copywrite but I don't have the statistics, maybe this is the best thing for Microsoft and they feel they can leave partners less than satisfied, maybe rather than passing on complaints you should get the MS decision makers this article I read on smart bloggers site http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html ;-)

I'm a new Action Pack subscriber, and I absolutely love it! I ordered at the end of December so I'd be sure to get the 2006 Q4 kit as well as the Q1 kit. Being able to run these server and client apps in production for $300/year - there's no other way I could afford to do it. I can play with the big guys for a fraction of what it would cost otherwise.

I'd love to have an MSDN license too because I do a lot of eval and dev work, but I can't afford it yet. To me, MAPS is a great value.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone can have any complaints about receiving such a huge amount of expensive software for such pocket change. I'm sure the poor kids at the MS call center have better things to do than suffer a barrage of calls from people who don't get a free Porsch with their Ford FIesta.

I think the best thing for action pack is to be put online and then have a points scheme, so say you wanted vista ultimate thats worth 500 points as buisiness upgrade is worth 250 points and you work out how many points per license etc. I for one use half the stuff sent to me in action pack but would use more for specific testing.  I have sent a e-mail to microsoft with these thoughts as well but if somebody else thinks the same please log it with them!!!

Hello All

I work as part of the partner marketing team and I'm going to be executing some activity to promote Action Pack in the coming weeks.  I'd be interested in any comments or queries that you might like to send directly to me. My email address is: [email protected].

Dell

I just discovered one gotcha with the Action Pack that I'm not thrilled about. Apparently the Office 2007 key isn't valid for Terminal Services. This is especially disappointing because it makes it hard for me to control software such as Office 2007 once it's installed on a consultant's personal laptop. If the relationship is severed, chances are Office 2007 won't be uninstalled from the laptop. Using TS the problem goes away.

Hello! Very good job(this site)! Thank you man.