Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

RobR — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:49:20 GMT

Any word on Groove yet? Didn't see it in January and April just showed up yesterday, but it was Groove-less. Thanks!

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Jason Bringans — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:06:00 GMT

Hi David

Thanks for all your time on this, I, as most here would agree think you are one hell of a person.

I await the answers from corp from you. I am in no hurry to upgrade to Ultimate, that been said I am getting alot of calls daily from clients that have !Heard!! all about it.

TBH I am having more of a problem with selling them Bis Edition as it is, as the so called leak that SP1 is inc in 2ndQ 07.

Regards

Jason

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:52:10 GMT

For the answers to many questions, please look at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/02/12/windows-vista-windows-xp-office-2003-and-office-2007-action-pack-update-my-faq.aspx

thanks

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

SSScot — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 09:43:21 GMT

I was just wondering about other versions of Vista? I sell specialist software for the window & door industry and have been trying it on Vista Ultimate Beta which is dual booted with XP on my main machine. Everything seems to work except for some initial problems with the new user account settings (administrator is not administrator anymore!!!) However reports are now coming in from customers about problems with Home basic and Home Premium. Can i use my upgrade disk to create 30day demo systems to trouble shoot these problems or do i have to buy one of every version????

Things where so much easier with just Home and Pro (none of my customers ever really understood MCE)

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Mike P — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:51:52 GMT

Thanks for that David, I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that we are grateful. I kinda believe that much of what has been achieved so far is as a result of this blog. It's not about getting the best of everything for nothing, but about relative pricing. £199 a year gets us what, £15k+ of software. £150 for 1x Vista upgrade doesn't seem to be relative to the Action Pack pricing model.

Oh and one last thing, I got my Action Pack update by around the 15th Jan, I love Macs and think OS X is a damn good OS but hey....Microsoft have done a good job with Vista (allbeit a little over-complicated in areas such as upgrading!) and my WOW has most definitely started!!

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:55:38 GMT

Mike,

these prices are news to me, so I have asked the question as to why you should not use them - However it is possible that the action pack has "special" rules given the £199 for 10 copies and them being licensed only while you have action pack.

We are looking at some extra special benefits that I am "still" awaiting legal to define. Also the MS VAT is based on German tax, so is 19% - just a little bit more to claim back!!

Trust me, I have given corp a whole host of questions to answer - I just need to get the answers - and some of them are looking pretty cute!!

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Mike P — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:39:12 GMT

So i notice the upgrade links are now working (www.windowsanytimeupgrade.com/maps and https://emea.windowsanytimeupgradestore.com/WAU_DIRECT/home.aspx) although I'm a little puzzled as to why it costs £110 PER LICENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!

MS has arranged several merchants to provide this upgrade service to consumers (as well as providing it direct throught he urls above). There is a huge discrepancy in the pricing...

Comet -> https://comet.windowsanytimeupgrade-emea.com/WAU/Home.aspx -> £94.99

PC World -> https://pcworld.windowsanytimeupgrade-emea.com/WAU/Home.aspx -> £109.99

FNAC -> https://fnac.windowsanytimeupgrade-emea.com/WAU/Home.aspx -> £118.00

Vaio -> https://vaio.windowsanytimeupgrade-emea.com/WAU/Home.aspx -> £80.00

To see the complete list of EU merchants see https://www.windowsanytimeupgrade-emea.com/WAU/SelectMerchant.aspx

So does it matter which one we go with? If I had a choice I'd rather pay a MS Merchant £80 than MS themselves £110.

Also, this is the same price as that offered to consumers...where is the Action Pack discount that's been talked about so much?

So many questions, so few answers - I know it's not your fault David but this is just getting silly. Where are MS standing on this issue? From here it looks like they haven't ventured outside Redmond!

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Jason Bringans — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:35:43 GMT

David: Just wondering if the US have got back to you re us (UK) not been able to buy the upgrade ( see my post a few days ago).

Regards

Jason

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Neil Gregory — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:48:42 GMT

Thank you david, for all the effort you are going through!

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Envision — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:32:19 GMT

Well, I can tell you this much:

WAIT for David's answer. I went ahead and purchased the upgrade without media. I thought (from previous posts) this would get me the upgrade key to be used at any time. WRONG.

You have to run the upgrade process online immediately after the purchase. Lucky me I was doing it on a second PC and am now stuck with no files in my digital locker and no way to run the upgrade now as Vista isn't installed...

These things really have to be documented better......(not blaming David on that!)

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:18:51 GMT

So, here I am, at gone 2am in the morning, trying to find out the answer to this very question by chatting with corp.

It may well be that the MAPS CD is fine, but they are thinking about this.

As soon as I have an answer, I'll let you know.

ttfn & nighty night

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Envision — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:08:35 GMT

David,

Do we need to buy the media then or is the upgrade on the MAPS disc?

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:15:15 GMT

Neil,

we should have this - there was a technical fault on the web last week. I will chase it.

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Neil Gregory — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:20:53 GMT

So are we able to get the $139 upgrade or not? As we seem to be going around in corners, it would be useful to have all the vista platforms as I personally support a lot of home users who will by their nature get ultimate and also home premuim and as the buisiness edition has none of these features on I will not be able support them effecivily, yes I could have them on virtual pcs on trial versions but this will surely run out after thirty days?

We all only need 1 seat of operating systems or ten seats as most people that get Action Pack are small buisiness's as the larger business's will surely be either gold or certified partners and get MSDN instead???

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Envision — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:20:05 GMT

David,

Thank you for your time. I know its not fun having to be the public face in situations like this as both sides have valid arguements and you can't do much other than hear both sides.

As far as VL goes, most of the business clients I deal with get whatever is installed on their machine when they order it so I don't get much chance to sell that option.

As to the people who abused the OEM licenses....We could have a long disertation on how making rules and restrictions more complicated only hurts law abiding citizens. Those who break the law anyhow don't care that you made a new law. All this policy has accomplished is making it harder on those that abide by the rules. Criminals don't care about gun laws....they aren't buying their guns in the store anyhow. Tie a license key to a partner with a registration and nail those that violate it rather than making it worse on everyone who was following the rules to begin with. But that discussion could digress into its own mess so I'm not going to keep pushing on that one. I suspect it will fall on deaf ears in Redmond anyhow.

Lastly, I agree that Vista can be run on much less than recommended. I think you and I agree though that we need to walk the walk to truly get a feel for what our users are dealing with. We install across a platform from low end to high end. If our hardware is radically different from our user base we can't relate to what their experience is or should be.

With that, I again extend my thanks for your personal responses and we'll consider the horse dead.

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:11:30 GMT

I'm glad to have clarified this for you. On the MS employee front, we use the business volume license SKU, which is Enterprise - something your customers will also get if they buy using Open Value.

Unfortulately, the Vista client can only be enabled from Business to Enterprise via a Volume License Key, which requires a VL contract etc - something that is not part of Action Pack.

Also, due to the fact that action pack was absused and OEM license keys were sold to customers, volume licenses would make this much easier to abuse, so something very unlikely to be given out.

Once again, I do hear about the desire and we have forwarded it on to our colleagues in Redmond, but I don't see it changing in the short term.

Finally I have machines running Vista that have less than 1GB (768MB) of memory and running on old P3 based hardware. This is nor for a power user, but it all works well. You might not need new hardware for Vista, or ir might just be getting to the time when a hardware refresh was on the cards anyway.

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Envision — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:01:29 GMT

No, I don't NEED 10 copies, but the offer isn't clear so I was trying to find an answer somewhere. Thanks for the clarification.

We're a "tiny" business so we don't even use the 10 seats we are entitled to, however; the investment in hardware alone for Vista ultimate is a good punch in a tiny firms budget. I don't EXPECT my customers to upgrade (though some certainly will of their own accord) whereas the terms of the MAP do force me to upgrade. So it's apples to oranges.

A business doesn't need Vista Ultimate, unless of course your business is supporting Vista Ultimate. Even you mention the default for Microsoft employees is Enterprise.....a step over business....

Again, I'll do what I have to to forward my business, I just think the choice by Microsoft is contrary to the mission of the action pack.

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:33:45 GMT

On the upgrades $139 is per machine - do you need all your machines with this living / demo acpability - if you do, make the investment - you expect your customers too, so why not you too?

You need to understand that the MAPS team is bound by the Windows Team - they decided this, even if it impacts them negatively. Remember MS employees don't get Ultimate on their machines either as a rule - it is Enterprise. We have to put in a special request.

thanks for your passion - the suggestion at the TVP Symposium was 1 Ultimate key per Action Pack - we will ask in Copr for this.

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:29:50 GMT

Jason,

The US team did not believe there was a problem, but we have corrected them on this - they are working on it asap.

thanks

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Jason Bringans — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:28:35 GMT

David: wondering if there is any update on when we in the UK can do this ? As atm we still get

ether

1: www.windowsanytimeupgrade.com/maps you get a 'Not available in your Country/Region message'

2: As of Feb 4th, if you go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/anytimeupgrade.mspx you get a 'This facility ($139USD Ultimate Upgrade) will be available from 30th Jan, please check back soon' message.

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Envision — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 05:12:38 GMT

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

David Overton said:

2) If you buy the upgrade to Ultimate - it is for as long as you subscribe to Action Pack and Vista is the supplied OS - meaning no-one has discussed how this transfers when we ship Vienna (the next Windows OS - a few years away yet :-))

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

So then the $139 gets me the right to use that key the same 10 times as the XP or Vista Business that comes in the action pack?

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

David Overton ALSO said:

3) If you want to invest in a demo system, your choices are:

- Order the Demo Resourse Toolkit as previously mentioned

- Build a system and don't put in the key or activate - it will last until the timeout - long enough for most demos

- Make the investment into an OS so you can show your customers - if you don't see the value in the upgrade, why will they - if you want to sell, you have to live it - and that includes spending money sometimes - feeling blunt today as been on the go for 5 days and more to come.

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

A Demo is good for just that, a demo. We need machines to train on and troubleshoot on. As near as I can tell, I HAVE spent money....on the Action pack. I'm not asking for anything the package didn't claim to be. The purpose of the action pack is to get the technology into the hands of the partners so they can use it, sell the product, and support it. I don't think its crazy under that umbrella to think we should be seeing the product BEFORE the public.

I also think the MAPS team should wake up to the fact that business users aren't the only people needing support. Half of our business is supporting home customers.

Despite how it may sound, I think the action pack is a great value and an excellent opportunity for us to get hands on software we normally wouldn't. I just want the teams to think "worst case scenario" when deciding what to send out.

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:40:33 GMT

On the dirty install, have a look at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/01/26/how-to-do-a-clean-install-using-the-action-pack-windows-vista-media.aspx on how to do a clean install

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

David Overton — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:38:55 GMT

OK, - 1) Buy the key 1st, then do the install - should be able to go from MCE to Ultimate

3) If you want to invest in a demo system, your choices are:

- Order the Demo Resourse Toolkit as previously mentioned

- Build a system and don't put in the key or activate - it will last until the timeout - long enough for most demos

Each Product team choose which version to ship in MAPS - the Vista team said that Business was the right version. The MAPS team can't change this. If you sell lots of Enterprise or Ultimate, then we can haggle for the change in the kit, if it is mainly Business, they will be proven right that it was the right version.

AND, remember that our demonstration and testing demo toolkit which runs in a VPC is based on Ultimate!

ttfn

David

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

Mike P — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:09:58 GMT

I forgot to mention the main 'business' reason for all this fuss...

MS have probably made the assumption that MAPS users are business users and as such should have no need for anything but the Business edition of Vista. This is correct if we were using the software for the sole purpose of 'internal use' i.e. running our own businesses. However the majority of my clients, and like I'm sure many other MS Partners who use the Action Pack, are on Volume Licencing Agreements, as such they will be getting (and using) technologies such as BitLocker in their Enterprise editions that at present I have no experience of.

Several of our clients operate within the fields of healthcare, education, financial services - areas that could all benefit from advanced encryption functions...It's a shame that I'll be selling this blind because MS doesn't feel it necessary to include top-end technology in it's "Demonstration and Testing" Action Pack.

Office 2007 Enterprise was included in the MAPS, working on the logic of the Vista licence, wouldn't Pro or Pro+ have been good enough for MAPS users? NO. Why not? Because we need first hand experience of all the apps / technologies in order to effectively sell them. Let's be honest, I was less than impressed with XP MCE, I'm sure Ultimate will look very pretty when running Media Centre components, but I'm personally not that bothered. The issue here is that top-end technology (namely BitLocker) that has a real business use and provides a huge selling opportunity for many partners is, to us, simply words on a spec sheet. Can anyone provide a valid business reason as to why including at least one ultimate licence would have anything but a positive effect on Microsoft? I doubt it.

re: Office 2007 and Vista coming in January Action Pack

HighTechDad — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:39:33 GMT

I too am a bit concerned about the only version of vista included. I am currently on Windows XP MediaCenter. Any the only upgrade path available to me with my action pack is to do a clean install of Vista Business (using the Easy Transfer program to move my setting) and then purchase the "upgrade" to Ultimate. The problem is though, while all of my settings will be saved, I have to REINSTALL all of my previous applications. That is a really tough upgrade path to 1) manually do and 2) justify paying the upgrade to ultimate .