The WOW Arrives At My Doorstep
Posted by Stephen on
February 26, 2007
So after making sure the sites were back up, I went down to the post office to see what goodies would cheer me up. Well, I certainly got a WOW experience. No, not this WoW, the other WOW…
In a FedEx bag arrived Microsoft’s Windows VISTA Ultimate Edition and Office 2007 Professional! Even better, they a full retail versions, not the upgrade or the academic. Damn! 
Even though it was packaged in a foam protective shipping bag, the couriers always seem to find someway to give anything a good beating. My copy of VISTA Ultimate was pretty much all open for me before I even unsealed the bag as the contents were floating around inside the container. The Office Professional 2007 was safe, hiding behind Vista.
I always thought the reason they went to DVD Media was to allow Vista 32 bit and 64 bit to be able to reside on the same disc. Well, it looks like that’s not the case. The 32 bit and 64 bit versions come on seperate discs. Although this is the ULTIMATE edition, I found it funny that they still included a pamphlet that allowed you to request the media on CD? I really don’t think most people with a machine powerful enough to run Ultimate Edition use CD burners or readers anymore.
Although I’m probably not going to install Vista for a little bit, I’m definitely looking forward to checking out Office 2007 Professional. Looks like it wasn’t such a bad day after all. Thanks Microsoft! You’re my friend today
ooooooow shiny
Hopefully they didn’t spend all of their time designing the fancy packaging. I’m sure getting the free goodies can help turn a day around.
Actually, it did take me a few minutes to figure out how to open the Office 2007 package. The Vista one was already smashed open. Looks like some extra thought was put into the design of the packaging because it was just a bit too fancy for me. I usually get my software in OEM shrinkwrap and a brown box.
I think you just got impatient and didnt want to wait any longer so you smashed it yourself…thats what i think.
Arrr! Vista BAD… MS Bad! Crush VISTA!
Where are the Green Gloves when you need them?! :O
did you put on john’s hulk gloves when you smashed it?
I think the FedEx guy wears steel toes.
I’d take a free copy of vista any day.
Nice.. what can I do to get free stuff from MS?
I currently have a MSDN subscriptions (at $4000 US/yr) so I get all their fancy software but not in the fancy packaging.
I also get access to alpha/betas/RC etc and multiple licenses too!
Though I’d like to have a retail version of it. My first experience with Vista Ultimate wasn’t a good one.
I do like Office 2007. I’ve been using it since beta too and its XML based. It seems to flow and feel smoother than previous versions.
$4000? Someone is getting ripped off. Futurelooks has a subscription and we get licenses for everything for $400 a year. I guess MS likes to gouge larger corporations
I’m just holding off renewing till we feel the need to run Vista. Even though I have it, I’m still not feeling the need.
We have the Action Pack Subscription and thats $300-400 a year. That gives us everything in the way of Server/Applications go
MSDN allows for the use of VisualStudio and various other software that the Action Pack Subscription doesn’t let you have.
Nice. Who do you need to contact at Microsoft to get software and review samples? The contacts listed on the Microsoft PressPass page or do you need to have “inside contacts” from trade shows?
I find that if you want them to take you seriously, you show up at their doorstep…or at a trade show, face to face. I get a lot of product simply because people remember me and decide to shoot me an email or give me a call. My copies of the software came about while meeting up with MS Canada PR. They were poking at me to see if I had played with Vista or Office yet. I said no because we didn’t have it yet. Of course, they fixed that for me
In the beginning, there was a lot of begging, but unless I really want something, I don’t do that anymore.
more inspiration for the rest of us.
Free stuff is always good stuff, even if it’s bad stuff.
Unless it’s stuff that you get to lick once, just a taste, but then gets snatched away from you after
Let me know how Vista works out, I’ve been playing around with it at London Drugs and I like it. Although MS products are kinda like domestic cars. Never buy the first model year, let them work out the kinks first, it also depreciates like no tomorrow.
Gaming is a negative. My SLI rig won’t run properly with it. For everything else, it seems like it would be fine. I’ll need to install the retail version on a machine a little later. I’m still on RC2.
ooh, that’s something they gotta fix. If I don’t get my WoW fix then MS is going down!
Honestly, I’m not looking forward to Vista – the more I read about it, the more I want to stick with XP.
I want to try it, just to give it a review though!
I see no point in upgrading if I can make XP look and act like vista without dropping hundreds of dollars.
Screw the look, you can make XP function like Vista with free third-party apps. The rest is eye candy, which I have turned off in XP for speed anyway….
XP doesn’t have DRM, but it won’t support DirectX10 either