The winner for today’s bonehead, customer unfriendly move is Microsoft. Windows Vista Upgrade will only run if Windows XP is installed on the hard disk. In the past, (at least as far back as Windows 95), upgrade meant that users were being rewarded for prior purchases of Microsoft operating systems by being allowed to buy the new OS more cheaply.  It has always been sufficient to provide an installation disk from your prior version of Windows in order to do an upgrade install, which allowed you to do a clean install of the OS — a process which everyone, including Microsoft, acknowledges produces a more stable installation. With this new change, clean installs will no longer be possible. Upgrade literally means writing over your old OS to do a new installation.Â
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
