Snag Vista Ultimate for free, in exchange for your privacy
By Paul Miller 
posted December 11th 2007 10:23AM
posted December 11th 2007 10:23AM
Microsoft's been keeping its record pretty clean of late, but we suppose it couldn't end the year without a parting shot meant to cheese off the ultra-private, Microsoft-eats-children types. The company's latest diabolical plan involves giving away free copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate '07, Money Plus Premium, Encarta Premium or Streets and Trips -- scary, we know. All you need to do is fill out a few surveys now and then, and download a little app that lets Microsoft watch your every move for three months. If you can manage to be a good little pod person for that long, you get a free copy of whatever software title you selected in the mail. But really, can you put a price on dignity? Exactly, you can't, so sign us up![Via NotebookReview]
Funny, no applefanboys in here and M$ is still being bashed.
I really hope that the software doesn't rely on this tracking service to run. I signed up. I mean, what is there to hide? It's free software that costs hundreds of dollars(Office Ultimate :p).
What sucks though is now have to wait 3 months.
After three months... CAKE will be... SERVED.
ROFLOL!!!!
But the cake is a...
oh... dang.
how many surveys do I have to fill in for just XP Home Edition?
for games
Does it include SP1???
i signed up.........
When will I get my software?????:)???
I wonder if they mind employees using it. I'll just stick it on my work machine
it says you have to own the machine you do it on. so unless you own your work machine, that would probably count it out
if they observe me...obtaining... stuff... for free, what will happen.
lol, what are they gonna call the cops on me if they catch me downloading music or torrents...or ask me a few questions in their survey about my frequent visits to porn websites...
Cool . . . and I will put it on the box that is used primarily by my 5 y/o little boy to play games on Nick Arcade, and similar sites. What do you think Microsoft will get out of watching that sort of activity?
I'd do it, not to mention, if M$ releases a program for monitoring your activity, it may be simple to reverse engineer it and see if there's instances of code elsewhere in your Winblows OS :o Just think, M$ could be watching you now!
Also, look at this in their privacy statement :
under
Use of Your Information:
"
Microsoft...may...disclose personal information if required to do so by law or...if such action is necessary to:
(a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or the Program; (if they get an injunction to give your details)
(b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft (including enforcement of our agreements), (ie if you pirated M$ Office, they get to dob you in)
(c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, users of Microsoft products or services, or members of the public. (Read your emails/blogs to check you don't want to stab B.G.)
"
and dont forget (d) or just if they feel like it cause they dont like you browsing the 'linux' pages at engadget so much.
does this include macs?
Where did you guys see on the web site that it said that you will actually get anything after participation? Unless they changed their mind very quickly ... :)
I'm a bit concerned...I just signed up, and there was NO mention, absolutly, ZERO mention, about any free software. If i'm not getting anything out of this, i'm uninstalling this software!
Think this will run under wine XD
I did not see any mention of free software either. What gives? It says it's valid until Dec 31st, 2007, but I saw zero options for picking your Vista/Office/Etc.
You're right, I can't find anything about getting free software on the site?
Um... I don't see anything about free software on Microsoft's site - did they get enough responses and take it out???
Microsoft does not mention anything about receiving "free" software anymore. See for yourself http://wfp.microsoft.com/AboutPanel.aspx . It did a while ago, it used to state "If you are a Windows Vista or Windows XP user and decide to join and participate in both programs, we will send you a free Microsoft product..."
Now it mentions NO SUCH THING, make me realize why I just signed up.
This really sucks but, I just emailed Microsoft and this is the response I got.
What happened to the free product option?
Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to high volume, we have reached our “while supplies last” limit and have closed our free product incentive on 12/11/2007 at 2pm.
I signed up well before this supposed 2P cut-off time and still no email. The option to check both boxes AND receive the free gift was still there...grrr...
Drats. Signed up as well this evening ... after reading it earlier and having to run some errands. Any software mention has disappeared.
I can't believe I didn't double check BEFORE I went ahead and answered 15 minutes of questions :((
Yikes. Well I managed to get enroled by making a live.com account (My gmail account still hasnt recieved the confirmation mail, but as said above, the live.com recieved it instantly) and I was able to choose vista. Unfortunatly there is no account status page nore an email detailing the terms or what software I had chosen to recieve, you are kind of left in the air once you install the program and input the email address of the account. so I fired off an email, hopefully its still there on my account. ^^
This seems to have ended already. All mentions of this offer are gone from the site.
If you sign up now, it's just out of the goodness of your heart I guess.
:(
The measures against running an illegal copy are probably less annoying.
Why is there no mention of the free software on their website anymore??
Have the discontinued this?
Just got an email back from MS about it...
"Thank you for contacting the Windows Feedback Program. This is an automated message just to let you know that we have received your email. Below are some answers to common questions.
What happened to the free product option?
Thank you for your interest in the feedback program. Due to high volume, we have reached our “while supplies last” limit and have closed our free product incentive on 12/11/2007 at 2pm. "
I just un-installed the program from my computer and won't be participating!
So what if you registered when the option to pick was still available? Does that mean i'm in or not?
I mistakenly selected only ONE option, and now I'm signed up for the program but get no free product. I've uninstalled, send "remove" emails to their system, and yet the site won't allow me to go back and choose both options this time.
Does anyone know how to re-register, starting fresh?
Thanks.
J
Is it just me, or did Microsoft just remove the "incentives" for joining this program. I just signed up and now I see no mention of the free software on their homepage and there was no box to check during the sign up process to choose Vista or Office 07.
I assume they meant 2:00pm PST as I got my mail from them at 2:30pm CST. I noticed on Slickdeals that you needed to send a couple of mails to get a response. That is what I did, and got my response after the 2nd mail.
I really don't mind them shoulder surfing me for 3 months. They'll see I don't use IE except for Windows update, and to access my work VPN. Don't have MS Office either. The only way we get office at work is through Citrix, and it annoys the hell out of me, so I run Open Office at work, and Star Office at home. Winamp for music. Firefox for web. I do use Windows media for movies though.
Just signed up as well. When MS didn't give me the offer for the software, I came back here and checked the comments to see what happened. Quickly opted out after that.
HEY ENGADGET: please update this story so no one else signs up for this when there is no offer anymore!
I signed up, installed in on my browsing machine, we'll see what happens in 3 months time.
I love these free product offerings Microsoft does... I already got a free copy of Vista and Office 2007 when I did their "Power Together" offer, now this. Ultimate here I come....
Sorry to everyone who missed the boat, I have heard that free software was only availabe to the first 50,000 people.
Wow. All of the comments can be summed up with the following:
1. I'll install it on a computer I don't use.
2. I'll install it on a computer running only non-Microsoft products. That'll show them!
3. Microsoft sucks.
4. I'll do the deal and install it on a computer belonging to someone who doesn't know better.
5. My grammar is better than yours.
Now I know what the writing crew for "The Big Bang Theory" is doing during their strike.
What I'd do during the three months:
Day 1: Sit down in front of Google and do a search on every possible nickname for breasts.
Day 2: Spend the day getting driving directions from where I am to as many miniature golf courses in cities as far away as possible.
Day 3: Elf Bowling!
And so on...
i signed up but no where did it say free stuff...
Either there was an invisible 'while supplies last' clause or they've switched the 'free product' thing to appear/be selected after people complete both surveys, ie: maybe you get to select the product after you've completed successfully vs. before. This afternoon I signed up for it and it asked for my address and what product I wanted. I remember quite a few additional notes which aren't there now, like the fact that you have to sign up for BOTH programs and not just 1, also that it's 1 product per person.
I told my wife when she got home and had her sign up (Vista and Office 2007 ultimate?! yaaay!) and she didn't get asked what product she wanted or for address info (uh oh!) Now I'm kicking myself since I could just as easily have signed up on her behalf after I did. One other probable scenerio is that the site 'remembers' IP addresses that enroll and doesn't allow 2 free product choices per household, though I remember it specifically stating 1 product per PERSON.
Oh well, we'll see what happens in 3 months. I chose Vista Ultimate initially (since I wanted to buy it around then anyway with SP1 included, was planning to buy OEM but retail is a much better value, esp. free >:) ), but in retrospect it may have been smarter to choose Office 2007 Ultimate - alas, it's spilt milk now. Hopefully by all that is good, in 3 months she'll get an email or something asking her to select a product and fill in her address.
I signed up yesterday as soon as i read the post , i DID have the option to pick , I picked office
I dont want vista for free, I dont want it even if I got paid. Vista is a failure.
It is unbelievable that they managed to work so hard, just to come up with this. what does it say about them?
This must be old news, because signed up and they said nothing about a free product.
I signed up yesterday once I seen this article. I received an email from Microsoft 9 hours later, through the whole process I never was asked what product id like... waste of time, oh well
Double Whammy proof that no good deed goes unpunished: Whammy 1.) Unsuspecting users, while trying to help out, get raped by Microsoft's marketing department by willingly installing spyware and giving out personal information in exchange for...NOTHING! and Whammy 2.) Microsoft, while trying to do good, actually winds up proving once again that it is evil and deceptive in a classic "kick-the-ball-charlie-brown" ruse.
Damn, I even gave them my real name. I feel so...violated.
This one's for the textbooks. Blogosphere: light this one up!
I don't know what's so special about Vista, anyway. It's definitely not the performance.
If you like the GUI so much, there are tools to make XP use Aero and other nifty little Vista widgets. Problem solved! Or for Linux users, try Vixta.
To those who dont like vista...
we dont care. Its free, its actually not bad at all (if your into games, you may hate the performance drops in some games..although if your just playing WoW, you won't notice). I still havnt gotten a reply from customer service on double checking that I am selected for vista (I got the pull down menu, but there is no way to varify what you are getting after the initial sign up). I started the survey like, on the 2pm mark.
I was abit disappointed and what they SHOULD have done, was allow those who wanted vista to download it and use it as the platform to survey from. After all, wouldn't MS much prefer results from their brand new and highly criticised OS instead of from an about to be discontinued one?
Ah. This is where the power of Virtual PC and that old copy of windows you have lying around comes in handy. Use their own software against their prying little eyes, get a free copy of their software. Do a little playing around in Virtual PC to satisfy their curiousity. Boom. You win, they think they win.
Can I get an A'MEN from the choir? WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Everybody in the isles now!