Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

Is the Windows Vista Family Discount a deal?

Reader Bill W. has a question about Microsoft’s offer of a discounted price on up to two Vista Home Premium licenses if you purchase a copy of Vista Ultimate:

If I buy an OEM version of Vista Ultimate (full) will I still be able to do the two extra Home Editions (upgrades) for the $49.95 each? I have two existing machines, but I’ve just built a new machine and would like to do it this way.

Sorry, no. According to the official Windows Vista Family Discount page, the qualifying products are “full or upgrade retail boxed product.” OEM copies don’t qualify.

That raises the interesting question of whether this is actually a good deal. Let’s run the numbers, assuming you have three PCs, all with Windows XP installed, all capable of running Vista. (All prices are from Newegg.com.)

OEM price

Vista Ultimate:  $200

Vista Home Premium (2 copies @ $120 each): $240

Total: $440

Upgrade/Family Discount

Vista Ultimate retail upgrade: $250

Vista Home Premium Family Discount licenses (2 copies @ $50 each): $100

Total: $350

That’s a $90 savings. In fact, it’s still a deal even if you only buy one family Discount license. The OEM cost of one Ultimate and One Home Premium license would be $320, compared to the $300 you’d pay for the Ultimate upgrade plus a $50 Home Premium license.

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What triggers User Account Control prompts?

In the comments to my earlier post about Windows Vista tips, Ken asks a good question: What triggers a UAC prompt? Here’s the answer, straight from Windows Vista Inside Out:

The types of actions that require elevation to administrator status (and therefore display a UAC elevation prompt) include those that make changes to system-wide settings or to files in %SystemRoot% or %ProgramFiles%. Among the actions that require elevation:

  • Installing and uninstalling applications
  • Installing device drivers
  • Installing ActiveX controls
  • Installing Windows Updates
  • Changing settings for Windows Firewall
  • Changing UAC settings
  • Configuring Windows Update
  • Adding or removing user accounts
  • Changing a user’s account type
  • Configuring Parental Controls
  • Running Task Scheduler
  • Restoring backed-up system files
  • Viewing or changing another user’s folders and files

Within Windows Vista, you can identify in advance many actions that require elevation. A shield icon next to a button or link indicates that a UAC prompt will appear.

I’ve been using the final release of Windows Vista every day for nearly three months. I rarely see a UAC prompt, and when I do, it takes one click to deal with it. On at least two occasions, I have decided against installing something as a direct result of seeing a UAC prompt. It made me stop and think about whether I really trusted the program I was installing. In both cases I went and did more research, found some bad reviews, and decided against installing the program in question. That’s worth the price of admission for UAC, in my book.

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Why you need to be discriminating with those Vista tips

Chris Pirillo published his list of Top 10 Tweaks, Tips, and Tricks for Windows Vista last week. I just saw it today for the first time and have a couple of comments.

  • Tips 1 and 2 only work on Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. If you have Home Basic or Home Premium, you don’t get the Group Policy Editor. It would have been nice of Chris to point that out. And I wouldn’t recommend either of these tweaks for 98% of the known universe.
  • Tip 3 is a pointer to a list of Group Policy settings. Again, these won’t work for you if you’re using Home Basic or Home Premium. So if you’re one of the majority of people who will be running Home Premium, don’t waste your time.
  • Tip 5 is potentially disastrous. Chris’s tip suggests that turning off Secure Desktop will “make the elevation prompts a bit less visually jarring.” Well, that’s true. Except that this change also makes them dramatically less secure. When you switch to Secure Desktop, the process is running in a new protected context that will only respond to local input. If you remove the Secure Desktop, you allow another process to interact with UAC. Basically, if you’re going to do this, you might as well just disable UAC completely, because you’ve gutted its protection. Fortunately, secpol.msc is yet another console app that is not available to Home Basic and Home Premium users, only Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.
  • Tips 7 and 8 look familiar. Oh yes. Here’s more detail than you might want to know about Tip 7 and here’s a more detailed, illustrated explanation of Tip 8.
  • Tip 9, as Chris notes, applies to most 21st Century versions of Windows and isn’t Vista-specific at all.

So, four out of the 10 tips won’t work for the majority of Vista users running a Home edition, and a fifth isn’t Vista-specific.

Chris notes in his wrap-up: “If this list doesn’t make Lifehacker, nothing will.” It did. But Gina Trapani at Lifehacker did her own collection of Vista upgrade tips a week later, complete with illustrations. The Lifehacker tips collection is much more down-to-earth, and I’d recommend it for anyone just beginning to use Windows Vista.

However, Gina offers one piece of advice that I don’t agree with. She recommends that you disable UAC while you’re getting set up initially and installing programs. Not a good idea, as you’ll discover if you try it. User settings for some programs go in different places, depending on whether UAC is on or off. If you install with UAC off and then turn it back on, some of your programs might get confused.

Updated: What triggers those UAC prompts?

Another Inside Out update

The good news for those who preordered Windows Vista Inside Out is that your copy should be on its way now. As of last night, Amazon reported that about 25% of the copies preordered via this site had been shipped. Presumably the rest will go out today.

The bad news is that Amazon apparently didn’t anticipate demand for this book, because they sold out of their first shipment before receiving it. If you place an order today, apparently you’ll have to wait until the reorder arrives. I hope that’s less than the four to six weeks predicted on Amazon’s website, but who knows?

Meanwhile, you can probably find it at your local brick-and-mortar bookseller or online at Barnes & Noble.com (in stock, ships within 24 hours). Bookpool is out of stock, with another shipment expected February 2nd.

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Updates, anyone?

If you’re running Windows Vista, go check Windows Update. Here’s what I just found when I checked a few minutes ago:

The important updates are mostly bug fixes, no security-related updates. That batch of 18 Optional Updates includes 15 Windows Vista Language Packs (for Ultimate Edition only).

Must … resist … poker … game…

Update: Apparently, some folks who live on Planet Mac are shocked, shocked! to discover that an operating system has updates the day before it’s officially released. Who wants to tell them that this particular OS was actually released to manufacturing nearly three months ago? And as I noted above, most of the updates are relatively obscure bug fixes, not security patches. Besides, who could imagine releasing a new operating system and shipping patches for it within days of its release?

An Amazon update for Windows Vista Inside Out

I’ve heard from several people who pre-ordered Windows Vista Inside Out that they’ve received notice from Amazon.com that the book was delayed and might not be available for several weeks. Fortunately, this isn’t true.

As of today, January 27, the “Availability” text on Amazon’s ordering page says: 

Note: This item is not immediately available to ship. (Usually ships within 6 to 12 days.)

I checked with my publisher and learned that the books should be in Amazon’s warehouse early next week. They’ll be checked in and shipped out immediately, going first to those who pre-ordered. I’m also told that Amazon has already placed a reorder, because the initial sales were higher than they expected.

It’s frustrating to see other Windows Vista books on Amazon’s virtual shelves already when ours isn’t there yet. Those other authors got there first by delivering their manuscripts before Windows Vista had been finalized. That might be an acceptable strategy for a book aimed at novices, but we know from experience that it’s a recipe for disaster when you’re trying to deliver detailed information for a technically sophisticated audience. Microsoft was making significant changes to Windows Vista even after its so-called final release candidate. Some of those changes were cosmetic (new icons, for instance), but a handful involved changes to the way that important advanced features of Windows Vista works.

We did tons of research on those earlier beta releases, but for many chapters in Windows Vista Inside Out, we didn’t even begin writing until we received the actual RTM code. We spent more than one month after RTM writing new chapters, rewriting earlier ones, snapping new screen shots, and – most importantly – fact-checking. That caused many a sleepless night for us and for the production team at Microsoft Press, but we believe the results will be worth it.

So, if you’re awaiting your copy, it’ll be there soon.

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Help me write my next book

Now that Windows Vista Inside Out is off the presses and in stores, I’ve begun writing my next book.

Ah, I can hear you now: Does the world really need another Windows Vista book? Well, no, not really. Which is why this one isn’t just another Windows Vista book. Instead, it takes a completely different approach.

I’m writing this one in public, online, with your help.*

It’s called Windows Vista Well-Connected, and as the title suggests, the idea is to bring together valuable information about Windows Vista from online resources and communities.

You can get a better idea of what the book is about by going to vista-well-connected.com and poking around a little bit.

This post explains the project. If you go to the home page, you’ll find the chapter outline in the sidebar on the right.

I’m especially interested in comments on the first three chapters:

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll be adding resources to this site, filling in the complete chapter outline, and fleshing out chapters. I won’t be able to do it without your help and support.

And if you know someone who you think can contribute to this site, feel free to pass them this link. There’s strength in numbers.

(* Yes, Scoble, this is your fault. You suggested this nearly four years ago, and it took this long to get a publisher to agree to take the risk. It’s no accident that I’m working with the same editorial team at Wiley who helped you and Shel with your book.)

Now this is how support should work

I’ve had my issues with hardware companies big and small over the past few years. And frankly, you’re probably starting to think I’m just congenitally grumpy.

So it’s nice to be able to report a positive support experience.

My Acer Tablet PC (C314XMi) developed keyboard problems a few months back. After some basic troubleshooting, it became pretty clear the keyboard was defective. It’s less than a year old, so it’s still under warranty. I called Acer, and I was pleasantly surprised. My call was answered within 30 seconds. The support rep I talked to listened to my complaint, asked a few questions, and agreed that I should send the machine back for repairs. I had an RMA in my e-mail inbox less than an hour later.

After shipping the machine back to the company, I was overwhelmed with feedback. I got an e-mail two days later when my package was received. I got a phone call the next day to confirm my return address. I got another e-mail when the unit was returned (via FedEx) to me. All told, the repairs took less than three days.

At no point along the line did I have to raise my voice. I didn’t have to call back to get an answer to a question. I didn’t have to check a website to find out where my machine was. This is how support should work.