Microsoft Donates Windows 8.1 To Nonprofit Organizations 224
An anonymous reader writes in with good news for Windows loving nonprofits and libraries. "Microsoft today announced the availability of Windows 8.1 for nonprofits. The move is an extension of the company's nod to the nonprofit community with the launch Windows 8. The announcement means eligible nonprofit organizations and public libraries can request Windows 8.1 through Microsoft's software donation program."
How white of Microsoft! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now those non-profits will not have to look towards free alternatives such as Linux! True humanitarians.
Re:How white of Microsoft! (Score:5, Funny)
They should throw in some "free" Surface RT tablets while they are at it. It seems that they have a few thousand of them to spare...
Re:How white of Microsoft! (Score:5, Funny)
I am sure you just can't wait for the Windows 8.1 update! Just imagine how happy we'll all be! After all the outrage and frustration over Windows 8 losing it's "start" menu, Windows 8.1 is here to save the day! Now, that old start menu that used to do something useless... listing all of your applications so you could find them... has been replaced! Now it takes you directly to the Metro UI, where you can barf all over your keyboard! Happy day!
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Charity? Or PR? (Score:2, Funny)
The real goal is "we want more people to choose to accept windows 8.x than would rather accept herpes"
Re:Charity? Or PR? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder (Score:5, Funny)
will the FSF be signing up for this?
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They should. and claim they have well over 10 million employees. Then start a part of their website where you can ask to be an employee to get a free install of 8.1
Suddenly the value of windows drops to the floor as you will have people flocking to become "employees" of the corporation and getting free install keys.
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Well, it might be useful to review and assess the competition.
-- hendrik
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Basically all they'd get would be license codes at a web site plus a copy in an email. So they could shred the email in a ceremony perhaps.
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or loss to an asshoel corporation that should die anyway?
Meh. I hope Windows is around for a long time. I make good money fixing it. Besides, if everyone ran Linux, I wouldn't get to feel smug about it.
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
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Slashdot jumped the shark a decade ago, you are just far too new to have ever seen it in it's glory days...
Slashdot glory days... GET OFF MY LAWN!
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I'm still waiting for something to jump the shark. That sounds like something interesting to watch on ESPN8.
Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:2, Interesting)
I wouldn't use it if it was free. Windows 8.x is the most horrible operating system I have ever experienced. I can't think of a worse OS. If this doesn't end the Windows OS I don't know what will. It was so frustrating I returned the laptop. The replacement system will be a Mac and not because it was my first choice. It will be a Mac because Windows 8.x is unusable.
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Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:5, Informative)
I've used every single version of Microsoft OS since DOS 3.2 and Win 8.x is by far the worst of them all. I'd *much* rather run Vista, it's that bad. Vista was immature before SP1 and the drivers weren't ready at RTM but now it's not quite as bad. WinME was mostly pointless and short lived. Win95 was a huge leap forward from MS-DOS and Win 3.x. DOS probably wasn't the absolute best for its time but it was cheap, common, good enough, and mainly far superior to what most people were using on 8 bit computers of the time.
Win 8.x is user hostile. It was the worst GUI of *any* operating system I've ever used in the last 15 years, literally. I'd rather use the UI from any previous version of Windows, or OS X, or GNOME/KDE/Unity... Hell, I'd even rather use iOS or Android over that! Nothing is anywhere near as bad, un-intuitive, nor gets in your way as much.
All this because they decided that they're now a "devices" company with Apple envy. Too bad nobody wants of those devices I guess. Meanwhile, they've given the finger repeatedly to their established user base: desktop users, businesses, sysadmins, developers and all. Of course people will turn to iOS and Android even more now. Win7 is the best OS by far IMO but that's where it seems end... I really enjoyed the last 25 years of MS products but MS put an abrupt end to it.
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Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:5, Interesting)
funny, I think android is about as bad as win95 or 3.x.
it sort of gets the job done, but its annoying and painful to try to work with.
I would not be so annoyed if android was the product of a 10 or 50 man company. but the 'mighty google'? I would expect nothing less than perfection and vision from such self-professed geniuses.
instead, there are stupid limitations and even cut/paste is annoying and difficult. want to grab an address from an email and locate it on a map? rarely works unless it fits an exact format of what an 'address' is supposed to be. more often than not, you can't click on addresses in email text. fuck! what a piece of shit.
face it, its a vehicle for ad delivery. plain and simple; just enough to do that mission yet not free enough to do what YOU want unless you root and go around things. yes, apple is worse, but they don't solely exist just to delivery ads. google is ONLY about ads, these days. if you get in their way, they fuck with you and make your life harder than it should be.
I remember old windows and how annoying it was compared to old vax/vmx, unix and other os's of the ancient era. android gives me the same 'damn, they could have made it great but they didn't' feeling.
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yes, apple is worse, but they don't solely exist just to delivery ads.
Right, they exist solely to exploit fanboys' need to spend money, and to produce lock-in, and to abuse patents. Seriously, you can't even mention them in the same breath.
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funny, I think android is about as bad as win95 or 3.x.
it sort of gets the job done, but its annoying and painful to try to work with.
I would not be so annoyed if android was the product of a 10 or 50 man company. but the 'mighty google'? I would expect nothing less than perfection and vision from such self-professed geniuses.
...
I remember old windows and how annoying it was compared to old vax/vmx, unix and other os's of the ancient era. android gives me the same 'damn, they could have made it great but they didn't' feeling.
You must not have tried Cyanogenmod. Prior to flashing my phone with CM10 (Android 4.3), I was running 2.3.4 on my phone, loaded with AT&T crapware. My battery lasted maybe one day. Constantly whining about updates to the AT&T bloatware, using data behind the scenes to provide updates I didn't sign up for and didn't care about from AT&T, some google apps, and other nonsense they decided to throw on there. All the crap behind the scenes made my phone slow and unresponsive.
Since I loaded CM10 and
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I have cm7 on my n1 phone. it was marginally better but still was android down to the core, and that's the problem.
it was all about google and it still is. the thinking and planning was just not done well enough and the 'evolution' really shows it.
it was a 'ship it, quick!' effort and again, it shows thru and thru, CM or not. google did a half-assed job and few people call them on it.
again, for a small company, I'd be forgiving as hell and say 'good effort!'. but for the mighty google, I expect absolute
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I lived with 8.3 filenames for well over a decade (W95 had them if you ran Norton Desktop). No native TCP/IP stack didn't keep me off of bulletin boards or the internet. But a bad UI is a productivity killer.
If given a choice between DOS 3.1 and Win8, I'll take DOS.
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I never dealt with DOS 3.1 that much, because I always had access to real systems running Unix or VMS at work, so why deal with something so primitive at home? Even the competition was vastly better, both non-PC systems like Amiga or Atari ST or Macintosh, as well as other stuff for the PC like GEOS.
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I was dealing with far more primitive computers in the early eighties; TS-1000, TRS-80, Apple IIe as a programming hobbyist. Mid '80s I got a job that needed dealing with IBM PCs and XTs, bought a used XT about 1988. I was writing (and playing) games at home since about 1983. By 1990 I was writing databases in dBase and later on the mainframe in NOMAD at work. Didn't start using Linux until around 2002. At work they have me using (UGH!) Access now, glad I retire next year. Haven't done any real programming
Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Uh... no. DOS was pretty bad, even in it's day.
MS DOS + Norton Commander = a solution that was faster than most modern file managers.
Windows 95 was inferior to most of its contemporaries (e.g., OS 2)
OS/2 was just a bad product. I used it. Perhaps the kernel had its positive sides, being true 32-bit and all, but overall the OS was nearly unusable. Start with selection of ugliest fonts on the planet, then move to the selection of ugly widgets, then address the programming model... there was hardly anyt
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MS DOS was a bootloader. Both DOS and WIndows 95 were beaten in functionality by GEOS on the Commodore C64.
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And of course MS DOS was conceptually stuck in the 60's. Compare it to CP/M and it's not bad, but compared to Unix V7, OS 360, PLATO, TOPS 10, and others, all of which came much earlier, it was a primitive toy. The fact that MS DOS was kept around even after PCs became more powerful and was used for important office applications was surprising
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DOS was decades behind it's time when it was new, although it seemed pretty good in the home and hobbyist computer world.
Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a tech who worked on many systems from DOS, Windows 3.x, Win95, Win95 w/ FAT32, Win98, Win98SE, WinNT4.0, and WinME, I can say that indeed WinME was the biggest pain in the ass to work on when there were problems. Win98 had issues of not powering off after shutting down. WinNT had issues of hardware compatibility, and all versions tend to forget about printers from time to time.
But when something went wrong, there were definite steps that technicians could do to resolve it. Microsoft decided that made too much sense, and with WinME they broke established procedures that worked quite well before that. It's been over a decade now, so I don't remember specifics, but it was a nightmare for a while. Then everyone moved on to Win2k or WinXP, and we all pretended WinME never existed.
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As a tech who worked on many systems from DOS, Windows 3.x, Win95, Win95 w/ FAT32, Win98, Win98SE, WinNT4.0, and WinME, I can say that indeed WinME was the biggest pain in the ass to work on when there were problems.
Great! Finally! I've been waiting for someone to give me a detailed technical explanation as to why Windows ME was such a problem and what parts of Windows ME's design caused those problems.
It's been over a decade now, so I don't remember specifics, but it was a nightmare for a while.
Fuck you, troll.
Right back at ya.
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Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:5, Interesting)
I ran Win ME for about 2 years, about the same time as I started using Linux (on seperate boxes). It did run with better uptimes/stability than Win 98 SE, so I think I'm agreeing with your "more reliable" opinion. I liked Win 98 well enough, especially SE. Storm Linux 2000 didn't seem all that impressive compared to either version of Windows around that time, but Linux gradually pulled ahead, at least in my book. I still support Windows boxes at work and for family, and liked XP (after the first Service Pack came out), and 7's not too bad, but for me, Linux has pulled ahead on several counts.
There were a few real things wrong with Win ME, even for its time. I like fancy desktops and skinnable programs, so I started running and designing skins for various freeware programs that could 'fake' "Alpha channel" transparency in 98, produce non-rectangular windows, and generally enhance Windows visuals - XXCalc, Sonique, Kjofol, early versions of Winamp, Beatnik Internet clock, several translucent notepad variants, little programs such as that. I learned to hack the Windows 98 registry to make the background behind icon text transparent, change the start menu clock fonts, and many other little tricks, mostly for the same reason, When ME came along, It broke a great many things along these lines in the freeware customization scene, even though it supposedly didn't have any significant advances in transparency rendering, by its own admission. Microsoft did so many strange things in the registry (changing an enormous number of variable types from numeric to Boolean, or vice versa, where it just plain wasn't sensible, or, even more often, telling developers that a variable was now of some type, but experimenting with it proved it wasn't.), I swiftly got the feeling they were trying to obfuscate the registry, (and for that matter DLLs and video support) just to make it impossible for third parties to work with them unless they had the financial status to become what Microsoft was starting to call Microsoft Trusted Partners. To me, it came off as petty, as though Microsoft felt insulted anyone was trying to change the desktop appearance that much.
After a few months, there were more serious freeware programs that started running into the same thing, I.e. there were early replacements for Windows Explorer that added some real functionality, such as multi-pane versions, or search tools that let the user do searches with the full range of regular expressions, or adaptations of most of the Berkeley UNIX command line tools, or drive defragmenting programs that ran about 800% faster than the stock Defrag. It seemed like every time Microsoft announced a patch for something, it broke some other functionality, far removed from what they said the patch was supposed to do, and adversely impacted these freeware programs. I don't know if Microsoft did any of that deliberately - but I do know that several of those programmers who stopped updating their freeware creations damned sure thought it was deliberate.
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It will be a Mac because Windows 8.x is unusable.
Actually, the Intel-based Macs can run any version of Windows, either natively or virtually. The problem is, no Mac user wants to touch Windows 8.x with a 30 foot pole, either. Heck, even MacOS 1.0 was better than Windows 8.x by a mile!
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What's wrong with Mac keyboards? Sure no Windows key but I rarely use that on Windows. Other than that it's nearly identical.
There are some Windows 8 quirks but on the desktop it's going to be very familiar to Windows 7 users except for the boneheaded move of dumping the start menu. And I like the flat look better than the flashy Win7 Aero. Get a third party start menu replacement and the majority of complaints resolve themselves. Windows 8 is smaller than its predecessor, probably a first for Microsof
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or you can just install classicshell
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I have recently switched from Mac to Windows 8.1 after living in the Mac world for 5-6 years (at home).
The difference is like night and day. It might not be as "simple" but I can actually set up my computer exactly how I want it and make it adapt to my workflow and not the other way round. All the freeware utility software you take for granted on Windows just isn't available for Mac.
And if I ever end up using a Mac again and the OS takes focus from what I'm doing and decides to activate another window (beca
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And Windows 8's touch interface isn't actually bad on touch devices, most people complain because they don't like it on a desktop.
I agree, on a touchscreen it's actually really good. On the desktop not so much, but then again I don't really see it on the desktop anyway in fact there's very little need to use it at all outside of launching applications that aren't on the desktop or pinned to the taskbar and once you're using your applications (which is the point anyway) they aren't any different.
Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 8 is an unusable operating system in the same sense as Comic Sans is an unusable font.
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I wouldn't use it if it was free.
and linux has been free for 20 years and 98% of people still dont use it on their desktop.
While I think desktop use of the OS is underestimated, most normal people (your 98%) wouldn't install their own OS (let alone know that Linux even exists). Of those that would, many would just be reinstalling a clean Windows install either to keep it performant or clean manufacturer installed bloatware (and because of games but that is slowly changing). Also, almost all new PCs that are not Macs ship with Windows by default because of Microsoft's monopolistic actions in the past and their current OEM/refund
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The truth is, Linux really doesn't offer the average desktop computer user anything over Windows. Ok, so Dell doesn't have to pay Microsoft $40 for the OEM copy of Windows, big deal. That isn't the make or break reason for a customer to change OS on their machine.
The truth i
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The truth is, Linux really doesn't offer the average desktop computer user anything over Windows.
No? how about doing in 3 clicks what takes Windows 12? Or not having to reboot once a month? Not having to have the computer unusable for 30 minutes or so because Windows is patching itself? Not having to reboot at all, ever? How about Linux upgrades being a single click and you're done? How about being able to hit the power switch and have it come up from dead off to the desktop with all the programs and apps o
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Hmm, there are billions of Linux netbooks, smart phones and tablets out there - an order of magnitude more than the total number of Windows machines ever shipped.
I'd be really interested to know where you get than info from. The popularity of Netbooks was extremely shortlived and smartphones have only just finally had a quarter where they've actually surpassed PC sales, I doubt there are as many Linux netbooks, smartphones and tablets in existence than Windows machines, much less an order of magnitude more than ever shipped.
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Wow, I'm trying to figure out how you could be more of a blatant Micorsoft shill but I can't think of anything.
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My use case is more like this: photoshop, illustrator, with multiple 2k+ files open, visual studio debugging through vmware and live injecting code updates. Peppered with some misc editor, chrome and whatnot.
On a laptop.
Make me happy.
Re:Windows 8.x is horrible! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have both 7 Ultimate and 8.1 on my computer (dual boot on seperate SSDs). Her is my positives and negatives of Windows 8 over win 7.
Positives:
- Really fast and smooth compared to Win 7. The difference is noticeable, even in boot up.
- I am not too bothered with metro itself, nor do I care much for the loss of the start menu. Rarely used it on seven other than to open frequently used app, or search for other apps. I rarely even know whats on my start menu aall programs list, as its hardly used)
- Lightweight. It appears that Microsoft have finally got rid of some in built junk
- Metro apps have their uses. I can think of many types of apps that I would rather not have to install into my windows system normally (as an admin no less) complete with the potential to add further junk to my system folders complete with system wide spyware, and being unable to guarentee a clean uninstall. Metro apps seem to be a bit better isolated.
Negatives:
- Metro apps are still tooo touch focused, and certain things are less intuitiuve with KB and mouse only.
- MEtro apps and dual monitors. Despite the improvements in Windows 8.1, there are still huge usability problems still existing for dual screen users. For example, when running a metro app on the left hand screen, its more involved to bring up the charms panel with just the mouse. Whereas with a single screen, you can blindly flick the mouse up and to the right until it gets to the upper right corner to bring up the charms panel, with a dual monitor, the mouse will simply go to the next screen, making the user have to concentrate more in actually positioning the pointer in the exact region to show the panel.
- I still feel the desktop UI is very poor. I enjoyed aero on Win vista, and more so on 7. The transparency effects give me a lot of cues to order, and overlap. The new UI is frankly ugly, and personally a lot worse than win 7.
Donate Win 7 if you really want to be charitable. (Score:3, Informative)
I can't even find a students version.
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I can't even find a students version.
Don't know where you're checking but I can find copies by walking into Staples. Most small shops still sell OEM copies too. You can order on their web site too if walking is too difficult.
Re:Donate Win 7 if you really want to be charitabl (Score:5, Informative)
Legal and efficient.
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If this is true thank you. I must investigate.
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Digital River is the official online distributor for Microsoft products. Content hosted by them (mydigitallifecontent) is legitimate. Search for "Windows 7 iso digital river" and you'll see several forums linking to Digital River hosted ISOs directly.
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They do. Windows 7 and a bunch of other software products are offered via TechSoup.
Re:Donate Win 7 if you really want to be charitabl (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true.
MS is using this faux charitability to advance their agenda, because they know it's the only way to make people use.. whatever you would consider W8.1. If they really cared about non-profits, why not ask what they need and work out a deal to offer that?
And let's not forget that any open source project does the same thing for EVERYTHING they produce. So what does MS really deserve praise for here? Microsofts products aren't even worth a penny compared to alternatives anyways, but when they reduce their prices on products on which they already make absurd margins, we're supposed to worship them like saints. Please.
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I can't even find a students version.
Try DreamSpark [dreamspark.com]...
oh man (Score:2, Flamebait)
I wonder if this will force Android/Linux to make their software free for non-profits as well... oh wait.
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I just had a Sheldon moment. I was going to rebut you until I realized you were being sarcastic.
Awesome (Score:3)
Now all they have to do is upgrade all of their other "free" Microsoft stuff to be compatible, assuming they fell for this BS before.
TechSoup Global
Through TechSoup Global, Microsoft donates software to tens of thousands of nonprofit organizations and nongovernmental organizations around the world. Get it? hint: soup kitchen [techsoup.org]
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You don't understand... This is for everyone!!!
Even if you buy regular licenses for Windows, once you've gone through all the BSA audits, you won't have any profits, so the next time around, you get the non-profit version!!!!
There is always a catch (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft also gives free Windows licenses to students through various programs. But there is always a catch. In this case, Microsoft wants its users to adopt its own formats and use its network services, essentially pushing users into an endless cycle of relying on Microsoft software and services, allowing Microsoft to push for unreasonable terms, include more privacy-invasive features to gain more information about their users, increased OS reliance on Microsoft's network/cloud computing, and, of course, to make more money. Making money on its own, of course, is not usually a bad thing, but when a company like Microsoft controls a significant portion of the market it is certainly bad. I hear non-profits and governments are also often more likely to adopt free (-as in freedom) software such as LibreOffice and occasionally GNU/Linux, which could explain why they are a target of this campaign.
Remember people: this isn't being done to benefit you, it's done to benefit Microsoft.
Re:There is always a catch (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely right. Over the last decade or so, much of Microsoft's sales & marketing hasn't actually been done by Microsoft at all.
They haven't needed to.
"We're starting to receive files in formats we can't open" does it for them.
Historically, that resulted in Office upgrades; they're now using that leverage to push other upgrades (Office 2013 requires Windows 7 and Outlook 2013 requires Exchange 2007 or later). In the process, they're losing customers - Office 2013 starts to look like quite an expensive upgrade when you suddenly need to rip out your entire infrastructure
Story is a PR plant (Score:4, Informative)
I work with a charity that has access to the MS discounts and there is one authorized outlet for it, Tech Soup. MS has ALWAYS made the latest version available so this is nothing new. It is just an astroturfing post to try and drum up some good PR for the embattled and truly miserable OS.
That said why is MS so cruel to those in need?
This is a very good move from Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
First they donate it to non-profits ... ...
Then they donate it to schools
Then to universities
Then to the hospitals
Then to the politicians
Then to the developers
Finally they donate to the existing Windows XP users.
But nobody is interested; not even the pirates; since nobody wants to be infected with Windows 8.x.
Not just PR (Score:2)
Everyone is focusing on the obvious benefits of PR and trying to spread adoption and avoiding cheaper competitors gaining market share.
But I suspect even if you completely removed these benefits the donations make a profit for MS.
How? First subtract the revenue of the tiny handful of non-profits that would purchase Win8 on their own, then add the tax writeoffs they get from all the "donated" copies of Windows.
Can any accountants chime in on whether they could save more on their taxes than it actually cost t
Sounds like an Onion First line (Score:2)
Nonprofit Organizations say "No Thanks" and stab themselves in the eye instead. Film at 11.
For a change, I have nothing but kudos... (Score:2)
Its been a long while since I haven't sneered at a story about MS. That just shows to go you, its not all bad.
Good one Microsoft. People need all the help they can get, these days. Keep it up.
I wondered why the government shut down (Score:2)
The announcement means eligible nonprofit organizations and public libraries can request Windows 8.1 through Microsoft's software donation program
It was an attempt to stop public libraries from upgrading their Windows desktops.
That'll fix 'em (Score:2)
I donated Windows Vista to the Heritage Foundation.
That's the right price (Score:2)
Free, huh? That's the right price.
I was actually one of those hold-outs sticking with XP (rather, my bosses at work were, since it's their machine) until last year. Last year we got Win7 and I really am surprised at how much I like it.
But Win 8 and brothers? No way. They'd have to pay me.
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Hardware Donations (Score:3)
Having worked for a non-profit, all I can say is... that's nice but who donates hardware that Win8.1 can run on?
As of 2009, the fastest computer at the org I was volunteering at was 1.2GHz with 512Mb of memory.
Drug dealing mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
The first one is always free.
Please, don't give Win8.1 to the needy (Score:4, Funny)
Didn't they suffer enough already?
I misread the title! (Score:2)
Do they get a tax write off for this "donation"? (Score:2)
In other words, do they get to print their own money?
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Re:that's just evil (Score:5, Informative)
it doesn't boot without EUFI!
Since when? I thought Windows 8.1's system requirements were the same as those of Windows 8, and that included allowing Vista-to-8 or 7-to-8 upgrades on non-UEFI systems.
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While GP was largely being melodramatic, there is a point. Real NPO's are always short on cash. They're never going to be running the latest hardware, but that of several years back. They're probably XP users, not 7 or Vista. Windows 8+ will be beyond the reach of most charitable organizations. And that's only from a hardware perspective.
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Reminds me of the old Goodies' joke: First prize is dinner with X; Second prize is TWO dinners with X
Classic Shell (Score:2)
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Except for the 'average user' that hates the UI so much they will pay to have their brand new computer downgraded to Windows 7.
Re:FTFY (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep.
I'm at a university and we do this all the time. IBM gave us 'millions' in software, that was a burned CD with some stuff on it (not my research group so I'm not really sure what exactly, but something related to distributed computing).
My group got a '4 million dollar' donation which was all of the source code for a project a small company had worked on for 10 years with 5 major versions.
Whatever that MSRP headline number was is what they could claim as a tax break. Didn't matter if it was absurdly unrelated to the actual value or not.
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and if they didn't offer 8.1 for the same they would be fucked.
why? because 8 pesters you to press a button to update to 8.1, so probably a large number of these organizations are running 8.1 anyways if they ran 8.
but they're giving 8/8.1 for free for anyone who ask and plenty of organizations who don't even ask. this is mostly what the billion dollars of 8 marketing went to
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Really? I'm on Windows 8 and nothing has yet to ask me to push a button to update it. I only saw its existence once by actually taking the effort to go to their store. Now maybe people who go to the store often might see it as one of the things to get. Meanwhile every single day Firefox is nagging me to get their updates.
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In other words, they'll be making money from taxpayers themselves.
Someone doesn't understand how taxes work.
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In other words, they'll be making money from taxpayers themselves.
Someone doesn't understand how taxes work.
Maybe you could clarify it for us.
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Taxes are a cost to taxpayers. They pay money that they've rightfully earned to the government, and the government performs the essential functions of government. It's something like the relationship between a business and its customers: Microsoft's customers pay money to Microsoft that the customer rightfully earned, and in exchange, Microsoft gives them a copy of Windows 8 or whatever.
Changing the law to end tax deductions on charitable donations would be a tax increase. It's wrong in the econo
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I think you're misunderstanding. The AC above (not me, as you implied) stated...
"MS will be able to claim tax benefits for the "donations" based on the retail price of the OS. In other words, they'll be making money from taxpayers themselves"
And, you clearly disagree. I read his statement as saying that if MS would have paid X dollars in taxes on their income, and now is paying Y, because they made a charitable donation, which really didn't cost them anything but the licensing, then they've successfully
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The AC above (not me, as you implied)
You're right. My apologies.
So, the difference between X & Y is lost to the government
Right. I addressed this in my comment. The government provides benefits (the essential functions of government) for a cost (taxes). It's incorrect from an economic standpoint to call a service provider forgoing a rate increase a "cost" to the service provider. Xbox Live is a service too, one for which I pay Microsoft $60 a year. I'd probably pay $70, but that extra $10 isn't a "cost" to Microsoft.
In any case, phrasing the lack of a tax increase as a "cost to the government" impl