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A friend of mine got an Action Pack from MS but he never got the black binder that appears in the web site, he got a big transparent plastic case. He?s a little worried if he is suppose to get the November update of the Action Pack, his subscription expired last week and he didn?t have the money to renew it.

He might get it but I doubt it. I know for a fact that the October kits did not go out till November 5th (5 days late) because Arvado(the main distro for the AP) was trying to clear things up before they could ship them. Your friend DOES have a 90 day grace period though. So if he would like to renew the AP within 90days of expiring he can do so at $199 but if it goes past that date he would have to pay the full $299 again. As for the binder He could have called arvado about it and they most likely would have sent him a binder. I've got 2 now because my original one started to rip a bit. Anyways if he does want to renew it just have him look at the main action pack website and look under returns/and such for the number to arvado. It's listed on there and they can take care of him. Pretty nice people I do give 1 word of warning. Right now they are very swamped because of the MAJOR screw ups in the Office 2003 Pro edition that is being shiped iwth the Update kit this month. From the looks of it it seams that MS screwed a few poeple on the Office that comes with the AP. Office Pro is Office Pro and it comes with BCM(Business Contact Mananger) But This Office Pro does not even though it was supossed to. Also if he does look at the site about what will be in the update kit. Just let him know all he really gets is 10 TS cals. And not 20 it's a typo on the website that is directly from distro.

Nice going creamhackered, have you been on the Microsoft Beta program for long?

I can't say I anything near that many. But I did get some constructive ones in. Which I was pleased about as it was my second beta with betaplace.

Twaz good fun :D

My favourite bug that I found in beta 1 was the speach recognition got it's PageUp / Down commands mixed up. Odd thing was that I could reproduce it at will but the team couldn't :p

Good, all those whiners that only got the radio all i can say is GOOD you don't deserve to be on MS betas :)

i'm not whining that i didn't recieve more then a radio, (i still haven't got my gift yet) but i submitted bugs....and will i get recognition?...no because i wasn't first to post it. And for that my Fruitful beta testing goes unnoticed

lol, it has a compas! i know I'm sterotyping here but what geek in their right mind GOES OUT SIDE?

it might help them find the shower :laugh:

Good, all those whiners that only got the radio all i can say is GOOD you don't deserve to be on MS betas?

Wait, I didn't sign up expecting a gift, I didn't know anyhting about a gift after the tests... I was very happy just having the beta CD's. And were more than half million testers, and only 60 received the "best" gift, so I if receive just the radio, it doesn't mean I don't deserve to be on MS betas, I worked hard, but not as hard as the 60. That's a stupid way of thinking.

And I'm not "upset" just because I may receive the radio, or not.

Wait, I didn't sign up expecting a gift, I didn't know anyhting about a gift after the tests... I was very happy just having the beta CD's. And were more than half million testers, and only 60 received the "best" gift, so I if receive just the radio, it doesn't mean I don't deserve to be on MS betas, I worked hard, but not as hard as the 60. That's a stupid way of thinking.

out of those half million testers, how many were technical beta testers? The 'top 60' were most likely the technical testers (which I think was a small group) and not the testers that started with beta 2 or purchased the beta to get an early look.

For those people who are saying Microsoft is cheap and such, the individual beta teams decide on gifts and such.

For the Wireless Home Networking, anyone who was in it got the full retail hardware. One person never even got his hardware as it was lost during shipping but he still recieved a kit as well as people who never found any problems.

Granted, it was a small testing group, nothing like office.

This is not a bad idea on how to thank people for weeks of work, by basing it on your contribution. I think they could have lowered the bar a bit (only one half of one percent of technical testers qualified), but they had the right idea.

I remember one beta program a few years back, maybe some of you will remember, it was just for developers. Anyway, we were graded, that is to say we earned "points" that we used at the end to trade in for MS products, software and hardware. That way, if you were a useless twot and didn't participate, you had no points, and got nothing. On the other hand, if you at least provided some help, not the top one half of one percent like this one, but still helped the MS team, then you were able to get some things when they closed the program. I think that is about as fair as one can be. If you make real honest contributions and help with development, you will get a real thank you, not a trinket.

GOD DANGET, ALL YOU GREEDY BA5TARDS! IT IS A GIFT! You test Office because you wanted to help Microsoft Make the best Office Product they could. Not for a bloody gift. I really could care less about this gift. Sure its good to have, but i personally don't think anyone deserves it here. There is a few that do. But 90% of the ppl that post here are whining that it is a cruddy radio. You don't like it, then F**K OFF!

I probably gonna send the radio back because I don't deserve a gift. i submited like 4 bugs, thats all I could find that were not reported all ready.

First Bug I reported was a Frontpage Bug.

The mouse wouldn't show when you made a background Grey.

Anyways. My point is. Don't like the gift, then shut up, bend over, and shove it up you A$$. No one wants to hear your whining.

Congrats to everyone who received their gifts! (Y), I doubt I'll be in the top 60 testers even though I did post bugs most of the time - so I'm not really bothered about getting a gift, though a certificate would be nice :) ....

Radish?

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    • Microsoft Weekly: Surface Laptop Ultra, Windows 11 context menus, Build 2026 recap, and more by Taras Buria This week's news recap is here, with Microsoft announcing the new Surface Laptop Ultra, fresh chips from NVIDIA for Windows on ARM, a no-build week, fixes for Windows 11's context menus, gaming news, reviews, and more. Quick links: Windows 10 and 11 Windows Insider Program Updates are available Reviews are in Gaming news Great deals to check Windows 11 and Windows 10 Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions. At Computex 2026, together with NVIDIA, Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, its most powerful laptop to date, powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark processor. 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