Is Ultimate Extras a Sham?  

334 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you satisfied by the value of Ultimate Extras?

    • Yes
      55
    • What Ultimate Extras?
      43
    • No
      236


Recommended Posts

The extras are just the extras - not the reason to purchase!

Obviously no one should expect any more extras, MS really has no obligation to provide any more of them. But from a customer satisfaction point of view, it sure is a good way to get people upset.

You can't say MS never marketed Ultimate as something more than just business and premium combined. Look at the Windows Ultimate page Windows Ultimate page. They made a special site for Ultimate owners, and tried to make it seem/feel like a community site were users can remain in close contact and have some kind of relationship with the "Ultimate Extras" team. As it stands that page doesn't look like it's been updated in the past 3 months.

Edited by geoken
Why? No one promised an Extra every month or so... :roll: It's customers' expectations that will get them upset, and it ain't MS' fault.

True, they didn't promise anything. But it is normal for people to set minimum expectations. For example, there's no "promise" that Microsoft will improve the performance reliability of its operating systems after release, but it is expected they do. There is no promise when you buy a TV/music subscription service there will be more content added, but is expected there is.

The expectation isn't particularly high. They don't even have to deliver any 'extras' in the immediate future, but at least give a roadmap or schedule on what they intend to do over the coming weeks/months/years.

A very expensive and sad joke. :( I'm somewhat surprised that no one has attempted to sue Microsoft over it.

Sue for something that is free for Ultimate users?

This is the main reason to get Vista Ultimate:

Vista Ultimate = Vista Business features + Vista Home Premium features

Free? :laugh: Microsoft .. Free? :laugh: Ultimate Extras Free? :laugh: *gasp* :| You're funny, very funny.

Windows Vista Ultimate. This edition provides a superset of all the features of the other editions of Windows Vista, including the media capabilities of Windows Vista Home Premium and the business features of Windows Vista Business. It adds Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption to help protect data on a lost or stolen PC. Windows Vista Ultimate also offers Windows Ultimate Extras, free downloads that extend functionality or provide new features.

Nobody forced you to buy Ultimatet. Also you can find paid and free alternates to all 4 Extras out now.

Example Dreamscene -> VLC player's Wallpaper mode.

Considering the upgrade version of Ultimate costs nearly the same as full Business or Home Premium...

...and that I had a valid XP Pro install ...

...

... I don't see how it wasn't worth the price.

Why buy a full Business when I can get Ultimate for nearly the same, and get a few goodies for the difference in price. A simple poker game would cost about 10 in the store, a cool desktop background program that lets you use your own videos would probably be another 10. Just about the difference in cost between Business (full) and Ultimate (upgrade).

Frankly though, I'd rather have had Dreamscene as a screensaver instead of a desktop.

Eh, that's about all Vista is anyway. Extra crap included in XP. Kind of like Windows Me was to 98SE, and just as bad of an upgrade!!

:laugh: Oh man, ignorance like this really amuses me! Thanks for the laugh!

Ultimate Extras truly is a joke. Just reading the extra page in control panel, I ask myself, "Did Microsoft really follow through with everything here?". Aside from the single add-on pack, I know of no "premium services" or content that have been given to us.

Ultimate Extras truly is a joke. Just reading the extra page in control panel, I ask myself, "Did Microsoft really follow through with everything here?". Aside from the single add-on pack, I know of no "premium services" or content that have been given to us.

Are you impatient or something? Vista has been out for less than 6 months. They'll give us something, but it'll definitely take some time.

Are you impatient or something? Vista has been out for less than 6 months. They'll give us something, but it'll definitely take some time.

Speculate all you want, the fact of the matter is that Microsoft is disappointing a large amount of Ultimate users with a lack of content.

I'd rather they work on SP1 than some goodies. Yes, I have Vista Ultimate.

I think such a large company should have no problem accomplishing BOTH. The way it looks now, SP1 will more than likely be a rollup of updates for easier deployment, and just that.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Microsoft launches Godot Sample to streamline Xbox PC game development on the engine by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Microsoft today announced a new endeavor that aims to make it simpler for Godot developers to get their products into the Xbox PC ecosystem. Dubbed the "XBOX Godot Sample," this is a new public reference for developers using the open-source engine. This is set to serve as an example of how Microsoft GDK, Xbox Services, and PlayFab can be integrated into their projects. The sample is available now on GitHub as a working example. This covers key features in gaming projects that developers may need to release their projects on Xbox PC, with everything from matchmaking and game sign-in to gamepad compatibility with Godot being covered. This release is being called the first step in giving Godot developers the tools to bring their games over to Xbox PC, with more changes to come based on feedback and issue reports. However, the company was clear that this is not related to bringing Godot projects to Xbox consoles. The engine's open development model stops it from accessing console SDKs due to the requirement of NDAs and legal contracts. Here's how it explained this Godot sample project's focus: This is a source-only sample, not a product. It's MIT-licensed at the wrapper layer; the GDK and PlayFab dependencies still require their own installs and license acceptance, consistent with our other XBOX samples. There is no set update cadence for support or maintenance. We’ll watch the repo, monitor issues, and iterate where it makes sense, but this isn't a commercial release. That said, we’re excited to hear your feedback and see any community PRs, as we evolve this together. This is the first step in bringing Godot for XBOX on PC. We plan to evolve it over time based on what the community tells us is most valuable. This sample is built specifically for XBOX on PC. It doesn’t include support for XBOX Series X|S or XBOX One. If you’re already building for XBOX Series X|S or XBOX One, please talk with your XBOX representative. If not, you can get started by signing up here. Game developers can find the XBOX Godot Sample by heading to GitHub over here. Documentation on how to get started with Godot for building an Xbox PC project can be seen here.
    • I don't understand the vision. Do people really want to buy a new computer from Dell with 6 browsers installed? We all keep asking for Microsoft to stop having so much junk on their OS, and adding a bunch of browsers seems to go against that. Ideally, we would just be asked what browser we want during OOBE but Google is just going to pay Dell a bunch of money to include Chrome. Additionally, would you want your phones to start including all the browsers too when you get them? The only thing I ever wanted was to be able to uninstall IE or edge and I believe you are now able to. I do agree that microsoft needs to chill with their "are you sure you don't want to try edge before you install chrome" ads when going to download chrome.
    • It is notable that around 70% of web browser users choose Google Chrome. However, it is puzzling why anyone on Windows would opt for Chrome when Microsoft Edge is often superior in many aspects and comes pre-installed. Edge collects less data, uses less RAM, and is more optimized for Windows as a native Microsoft product. While some may point to bloat in Edge, much of it can be removed with simple tools, requiring no more effort than installing Chrome. Meanwhile, Chrome reportedly downloads large amounts of AI data (4 GB) without explicit consent. I'm sure you Chrome users love that, or? Here is one example of a tool that doesn't even need to be installed to be able to use: https://github.com/TheBobPony/MSEdgeTweaker Although Microsoft’s aggressive promotion of Edge may be questionable, the browser’s current advantages make it a preferable choice over Chrome today, even if Chrome may have been better in the past.
    • JetBrains rolls out IntelliJ IDEA update with Markdown preview fixes and more by David Uzondu Image via JetBrains IntelliJ 2026.1.3 from JetBrains has landed, bringing several highly requested bug fixes that target common UI glitches and terminal rendering issues. If you run tmux inside the integrated terminal, the IDE no longer renders the cursor above the active line. The Markdown preview bug, which was fixed in this release, had annoyed developers for quite some time, as the preview pane failed to render images saved outside the project directory. Instead of displaying the actual image, the IDE simply showed a broken image icon, a problem that stuck around for two years before this update. Over on Windows, developers running WSL can now use wsl.exe to spin up their environments without losing terminal functionality. In previous builds, launching a terminal shell with something like wsl.exe -d ubuntu inside a Windows-based project broke both shell integration and active process detection. Other bug fixes in this release include: An issue where Gradle sync incorrectly reported success as a failure on WSL when using Gradle 9.5.0. A syntax highlighting bug that flagged valid Java for-loop initialization blocks with multiple statements as incorrect. A warning bug that triggered a false non-null local variable alert when using JSpecify annotations. A database generation bug that hid the option to use a DELETE statement instead of a TRUNCATE checkbox. A Kotlin highlighting failure where an assertion error in the Gradle redundant library inspection broke error highlighting. A UI bug where the ComboBox popup lacked a maximum height restriction. A Snowflake syntax error where DataGrip failed to support the "create temp" command. A Svelte syntax parsing failure that incorrectly flagged quotes inside inline expressions. A VCS repository manager deadlock that triggered thread pool exhaustion. A memory leak where the LazyTree component kept all previous versions of a tree in memory. IntelliJ 2026.1.3 is the third bug fix release for the IntelliJ 2026.1 series. The first one landed back in April with a fix for the WSL Python interpreter freeze, another fix for guest participants using Emmet abbreviations, and corrected WildFly server deployment errors.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      Asgardi earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Conversation Starter
      mobandz earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • Apprentice
      fernan99 went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • One Month Later
      nothanks earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      B2Proxy earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      469
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      243
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      79
    4. 4
      FloatingFatMan
      73
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      60
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!