Digital Home Thoughts: BestBuy Unveils Windows 7 Upgrade Plans

"The memo states that Best Buy (and presumably its competitors) will launch a "Technology Guarantee" program on June 26, under which anyone who purchases a PC running Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate can install Windows 7 at no extra charge when the latter becomes available Oct. 22. "

Back when Vista was just around the corner, Microsoft and partners started offering a similar guarantee, with customers buying a computer with Windows XP able to upgrade to Windows Vista. The goal was to prevent customers from holding off on their computer purchases in anticipation of the great Vista bonanza. Of course, the whole upgrade plan went awry, and lots of us were left wanting when our "Vista Capable" computers slowed to a crawl. This time, I think the story will be a bit different for several reasons. First, manufacturers have hopefully learned their lesson and will not try to castrate their computers with the bare minimum specifications. Second, computing horsepower has doubled, or dual-cored, rather, in the past few years, meaning that even the cheapest computers tend to have much more oomph. Third, Windows 7 definitely seems to be a leaner, slicker Windows over Vista. I see the upgade plan a bit of a red herring with most people who will buy a computer will be so entrenched in their personal touches, etc. that they will probably end up not bothering with the upgrade. Has anyone actually upgraded their computer from Windows XP to Vista through one of these programs?