I’ve just had the most amazing (but not in a nice way) experience with Microsoft. They sell Microsoft Professional, Microsoft Home Premium, and Microsoft Windows 7 Starter. I have a machine with microsoft Home Premium Vista on it. So I thought, “well I’ll go out and buy Microsoft Windows 7 and get the latest version.” I went to the store and bought Windows 7 Professional. Guess what, it doesn’t upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional. They only upgrade from Windwos Vista Home Premium to Windows Vista Home Premium. If I want to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Professional I have to do a “clean install.” Oh Joy. Likewise Windows 7 Starter only goes to windows 7 Home Premium, to go from Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional — no can do.

Now I know what a pain it is to keep versions compatible, but this is not a compatibility or a support issue, it is a bait and switch/market cheating issue. There is no logical reason that they do this except to force people to buy unnecessary and duplicative software.

Lesson learned. Unethical behavior goes with impunity in our current system.