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Microsoft Launches Windows QuickStart Kit For Mac Developers
- uptown 13y agoGreat deal. For $25 + shipping you get a Windows 8 Professional license, Parallels 8, and a USB stick. Just change the "disabled" attribute on the order button, and you're all set.
- lanthe 13y agoJust do us a favor and don't paste this on any deal sites, or Microsoft will make us turn this off. Only for developers!
- Livven 13y agoThere's a very strong hint on the site. If you're a developer you should be able to figure it out easily, if you're not a developer you probably won't know how to "remove the disabled attribute" anyway ;)
- Tomdarkness 13y agoAll it takes is someone to post a few step by step instructions and anyone could re-enable the button regardless of their skills. Hopefully people won't ruin this offer and do that though.
- Bradosaur 13y agoI'm pleased to see that slickdeals and fatwallet both have threads about this deal, but no one has spoiled the puzzle yet.
- IgorPartola 13y agoOr a Chrome plugin :)
- Aloisius 13y agoIt is easy enough to write a small bookmarklet that anyone can paste into the window to flip off the disabled field. Once that gets into the wild, I can't imagine this offer will last.
- Bradosaur 13y agoFortunately, it sold out before that became a problem.
- superuser2 13y agoLanthe, how much longer do you intend to keep this running? Because I'm timing out before even hitting the form. Would really love to get this as I've been hoping to get into .NET MVC4 but OEM Win8 pro is quite a lot of money. EDIT: I got through. Thanks.
- w1ntermute 13y agoDoes anyone know if this copy will work in VirtualBox on Linux as well? Edit: nvm, it's all sold out
- Bradosaur 13y agoIf you just want a copy for VirtualBox on Linux, you can download a VM from http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools . It's a demo OS license, but good enough for testing.
- mikeash 13y agoThe "+ shipping" part amuses me. It seems to sum up the whole "out of touch" reputation that Microsoft has, whether deserved or not. Why wouldn't this just be a download?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- paulvandermeijs 13y agoEver tried downloading a USB stick?
- mikeash 13y agoYes, because they're totally charging $25 for a USB stick and throwing in Windows and Parallels for free, and the whole thing would be pointless without the USB stick.
- glasshead969 13y ago25$ completely goes to charity. But they could have still done it as a download though.
- analog 13y agoPersonally I'd rather download a DMG and put it on a USB I can buy locally. Better than waiting for international post.
- fpgeek 13y agoMicrosoft isn't being stupid here. The puzzle is a hurdle. The donation and (waiting for) shipping are additional hurdles. Hopefully all of these hurdles filter well for the kind of developer Microsoft want to attract.
- geekbri 13y agoLooks like swish is a little bogged down at the moment. My connection attempts are timing out :)
- MichaelStubbs 13y agoIndeed, same here. It does seem like it would be a popular offer.
- mitchty 13y agoQuite.
- tinco 13y agoI sure do hope my creditcard isn't hit for every time I resubmit the order form... edit: nvm, I finally got through, only 1 order confirmation :)
- geekbri 13y agoA more direct link to the page to get the kit https://swish.com/swish-frontend/views/buy-devkit.html?p=devkit https://swish.com/swish-frontend/views/buy-devkit.html?p=dev...
- dmix 13y agoThis sounds great. Parallels + pirated windows 8 isn't too hard to set up, but for any billable rate, $25 is a good deal.
- adlpz 13y agoDoes this mean you need to be a registered Apple Developer (with the ID and all the jazz..)? I can't get to the site to check, it keeps timing out.
- Bradosaur 13y agoNope, you just have to solve a small easy "puzzle" to "prove" you're a developer.
- liljimmytables 13y agojoke's on them, i only know how to solve the puzzle using chrome
- planetjones 13y agoI managed to solve this one using the F12 Developer Tools in IE. Good enough tool for the job. Would use again.
- Tomdarkness 13y agoEvery time I submit the order I just get a javascript alert with "something went wrong :(" No idea if the order went through or not... Edit: Got an order confirmation via email. However, I really think when you are dealing with payments you should implement a more detailed explanation than a javascript alert of "something went wrong"
- footpath 13y agoI got that too, but immediately after I received an email from swish that stated my order is complete, and that I can check my orders at http://swish.com/login/ http://swish.com/login/ (obviously not working right now).
- Tomdarkness 13y agoI've not used Swish before and like you said I can't access the login page either. However, I never got any account details so do you know how you would login? Edit: Managed to get on the page and create an account after some f5 hammering. Turns out all you need to do is create an account with the same email you used in the order and it will display the order status.
- Bradosaur 13y agoWe wanted to make checkout easy, but maybe went a little too far. I'll add some more language to the confirmation email explaining what's going on. Thanks for posting the solution.
- Scramblejams 13y agoHmm, got the same error, but no confirmation email. :( indeed!
- Wonderdonkey 13y agoSame here. Did it three times, each time with the same error. No confirmation e-mail.
- jeromegv 13y agoIt worked for me, site was slow but I was still able to submit the order
- andzt 13y agoGuys... stop clicking the link so I can get my order through. k thx
- planetjones 13y ago:( USA Only...
- nateleiby 13y agoIt mentions international shipping on the billing page - is it still USA only?
- planetjones 13y agoCan't see anywhere for the country to go: Name, Address, Apt/Suite, City, State/Province/Region, Zip EDIT: I solved the puzzle ok, but the form which comes up only has the fields above EDIT2: thanks - I think the problem is the website not loading properly due to congestion so certain page elements weren't visible.
- infinite_snoop 13y agoTry the link in the comments from Geekbri.
- davweb 13y agoIf you click the "International" option under Shipping a Country field appears.
- Bradosaur 13y agoWe have international shipping too for this promo. Click the "International" button in the shopping card on the Shipping line. A Country field should pop up.
- panzerboy 13y agoI managed to order, got the email but swish.com/login doesn't load. Also, what are the credentials? Wasn't asked for any password ...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- throwaway1979 13y agoNo ... I just got mine. Kudos to Microsoft on this one. My money is going to a good cause and I get to give Windows 8 development a chance.
- jefflinwood 13y agoI think this is an excellent idea for Microsoft, but this web site has cratered under the load. I'm assuming they're using Stripe from the little message on my JS console, but I'm having some serious trouble getting it to accept my payment (in Safari on Mac OS X, Chrome isn't connecting at all). EDIT: I am getting "something went wrong :(" after clicking submit, two or three times now.
- Tortoise 13y agoIt doesn't work at all for me. Been trying for 15 minutes. :-(
- 2_ghosts 13y agoMy checkout experience: Enabled the button, clicked it, nothing happened. Looked in Firebug at the Network console, saw a failure come back from the 'Pay' step. Triple-checked my payment info, clicked the button once more. 25-30 seconds later, I got two consecutive "Something went wrong" javascript alerts. A minute or so later, I got two confirmation emails, lacking any useful details. I'm guessing I was charged twice. Once it is possible to log into the site, I will see what my order status says. Right now /login continues to time-out.
- jefflinwood 13y agoJust did something similar, saw that I was getting an SSL Error in Safari from their JSONP Callback on https://swish.com/swish-backend/... https://swish.com/swish-backend/..., opened that link in another Safari window and it appeared to go through. I have one pending charge on my credit card, not sure if anything else will go through, but I did end up getting an order confirmation. Maybe whatever they're using to route SSL traffic through is falling over?
- Bradosaur 13y agoMostly what failed was outbound bandwidth. Users weren't getting the JSON response from the payment page, though sometimes the payments went through. Confirmation emails were very reliable, though, (thanks Amazon SES!).
- ja27 13y agoBesides building Windows 8 apps, I think you can even build Windows Phone 8 apps with this. It looks like Parallels now has support for all the virtualization / SLAT stuff that the WP8 emulator needs. (VMWare Fusion 5 has this as well.) http://kb.parallels.com/en/115211 http://kb.parallels.com/en/115211
- magomandrake 13y agoWell played MS.....
- keesj 13y agoSold out
- thehermit 13y agoSeems to be working again. Just submitted and got a confirmation email.
- rajivtiru 13y agoThis is what i got after forcing the jsonp callback: "Product sold out! Thanks for shopping."
- mikeflynn 13y agoWell I guess that means I'll give up on trying and get back to work.
- shaggyfrog 13y agoMe, too, making iOS apps. And continuing to wonder if Windows 8 is really a turd for development. Probably not the effect MS wanted here.
- suyash 13y agoIt said Sold Out for me as well 10 mins ago, but I retried again and it worked :) #paystonotgiveuptoosoon
- Bradosaur 13y agoWe upped the number available by 10% after it sold out, but then it sold out again in a few minutes. It's sold out for good now, I promise.
- anonymoushn 13y agoWill these kits be sold anywhere else? It's a bit of a shame for those of us that just got a bunch of timeouts before it was sold out completely.
- Bradosaur 13y agoMS may do another run of these, but we don't know. The other tools on modern.ie are genuinely useful too. We tested Swish using browserstack to resolve a thorny IE8 problem.
- 13y ago
- xradionut 13y agoThe cynical developer inside me thought, "Windows 8 has so little traction among Windows developers, Redmond is trying to attract Apple developers out of desperation."
- jpxxx 13y agoYa, but look at it from a pragmatic business perspective, and this is Microsoft doing exactly what they should to court the prodigal developer: set up a zero hassle Windows environment on your favorite platform for cheap.
- hmottestad 13y agoThis just hit engadget.
- Wonderdonkey 13y ago"Sorry, we are sold out of this item." Aw.
- matdrewin 13y agoSold out :(
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dsl 13y agoThe frustrating experience of trying to order this is why nobody wants to deal with your platform... sigh
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Bradosaur 13y agoTo be fair, the headaches today were our (Swish's) fault, not Microsoft's. If MS decides to run another set of these, we'll make sure we are better prepared. Unless you mean the disabled "I'm a developer" button -- that was intentional and supposed to be fun.
- iqster 13y agoWould you be willing to do a short post-mortem write up on the load challenges your site faced? Since you are part of the HN crowd, I imagine you did all the reasonable things and somethings still surprised you :)
- Bradosaur 13y agoYep, we plan to write a blog post all about it, and what we'll fix going forward.
- suyash 13y agoPlease also do include in your blog post : 1. Which charities people donated most money? (my guess khan academy)? 2. Who's genius idea was to use 'disabled' attribute on the buttons? 3. How much traffic surge you got from TC, HN, Engadget?
- dsl 13y ago
- powertower 13y agoSOLD OUT. Just tried, submited payment info, got message back after a minute.
- zampano 13y agoWell, that was disappointing. Spent about 20 minutes trying to get in on this, only to find out it is sold out when the site finally loads. If they want developers to give Windows 8 a spin, they'll need to put in a little more effort to make this process less of a pain.
- bmelton 13y agoYeah, I've been periodically refreshing it all morning, only to finally receive the 'sold out' message myself. In all fairness, I don't have any immediate needs for Windows development, and it's by no means a certainty that I would have actually built something Windows-centric, so it's probably no great loss for either side.
- dsuriano 13y agoMakes me wonder if Microsoft would ever consider releasing IE for Mac OS X again. That would seem to be a good way to make sure Mac Developers target IE...
- lancefisher 13y agoThat's good in theory, but in practice it would likely be another browser/platform to test and debug.
- yuhong 13y agoAFAIK the last version was based on Tasman not Trident.
- TomAnthony 13y agoSorry if I missed this - but what do you get on the USB stick that isn't the same as downloading Parallels / Win 8 / IE10 combo they offer on the site?
- luiperd 13y agoIsn't the full Windows 8 license only available to MSDN subscribers though?
- Bradosaur 13y agoOn MS's site, you can download VMs for use with an existing Virtualization Platform like Parallels or Virtual Box. The VMs are guest operating systems with limited trial time. MS's docs suggest you use your VM manager to roll back when time runs out. With the USB key promo, you get a full license for parallels and a full license for Win8.
- TomAnthony 13y agoAh, ok. Thanks. That makes it a pretty awesome deal. Shame they sold out!
- niggler 13y agobizspark (www.microsoft.com/bizspark, free for startups) has windows 8 as part of the program (for free) which you can use in bootcamp.
- jakejake 13y agoWow, what does it mean that you must "graduate" the bizspark program to keep the software?
- jbrooksuk 13y agoArgh! I placed an order but due to the overload it said "something went wrong" I thought I'd give it time to cool down and now they're sold out :( Oh well.
- rbanffy 13y agoAnyone wants to explain the motivation behind it? Does Microsoft think the Mac developer community is somewhat relevant to their future?