FREE from M$

[nuggettsmyname]

Damn.... talk about in the nick of time.... lol

[whatmeworry]

DEAD!!

[Kc2iLq]

Glad I got my order for XP Pro in.

-Kc2iLq

[sixf00t4]

grrrrrrrr.

[Tomteriffic]

Aww, great, didn't even think of that being a bogus site. Too early in the day. Now it's gonna be spam-0-gram city

[implexant]

Let me settle this "is it legit or not" question once and for all.

1) the site links back to Microsoft.com, if an illegal site did that, then Microsoft would see them as a referer in their logs and go after them. any idiot would know not to do that

2) The survey asks for very little personal information, and asks only questions that a seasoned developer would ask. Obviously the information at the end is just to know where to send the stuff. duh.

3) the whois records show that Microsoft handles the DNS for this site, and Microsoft is the technical contact for the site.

4) Microsoft often outsources many of its services. did you know that 90% of the downloads linked from KB articles and MSDN articles are from a third party download server? Microsoft pays them to store stuff on a fat pipe.

5) i found a man that posted this:

I finish being "randomly selected" for a survey of hotmail users/msn, in case to somebody this interests aqui to him the URL https://www.msnfeedback.com/surveys/usa/homenet.htm .

this seems to indicate the MSN/Microsoft has used this URL and server for the same purpose in the past.

6) yet another case about the same as #5:

Tell us what you think about MSN Live! Please take this short, anonymous survey: http://www.msnfeedback.com/surveys/usa/msnlive.htm

MSN/Microsoft has used this URL and server for the same purpose in the past.

7) they use IIS. who else but MS would use IIS? the fact that they use perl is kinda odd though. maybe their opening up?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you read carefully, you will notice that the survey is written in an amateur way. Compare the grammatical structure, paragraph content, and sentence order to any other document affiliated with Microsoft, and you will notice that this is obviously fake.

I think MS is trying to get solid feed back from developers, not impress the crouds with their o-so-exceptional DHTML. and anyway, i think the survey was computer generated. if you look at www.msnfeedback.com you'll see a log in system for generated surveys. they probably just type in questions and the computer generates the code. saves time eh?

I took the survey twice. I sent one to my dad and one to me.

this is unacceptable. Microsoft developed this survey to get feed back from REAL developers, not to get bogus info from a bunch of "pretend" developers. now, if you really do develope ASP, perl, C++, ect, then take the survey. thats what its intended for.

What's really odd is they didn't use Javascript to valid the data. I completely went through the site by hitting "next" without checking anything and then inserting my name and address at the end.

generally professional coders and developers take the time to fill everything out, because they actually want to give MS good feed back. they didn't expect a bunch of TIMOers to come along and want a free copy of Windows XP Pro.

THINK PEOPLE. If you aren't a developer, don't take the survey. Even if they did send you the copy of XP Pro, you'd be giving them lame feedback in an attempt to get something for nothing. wake up, smell the coffee.

-Chris

[Cyberlore]

Well done, implexant. Does anyone know where this survey originated from? They obviously noticed that there was an insane boom in the number of people taking the survey since it was closed, so I'm sure they'll appropriate action. Those who didn't fill out anything will get removed automatically I'm sure, that's not hard to sort out. I know a lot of surveys have built in checks such that it compares selected answers throughout the test and throws out those that don't check, such as contradictary responses. Considering the servey software used for the site (Perseus)costs a good $500-$1000, I'm sure it has advanced controls such as those.

[lobo_pac]

Originally posted by implexant
THINK PEOPLE. If you aren't a developer, don't take the survey. Even if they did send you the copy of XP Pro, you'd be giving them lame feedback in an attempt to get something for nothing. wake up, smell the coffee.

I for one am thinking about emailing this Nancy and telling her about this.

sheesh....lighten up a bit man. if you don't think nancy doesn't already know that this deal is posted on fatwallet, here and every other deals site, you're sadly mistaken. that's why it's now dead. chances are they won't honor it due to the overwhelming response. people are always trying to get something for nothing or next to nothing, that's the nature of these sites. many of the deals posted on this site are using coupon codes that were not actually e-mailed to them; is that unethical as well? i'm sure that M$ will shut this down if they percieve a problem. there are ways for them to avoid the "overwhelming response" that has surely occured.

[nuggettsmyname]

implexant--

I agree with everything you wrote except this-


"I for one am thinking about emailing this Nancy and telling her about this."

I disagree with this completely. You do that and you can open up a huge can of legal worms. The ones who took this interview will not face any legal consequences as there were no disclaimers stating eligibility. However Techimo itself could face legal issues for allowing this thread to continue , especially given the context of some of the replys here (like the one you chose to single out. I doubt that this would become an issue if you choose to say something about it, but realize that the people who filled out this survey have done nothing illegal, but this Techimo itself could be put at risk. Think before you do something like this. I hope your comment was said in jest out of your contempt for those non professionals who chose to fill this out.

[nuggettsmyname]

Mods-- someone should lock this thread. It's your call but I would.