Microsoft Launches Windows QuickStart Kit For Mac Developers | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Launches Windows QuickStart Kit For Mac Developers

techcrunch.com

148 pointslanthe97 comments

Great 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.

Just do us a favor and don't paste this on any deal sites, or Microsoft will make us turn this off. Only for developers!

There'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 ;)

All 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.

I'm pleased to see that slickdeals and fatwallet both have threads about this deal, but no one has spoiled the puzzle yet.

Or a Chrome plugin :)

It 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.

Fortunately, it sold out before that became a problem.

Lanthe, 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.

Does anyone know if this copy will work in VirtualBox on Linux as well?

Edit: nvm, it's all sold out

If you just want a copy for VirtualBox on Linux, you can download a VM from http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools . It's a demo OS license, but good enough for testing.

The "+ 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?

Ever tried downloading a USB stick?

Yes, 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.

25$ completely goes to charity. But they could have still done it as a download though.

Personally I'd rather download a DMG and put it on a USB I can buy locally. Better than waiting for international post.

Microsoft 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.

Well, 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.

Yeah, 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.

My 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.

Just did something similar, saw that I was getting an SSL Error in Safari from their JSONP Callback on 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?

Mostly 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!).

The cynical developer inside me thought, "Windows 8 has so little traction among Windows developers, Redmond is trying to attract Apple developers out of desperation."

Ya, 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.

A US$25 sold-out USB stick is more friction than a download.

Haha, true. But it's a whole lot better than "Buy shitty VM product, then source a retail/whitebox copy of Windows, then Install and Patch, Install and Patch, and set up Dev tools for about $400."

Did it come with development tools?

Hrm, they label it as "iOS and UX to Windows porting labs". So in a sense.

A more direct link to the page to get the kit

https://swish.com/swish-frontend/views/buy-devkit.html?p=dev...

Thanks for the link. Saves a few clicks. Just bought it.

Much thanks for the link. Although I also got a "something went wrong" javascript pop up, I managed to submit the order successfully by re-enable the submit button and resubmit it.

I 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.

Looks like swish is a little bogged down at the moment. My connection attempts are timing out :)

Indeed, same here. It does seem like it would be a popular offer.

Quite.

I 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 :)

This is what i got after forcing the jsonp callback: "Product sold out! Thanks for shopping."

Well I guess that means I'll give up on trying and get back to work.

Me, too, making iOS apps. And continuing to wonder if Windows 8 is really a turd for development.

Probably not the effect MS wanted here.

It said Sold Out for me as well 10 mins ago, but I retried again and it worked :) #paystonotgiveuptoosoon

We 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.

Will 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.

MS 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.

You need to up the number by 1000% People are giving up on Microsoft because of the licenses. Personally, I think that .Net MVC is possibly the best platform to develop for, but since it's burdened with licenses, I'm forced down an Open Source route.

The fundamental issue this doesn't address is that developers don't care about Microsoft any more. I've worked in the Microsoft world for nearly two decades, it was how I earned my money, now people are offering £80,000 a year roles for JavaScript.

I was able to checkout just now.

swish.com appears to be completely down at this time.

Every 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"

I 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/ (obviously not working right now).

I'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.

We 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.

Hmm, got the same error, but no confirmation email. :( indeed!

Same here. Did it three times, each time with the same error. No confirmation e-mail.

Besides 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

SOLD OUT.

Just tried, submited payment info, got message back after a minute.

This sounds great.

Parallels + pirated windows 8 isn't too hard to set up, but for any billable rate, $25 is a good deal.

bizspark (www.microsoft.com/bizspark, free for startups) has windows 8 as part of the program (for free) which you can use in bootcamp.

Wow, what does it mean that you must "graduate" the bizspark program to keep the software?

Makes 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...

That's good in theory, but in practice it would likely be another browser/platform to test and debug.

AFAIK the last version was based on Tasman not Trident.

Guys... stop clicking the link so I can get my order through.

k thx

Sorry 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?

Isn't the full Windows 8 license only available to MSDN subscribers though?

On 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.

Ah, ok. Thanks.

That makes it a pretty awesome deal. Shame they sold out!

Does 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.

Nope, you just have to solve a small easy "puzzle" to "prove" you're a developer.

joke's on them, i only know how to solve the puzzle using chrome

I managed to solve this one using the F12 Developer Tools in IE. Good enough tool for the job. Would use again.

Argh! 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.

Anyone wants to explain the motivation behind it?

Does Microsoft think the Mac developer community is somewhat relevant to their future?

I managed to order, got the email but swish.com/login doesn't load.

Also, what are the credentials? Wasn't asked for any password ...

Create an account with the same email you checked out with.

Worked now finally.

You have to create a new account on that page with the email you used when you bought the deal.

Thanks, managed to do it now.

"Sorry, we are sold out of this item." Aw.

:( USA Only...

It mentions international shipping on the billing page - is it still USA only?

Can'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.

Try the link in the comments from Geekbri.

If you click the "International" option under Shipping a Country field appears.

We 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.

Sold out

Seems to be working again. Just submitted and got a confirmation email.

It worked for me, site was slow but I was still able to submit the order

It doesn't work at all for me. Been trying for 15 minutes. :-(

The frustrating experience of trying to order this is why nobody wants to deal with your platform... sigh

To 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.

Would 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 :)

Yep, we plan to write a blog post all about it, and what we'll fix going forward.

Please 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?

No offense, but it is still Microsoft's fault for selecting an outside vendor who was unprepared. Poor planning and little interest in user experience (be it developer or consumer).

This just hit engadget.

Well played MS.....

Sold out :(

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