Not that I hadn’t read this before, but Ars Technica has the official word on the death of Ultimate Extras:
Our new approach to planning and building Windows doesn’t have the capacity to continue to deliver features outside the regular release cycle. While our core development team is focused on building the next release, our sustained engineering team is focused on updates to existing features. As a result we don’t plan to create Ultimate Extras.
Microsoft strongly under delivered on their promises for Ultimate Extras for Vista. That is one of the many reasons why I dislike using Vista. It was hyped up to be some sort of special edition that would give me benefits like free stuff, exclusive downloads and the features which would put other Windows Vista SKU users to shame. But, sadly that never happened. Apart from the game Tinker, the only good Ultimate Extra, and the lame gimmick that Dream Scene was there isn’t much to talk about for Extras. A set of different Windows Sounds should already be a part of Windows by default. Buyers should at least get something out of their money, and asking for a few different sounds and more wallpapers doesn’t seem too much to me. Anyhow, coming back to the Extras, they were supposed to be the Plus pack for Vista, just like Windows 9x and XP had plus packs. Hopefully the make separate Plus packs for Windows 7 to add more value to the OS. May the Ultimate Extras rest in peace.
