Windows Ultimate Extras

[18] Microsoft Tinker is a puzzle game made available on September 23, 2008 where players must navigate a robot through mazes and obstacles.

[7] According to Paul Thurrott, Hold 'Em was originally intended to be bundled alongside the premium games—Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans, and InkBall—included by default with the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, but was instead made an Ultimate Extra because of its gambling themes.

[26] Proposed Windows Ultimate Extras included a downloadable podcast creator,[27] a game performance optimizer,[27] digital publications,[28] exclusive access to online content,[27] themes,[27] Windows DVD Maker templates,[2] and Windows Movie Maker effects and transitions;[2] the Group Shot photo application developed by Microsoft Research shown by Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2007 also was once considered.

[37] After months without an official update since January, Microsoft released an apology for the delays, stating that it intended to ship the remaining features before the end of summer of 2007.

[37] The delays between consecutive updates and months of silence had led to speculation that the development team within the company responsible for the features had been quietly disbanded.

The offerings slated to be made available were initially described as "cutting-edge programs," "innovative services," and "unique publications," but the description for the features within the Control Panel applet was later modified in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to be more modest; this was interpreted as an attempt made by the company to avoid fulfilling prior expectations.

"[41] In the second part of his review of Windows 7, Peter Bright of Ars Technica wrote that "the value proposition of the Ultimate Extras was nothing short of piss-poor.

"[42] Bright would later criticize Microsoft's decision not to release Internet Explorer 10 for Windows Vista, but would go on to state that this was still "not as bad as the Ultimate Extras farce.