Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.
Even if you have no future plans to upgrade/migrate to Windows 8 Pro yet, you may change your mind in the future. If you do it will cost more to upgrade after January. I bought two upgrades just in case, haven't installed them yet.
When I switched I went to Ubuntu 12.10 instead of Windows 8. Windows 8 is awful and lacks a lot of software support, that could change in a few years if Microsoft gets their act together.
My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform.
I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me, on a January 2004 Precision 650 - it runs pretty much flawlessly; no blue screens/hangs or other problems in two+ years. I use it mostly for outlook+lookout, Microsoft Visio, VMware Workstation - Zero need to upgrade - So I've been able to skip Vista, Windows 7 and now, apparently, Windows 8. About the only thing I've done is go through two monitor upgrades (Started with a 45 Pound 21" CRT, went to a (considered extravagant back then) 21" LCD - it's now sporting a Dell 30".
I'm honestly interested in knowing how long I'll be able to keep this desktop running. (Clearly, the $40 to $200 jump is having no impact on me)
And if you have a Windows 7-based tablet like I do, you'll appreciate the new touch UI because Windows 7's was not very good while Windows 8's is more reasonable.
Also, Windows 8 doesn't seem as half-baked as previous Windows versions did at the time they were released. Then must have improved their testing process because being a Windows 8 early adopter no longer feels like being a beta tester.
I'm not a Microsoft lover, not by a long stretch, but for Windows users this is an offer too good to pass.
Suppose you upgrade any old OEM Windows XP or later that's bound to the hardware that you bought it with. Once you upgrade, you are no longer bound by the old license but by the new one. So you now have a full Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, that you can move somewhere else, virtualize, etc. That's what the license says, as far as I understand it (IANAL, but I have read it thoroughly).
Edit for clarification: even though you get a Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, it's still a Windows 8 Pro Upgrade. So yes, you can move it somewhere else or virtualize it, but it still needs to be installed over an existing and properly licensed Windows copy (XP or later).
I must have it to test software for clients. Otherwise it's as about as useful as a foot steered automobile.
May I ask what you've been doing? Old Unix/NT guy here (Unix from 1988, NT from 1994), using OS X since 2008. Never had such a problem with my 17" MB Pro (early 2008)
The "8" part mainly. I'll probably buy it just for good measure in case its an advantage upgrade wise when win 9 rolls by (Assuming MS is still dominant then).
Nothing huge, but $40? Pretty damn cheap.
Me: Do you plan to upgrade to Windows 8?
Them: No way. Windows 8 is horrible!
Me: Oh, so when did you use it?
Them: Not yet... I read a lot of people bitching about it online, though.I think the youtube videos are based on that.
Windows 8 is the New Coke of Windows operating systems, worse than Windows Vista and Windows ME combined.
They took this route with Xbox and all went well in the end. Secret, keep iterating the damn product.
Xbox is not profitable over its lifetime (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/15/how-one-of-microsofts...). Windows PC sales are down 20% from last year (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57556199-292/windows-8-...).
Microsoft has negligible presence in the high-margin mobile and tablet space. By contrast, Apple makes hundreds of dollars from each phone/tablet sale. Phones are repurchased every 2 years, and Apple originally got $18 per user per month for each iPhone subscriber (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9803657-37.html). Microsoft makes ~$50 from one-time PC purchases, which are replaced every 4-5 years.
The XBox is a success because of exclusive video game titles on it. Plus gamers have to keep getting their XBox repaired or replaced to keep playing games.
Some stupid Internet advice tell people to reset the XBox when it has a red ring of death by throwing a towel or blanket over it. That causes overheating, and in some cases fries the CPU or other parts and then they have to buy a new XBox. I don't know why, when the main problem of the XBox overheating is a bad heat sink and poor quality in cooling the equipment, for a solution to that is to apply more heat so the system resets the red ring of death?
- IE hides the URL bar by default and makes you right click near the bottom of the browser to show it (this took me 5 min to figure out).
- We backed up all the email on Outlook Express from the old machine only to find that Windows 8 Mail couldn't import it.
- Windows would occasionally (not by my doing) switch back to the old style desktop mode. The old desktop mode was great at first, until I realized there wasn't a start button and I had to use both the new UI and the old desktop to get stuff done.
This is just a small sampling. To be fair I upgraded to the new Ubuntu layout a few months ago and found it to be almost as frustrating (almost). But then I switched to the old style desktop and everything was back to normal again. Bottom line? Grandma hates it and wants her old computer back.
This fairly accurately describes every time a tech-unsavvy friend or relative of mine has upgraded anything, ever.
There's a start button, it just doesn't look like anything. Throw your cursor to the bottom-left corner and click. (And the little "show desktop" widget is still in the bottom-right corner as well.)
I don't get it - why would you want it invisible, even if you're using touch?
(this goes for special "swipe-in" stuff too, not just for the start menu)
If you're approaching Windows 8 on a desktop or (non-touch) laptop with the intent to stay strictly within this new interface, you're misunderstanding how the operating system works.
Agreed. Maybe MS plans to sell training on how to do the things that were obvious before?
I upgraded to win8 when it came out, I can't imagine anyone visiting HackerNews being confused by Win8 interface, even businessy lean startup types. Everything so far was good and while I switch to desktop mostly, Metro interface is fine and makes me want to get a tablet (since I have quite a few already, this will not happen soon, again ipads).
My Win machine is at least 3 years old, it feels with W8 way more snappy then my iMac 27" that I got last year. In fact, I am using it now because StarCraft II on iMac got iffy and screen ... well it crashed pretty much.
Again, I don't know why you have such hard time with Win, it works really well. Feel free to ask me any questions. I do spend most of my time on linux and osx, but still...
[edit] Reason why I like win8 so much is that it is modern interface and how future interfaces will be. That is why so many of you feel resistance to it, because it is new.
Whole app store thing helps a great deal. You install apps way faster and easier then ever before, like it is on a mac.
I would compare it when Apple changed scrolling, it took some time to get used to it (or flip the setting).
To get to the desktop you apparently have to click in the very left bottom corner, a single pixel. Choosing the desktop icon that displays when you move the cursor to the lower left corner just makes the icon go away. Maybe it makes perfect sense to everyone else! I think I'll save a lot of time by switching fully to Linux or the Mac.
This is a machine that had no such problems with Windows 7. I've uninstalled virtually every program that could possibly cause the problems I experience. The only thing left to uninstall is Windows 8. I will not miss it.
http://everymantech.com/post/40133879737/windows-8-for-15-no...
My main Laptop runs Ubuntu and my custom built PC runs a dual-boot of Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I need Windows 7 for Turbo Tax and some other software that won't run under WINE.
BTW I got Windows 7 Ultimate from a Microsoft Developer event for free. No such deals for developers when Windows 8 came out, or maybe I missed it?
I have Vista 32 on my laptop (that is doing nothing at the moment), I want a 64bit version of windows. I'd like to go from Vista 32 to Windows 8 with an upgrade. But that isn't really supported. I can go from Vista 32 to Vista 64 -> Windows 8, but it's a hassle. Lenovo have pulled their images, I have no disk images of Vista, it goes on. I've read loads of people going through similar install/reinstalls.
Windows should just provide different arch versions of the ISO, that they update regularly. That you can download any old place, and place it on USB/DVD whatever. Then just use your paid for product key. Simple?
I'm trialing the evaluation version. I've already broken the Desktop Internet Explorer. And I've crashed the OS twice. It feels like a poor man's Unity! I've windows that I can't view in their entirety on the screen, and there's no way I can move them to get to the controls. I can't easily get an overview of what's installed (no simple menu). And there doesn't seem like any intuitive way to get to the control panel. Plus it's hard to know what's clickable and what isn't.
There are a few nice touches, but I'd personally like to turn Metro off. I've got no want for it. I was hoping it would be a little more polished than this. But it feels odd.
I'm trying to justify the hassle of the £25 upgrade. Price it over £100, no thanks, I'll be at the mercy of Ubuntu for another decade. This was a chance for MS to woo someone that hasn't really touched their OSs for thirteen years. I've tried to meet them in the middle.
It shouldn't be this hard.
The free software movement needs to get its act together.