Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99

[LittleJay]

I just can't see myself spending $40 to update my desktop to Windows 8. Not when Windows 7 does everything I need it to do. From what I read about Metro, I wonder if I could even figure out how to do anything on my computer.

 

[HonorGamer]

I stayed from 98 to XP. Now I'm staying from 7 till whenever the next best windows will be. Plus I don't like the interface of windows 8.

 

[Night Hawk]

Here I went from dos/3.1, 95, 98SE, skipped ME and 2000 while now looking back I think I would have preferred 2000 Pro back then, XP, Vista(much better, less BSODs! but larger and no use for side bar), and then onto 7 which so far has remained the top shelf OS! Then you run into W8... huh? "what have they done?!"

For anyone not running the CP or RP but never having run Vista or 7 now going out to buy a new system they will pulling hairs from the roots and likely returning the new 8 systems back to the places they buy them from asking "How do you run this stuff?!"

Those are the people that will be taken offguard no less with many having seen their old ME, 2000, or XP desktop or laptop quit on them or simply wanting to pass it along to a student and then going out to buy something new. They wouldn't know about the various 3rd party additives amd wonder like the rest of us how to disable the Metro from auto loading at startup!

 

[Waffl]

Probably NEVER getting it, I can just imagine the lower performance I'll get in games.

 

[Dave76]

Have you tried it?

Please try it before passing judgment.
Most are quite happy with the performance and resource usage, just the Metro start screen and the lack of the Start Menu seems to be the biggest issue.
I'm not a gamer but haven't seen any bad game performance posts, remember seeing a few posts noting some slight improvement.
Others will have experience and can better comment on the affect on gaming.

 

[Night Hawk]

Some actually rave gaming performance but are running the latest titles only. Many of the older titles that require DX 9 may not run at all since unlike what you can see with 7 adding DX 9c Full on along with DX 11 it is totally incompatible with the next version to come.

Yet a few real old titles were still able to install and run without seeing any differences performance wise on a system here running 16gb of memory and a good 1tb mid ranged video card if that will answer that one at all.

It won't install as fast as 7 taking as much time as the typical Vista or XP install by either optical or usb install key. The longest part is seen while waiting for the Install Now screen to first appear with the second following the last restart before arriving at the new lock screen. Don't assign a password however since the Metro is next stop before ever reaching the desktop only after clicking the desktop button.

If you assign a password to the main admin you not only have to type that in or switch to a pin code or image but have to click and pull up on the new lock screen like a window shade just to get to the login screen itself as a new security measure MS added in.

As far as a faster boot time a slight edge next to 7 but not by much especially if you are running 7 in the AHCI mode and see the SCSI drives list added to the post screens when first starting the machine. The faster shutdown is a result of the lower 5000 = 5 seconds figure now seen over 7's default 12000 for 12 seconds in the WaitToKillServices registry value. Even XP and Vista can be tweaked lower then their default 20000 for 20 seconds time.

The Metro UI removal of dvd playback support in Windows Media Player probably knocking out any video playback at all, and total removal of the Media Center in Windows since 2005 with the XP MCEdition shows how MS is stripping the OS down for you to buy at the Metro Apps store for things that had been included with each new version. You pay less for less!

 

[iroro]

cannot stand the way windows 8 is layed out. Every second odd number windows is good, so I shall wait until Windows 9.

 

[Night Hawk]

I think the strongest objections to 8 so far are surrounding the major gui changes and not so much the remaining items. To shutdown or restart finding just the "right spot" to hover the mouse cursor over to see the new side bar for Settings and Apps appear is a royal pain as well as requiring the additional steps over the standard shutdown options!

The right click right where the Start screen popup appears is another "mystery item" to baffle the first time 8 user as well. You soon find that a 3 page pictorial guide is needed for 8 while everyone already knows how to get around in every other version so far without any hassle of locating this or that making it cumbersome.

As far as every other version that doesn't necessarily hold true. For many who never ran anything but XP they wouldn't be familiar with how things were with the previous as well as newer versions. Many opted to run 98SE or 98PLUS! if not 2000 and skipped over XP entirely for Vista.

Many went back to Vista after trying out 7 showing a different point of view for each user. I came up from the old MS Dos, 3.1 days and simply found 7 to be the better of the lot to date! Vista ran better then XP which was only seeing most much needed fixed after SP3. MS had rushed that version out following the ME flop. Yet some kept running ME years later!

The one that works out best in your own situation is usually the one you stay with!

 

[FerchogtX]

Well... I finally let myself try Windows 8... and I can say I don't like it at all... more click to do less, I really feel worried about this regression...

After taking several hours to test this on VMware, I find that this thing reminds me of Windows 3.11... in many aspects. First, you gotta rely more on task mannager, second, the tiles stuff in Metro UI, which I don't consider more than a layer over desktop that tries to replace a more usefull and faster Start Menu... In this, you can rearrange, add and pin programs and apps, but feels like a full screen mess rather than a clean desktop, at least in my case, I HATE having tons of icons taking worthy space and visual from my wallpaper... Intead Rocketdock + Start menu are my friends, even in my new display...

Also, here is some stuff that may be confusing for lost of users, specially having to switch to desktop to actually doing REAL stuff... metro apps like IE 10 look great, but are not that functional, and by the other hand, lots of software are still classic UI themed, that means no metro look, so you switch to desktop everytime you execute something and you need to do serius stuff, like configuring windows (services, startup items, control panel... etc...) I really find this a little annoying. Finally, some usefull functions in Aero are disabled by default, like Aero Snap and Aero Peek, you gotta enable this in order to use the desktop as you used to in Windows 7, and personally, I consider this a bad desition, since the enhaced Aero features were the strongest part of UI changes and improvements in Windows 7, which allows to work with tons of windows with no effort...

Metro UI (aka Bad Start Menu Replacement by myself) has no options to customize rather than just changing the BG design and combination of colors... what about a wallpaper? desktop is better and looks better with this that is already included since windows 95...

Some animations that made Windows 7 look really neat were removed, for example, when you move/copy/delete files, instead the dialog was redesigned with a graph and information over it... the old one looked better, but this is the less important compared to the oter stuff.

The pros? Yes, it has pros, the first one, seems that Aero works faster and cleaner, also seems to use less resources from GPU and looks more efficient. Overall performance is enhaced, Windows 8 (or at least Release Preview) is maybe, 5% or 10% faster than Windows 7, and I'm no talking about boot time only, but the overall system response and stability. Windows load faster, programs and also web surfing seems to feel faster and less sloppy (for example youtube and its loads of adds in flash... **sigh**) also includes flash player, so you don't need to worry about that pluing in particular.

In general, It uses at least 5% or more less memory than Windows 7, even havng Windows defender and Avast 7 at the same time RAM usage never surpasses 34-35% in a 1 GB system, CPU usage is reasonable even with one core...

Also, if you have programs that even ran on XP and work on 7, they will work on Windows 8, I tested Photoshop CS3, Office 2010, Avast 7, Corel Draw Graphics Suite x4 and ImgBurn and ALL of them work even WITHOUT compatibility mode, so you won't suffer from incompatibilities, this means that all hardware we go working on 7 will work on 8 too... Also I can say Task Mannager has better changes, since give more information on what you see.

With this, and adding that no start menu + edge hotspot relying (for start screen calling and options) looks like this OS is mutilated... seriously, is like seing someone after a carcrash that gone really bad... If MS needs to insist on touch screen support, they need to better separate UI interfaces, create a REAL Metro UI instead a layer over everything and leave normal desktop for PC users... But I feel this a bit silly, just because software deplovers like Adobe will have (maybe) a hard time doing both Metro and Normal versions of their software... Well... In this particular only time will say...

Sorry MS, Windows 7 is the best you could do by now, Windows 8 feels mutilated and like returning back to Windows 3.11...

My point of view though...

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
some of the complaints here aren't actually "Real" --

If you install (Free) classic shell Windows 8 can look and feel almost like W7, Vista or even XP -- your choice.

Welcome to Classic Shell

Classic shell brings back a START button and "Classic menu" again. This also gives you the option to skip metro and go straight to the desktop.

Performance and hardware detection is Light YEARS ahead of W7 (which itself is fine too).

I believe also in the final RTM version you will be able to skip Metro and go straight to the desktop if you need to.

People should TRY options out before looking at something for about 10 minutes and then giving it up as a bad job.

I used to LOATHE smart phones -- and Android in particular but the latest release of Android (4.x - ICS) actually is quite reasonable and with a decent smart phone (Samsung Galaxy IIIs) it's quite useable so my original perception was way way wrong.

I don't think W8 is horrible if you set it up properly. Of course I HATE the whole Metro and "Apps store" type of thing -- but you can skip the "kiddy" (Metro) stuff and install your own themes (like W7).

enc desktop screenshot with Fractals theme and classic shell installed.

Give it a PROPER try out before just mouthing "the usual complaints".

It's not perfect but I'm definitely impressed with Hardware detection, ease of install and its performance in general.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[M1GU31]

The thing is,we shouldn't have to do anything to get the features we want in the os.They should already be in the package and shouldn't have to be tinkering with it.I shouldn't have to install classic shell just to get a feature that should of been included in the OS in the begining.Microsoft is just driving away people by taking away features and trying to force features like not having the start bar or forcing metro on the user(yes I know you can switch to desktop mode but that's not the point).Users shouldn't have to go through all that trouble just to get features that were in the previous OS and the OS before that on the new OS that is suppose to be a improved version but was cut down in features. Anyways win 8 overall isn't too bad but not worth the money just to get some changes in the ui and a couple performance tweaks along with features taken away that so many loved and used windows because of it in the first place.Also before someone says I didn't give it a chance,I used it for about 3 weeks before I gave my final judgement. I like some of the performance enhancements and the fast boot but I dislike the UI and that I have to tinker with it so much to get it to my liking which shouldn't be a issue in the first place.I thought Microsoft was making a OS to be of ease of use and not just to the casual user but to the more tech kind of guy(this is my idea not saying all) prefers to be able to use what he's a custom to work with to be more efficient. Though all they have done is complicate things more then they should be.Not like I can't use it but I shouldn't have to do so much.I felt like Microsoft took a step backwards instead of forward.Anyways this is my thoughts and oppion ,everyone is entitled to their opinion of the OS.I don't hate it I just don't feel it's worth the money since win 7 does a good job and doesn't need all this tweaking of the UI and is simple and easy to use.

 

[Night Hawk]

It takes a bit longer to install like about a full hour by optical means over the 20min. average seen for 7 showing it's a newer and larger version. While the 3rd party apps are the easy workaround solutions as well as your own Powershell effort there's a bit more to look at either way as far as liking or disliking it.

I waited for the RP hoping to get further along in examing 8 before the RTM date but ended up finding the RP was buggier when compared to the CP. Forget any dual booting with 7 or Vista. I couldn't say on XP there however but the clash and resulting drive errors made their own announcement when both 8 and then 7 simply froze solid on start after booting into 7 from the 8 BCD.

8 took the worst hit however after both 7 seeing a full clean install later and the PC Refresh option in 8 saw everything packed into the Windows.old folder including all program folders 8 couldn't adjust to the next item being the change of drive modes from Native ide to AHCI. 8 then refused to load while 7 adjusted to the change seeing both OS drives installed.

Originally 7 had the problem however when first building the present case when the board was shipped in AHCI mode. With the initial install of 7 the change to the Native ide mode when first seeing booting problems then saw a normal startup.

Hardware detection is also to see some improvement over the previous. 8 is no where near as backward compatible as 7 is however. The number of older things that especially will run on the 32bit 7 far outweigh what has been seen so far with both Vista and 8 with Vista having more of an edge for older Legacy to XP games and apps.

8 will be kind of a spin the wheel of fortune or misfortune depending on each user's actual needs. Once the Windows VMs on the other OS are through an isolated reinstall of the RP will then be given a more extended look now that some software companies are starting to get their own acts together and releasing updated 8 compatible versions for things.

 

[jimbo45]

It takes a bit longer to install like about a full hour by optical means over the 20min. average seen for 7 showing it's a newer and larger version. While the 3rd party apps are the easy workaround solutions as well as your own Powershell effort there's a bit more to look at either way as far as liking or disliking it.

I waited for the RP hoping to get further along in examing 8 before the RTM date but ended up finding the RP was buggier when compared to the CP. Forget any dual booting with 7 or Vista. I couldn't say on XP there however but the clash and resulting drive errors made their own announcement when both 8 and then 7 simply froze solid on start after booting into 7 from the 8 BCD.

8 took the worst hit however after both 7 seeing a full clean install later and the PC Refresh option in 8 saw everything packed into the Windows.old folder including all program folders 8 couldn't adjust to the next item being the change of drive modes from Native ide to AHCI. 8 then refused to load while 7 adjusted to the change seeing both OS drives installed.

Originally 7 had the problem however when first building the present case when the board was shipped in AHCI mode. With the initial install of 7 the change to the Native ide mode when first seeing booting problems then saw a normal startup.

Hardware detection is also to see some improvement over the previous. 8 is no where near as backward compatible as 7 is however. The number of older things that especially will run on the 32bit 7 far outweigh what has been seen so far with both Vista and 8 with Vista having more of an edge for older Legacy to XP games and apps.

8 will be kind of a spin the wheel of fortune or misfortune depending on each user's actual needs. Once the Windows VMs on the other OS are through an isolated reinstall of the RP will then be given a more extended look now that some software companies are starting to get their own acts together and releasing updated 8 compatible versions for things.

Hi there

What on earth are you installing W8 on -- took me less than 15 mins -- and that was on an EXTERNAL USB drive (Windows to GO).

On an SSD installation time is INSANELY fast ( less than 6 mins !!) as its boot up etc.
Even on a Spinner it shouldn't take more than around 15 mins --even with really modest hardware.

(OK -- installing your user applications for example MS OFFICE will have to be done after the W8 install and so will take longer -- but it's still an easy and fast process).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[FerchogtX]

It's not perfect but I'm definitely impressed with Hardware detection, ease of install and its performance in general.

This is a good point and I agree totally, besides usage and functinality, speed, boot times and overal performance and hardware handling and detection are great improvements... seems that ARM support is a benefit since they need to optimize code and functions, thus giving us speed improvements... I need to admit that, this is the first Windows I test after 7 that really improves speed with the same hardware instead of asking for more to run (like old iterations)

I really hope that they really work more on the UI... Metro just feels like a extra layer on top of desktop and looks friendly for touchscreens, but for other devices that are really used to work instead of chatting or using facebook, you still need the desktop and all of its benefits... They got time, it is only a RP...

See ya!!!

 

[pparks1]

Hi there

What on earth are you installing W8 on -- took me less than 15 mins -- and that was on an EXTERNAL USB drive (Windows to GO).

You can see my thread here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/chillout-room/235219-my-own-win7-versus-win8-benchmarks.html

It took me 26 minutes to install Win 8 on an Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM and a 7200RPM spinner drive. This took nearly 10 minutes longer than Windows 7. Unsure of why, but that's the time it took.

 

[gregrocker]

About Classic Shell: Is this a theme mod that brings it back to a Win7-style desktop with Start button and menu? Sounds like it.

Any stability problems as are sometimes seen in third-party theme mods ? I've never used them and with Win7's elegant Aero think it's downright goofy to be forced to do so just to have a desktop experience.

 

[GeorgeB]

I will skip 8, tried it and hated the experience.

 

[AC]

About Classic Shell: Is this a theme mod that brings it back to a Win7-style desktop with Start button and menu? Sounds like it.

I don't use Classic Shell on 8, but from what I understand, it gives you an actual start menu. I use Start 8, and it keeps Metro Start, but you get an actual start button.

 

[Night Hawk]

Hi there

What on earth are you installing W8 on -- took me less than 15 mins -- and that was on an EXTERNAL USB drive (Windows to GO).

On an SSD installation time is INSANELY fast ( less than 6 mins !!) as its boot up etc.
Even on a Spinner it shouldn't take more than around 15 mins --even with really modest hardware.

(OK -- installing your user applications for example MS OFFICE will have to be done after the W8 install and so will take longer -- but it's still an easy and fast process).

Cheers
jimbo

There wasn't any "Windows to GO" or mounting an iso on an external drive but just a plain old iso burn to a blank type and a 22x dvd burner booting from the 8 dvd burned. I've seen XP and Vista get to the Install Button screen in less time on older slower dvd drives!

Figure about the time it takes to install 7 by optical the Install Now screen arrived. The setting up devices would take a bit longer due to the number of drives in use as well as the dual display setup. Even the installs on VMs took a bit longer direct from iso when added as a new optical drive in the settings showing the next version is larger in size to an extent.

This was "real world time" used here without any shortcut methods used since this is how most will be installing 8.

About Classic Shell: Is this a theme mod that brings it back to a Win7-style desktop with Start button and menu? Sounds like it.

Any stability problems as are sometimes seen in third-party theme mods ? I've never used them and with Win7's elegant Aero think it's downright goofy to be forced to do so just to have a desktop experience.

The Classic Shell is an open source option originally made for 7. You see the standard shutdown button and normal Start>Programs menu returned rather then finding the Mystery spot to hover the cursor over to have the new side bar appear.

I preferred that option over the next Start Menu 7 which was far better then Start8. It goes right on but may not always auto load with Windows at startup where you then simply click on the program to get it going again. Light weight addon without any issues seen when used.

 

[Borg 386]

I'm sticking with 7. It'll be supported a while longer & I'm sure 9, or even 10 will be out by the time support ends.

At the moment, Microsoft is supporting four releases of desktop Windows. For reference, here are the end-of-support dates for all currently supported Windows versions:

• Windows XP SP3: April 8, 2014
• Windows Vista SP2: April 11, 2017
• Windows 7 SP1: January 14, 2020
• Windows 8: January 10, 2023