News Microsoft sets Windows 8 upgrade pricing

Hope the retail's cheaper too.

 

My Dad's on Windows XP - this will be a nice cheap upgrade for him - as long as I can get a classic shell from the internet somehow - otherwise he'll have a heart attack!

 

The killer feature is *all* of the improvements MS have made to the OS in general. e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8

Looking for a single stand out feature is missing the point as the sum is greater than the parts IMO.

 

£25 may well be cheap by Windows standards, but I dont know if its worth it.

Nothing wrong with my Windows 7 install, and do I really want to be an early adopter to gain very little (if anything), yet suffer from various program and game instability issues that will no doubt arise in the first few months.

Im also irked by the fact that people are saying I have to install W7 , then W8 on top... rather than just a stand alone W8 on a fresh drive. Not sure on the pricing of this 'system builder' edition either, or how that might work.

All in all, W8 just isnt that exciting to be honest. Other than metro (a gui for tablets not desktops)... there seems to be little to like.

 

No it's not. Not when the 'alternatives' are all cheaper. Yes I know these 'alternatives' are not suitable for everyone but you can't deny that they're cheaper.

Pro users will always the pro features of windows (AD support etc). But for many home users / students / kids / OAPs there exists real alternatives to having a traditional windows machine. You've got the obvious 'Mac' option if you want to play that way, but traditional PC sales are falling relative to the 'post PC' devices of iPads and Android tablets.

How very grown up of you.

I had (have) a powerful machine running windows 7. I moved it into the family room and wanted to run XBMC on it. Simply installing XBMC was easier than installing XBMCbuntu and running win7 gives me the most flexibility.

I'm not grumbling about the price of Win8, I think MS have set the price 'about' right. But I'm not going to upgrade my HTPC and there's no reason why I should upgrade my laptop when windows is nothing more than an unfortunate necessity to running windows games.

If MS wanted everyone to upgrade to windows 8 they should have set the price even lower, set it so low and make it so easy that everyone just upgrades for the hell of it.

Forcing people to accept 'The UI formally known as metro' and charging a minium of £25 is going to put off a lot of people.

 

Well, you know that 15 USD upgrade price for Windows 7-based systems bought after 1 June that people keep harping on about? That'll cost you 119 DKK here in Denmark, which is quite precisely 20 USD or a 25% surcharge. Why? Beats me...

 

Difference being that Apple is a hardware company, MS is a software company.

OEM license, when it drops. Otherwise, if I'm understanding the situation correctly, install Win7, upgrade to Win8, which frees the license for Win7 to be installed elsewhere. Delete Windows.old and done. (Yeah, not perfect, but I once reinstalled Windows 4 times over a weekend.)

Kindly hush. You've been screaming 'Linux is free' at the top of your lungs for damn near twenty years now. We get it - Linux is free. I (and ~99%) of the desktop market don't use Linux because it doesn't fit our needs. Give Mint another 5 years to mature (and moar Steam games to get ported) and we'll talk. In the meantime *finger to lips* Sssshhhhhh.

 

Pay twice as much for computer. Save £10 on Operating System.

Much cheaper!

 

I think he is referring to the cost of Linux, but forgot that time is money.

 

Greetings!

Use an old XP or Vista license, keep the 7 license.

Try ViStart, Classic Shell or Start8. Get the improvements 8 brings without the worthless Metro on desktops.

 

If the 'alternatives' aren't suitable then they aren't really alternatives.

Anyways I do agree with you on waiting on adopting, microsofts 'Ticks' tend to to be much better than it's 'Tocks'

 

And yet again.

What are the new features of windows 8?
What does it do?
What does it offer over Windows 7?

The user experience of windows has not changed more than very slightly since the mid-90s and my only impression is that every new version simply introduces more needless crap that has to be turned off after install.

I don't care how cheap it is, what does it offer? Other than the obviously-worthless tile interface, that is?

 

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3150873&postcount=43

 

Sounds like all the Windows 8 Apps will just be massive advertisements..... No thanks MS,

 

Greetings!

Not really massive advertisements. More like the way Microsoft found to hook the users into Metroland.
You buy a WP8 or tablet with WinRT, you will be using Microsoft Metro apps for the basic stuff.
Then you go to your desktop\laptop and, to keep the information flowing between the gadgets and your more powerful devices, you will be configuring the same Metro apps on desktop\laptop.
Staying in Microsoft world, Metro apps will be unavoidable.

 

Had a thought, as i've never upgraded windows before. I assume I can keep my existing key and still use it with 7 if I wish to remove 8 and go back?

 

I don't believe it works like that, not sure though.

 

Erm it's 2012 you know...

It's been a very long time since Macs were twice as expensive as an equivalent PC. Apple doesn't produce low spec, cheap material computers. If you want a Mac laptop for example you're only option will be to purchase an all aluminium & glass machine with great keyboards, trackpads, screens and batteries. This build quality and feature set will always cost more no matter whether it's an OSX or windows machine. Because of Apple's size PC manufactures find it near impossible to build their machines for the same price Apple is able to. More often than not they end up costing just as much (for the same features / quality) and with a much smaller profit margin.

Show me a PC ultrabook as lightweight and as well built as a MacBook Air that's available for half the price. No not any old generic PC laptop because we know they're as cheap-as-chips but a genuine lustworthy bit of kit.

Intel created the entire ultrabook 'spec' to compete with the Airs, and it's only now becoming possible to buy genuine ultrabooks that compete with Apple on price, and even a PC is cheaper they're a very long way off being half the price... unless you make major compromises on spec, form-factor, build quality AND support.

Disclaimer: I'm typing this on my retina RBP that is the most expensive computer I've ever bought, and while it without equal in specification (ATM) I understand that paying such an insane amount for a Mac may invalidate my argument somewhat! Oh well.

 

Sorry, pet peeve, I couldn't help it

 

I think that's an unnecessary stipulation - Guinevere meant any "Ultrabook" (which, let's not forget, is purely an Intel marketing term) which isn't made by Apple. Since every Ultrabook is capable of running Windows; and since pretty much every ultrabook not made by Apple will come bundled with Windows; and since Apple chooses not to use the term "Ultrabook" for its laptops, despite the fact that they would qualify (I believe), I'd argue you can simply say "Ultrabook" and the fact that it runs Windows is implied.

In any event, Guinevere's argument was nothing to do with Windows - the point was (and I agree) that there are no laptops of equivalent quality to Apple's which are available for anything close to half the price. In fact, any non-Apple laptop which is remotely comparable on build quality and spec to Apple's offerings (Sony Z Series, for example) is very close on price.