News Microsoft confirms Windows 8 upgrade pricing, System Builder edition

I am surprised at the release date. Though it would be in august to cash in on the students. Or at least before Christmas.

 

lol, yeah I re-read the article and it says precisely what I was on about (right at the top!). My sincerest apologies Mr H.

 

The 31st of Jan' is when the cheap upgrade price ends. Expect it before that.

 

MS would be better off making a good OS and charging full price.

 

Probably get this if there will ever be able to get it to dual boot with ios (hopeful I know )

 

Shame it's not as cheap as the pre orders for windows 7. I wounder if they wouldn't be better off dropping the price of windows permanently, there can't be that many people paying full whack for a licence.

Also, I'm slightly ashamed of the amount of trollish anti start screen/metro comments on this site. Are people no longer able to express their grievance in anything more than a snide one liner?

 

Pricing it this low seems to indicate some lack of confidence in Windows 8 on Microsoft's behalf. As it rightly should have, given the blight that is the Metro UX.

 

Well to be fair, the Metro UI doesn't seem very streamlined. It's actually faster and more aesthetically pleasing if you're used to it, but we're too loyal to the start menu.

With that said, I happen to not care for how things are organized although I will admit that metro isn't all bad. I just happen to not care for a tablet like interface.

 

That one way of looking at it. I see it as an aggressive marketing strategy to establish a dominant OS ecosystem, much like Google is selling their Nexus 7 at cost price. Windows Metro is the future.

 

If you think Metro is the future you haven't quite kept tabs on Microsoft these last years. Metro is the future right now. Just as .NET was and several other things Microsoft claimed were the future. I'm fairly certain Windows 8 will tank on anything but smartphones and tablets. They will _not_ be able to sell this version of Windows in the enterprise market. Unless Metro is made optional Windows 7 will be the last version of Windows they will sell to companies. Although I do concede that it will be forced upon millions of defenseless buyers of new PCs in the consumer market.

Considering I bought a Windows 7 Professional license back when it was discounted on pre-order (and even more discounted because the 'N' version was looming) I believe I have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. I certainly don't recall Windows 7 Pro Upgrade costing $39.99 back then, even though this is for a digital download version.

For the record, I've been using Windows 8 on and off since the Developer Preview, so it's not like I have an uninformed opinion. I just don't blindly accept Microsoft's claim that Metro is perfect for both the mobile and the desktop environment unlike some others do. Truth be told, I _like_ the interface for mobile devices and I would happily buy a Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

 

Lessee. I predicted the meteoric success of the iPad when it first came out and people went: "Dafuq?" and "It's not a real computer, it's going to fail". I also predicted that the Courier wouldn't make it to production and the HP Slate wouldn't either, and why. I think I've got a handle on this one.

For enterprise it's ideal. We're talking about staff who don't know how to start Word if the icon is not on the desktop and there is no Word document to click (true: this was an admin with years of working on a PC under her belt). Metro allows the IT dept. to set up a simple Start screen with just the applications that they want staff to be able to access and nothing else. No Windows explorer to get lost in; no Start Menu with layers of cascading directories to root through. To them it will be bloody perfect.

 

Business will still not adopt Windows 8. Already Windows 7 still has a VERY hard time to penetrate. The ONLY reason why Windows 7 is used, is because XP doesn't run properly on modern hardware, and causes stability issues, and driver support is crappy at best. So they have no choice.

Even if Windows 8 didn't have Metro and all that, business will still not adopt it. I think Microsoft knows this, that is why they focused more on Home users for this version. Of course, they will try and push it to businesses. It will be silly not too do that. But I think deep down Microsoft knows it.

Also, EVEN if business would be interesting in getting Windows 8, as an absolute must, they will STILL wait for SP1.

You know the famous silly list that people make with all odd or even numbers of OS is "bad", and the other one is "good"... well if you replace (except for Windows Me), "bad" with "designed for lay people (average Joe)", then it applies equally well. As for XP, when it came out, every computer enthusiasts, IT's, etc.. HATED with aption XP. The only reason why people like it now, is because after 6 years people got used to it.
If you go back to XP now, you will notice:
-> Bugs everywhere, in your face even. Like the tool-tip on the task bar showing behind the task bar when you roll over an icon.
-> Windows view settings can be corrupted over time and at that point it doesn't remember what you pick
-> Prefetch never really worked
-> Firewall blocks programs and warns you well after you already ran it after a few times, on some occasions.
-> Running a program as "Run As" saves the settings on either the current account only or the elevated account, depending on the program or setting panel you used
-> It looked like a fisher price toy
-> Poor memory management for any system with over 512MB of RAM
-> Poor security
-> Too many BSOD's
-> Activation system (this was new)
-> Update system is IE only, and annoying to use, and anything can break it.

and many many many more issues that should not be there as they are really "in your face" ones. And the above list, is just the "in your face' bugs AFTER SP2. So imagine before.

Anyway, that's my view on the hole thing.

 

@Goodbytes - Actually at the time, I thought XP was a great OS. You have to remember that back in 2001 we were going from Windows 98 which (for me) frequently crashed, to a more stable NT based OS. While its looks can now best be described as fisher price, back then - it looked fresh in comparison to the boxy, greyness of 98. Can't remember too many BSOD's either - Windows 95 & 98 were the leaders in this respect.

I agree though that Windows XP looks tired now compared to Windows 7, but it took until now for most people to upgrade, as Vista had a (undeserved) poor reputation. I think you're putting too much emphasis on Service Packs too. XP was the exception when it came to feature adding Packs and now, we have much more rigorous public betas. Going back in time to XP again, I remember having to download leaked betas from dodgy FTP sites to test it out. Anyway, that's enough nostalgia from me for today.

I'll be upgrading to 8, as I'm one of those users (Microsoft have identified) who pin everything to the Taskbar and seldom use the Start Menu. In fact, I'm looking forward to having space to pin one more program to the taskbar when I start using 8

 

£30 is a small price to pay to buy (potentially) 3 years more support for your PC's operating system, even if it means an upgrade. Once support is withdrawn for XP, there will be a few folk wishing they'd bothered to shell out such a (IMO) small amount...

 

Yeah I think thats where I'm at, windows is only a place to launch Steam, Firefox and Lightroom, XP works fine for me but with support to be withdrawn its probably a good time to future proof for another half decade. Metro will be fine really I never use the start menu all the applications I use have shortcuts in the quick launch bar. Windows UI is irrelevant its just a launcher.

 

I stand corrected, though I think your hard pushed to try and suggest that the prices are not about equivalent to win7 considering there is no home version on this upgrade offer.
Lucky I don't blindly accept Microsoft's claims either, I do how ever find the start screen far superior to the start menu, untill you want to turn your PC off of course.

 

At work we "have" to use the latest and greatest Microsoft OS due to the licensing agreements we have.

If we get a Windows 8 upgrade forced on us, I'll be switching to Ubuntu instead. No license fees at all.

 

Windows 8 and Metro UX always makes me think of this and not in a good way. Incidentally, that video was quite hard to track down.

 

Gareth, are there any details on the cost of running Win8 in a virtualized environment? At the moment the restrictions and fees for any version of desktop Windows up to Win7 are simply appalling.