Should I buy W8?

[cheesepiece]

My X61 has a VISTA license. Should I upgrade it to W8?

[Reckonist]

I don't think there is a lot of point in Windows 8 unless your computer has a touchscreen. Windows 7 is a better bet and probably cheaper.

[sula]

Not sure if you should upgrade, but if you are gonna decide you want to uppgrade - then uppgrade to Win8. Seriously no point uppgrading to Win7, which fine, has it's years already. Win8 is significnatly more repsonsive.

[Spreadie]

My X61 has a VISTA license. Should I upgrade it to W8?

A fully patched up Vista is little different to Windows 7, which is virtually no different to Win 8 (apart from the touch interface). Save your money.

[Saracen]

A fully patched up Vista is little different to Windows 7, which is virtually no different to Win 8 (apart from the touch interface). Save your money.

That, IMHO.

[shaithis]

If you buy anything buy 8.1....or stick with what you have

[kopite]

I was on a course last night had to use windows 8 and windows server 2012. the ui is awful!

[Haggard]

Does Windows 8/8.1 have a classic desktop anymore or only the Metro interface?

[stilkun]

Windows 8 or wait for Windows 8.1 released It is kinda like marmite, some people will love it and some will hate it. You can download an Windows 8 evaluation copy and install it on another (unwanted) machine to try before you buy. If you cannot install it on another machine make sure to back up your data or image you whole drive before you install Win 8 so that you restore it to factory default image + recovery partition.

Does Windows 8/8.1 have a classic desktop anymore or only the Metro interface?

You can enter desktop mode but the start menu button is not there. Although it is not permanent on the taskbar, if you the mouse to bottom left the start menu hovers over and you can enter start menu. Or you can press Windows key to bring out start menu.

[cheesepiece]

I do quite fancy w8. It's surely the Future. It's just change that people are afraid of surely.

[Spreadie]

I do quite fancy w8. It's surely the Future. It's just change that people are afraid of surely.

I've been running Win 8 on my main rig since beta, so I wouldn't say I was afraid of change. It's a good OS, because it's just 7 with a few quirks/tweaks. I have an old laptop running Vista and, other than a slightly more annoying UAC system, I see no point in upgrading it to 7 or 8. It's fine.

The fact is Win 8's metro UI is pointless for anything without a touch interface - sure there are plenty of fanboys that insists otherwise, but it offers no real benefit over a start menu and desktop icons. All they had to do was leave the start button alone and make the metro UI optional, and the vast majority of people would be happier.

[cheesepiece]

It's back in 8.1 and currently 8.0 pro is on sale at Tesco 59.50 with 10 off for new customers. Or 50 d/load price at Microsoft store for students. Took the plunge seeing as 8.1 is coming and is included as update on 8.0 purchases.

[noodles2k]

I find Windows 8 faster and less resource heavy than 7.

Does Windows 8/8.1 have a classic desktop anymore or only the Metro interface?

If you want the classic style desktop get Start 8 - http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ - It's perfect.

It's back in 8.1.

Not exactly. You get the Start button back, but it goes to the metroUI. Not the start menu.

[Flibb]

It's back in 8.1 and currently 8.0 pro is on sale at Tesco 59.50 with 10 off for new customers. Or 50 d/load price at Microsoft store for students. Took the plunge seeing as 8.1 is coming and is included as update on 8.0 purchases.

Thanks for the heads up on Tesco, just ordered to use in an XP laptop with SSD

Cheers

[james.daly91]

I upgraded from w7 to w8 but to be honest, I hated it. This was before the 8.1 update mind you, so it could be a bit better now but if you're going to upgrade at all I'd just go for Windows 7. Not sure about the Vista patches but I remember having Vista on my first laptop and remember it being ridiculously slow in comparison to 7 (after a couple of months of use) whereas now Windows 7 seems to run flawlessly with a little bit of slowing down but nothing that a few system cleans can't fix

[herulach]

Windows 7 & 8 are significantly different in that at least 1 headline game (and presumably other future ones) has marked improvements in performance on the latter.