Features - QOTW: Will you be upgrading to Windows 8?

[malfunction]

Possibly

I'm using W7 home premium on my main PC at the moment which is limited to 16GB of RAM, whereas I have 24GB installed (because I occasionally run virtual machines with heavy memory requirements and was thinking of either dual booting or switching over to Linux as my main OS). At £25 an upgrade to W8 pro is a lot cheaper than a 2nd box to use as a dedicated hypervisor / VM box, which is what I really want to do

[TheAnimus]

Already been running it for ages...........

[aidanjt]

...and seeing as I'm disinclined to replace my £450 [fingerprint-free] IPS monitor with a touch interface anytime soon that'd be another nope.

Fixed.

Seriously, one of the big ups for me on desktops is not having nasty finger grease all over it. I crack up when other people touch my screen when they're pointing to something. I can tolerate it on my phone because the screen is the only input device, but on my computer that's a null problem. Even still I wipe my phone about once a day before it gets too nasty.

[Geoff I]

I had Vista on my laptop, and yesterday I went the £25 Window 8 route, and to tell you the truth it is growing on me but would I put it on my main machine at the moment the answer is no, I have Windows 7 Pro on there and I m quite happy with it, I do feel that Microsoft need to work on Windows 8 to make it better, one instance is Messenger I need to work on other stuff and see messenger flagging me which it does not in Windows 8 you only get the big screen and no way in making it into a reduced window and thats what I thought what windows was about, you can take your mouse pointer to the left for open applications but I would prefer them in smaller windows so they can be swapped in and out easily, if anyone can explain where I am going wrong then please advise me, but for multiple processes at the moment its a little poor.

[Scainer]

Microsoft are banking on the Surface and Mobile becoming popular and by offering it on a desktop people will migrate without issues. The problem is it does not work on a desktop. It is largely counter productive and businesses will avoid this like a plague. The ball has been dropped. I have resistance to being forced to do something. All in all I just want the Aero transparency and rounded edges back.

[rox0r]

Certainly not. Windows 7 has thus far been the best OS I've used (and I was rocking 'em back in the days before Windows even arrived on the scene) so I have no reason to upgrade. It would have to be demonstrated to me that there was a fundamentally noticeable performance increase coupled with a marked improvement in UI experience to convince me it was worth the money. I've seen no evidence of either.

[DontFadeAway]

Yes
been using the preview since it was released to happy to change to the release edition

[howdee]

I won't upgrade any of my rigs, but I expect most of my friends lining-up for whenever I'll find time for theirs. I did try out the release candidate and I just can't see it helping my productivity. It's nothing much new either in terms of usability besides the new UI, although I do like that fact and kudos to MS for a few performance tweaks they did, especially on the UI front (not just Modern UI). Win8 does feel a bit more polished product than Win7 did (which was pretty good also), but that's not enough for me to upgrade. I tested my web dev frameworks and they all work just as good on any Windows since XP, with no performance gains in more recent OS-es, including 8. It's already lightning fast, so I didn't expect it to. Security is nice enough on Win7 and I'm in no hurry to adopt Win8, I just needed to know if all my stuff works fine on it, as some of my clients might want to upgrade so I had to test it out. Happy that works and that's the end of it from my point of view. Looking forward to new Windows Server then, maybe I can finally switch back to IIS (on highly customized Apache on Win now, but that took loads of work to make it tick all the right boxes - I could probably write my own web server doing all that in a shorter time, so I guess opting for Apache was a bad decision on my part. Oh well... LOL) Cheers!

[Funkstar]

I doubt I'll upgrade any any of my systems to W8, however I'm looking forward to when I can get a hybrid tablet/laptop with W8 (not the RT version).

[tickleonthetum]

No, we wont be upgrading!

• The new look is ugly
• The Start Screen is more trouble than it's worth
• There is too little improvement to the Desktop 'mode' to warrant the cost.
• It is too expensive to by the full retail version (if an when it comes out) to allow for hardware upgrading!

If you strip away the new UI then all you are left with is a slightly tweaked (Service Pack level) Windows 7!!

Having tried it out on my PC using all of my software it did not make any performance difference whatsoever. It doesn't make games quicker, it doesn;t make it easier to do things.

I reinstall Windows about twice a year and am always adding or changing the hardware in our PC, and Microsoft is trying to restrict this.

The Upgrade version requires you to install a previous version of Windows on a hard disk in order for it to install (even as a clean install). I am not going to install Windows 7 on a new blank hdd just so I can install Windows 8!

The System Builder version is tied to a single PC and doesn't allow for upgrading of major hardware!

There is no sign of a Retail version that can do a completely clean reinstall multiple times as and when I upgrade parts and even if there was £100+ is too much to pay for what Windows 8 offers!

The pricing/Value For Money for Windows 8 to me is worth:

Upgrade: £9.99
Retail Version: £19.99

With the current economic climate people would be mad to bother upgrading!

No one we know in the real world is bothering to upgrade, and I am recommending everyone who asks that they skip it and wait to see what Windows 9 brings...

[Jonatron]

I am currently trying out windows 8. The new UI is plain stupid and ridiculous. However, I will be upgrading, because with Classic Shell, you can turn it off.
It feels faster, the file explorer is improved, the copy dialog is improved, file history might save the day...some day, and storage spaces is what I need to finally organise everything. Also now a new Windows 7 now needs hundreds of updates which take ages to install, windows 8 doesn't have this problem.
So plenty of improvements, but ruined by the stupid new interface. If there wasn't Classic Shell, I wouldn't use it.

[tamzzy]

wont be upgrading (yet). nothing compelling in win 8 imo

[ZaO]

They'll use a new Directx to get all the gamers to upgrade. They'll find another way for the rest. We'll probably all be on it within a year or 2 lol....

[Biscuit]

im gunna wait and see what happens with it. Im very very happy with 7 so in no rush.

[malfunction]

I am currently trying out windows 8. The new UI is plain stupid and ridiculous. However, I will be upgrading, because with Classic Shell, you can turn it off.
It feels faster, the file explorer is improved, the copy dialog is improved, file history might save the day...some day, and storage spaces is what I need to finally organise everything. Also now a new Windows 7 now needs hundreds of updates which take ages to install, windows 8 doesn't have this problem.
So plenty of improvements, but ruined by the stupid new interface. If there wasn't Classic Shell, I wouldn't use it.

Thanks for the classic shell tip - will have to check that out

[mark22]

Give the start8 trial a go, it's pretty damn good, and so is windows 8 with the start menu back. Very fast and very stable, I'm impressed.