Someone convince me to buy Windows 8

[DeeBye]

I am running on a 4+ year old install of 32-bit Windows XP Pro. I can buy Windows 8 Pro for $70, which I would assume contains a 64-bit install option.

System specs:
Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.00 Ghz
4 GB RAM
Radeon 6770

[kandrathe]

I am running on a 4+ year old install of 32-bit Windows XP Pro. I can buy Windows 8 Pro for $70, which I would assume contains a 64-bit install option.

System specs:
Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.00 Ghz
4 GB RAM
Radeon 6770

It might work out, you have just enough ram in my opinion. I upgraded to Windows 7 (8 is supposed to be similar) on my older 3GB box and spent a month fighting with dumbing it down and shutting things off to get adequate performance. I probably would have been better off upgrading the RAM, but I believed their 1GB advertised size. Not.

[shoju]

I would never tell someone to buy a windows operating system within the first 6 months of release, and even then, I only use windows because I have to. I have no love for them.

[Frag]

From the specifications you've listed I see no reason for you to upgrade *except* for the fact that XP is no longer going to be receiving security updates. Even so, I would say that Win7 32bit would be your best upgrade. Win8 isn't for desktops, it's for mobile/tablet.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

From the specifications you've listed I see no reason for you to upgrade *except* for the fact that XP is no longer going to be receiving security updates.

I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think XP will receive security upgrades until 2014.

Having said that, from a security perspective I strongly recommend leaving XP behind ASAP and upgrade to at least to Windows 7! Windows made a huge leap secuity-wise with Vista/7, and now again with 8. For people with common sense and at least basic technical skills, the chance of getting infected with malware got drastically reduced. I really didn't like Microsoft, but you really have to commend them for their efforts to secure their products and actively fight malware during the last couple of years.

But even though Windows 8 raised the bar for the bad guys even more compared to Windows 7 which already is good, I'm with shoju: I'd recommend waiting at least half a year, ideally until the first service pack or so, before upgrading to Windows 8. Not because it's only for tablets (it isn't, and from what I've read its GUI can easily be configured to behave just like Windows 7 on desktops with no Metro silliness), but because the millions of customers that immediately upgrade will act as testers and reveal lots of bugs.

Getting Windows 7 64-bit would be my recommendation.

-Kylearan

[Frag]

Hi,

From the specifications you've listed I see no reason for you to upgrade *except* for the fact that XP is no longer going to be receiving security updates.

I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think XP will receive security upgrades until 2014.

Curious point, so I looked it up and it appears that the XP is receiving extended support until April 8, 2014. It entered extended support in 2009. The difference is mainstream support is that users receive free security updates, stability improvements, bug fixes and occasional new features where as extended support only receives security updates.

I was speaking from a professional tech perspective, where we can no longer even find drivers for new hardware/computers for XP, which means using older/out of date images/drivers or forgoing XP all together.

On the pros vs cons section for 32 vs 64bit, as long as nothing he runs pages more than 3gigs of memory, his system would run a bit slower by the numbers. Also the Core2 duo isn't going to handle any kind of virtualization at 4gigs of memory well. So, I guess my recommendation would be Win7 32bit currently, or Win7 64bit with a memory upgrade (which to be fair, RAM is ****ing CHEAP atm).

[DeeBye]

Getting Windows 7 64-bit would be my recommendation.

The problem with this is that Win 7 64-bit is a LOT more expensive than Windows 8 right now. The cheapest I can find Win 7 is well over $100, or I can Download the 32-bit version of Win 8 for $39.99, or have the 64-bit version of Win 8 shipped to me for $69.99.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Getting Windows 7 64-bit would be my recommendation.

The problem with this is that Win 7 64-bit is a LOT more expensive than Windows 8 right now. The cheapest I can find Win 7 is well over $100, or I can Download the 32-bit version of Win 8 for $39.99, or have the 64-bit version of Win 8 shipped to me for $69.99.

Ah okay, that's of course a good argument for Windows 8. But more relevant to this forum than my previous ramblings on the security aspects might be this: Are you sure all the games you enjoy playing work with Windows 8? A quick google search came up with problems for several popular games. Those might get fixed for current games over time, although I have no idea about older games or when this will happen.

This problem might be mitigated with a dual boot install of Windows XP and Windows 8 (this should be possible, I guess?).

On the pros vs cons section for 32 vs 64bit, as long as nothing he runs pages more than 3gigs of memory, his system would run a bit slower by the numbers.

The slowdown shouldn't really be noticable in practice IMHO. But the 64-bit version would be better prepared for future software that might need more than 3 GB of RAM.

OF course, if the 64 bit version is really more expensive (why, Microsoft, oh why?!?), that's something to weigh off against.

-Kylearan

[FoxBat]

But more relevant to this forum than my previous ramblings on the security aspects might be this: Are you sure all the games you enjoy playing work with Windows 8? A quick google search came up with problems for several popular games. Those might get fixed for current games over time, although I have no idea about older games or when this will happen.

I'm skeptical and my google-fu is failing. There are alot of device manufacturers not updating their drivers for windows 8, but I don't know much about game software problems. It's really not all that different from 7 underneath the horrible start menu.

The future is unfortunately Metro so I have to recommend Win 8 so you at least have access to it. While it is nothing but a nuisance, the desktop is on it's way out, and Xbox 720 ports are likely where you are going to get hit by it first, with MS working to ease porting between that and Metro.

[DeeBye]

Welp I decided to buy and download the 32-bit version of Win 8 because it is cheap. I'll let you know how that goes.

[NiteFox]

Someone convince me to buy Windows 8

Using it may make you grateful for Windows 9. Just like Vista was for 7.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I'm skeptical and my google-fu is failing. There are alot of device manufacturers not updating their drivers for windows 8, but I don't know much about game software problems. It's really not all that different from 7 underneath the horrible start menu.

They have made several changes to the kernel, mainly for security reasons, that aren't visible to the user immediately. I have no idea how the impact on existing software is, but I would imagine it could interfere for example with advanced copy protection schemes.

There are complaints about some games not working, for example LA Noir. Some problems can be fixed, some were from the pre-release version of Windows 8 and have been fixed already, but I imagine some (older, for a flexible definition of "old" :p) games might not get fixed at all.

Only time will tell if there will be such cases; i just wanted to point out the risk. That's moot now, as DeeBye has bought it already, and hopefully he won't run into any compatibility problems.

The future is unfortunately Metro so I have to recommend Win 8 so you at least have access to it. While it is nothing but a nuisance, the desktop is on it's way out [...]

That will be interesting to see. There are applications which won't work very well with the Metro concept, for example anything where you want to have multiple windows open at the same time, so I doubt the desktop will get removed anytime soon. (Caveat: I never saw Metro and can only speculate from what I've read about it)

-Kylearan

[DeeBye]

Welp I decided to buy and download the 32-bit version of Win 8 because it is cheap. I'll let you know how that goes.

So I finally blocked out enough time to backup personal files to an external hard drive and installed Win 8. It went incredibly smoothly -- much more smoothly than any other Windows install I have ever done. I was prepared with backups of all my device and motherboard drivers, but I never had to use them. Windows 8 had all important drivers (up to date ones) working right away without any interaction by me.

Windows 8 seems a bit zippier on my machine than my old XP install. The new replacement for the Start Menu is a bit awkward at first, but I can tell that it will be easy to get used to.

I really have no major complaints about Windows 8 so far.

[shoju]

Welp I decided to buy and download the 32-bit version of Win 8 because it is cheap. I'll let you know how that goes.

So I finally blocked out enough time to backup personal files to an external hard drive and installed Win 8. It went incredibly smoothly -- much more smoothly than any other Windows install I have ever done. I was prepared with backups of all my device and motherboard drivers, but I never had to use them. Windows 8 had all important drivers (up to date ones) working right away without any interaction by me.

Windows 8 seems a bit zippier on my machine than my old XP install. The new replacement for the Start Menu is a bit awkward at first, but I can tell that it will be easy to get used to.

I really have no major complaints about Windows 8 so far.

When you say Replacement for the Start Menu, are you talking the boxy tiled display? In some of the commercials, I saw that you can minimize or close that, and it leads to a standard desktop style look, that has me sort of interested, I think my kids would engage with that better than they do the windows 7 start menu

[LavCat]

I could not find the reference just now, but I read recently that a company is selling for $5 a start menu for Windows 8s like Windows 7.

[kandrathe]

This one?

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I haven't taken a deeper look at it, but at first glance, Classic Shell is free and might do the same.

-Kylearan

[LavCat]

This one?

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Yes, that may be it.

[DeeBye]

When you say Replacement for the Start Menu, are you talking the boxy tiled display? In some of the commercials, I saw that you can minimize or close that, and it leads to a standard desktop style look, that has me sort of interested, I think my kids would engage with that better than they do the windows 7 start menu

The "boxy tiled display" is really just a re-skinned Start menu. At a desktop view, Windows 8 is much like every other version of Windows.

edit: I just found out that I can change the Windows 8 weather app to properly show temperatures in Celsius instead of the archaic Fahrenheit format!

[shoju]

Interesting. I would like to mess with Win8, but I'm afraid that it wouldn't agree with a few programs I have, due to the... nature of those programs, and those programs > new OS.