Anyone Upgrading to Windows 8?

[strife]

Tigerdirect has upgrades for like $60... Anyone going to actually upgrade? If so, why?

Everything I've heard about it is that it's more catered towards tablets & touch screens...

NOW: $59.99. Use coupon code KHI73498 at check out. Plus FREE SHIPPING!
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3947219&SRCCODE=WEM3293TT&cm_mmc=EML-_-Main-_-WEM3293-_-tigeremail3293">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... remail3293</a><!-- m -->

[Snowreap]

I'll probably pick up some licenses on October 29 when Microsoft is going to have them for sale cheap (~$40, I hear). If you don't like the new 'pane' interface there's a registry tweak to give Win8 the old Win7 UI.

-ken

[Diggles]

every other Microsoft OS is god awful terrible shit. Besides that, most rational people will wait 6 months to a year for them to work bugs out, unless you like half your stuff breaking.

[Snowreap]

if I were running Win7 already, I wouldn't bother upgrading at all. but I'm still running 64-bit XP on my main rig, and 32-bit XP on the big-screen machine, and my wife is running 32-bit Vista.

but at $40 I'm willing to pony up for some Win8 licenses, even if I don't actually install all of them right away.

-ken

[strife]

every other Microsoft OS is god awful terrible shit. Besides that, most rational people will wait 6 months to a year for them to work bugs out, unless you like half your stuff breaking.

Every other Microsoft OS? Other than what? Windows 8 or 7?

I don't buy your most rational people... most rational techies can get past any bugs. Maybe most rational non-techies. I got win7 when it came out and never had any real issues with it, but I skipped Vista altogether.

if I were running Win7 already, I wouldn't bother upgrading at all. but I'm still running 64-bit XP on my main rig, and 32-bit XP on the big-screen machine, and my wife is running 32-bit Vista.

but at $40 I'm willing to pony up for some Win8 licenses, even if I don't actually install all of them right away.

-ken

That's kind of where I'm sitting... I'm running win7 64-bit and have no problems with it... I like it quite a bit. But for $60, when you know the price is going to go up to 100+ a few months after the release.

[grizzle]

For all future touch devices that I may own (Surface, obviously, but also touch laptops, for example, and maybe even, at some point, a desktop with a touch monitor), I would put Win8 on it without hesitation.

For my current desktop, that I use for video editing, photo editing, gaming, writing, etc., I'll keep Win7x64 on it. I've never had a problem witn Win7, it works flawlessly for me. The main problem I have with Win8 for normal desktops is the lack of Start button on the traditional desktop "screen", and the attempt at forced usage of the metro tiles - metro tiles were made wonderfully for touch, but, and this is just my own opinion, forced metro tiles are crap for keyboard+mouse.

If they added a Start button to the traditional desktop in Win8, and quite trying to force me into Tiles view, then I'd upgrade in a heartbeat, as there are a bunch of very nice improvements, including performance, to be had.

[Snowreap]

I wonder if a better mouse would make a difference? something like this:
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-point...mouse-t620

-ken

[strife]

For all future touch devices that I may own (Surface, obviously, but also touch laptops, for example, and maybe even, at some point, a desktop with a touch monitor), I would put Win8 on it without hesitation.

For my current desktop, that I use for video editing, photo editing, gaming, writing, etc., I'll keep Win7x64 on it. I've never had a problem witn Win7, it works flawlessly for me. The main problem I have with Win8 for normal desktops is the lack of Start button on the traditional desktop "screen", and the attempt at forced usage of the metro tiles - metro tiles were made wonderfully for touch, but, and this is just my own opinion, forced metro tiles are crap for keyboard+mouse.

If they added a Start button to the traditional desktop in Win8, and quite trying to force me into Tiles view, then I'd upgrade in a heartbeat, as there are a bunch of very nice improvements, including performance, to be had.

Have you actually used Win8 for more than about 5 minutes? I've used Windows 8 exclusively for both work and home since it was released and I don't miss the start button.

And the start button is still kind of there, you just right click down there and it brings up most of the same options. I honestly never go into the metro/tiles. I have shortcuts to most of my apps on my task bar or desktop and the only time I do go into metro is when I need to get to a program that I don't regularly use, then I just go there and use the search function to get to it.

There is a slight learning curve to windows 8, but after that... it's just windows 7 with some fluff.

[grizzle]

Have you actually used Win8 for more than about 5 minutes?

Yes - the company I work for has pretty much required all of its employees to have Win8 installed on at least one of our work machines for the past 6+ months.

[grizzle]

I wonder if a better mouse would make a difference? something like this:
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-point...mouse-t620

-ken

Interesting - definitely something I'll have to try out.