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Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

I guess it's not really important. Many companies and consumers will stay for Windows 7 for a while and Windows 8 will enter the markets primarily via tablets. By the time Windows 8 SP1 or Windows 9 we'll see how that strategy worked out, and they'll probably tune the experience to make it an acceptable desktop operating system (either on real desktops or docked x86 tablets).

That said, I have used Windows 8 out of curiosity for some weeks (as a UNIX user since 1994), and I have to admit that I quite liked it. I didn't really use Metro, except for checking Facebook and Twitter every now and then. Of course, I am not a regular Windows user who has learnt usage patterns over the years, but I think there's also a lot of inertia.

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Microsoft has a 90% desktop market share. How many new PC's are sold every year? Win8 sounds like a solid product so I think the adoption rate will be good. Is there really a really to ask for Win7 on a new PC after Win8 is released?

You've got a point.

I've been scouring the internet for an MSDN iso to go with the key. On certain ocean-theme based web sites I see people activating Windows 8 by the automated phone option. Assuming this is legitimate, is it a bug from Microsoft's side?

Strategically, since this represents a paradigm shift I can't help but have this sneaky suspicion that MS is going a bit lax on pirates. I mean, they are trying your new PC OS, aren't they? Once you've got them converted, you can milk them in the future directly (when they buy Windows phones/tablets) or indirectly (when they recommend the entire Windows eco-system to their family/friends by bragging about how they got their copy and how awesome it is).

Why not just download the 90 day developer trial of the OS?

No. I have the key, but not the iso. As I understand from MS site there will be no way for me to convert it to a legit full copy.

Even without a paradigm shift, it is not uncommon for companies to try and become the market with loose piracy protections. If I recall correctly, Microsoft and Adobe are on the record saying they would prefer people pirate their product than use a competitors.

>Many companies and consumers will stay for Windows 7 for a while

The company I work at is just starting to upgrade to Windows 7 (from XP) to our 40,000 employees, starting with the IT Department. I'm sure we're not the only ones who have been hesitating.

Same thing happening here. There are so far a total of 12 Windows 7 installs in the building I work in (not counting the test machines), 18 across the entire campus, and less than 400 world-wide... out of over 100,000 employees.

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