Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1 | Hacker News Reader

Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

venturebeat.com

Damn; to be fully honest, this may motivate me into upgrading, which I find to be an interesting reaction, given how I had, previously, no plans to upgrade.

Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.

It is the cheapest way to buy a legit version of Windows 8 Pro for now. Provided you didn't buy a new laptop with Windows 7 between June 2012 and now for that cheaper upgrade.

Even if you have no future plans to upgrade/migrate to Windows 8 Pro yet, you may change your mind in the future. If you do it will cost more to upgrade after January. I bought two upgrades just in case, haven't installed them yet.

When I switched I went to Ubuntu 12.10 instead of Windows 8. Windows 8 is awful and lacks a lot of software support, that could change in a few years if Microsoft gets their act together.

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you?

My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform.

I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me, on a January 2004 Precision 650 - it runs pretty much flawlessly; no blue screens/hangs or other problems in two+ years. I use it mostly for outlook+lookout, Microsoft Visio, VMware Workstation - Zero need to upgrade - So I've been able to skip Vista, Windows 7 and now, apparently, Windows 8. About the only thing I've done is go through two monitor upgrades (Started with a 45 Pound 21" CRT, went to a (considered extravagant back then) 21" LCD - it's now sporting a Dell 30".

I'm honestly interested in knowing how long I'll be able to keep this desktop running. (Clearly, the $40 to $200 jump is having no impact on me)

> My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized > around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, > and just outright hanging.

May I ask what you've been doing? Old Unix/NT guy here (Unix from 1988, NT from 1994), using OS X since 2008. Never had such a problem with my 17" MB Pro (early 2008)

Just wanted to second this. Regular kernel panics = something seriously wrong. Either a hardware fault, or a bad kext or something. If anyone reading this has problems with OS X and stability, try running this:

http://khiltd.com/software/consultants_canary

It'll give you a list of every "non-standard" thing you have installed (e.g. kernel extensions), and between that and log files, it might help pinpointing the issue.

Apologies for being off-topic, it just seemed to be perverse to me to avoid upgrading because for stability reasons, when the new version should generally be more stable not less.

I think we can all agree that 10.6.8 was delightfully stable, and the first few versions of 10.7 were a bit of a clusterf*ck. My pain just went on a bit longer than most people. Lesson learned.

The Transition from Snow Leopard to Lion was a Fiasco. Six months in I was sorely tempted to see if I could revert back to Snow Leopard, and in hindsight, I wish I had.

Late 2010 13" MBAir (Best Laptop I've ever owned) - lots of KEXT issues, VMware Fusion interaction issues, FTDI Serial Driver Issues, Recovery from Sleep, and lots of beachballing on Mail.app.

Things started to get better on 10.7.4, and they returned to circa 10.6.8sh Snow Leopard Stability on 10.7.5. About the only thing that causes this laptop to Kernel Panic now is pulling out the USB Cable when it has an FTDI Serial Device and I'm running VMware Fusion - Kernel panics used to be a weekly thing, and, with the exception of the FTDI/VMWare thing - it's now been two+ months since I've seen one. Beachballing, also, is down to what you would normally expect.

Anyways - I'm happy now, and I'm one of those guys who will wait a year (or two) before moving to Lion. Or maybe I'll just buy a new laptop, and keep the old one for work, and wait for the new one to stabilize. Anyways, no new operating systems for me.

Must Have feature?

I must have it to test software for clients. Otherwise it's as about as useful as a foot steered automobile.

The best reason for me was the gating of tools for building Win8 apps. I haven't actually made any Win8 apps yet but I've worked with the XAML stack before and occasionally get tempted to play with it.

Windows 8's UI is noticeably faster than its predecessors.

And if you have a Windows 7-based tablet like I do, you'll appreciate the new touch UI because Windows 7's was not very good while Windows 8's is more reasonable.

Also, Windows 8 doesn't seem as half-baked as previous Windows versions did at the time they were released. Then must have improved their testing process because being a Windows 8 early adopter no longer feels like being a beta tester.

I'm not a Microsoft lover, not by a long stretch, but for Windows users this is an offer too good to pass.

This one wasn't one of the reasons I considered, but I find it interesting:

Suppose you upgrade any old OEM Windows XP or later that's bound to the hardware that you bought it with. Once you upgrade, you are no longer bound by the old license but by the new one. So you now have a full Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, that you can move somewhere else, virtualize, etc. That's what the license says, as far as I understand it (IANAL, but I have read it thoroughly).

Edit for clarification: even though you get a Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, it's still a Windows 8 Pro Upgrade. So yes, you can move it somewhere else or virtualize it, but it still needs to be installed over an existing and properly licensed Windows copy (XP or later).

>what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you?

The "8" part mainly. I'll probably buy it just for good measure in case its an advantage upgrade wise when win 9 rolls by (Assuming MS is still dominant then).

Speed mainly, improved bootup times. Improved task manager too, and also integrated Windows Defender.

Nothing huge, but $40? Pretty damn cheap.

At $40, I'd almost suggest buying a license even if you haven't yet decided for sure if you will use it.

I really don't know where they clone you guys, but aside from a bunch of macs and some linux, I do have windows machine, on which I spent many happy hours (playing and working).

I upgraded to win8 when it came out, I can't imagine anyone visiting HackerNews being confused by Win8 interface, even businessy lean startup types. Everything so far was good and while I switch to desktop mostly, Metro interface is fine and makes me want to get a tablet (since I have quite a few already, this will not happen soon, again ipads).

My Win machine is at least 3 years old, it feels with W8 way more snappy then my iMac 27" that I got last year. In fact, I am using it now because StarCraft II on iMac got iffy and screen ... well it crashed pretty much.

Again, I don't know why you have such hard time with Win, it works really well. Feel free to ask me any questions. I do spend most of my time on linux and osx, but still...

[edit] Reason why I like win8 so much is that it is modern interface and how future interfaces will be. That is why so many of you feel resistance to it, because it is new.

I'm sure I could get used to win8 quite quickly. I'll probably install it next time I upgrade my windows PC. But admit it - you had no idea how to shut down your computer in win8 until someone told you.

I still remember the controversy when Vista changed the power button on the start menu to sleep by default.

This still gets me every time.

Yes, first two times, it took me a little to remember that people were saying logout first. However, one of the top apps is Pokki that has shutdown in the place where you expect.

Whole app store thing helps a great deal. You install apps way faster and easier then ever before, like it is on a mac.

I would compare it when Apple changed scrolling, it took some time to get used to it (or flip the setting).

I've used Windows since version 3.0. After spending a few hours with Win8 I still can't figure out how to so much as display the calculator. I see plenty of others in the same boat.

To get to the desktop you apparently have to click in the very left bottom corner, a single pixel. Choosing the desktop icon that displays when you move the cursor to the lower left corner just makes the icon go away. Maybe it makes perfect sense to everyone else! I think I'll save a lot of time by switching fully to Linux or the Mac.

Press the windows key and type "calc". The mouse method isn't so intuitive - use the top/bottom right hot corner and click on search, it's there under windows accessories.

Thanks! And amazing it really is hidden like that.

Don't MS make it agonising. To the point that I almost can't be bothered. Have you read all the twisted workarounds that people are doing to get legitimate upgrades?

I have Vista 32 on my laptop (that is doing nothing at the moment), I want a 64bit version of windows. I'd like to go from Vista 32 to Windows 8 with an upgrade. But that isn't really supported. I can go from Vista 32 to Vista 64 -> Windows 8, but it's a hassle. Lenovo have pulled their images, I have no disk images of Vista, it goes on. I've read loads of people going through similar install/reinstalls.

Windows should just provide different arch versions of the ISO, that they update regularly. That you can download any old place, and place it on USB/DVD whatever. Then just use your paid for product key. Simple?

I'm trialing the evaluation version. I've already broken the Desktop Internet Explorer. And I've crashed the OS twice. It feels like a poor man's Unity! I've windows that I can't view in their entirety on the screen, and there's no way I can move them to get to the controls. I can't easily get an overview of what's installed (no simple menu). And there doesn't seem like any intuitive way to get to the control panel. Plus it's hard to know what's clickable and what isn't.

There are a few nice touches, but I'd personally like to turn Metro off. I've got no want for it. I was hoping it would be a little more polished than this. But it feels odd.

I'm trying to justify the hassle of the £25 upgrade. Price it over £100, no thanks, I'll be at the mercy of Ubuntu for another decade. This was a chance for MS to woo someone that hasn't really touched their OSs for thirteen years. I've tried to meet them in the middle.

It shouldn't be this hard.

That's an interesting move for a failed product. I have no plans of moving to Windows 8 at all after watching a number of reviews on youtube.

While it's fine to not upgrade, especially if you already have a stable setup, not giving Windows 8 a chance based on YouTube reviews seems to be a bit unfair. Most conversations I've had with Windows users who I've spoken to that haven't moved to Windows 8 can be summed up like this:

  Me: Do you plan to upgrade to Windows 8?
  Them: No way. Windows 8 is horrible!
  Me: Oh, so when did you use it?
  Them: Not yet... I read a lot of people bitching about it online, though.

Is there something really wrong with that? I won't spend $10 to go see a movie with bad reviews. Why would I want to spend $40 and quite a bit of time and effort on an OS that most people think is bad?

Basing your movie opinions on random youtube videos would be equally foolish. The reviews of professional critics are somewhat different.

Ok. I wasn't sure if the original complaint was because they were random youtube videos or simply reviews. Several professionals have criticized Windows 8 harshly: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usab...

Ugh, that review leaves plenty of room for FUD. This excerpt for example.

    One of the worst aspects of Windows 8 for power users is that the product's very
    name has become a misnomer. "Windows" no longer supports multiple windows on the
    screen. Win8 does have an option to temporarily show a second area in a small part
    of the screen, but none of our test users were able to make this work. Also, the
    main UI restricts users to a single window, so the product ought to be renamed
    " Microsoft Window ."

They make it sound as though I can't have multiple windows open even in desktop mode. Furthermore, the option to show a metro app side-by-side is neither temporary nor difficult. In my multi-monitor Windows 8 setup I leave the Mail app open most of the day.

I did a Windows 8 Beta Test and Windows 8 Developer test and had Windows 8 Enterprise RTM for a 90 day demo. It didn't seem to want to run half the software that worked with Windows 7, and the Windows Store didn't seem to have a lot of apps worth the purchase price. I've tried Windows 8 and I have family and friends who bought a Windows 8 Machine and now regret it.

I think the youtube videos are based on that.

Windows 8 is the New Coke of Windows operating systems, worse than Windows Vista and Windows ME combined.

>It didn't seem to want to run half the software that worked with Windows 7

What do you mean?

Anyone else had problems running Windows 7 apps on Windows 8? I thought it was supposed to be almost completely backwards compatible?

Nope. I've had no problem running anything that worked on Windows 7. Even older apps which need Windows XP compatibility mode work fine.

I upgraded to Windows 8 pro about a month ago, despite my concerns that some of my more eclectic software & hardware might not make the jump (given prior experience with major Windows revisions).

Specifically, I'm running an M-Audio ProjectMix I/O multichannel soundcard/mixing desk through a PCI-e Firewire card, for which I record multitrack audio and produce video. I'm running two monitors and a 1080p HDTV off a single ATI Eyefinity card. I've also got a pile of more common software - an old version of Photoshop, some webdev crap I test with for building out my hobby sites.

The installation couldn't possibly have gone smoother. I downloaded the upgrade, which ran and had me on Win8 Pro in about a half hour, probably less. I remember it going very quickly. I was upgrading from Win7 home.

My hands-on experience with Win8 confirmed what the videos showed: the OS is seriously flawed in the usability dept.

Failure? I can't see they failing in the long run. They have a monopoly in mind share and bundles with virtually all new laptops (apart from Macs and some Ubuntu machines).

They took this route with Xbox and all went well in the end. Secret, keep iterating the damn product.

The XBox 360 still sucks and has the red ring of death problem, and if bumped some models even scratch the disk in the drive ruining it.

The XBox is a success because of exclusive video game titles on it. Plus gamers have to keep getting their XBox repaired or replaced to keep playing games.

Some stupid Internet advice tell people to reset the XBox when it has a red ring of death by throwing a towel or blanket over it. That causes overheating, and in some cases fries the CPU or other parts and then they have to buy a new XBox. I don't know why, when the main problem of the XBox overheating is a bad heat sink and poor quality in cooling the equipment, for a solution to that is to apply more heat so the system resets the red ring of death?

The heat causes the brittle solder joints to crack; applying more heat melts the solder and "reflows" it.

This is a common fix for PC video cards too.

More easily said than done, though.

Platform lock is a very efficient way of achieving a profitable business. I imagine they have some experience with this model.

Market share and mind share don't keep a company alive; profits do.

Xbox is not profitable over its lifetime (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/15/how-one-of-microsofts...). Windows PC sales are down 20% from last year (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57556199-292/windows-8-...).

Microsoft has negligible presence in the high-margin mobile and tablet space. By contrast, Apple makes hundreds of dollars from each phone/tablet sale. Phones are repurchased every 2 years, and Apple originally got $18 per user per month for each iPhone subscriber (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9803657-37.html). Microsoft makes ~$50 from one-time PC purchases, which are replaced every 4-5 years.

I set up Windows 8 for our grandma's new computer 2 nights ago. I run Ubuntu and OSX but also use Windows 7 on occasion. I've read all the bad reviews, but I was interested in actually trying it out for myself. The new UI is horrible. Some problems I encountered:

- IE hides the URL bar by default and makes you right click near the bottom of the browser to show it (this took me 5 min to figure out).

- We backed up all the email on Outlook Express from the old machine only to find that Windows 8 Mail couldn't import it.

- Windows would occasionally (not by my doing) switch back to the old style desktop mode. The old desktop mode was great at first, until I realized there wasn't a start button and I had to use both the new UI and the old desktop to get stuff done.

This is just a small sampling. To be fair I upgraded to the new Ubuntu layout a few months ago and found it to be almost as frustrating (almost). But then I switched to the old style desktop and everything was back to normal again. Bottom line? Grandma hates it and wants her old computer back.

Bottom line? Grandma hates it and wants her old computer back.

This fairly accurately describes every time a tech-unsavvy friend or relative of mine has upgraded anything, ever.

> The old desktop mode was great at first, until I realized there wasn't a start button

There's a start button, it just doesn't look like anything. Throw your cursor to the bottom-left corner and click. (And the little "show desktop" widget is still in the bottom-right corner as well.)

Invisible GUI elements seems to be all the rage these days.

I don't get it - why would you want it invisible, even if you're using touch?

(this goes for special "swipe-in" stuff too, not just for the start menu)

Make sure it's the one pixel in the very bottom left corner, or it'll just make the desktop icon that displays go away. And once on the desktop you still can't do anything; there's no start button or menu or anything. I guess if I spend a weekend on Google I could figure out the magical secret. Seems to me it should be a bit more intuitive than that.

Don't blame Windows 8 for breaking your grandma's computer. She ain't the one who installed it without knowing how it works.

I only use "the old desktop" in Windows 8, and the "new UI" is basically a full-screen start button with status crap in it. The only time I see the Metro side of things is when I check the weather, or use Trackage.

If you're approaching Windows 8 on a desktop or (non-touch) laptop with the intent to stay strictly within this new interface, you're misunderstanding how the operating system works.

> The new UI is horrible.

Agreed. Maybe MS plans to sell training on how to do the things that were obvious before?

i used this guy's hack to get Windows 8 for $15, no official license, but hey, no prev license required either - supposedly lasts until jan 31

http://everymantech.com/post/40133879737/windows-8-for-15-no...

I used this too. I'm thinking of wiping my machine and reinstalling everything in a few months; I guess I should buy another key now while they're cheap and hold on to it!

It's pretty sad that we have so many talented individuals devote so many man hours to completely free operating systems, and yet corporations like Microsoft still get away with dangling carrots in front of us like this.

The free software movement needs to get its act together.

I am running Windows 8 on my home desktop. I'm really surprised at how unstable it is. Sometimes after entering my password I am presented with a black screen, sometimes I am presented with the desktop but with nothing pinned to taskbar and windows key and corners do nothing. Sometimes I when I shut down it just sits at desktop.

This is a machine that had no such problems with Windows 7. I've uninstalled virtually every program that could possibly cause the problems I experience. The only thing left to uninstall is Windows 8. I will not miss it.

You might want to try reinstalling. There's an option to expedite the process in the Metro menus, same place as where you set the timezone. I was having strange crashes, and a reset seems to have fixed the problem. I suspect it was an issue with the drivers I chose to install; this time I let it use all the default drivers provided through Windows Update, plus the driver package for my video card, and the crashing seems to have vanished.

Sounds like a driver issue. I upgraded in October and haven't had a single crash, freeze or stutter.

I bought and upgrade and installed it in a VM. At this point I only use it to check for web development issues with ie10. In that context it works just fine. No issues whatsoever. I had criticized the UI at the time preview came out. Now I find that after become aware of a couple of keyboard commands it really isn't that bad. Again, keep in mind that my use case is very, very limited in scope.

I have multiple keys available through my MSDN subscription. Only 2 are being used for VM test machines. I have no desired to actually use Windows 8 as a primary OS, (yes, I tried running it for a couple of weeks), Windows 7 and Ubuntu fill that role.

Actually the current upgrade price is so low that it is worth to just buy it and leave the install for a later date... or never?!

I bought two $40 upgrades of Windows 8 Pro, haven't installed them yet. I figure my son and I might need them in the future sometime. Mostly for video games. I switched to Ubuntu 12.10 for myself and my son still uses Windows 7.

My main Laptop runs Ubuntu and my custom built PC runs a dual-boot of Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I need Windows 7 for Turbo Tax and some other software that won't run under WINE.

BTW I got Windows 7 Ultimate from a Microsoft Developer event for free. No such deals for developers when Windows 8 came out, or maybe I missed it?

There should also be a Home version that should be cheaper.

I was running Windows 7 Home edition (I'd bought a new computer in July) and the upgrade to Windows 8 pro was $15. That's about as cheap as a major operating system upgrade comes.

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