Should I upgrade to Windows 8?

[voiidwulf]

I have some questions regarding Windows 8 and whether or not I should upgrade.

1.
Would all my old programs work? Like all my games and stuff. Would there be incompatibility issues?

2.
I use Intel Smart Response Technology. Would that still work?

3.
Are there any advantages for gaming?

4.
Any disadvantages?

Thanks,

EDIT: I am eligible for the $15 upgrade, so the price is irrelevant.

 

[abbadon_34]

no

 

[kristjan_i]

I'm using windows 8 pro edition for quite a while now, and I'm happy.

1) Most of them work, but there are few exeptions, for example i am unable to upgrade my SSD's firmware(yes upgrade tool is OS dependent in my case), but i havent had any other issues with programs, even Age Of Empires 1, Dungeon siege 1 (these are old games) run fluently. I also think any mayor or critical programs will be made Windows 8 compatible, ex: drivers, firmware upgrade tools etc.


2) No clue, most probably, i think if not then there would be support in near future, as it launches in 26'th oct. You might want to contact your motherboard manufacturers support and find out.


3) Most games run the same as in windows 7, but some run even better, as windows 8 uses less resources, i'm talking about 1.5gb of ram usage vs 1 at same scenario, Windows 8 using up less resources. Well it's not an good example but i sometimes play Minecraft, and in Windows 7 my avg fps was around 70-80s, whereas in Windows 8 it is between 120-240.

4) There aren't alot. If you're >30 there's no reason to worry about the new UI, i know a lot are saying that windows 7 is the best but i think they're just grumpy grandpa's.
I had very few anomalies, for me having an old computer (like really old, laptop from 2005, PC from 2007), i had to manually sign my video drivers in order to get them to work. I think these kind of shenanigans are fixed after the release of windows or in an service pack update. Plus if your graphics card is from Nvidia you most probably have out-of-the-box support for windows 8. Me having Radeon 4850 in pc and mobility Radeon x300 on laptop, i had to tinker a bit.




PS! If to exclude bios unpacking time, my PC bootspeed record is 3s.

 

[kristjan_i]

no

That's nice that you have brought up so many reasons why not to.

I swear consumer preview is nothing like the full release of windows 8.

You even get enterprise and ultimate functions like Bit-Locker, on just Pro Edition.
You get powershell 2.0
You get new Hyper-V, which, if you have SLAT support (2n'd-gen core series, ex i3, i5, i7), you will have almost real computer-like virtual machines. Hyper-V works on older processors as well, but the hardware-software layer is a bit thicker.
You get Storage Spaces, which is very flexible, and uses the new filesystem reFs, which is excellent with data parity, and most flexible software solution for managing RAID.
Manageability, manageability, manageability, manageability, manageability.
Everything is faster in Windows 8. And if you're not a 60+ pensionier you'll get used to the new UI.
Also i bet windows 8 will get faster and better with updates.
Lets not forget the powersaving features. as it was in Vista vs 7...
..I'ts like in 7 vs 8, you get about 30% more battery-life.

There are a lot of reasons to use Windows 8 and very few reasons not to.

 

[photonboy]

My quick answer is YES.

The bottom line is this is the future whether some of us want it or no.

I really, really dislike the entire new interface concept for a desktop computer, but then you will get used to it. Coming from Windows 7 was so frustrating, I had to go on the Internet and Google how to turn it OFF! I couldn't find things initially, and the left bar that shows the open programs was really stupid so hopefully it gets fixed (it showed a thumbnail for each program. No name, no icon, just an image. So I got a blurry white image that was apparently my web browser, and a black image that was the video I was playing that was paused on a black screen.

Sigh.

I really love the Windows 7 Task Manager, but apparently the new Windows 8 interface can be hidden away most of the time and you use your PC like normal (except no Start Menu).

So I guess I'm saying go with Windows 8 unless you want Windows 7 forever because the future is here.

Aside from the entire Windows 8 interface, the core of the PC is compatible with most Windows 7 software (not like the upgrade from Windows XP to Vista). It's like going from Vista to Windows 7. I'd imagine most Windows 7 drivers will work too.

*I would imagine the most frustrating elements will get tweaked.

I was going to recommend WAITING if you could while things get sorted a bit better but I think it's good enough now, and you don't really want to upgrade later when all your applications are installed.

 

[voiidwulf]

Another question.

Would my games transfer over? It obviously transfers over "personal files", but are programs included? I don't even care about personal files such as videos and photos, I don't even have any other than wallpapers and clip arty stuff I've used in photoshop.

 

[kristjan_i]

Another question.

Would my games transfer over? It obviously transfers over "personal files", but are programs included? I don't even care about personal files such as videos and photos, I don't even have any other than wallpapers and clip arty stuff I've used in photoshop.

If it's possible you should backup your old data and do a fresh intall, uprading is for people who seriously want problems on their hands. "Upgrading is for masochists.": said our Windows Management lecturer on our first lecture. Things just work if you install a fresh copy. Even Microsoft knows that, they just can't officially enforce it.
Simple as that.

Well if the media your'e installing has enough room, you will have a windows.old catalog with documents and personal files.
Once again, fresh install.

 

[Supermuncher85]

Personally I'm gonna use the wait and see approach. There are some features that I really want, and others I couldn't care less about.

Time to fireup that virtualbox again I guess, after all RTM is free.

 

[voiidwulf]

If it's possible you should backup your old data and do a fresh intall, uprading is for people who seriously want problems on their hands. "Upgrading is for masochists.": said our Windows Management lecturer on our first lecture. Things just work if you install a fresh copy. Even Microsoft knows that, they just can't officially enforce it.
Simple as that.

Well if the media your'e installing has enough room, you will have a windows.old catalog with documents and personal files.
Once again, fresh install.

What is this windows.old you speak of? Is it a folder with all my old stuff in it? Wouldn't it get deleted during a fresh install?

 

[Pinhedd]

I have some questions regarding Windows 8 and whether or not I should upgrade.

1.
Would all my old programs work? Like all my games and stuff. Would there be incompatibility issues?

2.
I use Intel Smart Response Technology. Would that still work?

3.
Are there any advantages for gaming?

4.
Any disadvantages?

Thanks,

EDIT: I am eligible for the $15 upgrade, so the price is irrelevant.

I have Windows 8 Pro RTM on my laptop. It's a surprisingly solid OS under the hood, even more so than Windows 7. Switching between an IGP and discrete GPU is almost instant. The Win8UI grows on you after a while, it's functionally very similar to the start menu but with icons that can be updated dynamically in real time to reflect an application's current status. I'm not sure how flexible the interface is but there's some serious potential even on a desktop environment.

The one thing I'm not sold on yet is the odd window theme, it's kinda pastel-ish whereas the Windows 7 theme is sleek.

 

[nukemaster]

My experience with Win8 has been quite good(Minus my sound card not quite working right, but I hope that will be fixed in the future.).

Very smooth and all that good stuff. The windows 8 task manager is also a nice addition.

Metro is just another way to launch and run programs. You do not need to see it that often. It still has built in search just like Win7 so hit start and type what you want.

You can always try the enterprise evaluation(90 days to use it free) on another drive or partition to see how it works for you.

Win7 should work for many years if you go that route.

 

[krayzier1]

Meh new software is all good on fresh installs until you find its only mainly a add-on of windows 7 anyways with a few tweaks so wait till they put a sp on it and you watch ya frame-rate drop and back to how did it go grumpy grampa will be back imo try your frame-rate without window7 sp pack on and then with see what i mean as they only bog it down.

On a more positive note i can still see it being better than XP so i will be jumping now from this platform into the deep blue yonder of 8 myself also divers allays take a while for new platforms, Why i myself will be a little more patient you can just about here the war drum of the company's keyboards banging away to there deadlines in highrise buildings where the air Conn is down

CAUTION watch out for people with new builds stating stuff that's faster as they will be mainly due to the new hardware

And last thought of the day is do we all love windows phones enough that we want to look at the PC the same way
and best off getting two one gig hdds if 1tb as over that your loosing speed

 

[MidnightDistort]

It's entirely up to you with any new OS there are occasions where a program or 2 will not work with the new OS. I myself wouldn't touch Win 8 with a 10 foot pole, it's decent for a tablet but i don't like at all on the desktop. I have a 40" screen i use my PC on and i prefer the classic window interface.

I don't think you mentioned whether you use Win 7 or XP. I'm assuming it's Win 7 with your setup. Run virtual software on Win 8 and see if you like it, i'd wait for the full version though to see whether all your programs work.

 

[Pepto]

I wouldn't get it because it feels so alien to me. I played around with it at my work for a few hours, it was just... different...

 

[jcurry23]

it won't be an open platform anymore.

 

[nbelote]

I just did an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Everything came over just fine. The best thing you can do is at least pay the $15 for the upgrade. Even if you decide against using it, you'll still have the serial for whenever it's necessary to install it (or you can choose to install it on another computer, it's up to you).

I don't regret doing the upgrade. Everything loads much quicker, and I got used to ignoring the new UI (I just go to Desktop mode and run it all from there... everything I used normally had a desktop shortcut anyway).

 

[voiidwulf]

I just did an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Everything came over just fine. The best thing you can do is at least pay the $15 for the upgrade. Even if you decide against using it, you'll still have the serial for whenever it's necessary to install it (or you can choose to install it on another computer, it's up to you).

I don't regret doing the upgrade. Everything loads much quicker, and I got used to ignoring the new UI (I just go to Desktop mode and run it all from there... everything I used normally had a desktop shortcut anyway).

Yeah. This is primarily a gaming computer anyway. The desktop isn't a huge deal to me. I'd use DOS if it would like double my FPS.

For $15 I think I'll get it and see if I like it.

 

[nbelote]

Yeah. This is primarily a gaming computer anyway. The desktop isn't a huge deal to me. I'd use DOS if it would like double my FPS.

For $15 I think I'll get it and see if I like it.

Keep in mind that this license is treated like an OEM license. They are letting you install it on whatever computer you want to install it on, not necessarily the one that you recently purchased. The OEM catch means that, once it's installed on a particular computer, it's tied to that computer forever. Make sure that you want to install it on that one.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Keep in mind ..... this kind of "upgrade" historically has most often been a downgrade.

Upgrading on older box to a new OS was never a good idea if you expect any kind of ROI (positive "return on investment" of time and money). Historically, taking your existing box and "upgrading" to the new OS that was just released meant two things and only two things.

1. You could tell ya friends ya have the latest and greatest.
2. Your machine ran no faster than it did the day before, and most of the time it ran slower.

It started with Windows 95 with promises of "blinding 32-bit speed" but though PC Magazine's Hardware roundup did much to disguise it by separating the W4WGs machines from the Win95 machines by 100 pages, you could easily see that various manufacturers submitted machines with virtually identical hardware, one with each OS. The W4WGs machines on average were 40% faster than their Win95 counterparts. At the time, Infoworld conducted a survey of business users and they found that the average upgrade cost ran from $2500 - $4500 in hardware, rollout, downtime and training. No one re[orted increases in productivity.

History has shown us that nothing has changed since. Sure you could argue that getting rid of Windows Millenium and Windows Vista made you more productive if you were one of the many having problems with those OS's but on the testbed, even Windows 7 didn't do any better than Vista.

I'm not arguing that we should be buying new machines and putting Windows XP on them. The new OS's have more capabilities but these capabilities belong on new hardware. If you're a hobbyist and ya enjoy toying and experimenting with the new thing, by all means go for it. But if you're thinking my machine will run faster or you will becoem more productive.....well, MS has never been able to accomplish such a feat before. Maybe Win8 will be an exception, but history tells us it's unlikely. I would not consider it at all with a machine more than year old.

All I'd say is do some research, see how it benches, look at the time investment involved (don't forget ya time spent researching like here in the forum) and then see if ya like the results.

 

[zdbc13]

Load VirtualBox
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Download Windows 8 RTM iso, it's still free for 90 days evaluation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/jj554510.aspx?wt.mc_id=MEC_132_1_4
Install VirtualBox and set up a session of Windows 8.

Try it out, but make sure you google using Windows 8 first. I couldn't shut it down either but eventually learned all the shortcuts. It's fun now and I'm considering the upgrade.

 

[kristjan_i]

Sorry for being away for so long, windows.old is a catalog existing if you upgrade your windows. From 7 to 8 to try or install windows 8 on the same partition. Mind you upgrading is an option which should be avoided, you don't want your hair falling off in such a young age.

 

[voiidwulf]

Sorry for being away for so long, windows.old is a catalog existing if you upgrade your windows. From 7 to 8 to try or install windows 8 on the same partition. Mind you upgrading is an option which should be avoided, you don't want your hair falling off in such a young age.

The main thing I'm concerned about is my games. If I were to do a fresh install, (Speaking of which, can you even do a fresh install with an upgrade copy of Win8?), how could I keep all my games? I have like 250GB in games, and I'd rather not re download them all. It would go over my monthly allowance, and waste a ton of time.

 

[MidnightDistort]

The main thing I'm concerned about is my games. If I were to do a fresh install, (Speaking of which, can you even do a fresh install with an upgrade copy of Win8?), how could I keep all my games? I have like 250GB in games, and I'd rather not re download them all. It would go over my monthly allowance, and waste a ton of time.

I would keep your existing Windows then. You are going to need a back up of your data/OS as well. I have no idea how you upgrade to Win 8 and keep all your games. If these games are installed it might be a bit difficult to get them over to your installation, not to mention there's many registry edits you would have to fix. If you use virtual box and download the Win 8 demo you won't have to spend anything to try it out. I don't know how you manged to get over 250GB worth of games but as a reminder i would make sure to make a hard copy of the game install program. Anything you might have paid for usually would allow you to redownload the file so i would spend a bit of time to burn these games to cds/dvds.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Everything loads much quicker, and I got used to ignoring the new UI (I just go to Desktop mode and run it all from there... everything I used normally had a desktop shortcut anyway).

Is shortcut icons on the desktop the only way to launch programs from the 'old style' view? What happens when desktop gets full?

OP, be aware that type-to-search feature in the Metro view only throws up files and Metro apps - not your desktop applications like games.

 

[MidnightDistort]

Keep in mind ..... this kind of "upgrade" historically has most often been a downgrade.

Upgrading on older box to a new OS was never a good idea if you expect any kind of ROI (positive "return on investment" of time and money). Historically, taking your existing box and "upgrading" to the new OS that was just released meant two things and only two things.

1. You could tell ya friends ya have the latest and greatest.
2. Your machine ran no faster than it did the day before, and most of the time it ran slower.

It started with Windows 95 with promises of "blinding 32-bit speed" but though PC Magazine's Hardware roundup did much to disguise it by separating the W4WGs machines from the Win95 machines by 100 pages, you could easily see that various manufacturers submitted machines with virtually identical hardware, one with each OS. The W4WGs machines on average were 40% faster than their Win95 counterparts. At the time, Infoworld conducted a survey of business users and they found that the average upgrade cost ran from $2500 - $4500 in hardware, rollout, downtime and training. No one re[orted increases in productivity.

History has shown us that nothing has changed since. Sure you could argue that getting rid of Windows Millenium and Windows Vista made you more productive if you were one of the many having problems with those OS's but on the testbed, even Windows 7 didn't do any better than Vista.

I'm not arguing that we should be buying new machines and putting Windows XP on them. The new OS's have more capabilities but these capabilities belong on new hardware. If you're a hobbyist and ya enjoy toying and experimenting with the new thing, by all means go for it. But if you're thinking my machine will run faster or you will becoem more productive.....well, MS has never been able to accomplish such a feat before. Maybe Win8 will be an exception, but history tells us it's unlikely. I would not consider it at all with a machine more than year old.

All I'd say is do some research, see how it benches, look at the time investment involved (don't forget ya time spent researching like here in the forum) and then see if ya like the results.

I think it depends. I had Vista on a machine, until i upgraded to Win 7 which is much better. It's still fast and if i went back to Vista on this same machine it might be slow again. I'm sure with Win 8 on the same machine it might run a bit better but with my i7 machine there is no difference. It ran fast on Win 7 and it did no better with the Win 8 demo. It depends with the initial hardware, you might be able to do more multi-tasking on a machine with less power with Win 8 then you did with Win 7. I have had people come to me before about problems with upgrading an OS on an old system that the hard drive wore out and they complain that their PC is even slower. An aged hard drive that either has bad sectors or it's old and clunky that wouldn't survive handling another 3, 4 years on an OS.