Windows 8 May Have Fewer SKUs Than Windows 7, Vista

they would even have less SKU's if they got rid of the 32bit Editions. I mean, there is really no point in 32bit Editions anymore. CPU's have been 64bit in the mainstream market for the last 7 years now since AMD's Socket 754 Athlon 64's and Intel's LGA775 Pentium 4 5x1 series. The vast majority of software supports 64bit now, It's time to move on. By continuing to support 32bit, all that days is continue to hold back 64bits full potential.

There are some cost and performance advantages of 32bit. Win7 isn't the memory hog of vista, so for most people - 64bit and 5+ GB of RAM is severe overkill. Yes 8GB of RAM costs about $30~40 nowadays... but most people won't and don't user it. I do web work, video encoding, photoshop, etc a lot of it at the same time and my Win7 systems very rarely ever runs out of RAM. Only Supreme Commander can wipe out my 4GB on large maps. I'll admit that when I upgrade to Ivy Bridge from my old Core2 - I will most likely go 64bit Win7 with no hurry to move to Win8. But I will be sticking Win8 Preview on one of my test systems and see how it runs... so I may change my mind later... perhaps upgrading later and using Win8Beta. (I used Win7beta as my main OS for months after RTM)

There are still some devices, odd-ball stuff out there that DOES NOT work with 64bit OS. Some older games totally bomb with 64bit as well.

Home vs Pro vs Pro VLK

I am so glad that MS listens to me (yeah, right)... It was always STUPID to have Win7 basic Home and Premium Home. It was confusing... they could have simply have Basic, Home, Pro, Ultimate.

It seems that MS is merging Basic/premium into "Windows 8" and Pro/Ultimate into "Windows 8 Pro". This is great! The only features I want out of Ultimate are the language packs so when visiting sites NOT in the USA, you don't see garbage! Overall Win7Pro handled everything most people needed with Ultimate being a big jump in price with so little to offer.

Looking at online PC purchases, even $350 crapbooks from HP include 4GB RAM with Win7Home premo 64bit... So we can conclude that everything that is name brand will be 64bit be default. I cant see Win9 supporting 32bit. Other than a few straggling programs, there is no need for 32bit versions... and for some companies, that is a hard pill to swallow (But why are they wanting to use Win8 with old software?).

I also guess that MS discovered that pretty much NOBODY ever used MS's stupid upgrade system (built in or gift-card). Sometimes DL upgrades / full purchases suck... An EX stupidly bought Win7 Download rather than buy the stupid disc... headaches.

And the point of a 32-bit OS nowadays is...?

I second that.

if i remember correctly 32-bit came out late 80's early 90's - WHY YOU STILL HERE 32

I'll probably sound crazy, but I just want a real, true, 100-percent, "win98se like" customized install. I want to choose the components manually.

Why still 32 bit Windows 8?

to save a couple mb of space? pffftt

the rock i live under only supports 32bit?

I'll give you an example why there is still 32bit. We use Avaya IP agent for our laptops as part of our Disaster Recovery plan, phone coverage, etc.. Well there is no 64bit version of that software and there will be none. And since we already own a license and they aren't willing to go out and buy a new license due to costs.

That is just one of many pieces of software where I work that do not work on 64bit. Many enterprises and other companies still have software that only work on 32bit platforms, so it still behooves Microsoft to produce a 32bit version of the OS.

Microsoft please discard 32 bit support on Windows 8 Its that 32 bit support makes our lazy software developers stick at developing 32bit programs. I don't think there would be any pentium 3 computers install windows 8. There is no need to think of the compatibility of old 32bit CPU's any more.

Honestly, this should be dwindled down to 3 versions.

Microsoft Windows 8 32 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise 64 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64 Edition

Offer one version of the OS in 32-bit, which will give you the basic install for those that only want a 32-bit OS. Then offer the Enterprise and Professional in 64-bit only, because honestly no one will want those versions in a 32-bit.

Everywhere QA engineers are rejoicing at the reduction of test platforms.

Microsoft has never understood the principle of keeping things simple. There should be 2 versions of Windows 8, max. Consumers don't want to sit and try and figure out what version of Windows to buy.

why 32OS?!!!! move on, come on.

Not true, many Enterprise users will want 32-bit copies.

I understand why everyone is crying out to end 32-bit versions of Windows, but it would be a bad idea for Microsoft. I can think of 4-5 pieces of software at work that ONLY run on 32-bit Windows and will not run on 64-bit. Honestly all of that older 32-bit software we have is still on Windows XP machines until we have the money to buy new hardware, but the newer versions that do support Windows 7 only run on 32-bit Win 7.

If you remove any 32-bit version of Windows, remove the Win 8 Professional version. But then you are only removing one version, so might as well have 32 & 64 on every version. I can see 32-bit versions of Windows disappearing in the not so distant future, but Windows 8 is not the right time to do it.



I actually agree with this, though I don't see Microsoft simplifying it that much. But they should just remove the Professional version and stick with standard & Enterprise. Make Enterprise only available with volume licensing, and bam, the normal consumer is left with only one choice: to get 32-bit or 64-bit.

Like whether or not you want Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer installed? Yeah, just like Win98...oh wait

Not a question of MB savings; also M& is of course the King of bloatware.
But why should I install Media Player and Internet Explorer and Office Trial Promo and Outlook and Screen savers and Games etc. and than later painfully remove them one by one; only to wonder how many DLLs have not been removed and are now sitting around doing nothing - or worse- will be found out to be a perfect backdoor for a hacker.

I can simplify it even better:
Windows 8 32-bit (enterprise/business use more than likely)
Windows 8-64 bit

Why do we have so many different versions? For the most part, Microsoft does nothing more to make them that much better. There is only one version created by Microsoft (the overpriced top-dog), and you get more features taken out the lower on the totem pole you go for pricing. Obviously 32-bit and 64-bit necessitates a different product created, but does anyone else remember where when you had Windows OS on your computer, you just had.......Windows; and not all these money-grabbing opportunity versions?

enterprise really needs to make the transition to 64bit, are we truly going to try and hold onto 32bit application for another 10 years, if the application will never see 64bit then it's time to initiate a migration to an application that does, if you really need to hold onto your 32bit applications for a little bit longer stick them into a virtual machine running XP, of all places i think the enterprise will reap the benefits of a 64bit OS

@matt_b

and i would love to agree with you but for one thing, netbooks/netops...... the definition of the PC has significantly changed since the windows98 days, the depth and breadth of devices are now pretty amazing, devices like the raspberry pi, it does not makes sense to pay half to a third the price of the device just for the OS

Should be two SKU's:

Windows 8 Home 64
Windows 8 Enterprise 64

how about getting off a product thats been EOL'ed and move on to One X, your reasoning is the same reason 32 still exists. Your not entirely to blame though, your company needs to pony up and Avaya is insanely expensive! By the way, if its your company policy for disaster recovery, im assuming that you are following some kind of policy (PCI DSS or similar?) if so, most compliance policies, whether or not goverment regulated require ALL vendor software to be able to receive needed updates. That being the case, you Avaya IP software agent no longer qualifies and your out of compliance. If anything, telling your bosses your out of compliance may force their hand at purchasing the new software.

Question then becomes what are they going to do with the OEM, Upgrade, and Retail versions ? Will the OEM version be useable by a DIY builder or are they actually going to start enforcing the newly worded EULA from Win7 that made OEM use by DIY builders for themselves, family and friends against the EULA ? - so now take those 6 SKus and multiply it by 3 and you'll still have 18 different versions of the product to decide which fits your needs and complies with MS EULA and 18 different prices for the same piece of software.

I actually think these are perfect SKUs, almost.

Why not just have three, and let the user choose whether to install 32 or 64 bit?

/start rant
I hate when people say, get rid of 32bit, move to 64bit already, blah blah blah. Businesses really need to move to 64bit, blah blah blah. Businesses are holding back the move to 64bit blah blah blah. You people do realize that a lot of world is run off 32bit systems? Do you have the money to buy hundreds of thousands of businesses, hundreds of thousands of computers to move them to 64bit? Also like some people of said, a lot of older programs, that work perfectly fine for what the business needs it to do, will only run on a 32bit system. When will people realize that the PC enthusiast is not the majority of computer users in the world? There are also just a lot of older computers "in the wild" that work perfectly fine for that person, and does what it needs to do, but want an upgraded OS, and they have the option to. I wanted to go somewhere else, but will leave it at that
/end rant

Really? You personally going to re-code hundreds of customized software that doesn't run in 64bit mode... and do it for free or for a low low price? Much of that software is crap, for sure... One of my clients STILL *Fracking STILL* use a POS MS-DOS software to manage her inventory/customers, it run fairly good under WinXP, but runs better on the old 300mhz Win98 box connected to a dot-matrix printer. With some programmers and what-not, we've tried to find someone who could convert the data/DB into something modern. Its horrible... There other software out there with a small but specialized user base in which they don't have the customers and the $$$ to make them run properly under 64bit or the companies have gone out of business.

There is a well used and current MSDOS piece of S-POS system that runs in a DOS Window under WinXP~7 and they sell the crap for $1500~2000. And it's in horrible retina burning blue. Check out stores like FRYs, Microcenter running XP and you'll notice the sales people switching between modern and back to MS-DOS type interface... which is where the real data is. UGH!

A 3rd client of mine finally paid a kid a few bucks for a simple web-based database so now it no longer cares what kind of OS its on, as long as its a browser. Before then, his $1500 system became more and more useless (dead company) as he needed newer PCs.

Its really NOT your problem. your needs as a home USER are not the same as those in business... and for many of them, a 2GB Win7-32 box is more than enough power to get the job done.

Even today, for MY needs - other than a game and rare very heavy multi-tasking do I actually need more than 4GB of RAM.

The END users are going to see this:
Windows 8
Windows 8 Pro

They will have to SPECIFY 32bit versions, if available. And WE Do need a Pro version... that has more features that most end-users don't need... those features would get in the way of your basic home user... But otherwise, just make "PRO" into the consumer version and Enterprise.

But MS likes charging an extra $50 for that PRO version... so why throw that away for users? Your typical end-user who walks into Best Buy doesn't/rarely need Pro.

Hey, at least its not like vista... Starter, Home, Business, Ultimate.

for me, the standard install of win 7 was 2gb on startup... i didn't reconfigure anything, but if it can get down to my xp which started up at 250-350mb that would help allot, as im constantly hitting the 7.8gb range, and programs do not like that at all.




or if you want a really lean install for a boot ssd i can honestly see installing windows to its own drive, mainly due to the whole nature of an os croupting itself randomly (hal.dll killed my xp install i think 3 times) or the os just needs a format and you dont want to deal with a full data wipe too.

if i could have trimmed everything i dont use out of windows 7 when i installed it i would have, i only have 120gb of space and dont want to ever go over 75% drive use on 120gb ssd.




lets assume that its time to move on, most professional software i find is in the 1000$ per machine license, if not more, and depending on the size of the company the transition could take months, cost millions and so forth, or, make a 32 bit version of the os, something you know will at least play nice with the software, so you can buy something new if necessary and not have to build yourself an old rig.




most people hold onto an os till the computer breaks, or cant be fixed any more. in most cases its
2 years you can upgrade
4 years you should upgrade
6 years+ the pc is borderline useless (this was the case till dual and quad came around at least)

lets assume people upgrade 5 years later, the most important part of the computer, besides the psu, and hardware, is the os. 200~ ish for the os isnt an unreasonable price, for full os 400+... now that is unreasonable. the full os should only be about 300$, 200 if you are getting it oem.

Sure, but how many of these devices will be win8? Wouldn't you just stick with a volume license of XP/7? Win7 still has several years of support left to it, and by the time you would be 'forced' to move to win8/9 you would (hopefully) have found a 64bit program that can do what you are looking for.

They could have further reduced the number of SKUs to 3 if they dropped 32-bit versions, no need for them anymore. I realize they're still offering 32-bit versions so people can upgrade the O/S on their legacy hardware, but come on - who's gonna be putting windows 8 on their pentium 4?
The ONLY 32-bit versions of windows that i know of actually being used in the last 5 years are netbooks that come with Starter pre-installed, and even those would have been 64-bit if Starter had a 64-bit version like the rest.