Windows 8 Upgrade Deadlines Approaching in January
Microsoft is phasing out discounted and free upgrades, as well as the Windows 8 Preview in January.
If you intend to upgrade to Windows 8 soon, you will need to do so in January, as the $39.99 price for the Windows 8 Pro upgrade will expire on January 31. You can also purchase the upgrade now and install it at a later point in time. The shipped and packaged version is priced at $69.99. The offer includes about $70 in discounts for certain apps.
Microsoft will also phase out the free Media Center upgrade for Windows 8 Pro on January 31. Windows 8 users have to purchase the software for $69.99 (and get an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro).
Users who purchased Windows 7 PCs with a discount offer for Windows 8, will have to upgrade also by January 31. The $14.99 offer will not be available in February.
Those who are still using the preview version of Windows should also slowly migrate to a different version, since the software will expire on January 15.
I understand that MSFT had to standardize stuff so that app developers can design their apps base on a standard UI and the way they did it was to completely remove the start/search. That however was stupid because legit productivity software and toy apps are two separate category. Legacy desktop mode is far efficient to do productivity tasks than metro. So why not just have productivity softwares on traditional mode and toy apps on metro??? was that too hard?
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I bought the £24.99 upgrade and got the free Media Centre upgrade, also put 2 bits of freeware on it
Classic Start 8 - gives you a Start Menu and it's free
Start Screen Customiser - puts my desktop wallpaper on the Start Screen and it's free
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So now I have all the under the hood improvements that no one is really arguing with and none of the negative points that people keep droning on about ad-nauseum
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I do lots of work with ISO and other images and need to use legitimate software, now I can mount images natively I am saving more than the cost of the Windows upgrade already
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People are looking at sales figures but you should really be looking at what it is able to do for you, rather than focussing on something that is a non-issue - and before someone pipes up "why should I have to use freeware to get a Start menu, it should be there already" well it isn't and moaning about it will not get it put back, I was the first person to howl with derision when DOS was finally relegated and I had to use DOSbox to run old DOS games, but I did the same as everyone else and sucked it up and dealt with it - I suggest you do the same because Start Menu is history and isn't coming back
The Start Screen is better than the Start Menu in my opinion, but in no way is it worse. You can get it back if you want it. This crowd is supposed to be informed about PC tweaking. Tom's recently wrote a great summary about micro-stuttering and how you can download a utility to eliminate it. You're telling me it's too much work to install Start8, but you can create separate profiles for every game to fix a problem with video card architecture?
if you can bypass that and bring back start bar, it's just like Win7 with better memory management and faster interface...
I'm using Win8 Pro on both my gaming PC and laptop...I got it as $14.99 "upgrade" option when one of my relative bought a new laptop few months ago...you can still do full install (install to blank drive) with the "upgrade" disc...also received free Media Center update...
it made bootup and shutdown MUCH faster on both systems with older mid-grade SSD compared to Win7 Pro...
the interface also seem more responsive when programs is opened, using MS Office 2010, and closing them after using them...
I had no problem with any games so far except one and that's Bully: Scholarship Edition from Steam...surround sound doesn't work in the game...only in stereo...and some graphic glitches...nothing game breaking...
I may run into some more gaming glitches if I try to run older games but so far, any new-ish games still work great including Borderlands 2, Skyrim, CS:GO, and L4D2....
again...make ModernUI optional and bring back Start bar...MS really did improve Win7 but those 2 particular items are making people hesitant about the upgrade...
The upgrade assistant said my copy of Unreal Anthology was not compatible, tried it anyway and it works, all my other software works and some ones that were temperamental and glitchy now actually work better, probably down to memory managament like you say, as far as i'm concerned it's all gravy
Anyone thinking of going after the Windows 8 upgrade opportunity who owns a traditional laptop or desktop would be smart to avoid this like the plague. You can spend $15 on much better things! Windows 8 is a downgrade from 7. It's too bad the Microsoft shills on this site can't relay the criticisms and problems of Windows 8 back to Microsoft to get them to actually fix things. 8 is not usable on traditional systems, period.
Umm... you deserve quite a bit of downvotes for commenting with total ignorance. Windows 8 does have a traditional desktop for traditional applications, I am using it right now.
Windows 8 is pretty much the same as Windows 7, with a tad worse driver support. The fullscreen start-menu is a tad more useful than the old one, but I rarely use it for anything other than search anyway. Both 7 & 8 are definitely upgrades from XP or Vista.
It's more tempting to upgrade to Kubuntu or Lubuntu.