Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#161

Post by greedo » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 1:43 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #149

jmj4 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is eyeing consumers with this announcement, and once consumers switch, they will adapt to the new interface. Once consumers adapt to the new interface, the overhead that you are talking about decreases, and companies can roll out Windows 8 without totally killing productivity. MS is betting the house on Windows 8, but they know there will be growing pains. This $40 upgrade strategy is one way to mitigate th…

And what's to say that consumers will switch? It's not like the PC market is experiencing any growth. Sure consumers who feel they have to own a Windows PC will upgrade when they're existing hardware dies, but I'm skeptical that users will be queuing up to by a Windows 8 PC on launch day. And home users just don't upgrade existing hardware in any meaningful quantity.

To mythbusters:

Yes, when you combine a non-PC (the iPad) with the PC market there is growth. When you subtract the non-PC from the "PC market" there is negative growth. Trying to make the iPad's success somehow a sign that the PC market is growing is the funniest thing I've read on HN to date.

And sure, the Surface might invigorate Microsoft, and prove a worthy competitor to the iPad, both in terms of sales, as well as in terms of capability and usability. But regardless of whether it succeeds, it has no bearing on growing the PC market, nor on whether current users of PCs will upgrade to Windows 8.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#162

Post by greedo » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 1:47 AM UTC

Mythbusters wrote: post #160

lucisferre wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7? Most of them haven't even left XP behind.

Wrong. Just in time: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1045_3-57464649/windows-7-on-major...

So, three years after its release, Win7 has finally begun to overtake WinXP, an 11 year old operating system. And this article is quick to point out that Win7 may not yet have a true majority of PC users yet.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#163

Post by Mythbusters » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:06 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #162

Mythbusters wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Just in time: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1045_3-57464649/windows-7-on-major...

So, three years after its release, Win7 has finally begun to overtake WinXP, an 11 year old operating system. And this article is quick to point out that Win7 may not yet have a true majority of PC users yet.

Who said anything about Windows 7 being adopted quickly? I was calling out the wrong information that OP was spreading about many people not having left XP.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#164

Post by Mythbusters » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:15 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #151

gouranga wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation does not imply causality. The burden of proof is on the inclusive case. Windows upgrades allow fresh installs so that's rubbish.

So if a user is going to do a fresh install, they need to back up their existing data, perform a fresh install, restore their data, find all the old install disks from their existing software, install those. Look for the license keys for this software, fail since they bought the software ages ago, or pirated it from a buddy. Then throw their hands up in the air and get mad at MS. It's a fact of Windows in the consume…

The experience you described regarding upgrade is grossly outdated. Have you upgraded recently? The transfer wizard (forgot the actual name) does such as awesome job of moving your data to new OS that I have seen even the cookies persist after OS upgrade without me having to do any tweaking.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#165

Post by eliben » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:22 AM UTC

samspot wrote: post #120

nemo1618 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually used Windows 8? I don't make much use of the metro apps, but there are lots of smaller improvements that I appreciate, like the new task manager, file copy dialog, login screen, etc. The sight of the new start screen incites revulsion in most power users, but try to remember that you won't be spending much time there. Treat the start screen like what it really is: a fancier start menu. Like me, you'…

I'll upgrade when they give us more than 2 inches to edit the PATH environment variable.

Amen. I've been using http://www.rapidee.com for ages though, with great satisfaction.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#166

Post by jpxxx » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:31 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #154

rlu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC there's some genuine awesome improvements for Win8. For example, file copying from a share/network is immensely better. I do this at work all the time.

> file copying from a share/network is immensely better How can something like that have room for improvement? Copying a file from one place to another is and has been a solved problem for decades now.

:) Discussing ever-changing authentication schemes alone could (and does) fill a book. Then protocol changes. Discovery changes. UI changes. Better feedback on copy/delete performance. Pause/resume. Syncing and replication schemes. Performance tweaks. Metadata preservation. Filesystem specific concerns. And this is all before you step outside of the Windows world.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#167

Post by genwin » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:34 AM UTC

powerslave12r wrote: post #148

samspot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll upgrade when they give us more than 2 inches to edit the PATH environment variable.

Does anyone have any answers why this has not changed over the years?

The profit motive. MS doesn't fix anything that doesn't make (or prevents losing) profit.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#168

Post by kemayo » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:46 AM UTC

powerslave12r wrote: post #148

samspot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll upgrade when they give us more than 2 inches to edit the PATH environment variable.

Does anyone have any answers why this has not changed over the years?

I'd assume it's some variant on: "if you need to edit / knows what the PATH environment variable is, you're likely not the sort of user who's going to be scared away by an unfriendly UI".

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#169

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:47 AM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #101

dhughes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Xbox versus PS3, you pay for XboxLive! but the Xbox is cheaper or (when new) you paid nearly $1000 for a PS3 but got PS3 Network free, either way you're paying. The old options was buy a lower priced computer with Windows but pay more for the OS/upgrades or buy a very expensive Apple computer but $40.00 for an OS upgrade.

There is also the fact that a point upgrade in OSX is almost never as significant as a new Microsoft OS, that MS provides free service packs, and that (IIRC) apple allows upgrades to multiple macs with one purchase. So, really, they need to be assessed on their own merit.

Since the first OSX, all upgrades were point upgrades and all of them were very significant. They were also more frequent than Windows upgrades.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#170

Post by derekerdmann » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 3:42 AM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #79

illumin8 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On every version of Windows I've ever used, the search indexing service steals precious background disk and CPU cycles, and almost always causes issues with the two main things I use my computer for: gaming and music production. I can't even count the number of times that the search indexing service spun up in the middle of a gaming session and made my system start to lag. Of course they say it runs as a low priority…

Why would you use the start menu to get a run dialog? Windows key + R I haven't had any performance problems while running games with search indexing on. This laptop doesn't even use SSD.

Anything you need a Run dialog for, you can just press the Windows key and start typing. Everything in your path shows up, with "recently used" suggestions on the right side, and quick feedback if you mistype something.