Anyone whose University participates in Microsoft DreamSpark will be happy to know it's available for free there already.
Free on DreamSpark or MSDNAA? I can't seem to find it on Dreamspark...
Windows 8 Arrives
131–140 of 223 posts
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Upgrade copies of Vista and Win7 can be installed on an empty hard drive with minimal tweaking, but I guess being kosher with the licensing is important for some users.
If you're not willing to honor the license, what possible point would there be to paying for the software in the first place? I'm willing to be a Win8 crack is live on thepiratebay within the week. The discussion was about whether or not MS has decided to reduce their retail OS price from the ~$100 it is at right now. AFAICT, they have not.
I'm sure there are a lot of people willing to pay the new upgrade price but not willing to spend over $100 on windows.
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#133I've been running Windows 8 since they release the RTM version to TechNet subscribers on my primary laptop (about a month now). Short version - outside of Metro it's basically Win7SP3 and it works great. Metro is every bit the usability disaster that people have claimed when not running on a touch screen. The good news is that you really don't have to interface much with Metro at all. It replaces the start menu, but…
We have an issue with Windows 8 that stopped us to installing it on some personal notebooks until sp1 cames. We installed Virtual CloneDrive from SlySoft knowing that it doesn't support Windows 8. After having a blue screen and being not able to boot the system again we tried with booting it safely and we couldn't! so we reinstalled Windows 7 there. Although it was expectable to fail, it was not expectable to not rec…
I am so glad I read this. I'm about to install win8 pro on my work 'puter and I have Virtual CloneDrive installed there! Thanks!
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#134After midnight, will Windows 8 already have patches available to download as well? After all there are necessary evils they must protect us from.
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#135Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $39 dollars ($15 for newer PCs). [1] That's... reasonable. I might consider buying a copy of Windows 8 Pro at that price and then waiting until it hits SP1 to install it. I might even spin up a VM to try it out. I like that the $39 upgrade applies to anyone with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. I think they're realizing that a lot of people don't upgrade OS because they don't want to…
> I might consider buying a copy of Windows 8 Pro at that price and then waiting until it hits SP1 to install it. They don't want to release service packs anymore and instead release constant updates including feature/performance upgrades. http://www.instantfundas.com/2012/10/windows-service-packs-n...
I always assumed Service Packs were a way of "resetting" the version of Windows. Instead of installing Windows 7 then needing to immediately endure 2 hours of updates/restarts, you could simply install Windows 7 SP1 with all the relevant updates and patches already applied.
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Change for the sake of being different is stupid and shows that you don't care about your current users. An improvement has to be worth the trouble of re-learning how to use the software and changing your habits. That's why the Ribbon got so much flak - it moved every button and ate up a lot more screen space, for relatively minor improvements to overall UI organization and discoverability. The UI-formerly-known-as-M…
This isn't change for the sake of being different, it's a radical (and risky) attempt at change such that the mobile and desktop environments become merged. And you Microsoft Office ribbon example is great! That was another change that many saw as "change for change's sake", but it's become a UI function that the vast majority appreciate and depend on. I'm sure many of the HN crowd would have, or did, lambast the rib…
I know what Microsoft's attempting to do with Metro. What I don't know is what benefit it will have for desktop users. Merging their touch and desktop visual styles might strengthen Microsoft's brand, but I've yet to hear any plausible theories for how it will benefit (or even not harm) usability for desktop users. There's decades of HCI research that says touch interfaces should be different from desktop interfaces. So what's the upside for users? Why should they accept Metro, if not just because Microsoft has a monopoly?
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#137The Verge gave it a pretty solid score (8.8/10): http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3537710/windows-8-review The Surface, not so much (7.0): http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3540550/microsoft-surface...
i.e. Windows 8 got a good score, Windows RT not so much.
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows OEM licenses aren't transferrable from the PCs they're sold with. Retail licenses are transferrable to another person, once.
I found this out in a predictable way, at Google they had machines that they bought for desktops which came with an OEM windows sticker but they always put Goobuntu on. I needed an XP license for a project so I thought, "Oh I'll use this one, I know its not being used elsewhere." and did an install with a vanilla distro and the product code. The first thing that broke was it wanted the oem cab file. Fixed that. Then…
I'm just curious, is there any reason Google wouldn't have had MSDN access? I could see a "no arch-nemeses" clause or such.
(Or I could be showing my [lack of] age and MSDN didn't have easy download access in the XP era)
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're not willing to honor the license, what possible point would there be to paying for the software in the first place? I'm willing to be a Win8 crack is live on thepiratebay within the week. The discussion was about whether or not MS has decided to reduce their retail OS price from the ~$100 it is at right now. AFAICT, they have not.
There is a grey area where you can have a Genuine copy of Windows that you paid for (and that can still Windows update) but was derived from an OEM license that was transferred to another machine. This is still desirable compared to torrenting because a pirated copy will end up failing the Genuine check, will no longer get updates, and will happily be a part of some botnet some day.
From memory I think WGA was cracked..?
That said my current machine is Win7 enterprise that I somehow, if only through brute force rather than actual know-how, managed to convince that its install had been validated.
Re: Windows 8 Arrives
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exacerbating this is the fact that Windows 7 is arguably at full stride right now and has almost no points that I really want changed. Why then do I give myself (actually, pay for) a headache with this new release?
That is why I found the Win 8 announcement so weird originally. Why let it compete against Windows 7, which is to me the best version of the OS by a wide margin.
Windows 8 is better than Windows 7 in every way. I have been running Windows 8 for two months and loved Windows 7 but would never go back.