Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

venturebeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#11

Post by ghshephard »

diminoten wrote: post #3

Damn; to be fully honest, this may motivate me into upgrading, which I find to be an interesting reaction, given how I had, previously, no plans to upgrade. Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you?

My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform.

I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me, on a January 2004 Precision 650 - it runs pretty much flawlessly; no blue screens/hangs or other problems in two+ years. I use it mostly for outlook+lookout, Microsoft Visio, VMware Workstation - Zero need to upgrade - So I've been able to skip Vista, Windows 7 and now, apparently, Windows 8. About the only thing I've done is go through two monitor upgrades (Started with a 45 Pound 21" CRT, went to a (considered extravagant back then) 21" LCD - it's now sporting a Dell 30".

I'm honestly interested in knowing how long I'll be able to keep this desktop running. (Clearly, the $40 to $200 jump is having no impact on me)

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#12

Post by orionblastar »

wildranter wrote: post #8
vividmind wrote: post #2

That's an interesting move for a failed product. I have no plans of moving to Windows 8 at all after watching a number of reviews on youtube.

Failure? I can't see they failing in the long run. They have a monopoly in mind share and bundles with virtually all new laptops (apart from Macs and some Ubuntu machines). They took this route with Xbox and all went well in the end. Secret, keep iterating the damn product.

The XBox 360 still sucks and has the red ring of death problem, and if bumped some models even scratch the disk in the drive ruining it.

The XBox is a success because of exclusive video game titles on it. Plus gamers have to keep getting their XBox repaired or replaced to keep playing games.

Some stupid Internet advice tell people to reset the XBox when it has a red ring of death by throwing a towel or blanket over it. That causes overheating, and in some cases fries the CPU or other parts and then they have to buy a new XBox. I don't know why, when the main problem of the XBox overheating is a bad heat sink and poor quality in cooling the equipment, for a solution to that is to apply more heat so the system resets the red ring of death?

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#13

Post by Skoofoo »

It's pretty sad that we have so many talented individuals devote so many man hours to completely free operating systems, and yet corporations like Microsoft still get away with dangling carrots in front of us like this.

The free software movement needs to get its act together.

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#14

Post by iy56 »

jere wrote: post #9
dennmart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's fine to not upgrade, especially if you already have a stable setup, not giving Windows 8 a chance based on YouTube reviews seems to be a bit unfair. Most conversations I've had with Windows users who I've spoken to that haven't moved to Windows 8 can be summed up like this: Me: Do you plan to upgrade to Windows 8? Them: No way. Windows 8 is horrible! Me: Oh, so when did you use it? Them: Not yet... I read…

Is there something really wrong with that? I won't spend $10 to go see a movie with bad reviews. Why would I want to spend $40 and quite a bit of time and effort on an OS that most people think is bad?

Basing your movie opinions on random youtube videos would be equally foolish. The reviews of professional critics are somewhat different.

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#16

Post by mrng »

ghshephard wrote: post #11
diminoten wrote: post #3

Damn; to be fully honest, this may motivate me into upgrading, which I find to be an interesting reaction, given how I had, previously, no plans to upgrade. Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you? My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform. I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me…

> My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized > around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, > and just outright hanging.

May I ask what you've been doing? Old Unix/NT guy here (Unix from 1988, NT from 1994), using OS X since 2008. Never had such a problem with my 17" MB Pro (early 2008)

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#18

Post by Jam0864 »

orionblastar wrote: post #12
wildranter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure? I can't see they failing in the long run. They have a monopoly in mind share and bundles with virtually all new laptops (apart from Macs and some Ubuntu machines). They took this route with Xbox and all went well in the end. Secret, keep iterating the damn product.

The XBox 360 still sucks and has the red ring of death problem, and if bumped some models even scratch the disk in the drive ruining it. The XBox is a success because of exclusive video game titles on it. Plus gamers have to keep getting their XBox repaired or replaced to keep playing games. Some stupid Internet advice tell people to reset the XBox when it has a red ring of death by throwing a towel or blanket over i…

The heat causes the brittle solder joints to crack; applying more heat melts the solder and "reflows" it.

This is a common fix for PC video cards too.

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#19

Post by xradionut »

ghshephard wrote: post #11
diminoten wrote: post #3

Damn; to be fully honest, this may motivate me into upgrading, which I find to be an interesting reaction, given how I had, previously, no plans to upgrade. Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you? My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform. I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me…

Must Have feature?

I must have it to test software for clients. Otherwise it's as about as useful as a foot steered automobile.

Re: Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1

#20

Post by bchjam »

ghshephard wrote: post #11
diminoten wrote: post #3

Damn; to be fully honest, this may motivate me into upgrading, which I find to be an interesting reaction, given how I had, previously, no plans to upgrade. Obviously this is intentional, but I am just surprised by how effective it is on me.

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you? My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform. I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me…

The best reason for me was the gating of tools for building Win8 apps. I haven't actually made any Win8 apps yet but I've worked with the XAML stack before and occasionally get tempted to play with it.
Post reply on HN