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Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

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Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#191

Post by lifeguard »

anthonyb wrote: post #153
lifeguard wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how wonderful IE 10 is until over 70% of IE users are upgraded to it. For a period of a few years there will be a flood of IE 10 users because this is what their computer came with. There will still be too many other IE users for commercial websites to ignore. So there will have to be a lot of web code bloat and complexity to accommodate them. I was a professional web developer before IE 1.0 and am…

Web development is somewhat different these days. OldIE support is being gradually dropped, primarily due to schedule and/or financial pressure or just web developers being more transparent about costs (eg. "IE6-7 support and testing will be an extra $X, and take an additional two-three weeks") Most IE6 users that I've spoken to are accustomed to sites looking bad anyway, since most places do only cursory testing on…

At 'dot com' start-ups the matrix effect is a significant factor in engineering time/friction and causes gotchas for the users.

For consulting and enterprise work I agree, it is just "extra $X".

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#192

Post by masterful »

shrikant wrote: post #183
derekerdmann wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Unity Dash in Ubuntu (12.04) works the exact same way. I'd be curious to see if they lifted this from Ubuntu, or the other way around. It's a bit of an adjustment, but after a couple of days of usage opening a Run dialog just feels so primitive.

I'm not sure either lifted it from the other. The concept was around with third-party apps for XP and built into Vista, but it's a feature that's gotten so ubiquitous (spotlight, unity dash, windows search) that it's difficult to say who came up with it first, if anyone did.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#194

Post by shrikant »

masterful wrote: post #192
shrikant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Unity Dash in Ubuntu (12.04) works the exact same way. I'd be curious to see if they lifted this from Ubuntu, or the other way around. It's a bit of an adjustment, but after a couple of days of usage opening a Run dialog just feels so primitive.

I'm not sure either lifted it from the other. The concept was around with third-party apps for XP and built into Vista, but it's a feature that's gotten so ubiquitous (spotlight, unity dash, windows search) that it's difficult to say who came up with it first, if anyone did.

Ah right, the likes of Launchy and Quicksilver.

My only OS-level experience with such a feature was in the Unity Dash, so had totally forgotten about those tools!

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#195

Post by saturdaysaint »

The more I think about this, the more the protestations that Apple had nothing to do with this seem bizarre. A price drop of this magnitude - $120 for the cheapest Win 7 upgrade to $40! - does not occur without competitive pressure. Can you imagine Adobe doing this kind of upgrade price drop on their (essentially competitor-less) creative software? If the iPad were not taking a serious bite out of the consumer PC business, Microsoft would be in no such hurry to spread the platform to existing PC users (who they've been happy to not-so-subtly push to a whole new PC in past years).

PC makers can't be too happy - OS upgrades might not represent much of a buying cycle, even in the consumer sphere. If anything, Windows 8's improved performance across the board might extend the life of old PCs.

I don't say any of this to damn Microsoft, who are doing good work but are against bigger forces. It is fascinating watching the sudden commoditization of a once revered, culturally central product.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#196

Post by rbanffy »

jpxxx wrote: post #166
rbanffy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

OK, but once you start your copy process, it should be straightforward.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#198

Post by jpxxx »

rbanffy wrote: post #196
jpxxx wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:) 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.

OK, but once you start your copy process, it should be straightforward.

What happens if the stream is interrupted? How long do you wait for it to start? When do you tell the user? What do you tell the user? What options do you give them? Do they even care? What if the disk you're writing to disappears? What if you're doing multiple files but only one of them fails? What if power cuts in the middle of a transfer? What if the destination directory gets renamed? What if the destination volume gets renamed? What if the write speed goes into a hole because the SSD decided now was a good time to start page compaction but the inbound data keeps piling up? What happens if the metadata doesn't come over correctly or is missing? When do you submit the arriving file for indexing? When do you submit the arriving file for security scanning?

Nothing is straightforward in software. It takes a lot of work to make it look easy.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#199

Post by anotherblue »

SquareWheel wrote: post #189
anotherblue wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, you can do following: - Install Windows retail SKU, but do not activate it. You can borrow disk or download ISO for this. - Start installing upgrade version, then reformat partition, supplying upgrade key in the process. At the end, you will have Windows upgrade installed and activated, fully functional.

Wait, you install the old Windows version, then the upgrade, and then reformat? That doesn't sound right to me...

No. If you have any Windows installed on the machine, then you just start upgrade process from it, then after EULA screen, you choose Custom Installation and then reformat the disk and continue with installation.

For Windows 7, if you have machine with empty disk, then you start installation of upgrade version, but do not provide product key and uncheck 'Activate' checkbox. This will install Windows in trial mode. Then, start upgrade setup again and let it 'upgrade' OS... After that, you have activated Windows on the machine.

For Windows 8, I am not sure if process of double installation will work.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#200

Post by SquareWheel »

anotherblue wrote: post #199
SquareWheel wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you install the old Windows version, then the upgrade, and then reformat? That doesn't sound right to me...

No. If you have any Windows installed on the machine, then you just start upgrade process from it, then after EULA screen, you choose Custom Installation and then reformat the disk and continue with installation. For Windows 7, if you have machine with empty disk, then you start installation of upgrade version, but do not provide product key and uncheck 'Activate' checkbox. This will install Windows in trial mode. Th…

I see, thanks for clarifying.
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