Windows 8 Pro upgrade to jump from $40 to $200 on Feb. 1 • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by progrock » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:42 AM UTC

Don't MS make it agonising. To the point that I almost can't be bothered. Have you read all the twisted workarounds that people are doing to get legitimate upgrades?

I have Vista 32 on my laptop (that is doing nothing at the moment), I want a 64bit version of windows. I'd like to go from Vista 32 to Windows 8 with an upgrade. But that isn't really supported. I can go from Vista 32 to Vista 64 -> Windows 8, but it's a hassle. Lenovo have pulled their images, I have no disk images of Vista, it goes on. I've read loads of people going through similar install/reinstalls.

Windows should just provide different arch versions of the ISO, that they update regularly. That you can download any old place, and place it on USB/DVD whatever. Then just use your paid for product key. Simple?

I'm trialing the evaluation version. I've already broken the Desktop Internet Explorer. And I've crashed the OS twice. It feels like a poor man's Unity! I've windows that I can't view in their entirety on the screen, and there's no way I can move them to get to the controls. I can't easily get an overview of what's installed (no simple menu). And there doesn't seem like any intuitive way to get to the control panel. Plus it's hard to know what's clickable and what isn't.

There are a few nice touches, but I'd personally like to turn Metro off. I've got no want for it. I was hoping it would be a little more polished than this. But it feels odd.

I'm trying to justify the hassle of the £25 upgrade. Price it over £100, no thanks, I'll be at the mercy of Ubuntu for another decade. This was a chance for MS to woo someone that hasn't really touched their OSs for thirteen years. I've tried to meet them in the middle.

It shouldn't be this hard.

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

#62

Post by progrock » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:49 AM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #51

gnud wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure I could get used to win8 quite quickly. I'll probably install it next time I upgrade my windows PC. But admit it - you had no idea how to shut down your computer in win8 until someone told you.

I still remember the controversy when Vista changed the power button on the start menu to sleep by default.

This still gets me every time.

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

#63

Post by ghshephard » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 9:02 AM UTC

mrng wrote: post #16

ghshephard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The Transition from Snow Leopard to Lion was a Fiasco. Six months in I was sorely tempted to see if I could revert back to Snow Leopard, and in hindsight, I wish I had.

Late 2010 13" MBAir (Best Laptop I've ever owned) - lots of KEXT issues, VMware Fusion interaction issues, FTDI Serial Driver Issues, Recovery from Sleep, and lots of beachballing on Mail.app.

Things started to get better on 10.7.4, and they returned to circa 10.6.8sh Snow Leopard Stability on 10.7.5. About the only thing that causes this laptop to Kernel Panic now is pulling out the USB Cable when it has an FTDI Serial Device and I'm running VMware Fusion - Kernel panics used to be a weekly thing, and, with the exception of the FTDI/VMWare thing - it's now been two+ months since I've seen one. Beachballing, also, is down to what you would normally expect.

Anyways - I'm happy now, and I'm one of those guys who will wait a year (or two) before moving to Lion. Or maybe I'll just buy a new laptop, and keep the old one for work, and wait for the new one to stabilize. Anyways, no new operating systems for me.

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

#64

Post by ghshephard » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 9:03 AM UTC

Osmium wrote: post #23

mrng wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Just wanted to second this. Regular kernel panics = something seriously wrong. Either a hardware fault, or a bad kext or something. If anyone reading this has problems with OS X and stability, try running this: http://khiltd.com/software/consultants_canary It'll give you a list of every "non-standard" thing you have installed (e.g. kernel extensions), and between that and log files, it might help pinpointing the issu…

I think we can all agree that 10.6.8 was delightfully stable, and the first few versions of 10.7 were a bit of a clusterf*ck. My pain just went on a bit longer than most people. Lesson learned.