Windows 8 upgrade offers

[Camera.Ken]

I would like to add an SSD to my PC and install Windows 8 on it. I realize that I'll have to reinstall my apps to it also.

I seem to recall that as long as you have a valid Microsoft CD (or DVD), you can put it into the optical drive and the upgrade installation will proceed. You may have to call Microsoft at some stage since this is a "major" hardware change.

Does this faint memory of mine seem correct to you?

[Wayne]

No, using the optical disk hasn't worked for the last little while. That change happend with either Vista or W7. But in your instance it won't matter as you can just add the new hard drive to your system and run the install process. The installer should see the existing hard drive with Windows and allow you to install to the new hard drive. If not you can do the double install method mentioned above and I think there are other ways of doing this - here is one article that explains how to do this with Win7 and I think the install process is the same with Win8. http://www.mydigitallife.info/clean-...nk-hard-drive/

[Camera.Ken]

Much appreciated.

[classicsat]

IMO, you likely fall under the "new partition" rule, if you mean you want to dual boot your old OS and the new one from the SSD. That means you are not eligible for the $39.99 upgrade, and must buy the System Builder edition. The Upgrade is for if you are going to install over your working OS install.

[audacity]

@Camera.Ken

Just do a install of Windows on your SSD first and the upgrade installer will work, and you'll be eligible.

[Francois Caron]

I can see this being a good idea on new PCs that haven't been fully set up yet. But if the PC is already fully configured, operational and stable, I wouldn't try it. The money saved on the license purchase doesn't even begin to compensate me for the time spent reloading all of my applications on the machine. I don't take chances with upgrade paths, preferring to do clean installs.

[audacity]

Francois - that is what we're describing. Doing clean installs on new hard drives with Windows "upgrade" installers.

[Camera.Ken]

Thanks, Audacity

[Francois Caron]

Except, Audacity, that Windows 8 isn't officially out yet, and there's no official release date. So what do you do with that new computer while you wait? Keep it in the box? You're more likely to use it. And pretty soon, all of your stuff will be on it. Do you really want to go through the trouble of reinstalling and debugging everything all over again? And what do you do if a piece of hardware has no Windows 8 drivers available?

How much is your time worth per hour?

In my case, it's doubtful I'll upgrade to Windows 8 unless I buy a new computer. With the exception of a couple of netbooks and my video editing workstation, all of my computers have the most appropriate operating system and driver package available at the time they were built.

The two netbooks and video editing workstation are still fairly new and can handle the upgrade. But I don't need the Metro interface on a desktop machine, and the netbooks are simply too underpowered to gain any benefit from Windows 8 even with an SSD upgrade.

I'm close to getting a laptop upgrade very soon once I find a Core i5 system that has a touchscreen (non-tablet if possible) and can last more than six hours on a single charge. And when I do find it, chances are it'll already have Windows 8 on it.

It's nice that Microsoft is offering so many cheap upgrade paths no matter what you have installed starting at Windows XP. But when you look deeper into the issues at hand and the amount of work involved, you might realize the upgrade might be more trouble than it's worth even if Windows 8 were given away for free.

That's what this upgrade is making me think about more than anything else.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by Francois Caron

So what do you do with that new computer while you wait? Keep it in the box? You're more likely to use it. And pretty soon, all of your stuff will be on it.

Are you not familiar with drive imaging/cloning software? Just take a image of your system and then do a fresh install. Then post-install if you need any of your old stuff just mount the old image and grab your files.

This is what I do every time I get a new computer or I'm switching hard drives or whatever. Take a image of the disk and then start fresh and then copy the data in the c:\users\username folder to the new user profile. Then when I need anything else that I didn't copy I just mount the image. This doesn't take very long to do at all, and I keep these old images around ... well, forever it seems. Disk space is extremely cheap.

Or you can do a "upgrade" install. I did one of those with Windows 7 --> Windows 8 and it seemed to work just fine on my laptop.

[ScaryBob]

The Win7 to Win8 upgrade should be fairly straight forward. Apart from Metro, there isn't a lot of new technology in Win8. The biggest issue will be the loss of the Start Menu. Just where is MS planning on putting those menu items? They aren't Metro apps so they don't belong on the Metro interface. The Start Menu is gone. The Quick Launch menu disappeared with Win7. There are too many programs (dozens on my system) to fit on the Taskbar. I hate a desktop cluttered with shortcuts. Just where, oh where, will all those program shortcuts go?

It's starting to look like MS is seeing a lot of negative press with Win8. That probably accounts for the cheap upgrade. From press reports, it also looks like MS is taking a pass on deploying Win8 for corporate clients (of whom, some 50% or so are still using WinXP.)

My best guess is that MS is making a hasty release of Win8 to get a foothold in the tablet and phone market. My recommendation is to skip Win8 on the desktop and wait for Win9 (or whatever MS is planning to call it.) Full support for Win7 lasts until January 2015 so there is no need to upgrade. MS will release SP2 for Win7 before then.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by ScaryBob

They aren't Metro apps so they don't belong on the Metro interface.

But you still launch non-metro apps from the start screen. If I were to install Visual Studio in Win8, it would add a Visual Studio tile on my start screen. Launching Visual Studio in Win8 is the same process as it is on Win7. That is I hit the "Windows" key on my keyboard and start typing "visual st" and then hit enter when Visual Studio is the top item in the list.

So, my muscle memory for launching apps would be no different from Win7 to Win8 although visually what would be displayed while I'm doing this is going to be very different.

I think the main issue is that Windows 8 is being designed for hardware that nobody really has yet. I'm pretty sure that there will be lots of negative reviews from people using Windows 8 on existing hardware for that reason - it's not designed for existing hardware. I'm thinking that on new (10-point touch capable) hardware, Windows 8 will be a lot more compelling.

[ScaryBob]

It seems to me like Win8 (and tablet interfaces in general) are 10 steps backward in time. I was programming application for touch screens in the 1980s. Big clunky icons and simple task switching between full screen apps was new technology in the 1980s. Interpreted languages like Java (then Basic or Forth) was the programming method as well. The hardware wasn't sleek tablets but it makes little difference. Low resolution, full screen graphical interfaces are just unproductive and menial. Having the hundreds of items in my start menu splayed across the screen as large ugly icons is going to be useless. Typing in a program name to launch it reminds me of 1980s interfaces as well. They were fine then. In fact, the Unix command line shell is still one of the most productive interfaces available to programmers who take the time to learn it. But then, Windows interfaces totally lack the elegance or speed that Unix-like command line interfaces possess. Metro for tablets or phones is fine, but not for desktops.

[Francois Caron]

Originally Posted by audacity

Are you not familiar with drive imaging/cloning software? Just take a image of your system and then do a fresh install. Then post-install if you need any of your old stuff just mount the old image and grab your files.

Restoring the data isn't the problem. Restoring the software however is a different story. You can't just copy the stuff, it has to be installed. And following an upgrade path instead of a fresh install isn't always a good idea, especially if your software includes unstable copy protection schemes.

And who knows what that Metro interface might break as well. I doubt they have the thing fully debugged yet.

And then there's the cost of labour. If I'm doing this for someone else and they agree to pay my price, I'm fine with that. But if I have to do this on my own machines, every hour I work on the installation is an hour I lose in revenue for not working on a paid job elsewhere.

This is why I rarely ever upgrade an operating system on an existing machine. I can't afford to spend the time fixing something that was never broken in the first place. Windows XP and Windows 7 are fine just the way they are.

[audacity]

@ScaryBob: in my experience every time user interfaces change, there are always crabby people who say that the previous interfaces were better or more powerful.

Some claims I remember were:
- The command line is more powerful than a GUI
- Client/Server is better than the Web
- The keyboard is better than the mouse
- Text mode is better (faster?) than a graphical app

Yet the transitions were still made. Almost nobody works in a command line most of the time, because most software isn't CLI software anymore. And I can think of many tasks that are easier to perform with a CLI. But nobody cares.

Nostalgia is like cocaine; it makes people say stupid things. Its like when you hear about how great some old game was; but when you pay it now with the hindsight of having experienced modern games, the old games just never hold up to their reputation.

Computers are the same way, and the reason the industry makes these transitions is that ultimately the transition produced a net benefit. There may be some function where the old way was better than the new way, but in all the cases I see above, the transitions produced a net benefit.

I guess some people will never be happy until they're put in front of a green VT-100 terminal.