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Windows 8 Pro worth it?

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mit74

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Jun 4, 2010
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Is it worth the upgrade? Are there going to be any compatibilty problems with development software like Eclipse, DW or drivers?
 
Yes... You might run into certain driver issues. Other than that it pretty much works fine, I didn't hit too many issues and that was with the Release Preview, but I downgraded from 8 back to 7.
 
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We've upgraded last week ready to support users.

On the whole, it's not that different to Windows 7 (once you get used to the new start menu).

Some issues I've spotted so far is that console view on VMware VSphere client does not work (we have to upgrade ESXi to 5.1 to use the new client).

Some issues with WYSIWIG forum post boxes - enter key does not work on some forums.

No XP virtual PC, although you can use Hyper-V (which is better) to install a virtual XP machine of you wanted.

Some "quirks" using LogMeIn and/or remote desktop (especially on dual monitors). One such quirk is trying to get the mouse to the corner of the screen to access the menu - via RDP, the mouse doesn't stop at the corner so can be tricky to target it accurately.

At the moment, I'm not seeing any great advantages over Windows 7, especially for business use but it's early days and when more apps come online, I'm sure the "metro (which it is no longer called) interface" may get some use :)

Steve
 
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The upgrade to PRO is only £50 until the end of Jan

I was wondering whether to put it on to an old XP machine so that I can have a play with it - but then might I run into driver issues that would stop it working altogether as opposed to not being as slick and as smooth as it should be ??
 
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The one you get when hovering the mouse bottom left or by pressing the "windows" key. It may not look like the traditional start menu, but that's it's official name in Windows 8.

Steve
 
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Update ... after spending the day with a brand new Win8 laptop I wouldn't advice anyone to buy one just yet. It crashed several times with graphic driver errors and after the first update then started to freeze and become unrepsonsive. I'm really not impressed with the new office2010-like menu system, it just looks naff and less intuitive than drop downs. And of course it came with a shed load of Acer bloatware which was incredibly annoying.
 
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Upgrade 5 test machines here, not had any driver problems, and only 1 PC had any issues with applications.
When you download the upgrade you get the advisor that will scan for any compatibility issues so you'll get a heads up.
No crashing on any of the machines, no blue screen, seems a little quicker if anything.
The new start bar takes a bit of getting used to, but once you start to customise it a little, it becomes a great starting point.
A couple of nice features that have made our lives easier:

We have dual screen monitors and love the ability to span the desktop background and the task bar across the screens.
Especially to have the object on either screen one or two dock to the relevant task bar, very useful.

The new Remote Desktop connection App for the "Metro interface" allows multiple connections and the ability to easily cycle through them, its made managing servers from them much easier.

Also the built in support for ISO mounting, again very useful and seamless, no mounting ISOs to a drive then navigating to the drive, just simply double click on the ISO and they automount and you advance a screen and enter in the root folder of the ISO. Much quicker.

Somewhat useful, but very cool.. the new GUI for copying files, it gives a graph of the copy process and seems to be more accurate in its calculations. At least it doesn't seem to mention days or weeks anymore!! :)
Also the transfer speeds seem a tiny bit faster, and more stable.

Also worth noticing the payment / download and upgrade process was very smooth, I was expecting it to be harder. We got the copies for 24.99 (downloadable upgrade only - 2.2Gb) Here is the link for anyone interested.

Overall our experience has been a good one, these have been our easiest purchase and upgrades of any OS (including Apple!) I wonder though if we were just lucky as this is not very Microsoft like!!!!

But so far so good, and credit where credit is due, MS appear to have done a fairly good job.
 
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mit74 said:
Is it worth the upgrade? Are there going to be any compatibilty problems with development software like Eclipse, DW or drivers?
Click to expand...

I will not bother - don't like the look of it, I am happy with Windows 7, was reasonably happy with Vista for that matter, and XP - it seems that MS just want to please tablet users now with Win 8 and those with TV sets who don't use their computers as such

Different opinions vary on win 8:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/25/windows-8-review

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2615...eady_why_waiting_for_windows_9_wont_help.html

So undecided but will stick with Win 7 like the old dinosaur I am :D
 
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The fact that you can download a fully legal upgrade version of Win 8 from Microsoft themselves for £24.99 should tell you that they are panicking.

Have they ever offered a brand new OS at £24.99?

I don't care what the MS stooges say, they've dropped the ball with this one.......pcs in an office environment are not the same as touch screen mobiles.

MS have tried to combine both and if my experience with their Consumer Preview is anything to go by, they've fouled up majorly.
 
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Hi there,

I had the RC version for three weeks on my laptop and must say it is an awful 'experience'. As a web designer / developer and ex-Microsoft engineer I hated it. I have reverted back to 7 as it is much better. I wouldn't upgrade at all. I think Microsoft should use the enormous marketing budget and start again!!

Cheers,

Ben.
 
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Rasta Pickles said:
The fact that you can download a fully legal upgrade version of Win 8 from Microsoft themselves for £24.99 should tell you that they are panicking.

Have they ever offered a brand new OS at £24.99?

I don't care what the MS stooges say, they've dropped the ball with this one.......pcs in an office environment are not the same as touch screen mobiles.

MS have tried to combine both and if my experience with their Consumer Preview is anything to go by, they've fouled up majorly.
Click to expand...

It's not that they're panicking, they want people to adopt it on PCs so their surface sells better and as it was developed along with Windows 7 development costs were low. If they can get a tablet that has the same look and feel as their desktop software they're on to a winner because they're going to make their margins back with the new app store crap.
 
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mit74 said:
It's not that they're panicking, they want people to adopt it on PCs so their surface sells better and as it was developed along with Windows 7 development costs were low. If they can get a tablet that has the same look and feel as their desktop software they're on to a winner because they're going to make their margins back with the new app store crap.
Click to expand...

But I repeat "Have they ever offered a brand new OS at £24.99?"

Hell, I bought Windows 3 22 years ago (a few 1.44mb floppy discs IIRC) and it cost me more than £24.99!
 
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In my experience the last Windows upgrade that was worth it was 3.11

Brownie point for saying why ?

All since have been a step backward in speed to resources used and so value for money.

Mind you Windows 8 has already provided me with plenty of laughs as people my Comet use it to sell off old stock. "get your new windows 8 laptops" :-)
 
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Websitehandyman said:
In my experience the last Windows upgrade that was worth it was 3.11

Brownie point for saying why ?
Click to expand...

Windows For WorkGroups is going around in my head so I'll say it was the first OS to facilitate networking?

Websitehandyman said:
All since have been a step backward in speed to resources used and so value for money
Click to expand...

Yeah but that's because Microsoft employ shonky developers - their code is so bloated and poorly written it's unreal.

A simple example: my MailWasher blacklist file (simple text file) is 310,000 lines in length (around 9.2mb in size).

Open it in Notepad and try to do a Find/Replace and Notepad sits there and an hour later when you hit CTR-ALT-DEL you'll be told it's not responding.

Open the same file in Notepad++ (NOT a Microsoft product) and the same Find/Replace is almost instantaneous.
 
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Rasta Pickles said:
Windows For WorkGroups is going around in my head so I'll say it was the first OS to facilitate networking?



Yeah but that's because Microsoft employ shonky developers - their code is so bloated and poorly written it's unreal.

A simple example: my MailWasher blacklist file (simple text file) is 310,000 lines in length (around 9.2mb in size).

Open it in Notepad and try to do a Find/Replace and Notepad sits there and an hour later when you hit CTR-ALT-DEL you'll be told it's not responding.

Open the same file in Notepad++ (NOT a Microsoft product) and the same Find/Replace is almost instantaneous.
Click to expand...

You may be right but at the time I was thinking vertiual swop disk or perhaps 32bit file access. Just know it sticks out in my mind that that was the last time after installing windows I went "gosh" thats better.

Another example of MS tripe is I still have wait about ten mins to transfer 1gig of data to a stick on WIN7. About five times slower then it takes to download the film from some torrent service in out in Aus.

And to be honest I can't even now bother looking for solutions to these issues as the are so many that just niggle away time after time. I really do hate computers now and thats a look way from me taking my ZX81 to bed every tight as a lad :-)
 
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Neighbour has a driver issue on a bog standard Intel network card that works fine with Vista - you don't want a driver issue on a network card 'cos you can't get onto the internet to fix it.

Also problem with iTunes and Apple Cloud - Apple advising waiting 3 months. (But they would say that wouldn't they.....)
 
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Websitehandyman said:
In my experience the last Windows upgrade that was worth it was 3.11

Brownie point for saying why ?
Click to expand...

Sure Windows NT was worth it for NTFS ?

Anyway, the way I see it is, if you work in IT, you may as well get it, try it and get used to it, cos your going to end up supporting it at some point soon.

I litterally just installed Windows 8 on my (previously windows 7 pro) driven laptop.

So far I was very impressed with the install time. From disk insert to desktop in < 25 mins.

Also one of my wishes came true during the installation. It asks for the install key at the beginning of the install, not at the end HOO-f'ing-RAH! No more finding out at the end of the install you just wasted 30 mins as you used the wrong disk for the serial key you have :/

Overall it's taking some getting used to and I am sure something will annoy me, but so far so good. Nice and quick and reasonably easy to find where things are now hidden.

That said I can see m using the standard desktop rather than the tiled interface. At least until I switch to a win tablet.

oh and am loving the new task manager.
 
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