[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

True, but historically upgrades were around the price of a new OEM license (in fact last time I checked upgrade between Windows 7 SKUs was more expensive than target SKU OEM license itself; I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of weird pricing scheme for upgrades between distinct versions) and at least according to laws in my place of origin building your own machine from scratch makes you eligible to get an OEM license (it's then tied to your HW so changing components down the line may invalidate it).

Changing components may invalidate it, but that 'only' requires a call to Microsoft to fix if that happens.

If you buy a new harddrive you can often get the OEM version with that. It's usually a matter of convincing the store you're (re)building a PC, though there are still stores here and there that just sell you the OEM outright.

Carmack said that he was happy with Windows XP. Windows 7 did give him a few unexpected benefits though (something with handling very large files being 100x more efficiently). He's basically primarily not excited by any new feature in Windows 8 that he knows of, and the idea that he is releasing a game at the time this new OS comes out will force his probably strained team to do yet more work, so obviously that's an active 'dislike' right there.

[Blazkowicz]

or there was that silly dance of buying a $1 cable if you buy an OEM license (if you want to be creative, it has to be an internal cable, could be something totally worthless such as audio cable between optical drive and sound card, or the sata cable)

but what happens, at least in my eyes, is that you are your own OEM . but I'd have to register my own company then have the company sell a computer to myself (dunno if such wackery is legal or not), then call microsoft to know if I'm right..

leaving that stupid rambling aside, windows 8 could be desireable even on old PC (leaving out power hungry pentium 4 and D). your random 7-year-old PC is more powerful than an ARM tablet.

[Babel-17]

Fwiw, "Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99"

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b...for-39-99.aspx

We set out to make it as easy as possible for everyone to upgrade to Windows 8. Starting at general availability, if your PC is running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 you will qualify to download an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $39.99 in 131 markets. And if you want, you can add Windows Media Center for free through the “add features” option within Windows 8 Pro after your upgrade.

This upgrade promotion for Windows 8 Pro both online and at retail runs through January 31st, 2013.

[Rodéric]

Even though Win8 has interesting upgrades under the hood, I'm tempted to stick with 7...
Amusingly I didn't have trouble with Vista.

[I.S.T.]

I'm using Vista right now, and the only real issues I have with it are because this was the first system I've ever built, and the only I have 100% total control over. IBTKB errors, in other words.

Back to the topic at hand http://techreport.com/discussions.x/23389

I suppose the naysayers earlier were at least partially correct about Gabe's motives for speaking out against Windows 8.

That said, the last time a game selling service also sold applications, it didn't fare too well... They sold themselves to Gamestop.

[Silent_Buddha]

Considering from what I've read, the Metro App store pretty much prohibits the sale of any of the "core" PC games. For example, games with excessive violence can't be sold through Metro, I believe. There's a lot of restrictions that limit games sold through Metro to be more casual oriented. Hence, even more reason that Gabe is just blowing air through his rear.

Although I suppose if most of Steam's revenue is generated by more casual titles, then he might have something to fear.

Regards,
SB

[dZeus]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Windows 8 is much faster than vista or even 7. So many people on older hardware will notice postive changes. Its actually helped my gaming out . I have a hp dm3z with 4 gigs of ram and a amd neo dual core 1.6ghz with a hd 3200 igp and a hd 4330. My game performance has actually gone up in most games .

I can't wait to see some sites doing side by side comparisons of 7 vs 8 in gaming senarios

I've tried the first public test version of Win 8 (booted from network, so I/O is not comparable to a local installation) on my T43 thinkpad laptop, and it definitely runs slower than Windows Vista which is the local installed OS.

I'm convinced because the graphics card, a Radeon mobility X300 w/64MB RAM, is too slow for the graphic effects in Win8. Windows Vista's hw-accelerated Aero interface is much lighter on the GPU. With Windows 8, every time there's an effect, the screen updates in a choppy manner. This is mostly in the supplied Metro apps, as they seem to use lots of graphic effects.

[Davros]

How much hdd space does win 8 need,
win7 needed 15x the space of xp (why, who knows) i hope win 8 doesnt follow the trend

[Grall]

dZeus:
Are you saying the graphical effects run on the CPU in win8? ...Because if they run on the GPU, they shouldn't be any slower than the equivalent effect under aero.

[I.S.T.]

Unless they are slower for some reason(Maybe they got prettier, maybe MS just screwed up and made it unnecessarily slow...).

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by dZeus

I've tried the first public test version of Win 8 (booted from network, so I/O is not comparable to a local installation) on my T43 thinkpad laptop, and it definitely runs slower than Windows Vista which is the local installed OS.

I'm convinced because the graphics card, a Radeon mobility X300 w/64MB RAM, is too slow for the graphic effects in Win8. Windows Vista's hw-accelerated Aero interface is much lighter on the GPU. With Windows 8, every time there's an effect, the screen updates in a choppy manner. This is mostly in the supplied Metro apps, as they seem to use lots of graphic effects.

Its been almost a year since the first preview of windows 8 hit the web. Perhaps its time to retry ? Not only has the OS seen alot of work but so have the drivers , the first pubilc test verison of win 8 i couldn't get amd's CCC to work and i had to use my brazos as a generic gpu . But now the drivers install with no problems and its much faster than windows 7.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by I.S.T.

Unless they are slower for some reason(Maybe they got prettier

Yeah I was thinking that, but then couldn't think of a reason why you'd need prettier GUI effects that just had the effect of slowing down your system (and gobbling lots of power on mobile computers).

Also, considering the simplistic look of the new non-aero desktop GUI in Win8, I can't think of any effect that could possibly look prettier/run slower than what we got in vista/7...

[Miksu]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Considering from what I've read, the Metro App store pretty much prohibits the sale of any of the "core" PC games. For example, games with excessive violence can't be sold through Metro, I believe. There's a lot of restrictions that limit games sold through Metro to be more casual oriented. Hence, even more reason that Gabe is just blowing air through his rear.

Good point. Also what should be kept in mind are the memory restrictions of Metro apps:

"Small app": 80MB
"Medium app": 100MB
"Large app": 150MB

Ok, these aren't set into stone but are "desired working set sizes". I don't think that many of the high profile games can fit into 150MB.

[MfA]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

For example, games with excessive violence can't be sold through Metro, I believe.

Up to and including PEGI 16 allows plenty of games. In a way this just makes it a bigger clusterfuck ... providing a force to downgrade rating levels for PC games. What does Microsoft care if they fracture PC gaming and make "mature" games a harder sell on it? They only see it as competition for the XBOX after all.

[function]

There are restrictions on Windows Phone too.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by MfA

Up to and including PEGI 16 allows plenty of games. In a way this just makes it a bigger clusterfuck ... providing a force to downgrade rating levels for PC games. What does Microsoft care if they fracture PC gaming and make "mature" games a harder sell on it? They only see it as competition for the XBOX after all.

I'm not entirely sure how it fractures it. Metro app. games are an entirely different class than the traditional "core" PC game. Unless we're all thinking that Bethesda, EA, Activision, UBIsoft, etc. are all going to abandon AAA game developement and start focusing on the equivalent of Browser based games, I don't see how this is going to affect gaming in any way.

At the most we may see the more casual titles on Steam move to the Metro App. store. Hell, I don't even think an indi title such as Dungeon Defenders would be able to make it into the Metro App. store. Microsoft's own Age of Empires Online can't qualify for the Metro App. store, as far as I know.

Microsoft is deliberately making Metro Apps. (including games) small and quickly downloaded. The major demographic for Metro Apps. is likely to be WP8 and slates/tablets where devices will predominantly be downloading through 3g/4g/whatever cell phone based network is available. Hence, small and lightweight apps.

That's not going to do anything to fracture PC gaming unless you think PC gaming is only about lightweight casual/browser type games.

Anything above and beyond that is going to be completely unaffected and likely still sold through Steam, retail, or other online DD vendors.

Regards,
SB

[dZeus]

Originally Posted by eastmen

Its been almost a year since the first preview of windows 8 hit the web. Perhaps its time to retry ? Not only has the OS seen alot of work but so have the drivers , the first pubilc test verison of win 8 i couldn't get amd's CCC to work and i had to use my brazos as a generic gpu . But now the drivers install with no problems and its much faster than windows 7.

Ok, recently tried Win8 RTM booted from iSCSI. Some observations:
- graphic effects of metro apps are smoother than the with the public beta, but still not completely fluent. I guess a low X300 Mobility with 64MB dedicated RAM + Pentium Mobile 2 Ghz are not sufficient for this.

- Metro apps are extremely limited in functionality; their mail application misses over half the functionality that is present on outlook.com (which has a Windows8-like design). The music app cannot play to uPNP mediarenderers; WMP12 can do that.

- The Metro apps have poor user interfaces: the area where you need to right-click to access settings/preferences is different in nearly every app. Closing a Metro app by having to drag it from the top of the screen to near bottom is a real pain on big resolution screens without touch support. Clicking a small 'x' in the upper right corner is MUCH better in usability terms with mouse... Is MS actively trying to discourage closing metro apps?

[Grall]

Originally Posted by dZeus

Closing a Metro app by having to drag it from the top of the screen to near bottom is a real pain on big resolution screens without touch support.

Wut.

Who the shit came up with that stupid idea? It's like MS *wants* people to hate using metro on a proper computer. This particular issue is new to me, but what I heard about in the past was problems multiscreen users were having with metro apps that apparantly required interacting with the corners of the screen (which is as anyone experienced understands, sometimes a bit problematic with desktops spanning multiple monitors.)

I'm thinking the same guy who designed the IE9 piece of crap UI was also assigned to develop the metro UI. They both seem to be infested with the same genius-level of incompetence.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Grall

I'm thinking the same guy who designed the IE9 piece of crap UI was also assigned to develop the metro UI. They both seem to be infested with the same genius-level of incompetence.

Metro is really glossy and polished to look at, and probably is great on things like tablets and phones with touchscreens, but it's awful for usability on the desktop, and really has no business being there.

It's like someone taking the steering wheel off your car and replacing it with a selection of nice glossy buttons to make you go left and right - yeah, it kind of works, but it's crap to use.

[eastmen]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

Metro is really glossy and polished to look at, and probably is great on things like tablets and phones with touchscreens, but it's awful for usability on the desktop, and really has no business being there.

It's like someone taking the steering wheel off your car and replacing it with a selection of nice glossy buttons to make you go left and right - yeah, it kind of works, but it's crap to use.

works faster for me than the old start menu. Of course i'm using 3 monitors

[UniversalTruth]

Windows 8 not likely to restart ailing PC market

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...ling_PC_market

Windows 8 in the enterprise? Not next year, says Gartner

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...r_says_Gartner

Originally Posted by BRiT

Haters gonna hate...

Yup, if there is a reason. Of course you can't love or be neutral to anything which irritates you or you think it is rubbish...

[Grall]

In a perhaps not entirely on-topic query (but not really worth starting its own thread about); will MS actually release IE10 for win7 or not? I've not heard a PEEP for ages about it.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

Windows 8 not likely to restart ailing PC market

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...ling_PC_market

Windows 8 in the enterprise? Not next year, says Gartner

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...r_says_Gartner



Yup, if there is a reason. Of course you can't love or be neutral to anything which irritates you or you think it is rubbish...

Crucially:

That does not mean Windows 8 is already on the ropes, even before it is officially introduced at an event in New York on Thursday. Large enterprises rarely move quickly to new Microsoft operating systems. Applications have to be tested on them, and some users believe in waiting for the release of the first service pack before considering an upgrade.

I.e. business as usual. The important thing for Microsoft is to show the advantage of a Windows 8 tablet and phone, and then bring it home with the full eco-system. If they can get that to look convincing by 2014, businesses will upgrade 'en masse', especially if they don't make upgrading too expensive (that can be really prohibitive, but they don't need to do that this time, as the advantages for Microsoft to get people to move to Windows 8 are much bigger than they used to be, with the App Store and the importance of the ecosystem for making it a success on tablets and phones).

[itsmydamnation]

pretty much every MS server guy i have talked to is in deep love of server 2012. I know a whole bunch of organizations that are looking to move there domains to the 2012 schema ASAP.

so at least they are doing something right there. No one seemed in quite the same rush from 2k to 2k3 or 2k3 to server 2008

[Arwin]

Yeah, Windows Server 2012 looks to be a very nice step up, in various ways.