[JulesandSand]

As seen from my other thread I'm going to get a new laptop. It will have W7 on it with the opportunity to upgrade this to W8 for £15.

My question is, will I be able to do a clean install of W8 from, say, a USB stick or a DVD image or will it simply upgrade W7?

[TheBigM]

You will probably be able to do a clean install, it just needs to detect an active, valid windows license currently and then do the upgrade/clean install. I did my Vista to 7 in a slightly different way by keeping vista and targeting the windows 7 to a new partition and I dual-booted both so I could slowly transition.

That said, whilst the conventional wisdom has always been to do a clean install; windows 7 to windows 8 is pretty good as an upgrade, you get to preserve a lot of things including some applications and you generally won't get the problems you would have had from upgrading windows in previous years.

[JulesandSand]

I did the Vista > W7 upgrade as a clean install on my OH's laptop as that was the overwhelming advice at the time.

When is W8 due for launch?

[anniebrion]

People in the know are guessing sometime next month W8 will RTM..

[JulesandSand]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

People in the know are guessing sometime next month W8 will RTM..

Presumably if that's the case, new laptops will ship with W8 already installed?

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by JulesandSand

Presumably if that's the case, new laptops will ship with W8 already installed?

No W8 needs to go RTM before anyone gets there hands on it this includes OEM.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

People in the know are guessing sometime next month W8 will RTM..

Originally Posted by JulesandSand

Presumably if that's the case, new laptops will ship with W8 already installed?

RTM is an irrelevant date for us. RTM is when the OS goes out to the OEMs to create their machines. General Availability is expected 2-3 months later, this is when one can purchase new machines with 8 installed and buy retail copies of 8.

Expect new machines with 8 to come out October onwards. There is a small probability of some machines in mid-to-late September.

Be aware that Windows 8 enables new and interesting form factors like the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, the Asus Taichi and the Surface.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

Be aware that Windows 8 enables new and interesting form factors like the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, the Asus Taichi and the Surface.

This is a biggy for me. I'd probably rather wait to consider tablet hybrids with touch screen as per the examples you've given. That will really use Win8 to its fullest.