[TheBigM]

The windows 8 upgrade offer for those who've bought a new Win7 machine after June 2nd this year can now buy an upgrade license for Windows 8 at the price of £14.99

Yes, it is sadly a $-to-£ conversion (similar for europeans at cost of €14.99) but it is still a great price (and we do pay higher tax on goods here).

At that price, I'm sure plenty will be intrigued, especially those who know nothing about Windows 8 (the vast majority of people).

[Jittlov]

Windows 7 gives me exactly what I need, I see no need to upgrade, in fact Windows 8 takes away much of what I like about Windows 7.

I have the feeling i'll be skipping this one entirely, like I did with Vista.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by Jittlov

Windows 7 gives me exactly what I need, I see no need to upgrade, in fact Windows 8 takes away much of what I like about Windows 7.

I have the feeling i'll be skipping this one entirely, like I did with Vista.

And your post adds to this thread how...?

Note to other folks (I'm looking at you noise),
we have enough I like/don't like windows 8 threads, let's not make this one about that too.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

The windows 8 upgrade offer for those who've bought a new Win7 machine after June 2nd this year can now buy an upgrade license for Windows 8 at the price of £14.99

Yes, it is sadly a $-to-£ conversion (similar for europeans at cost of €14.99) but it is still a great price (and we do pay higher tax on goods here).

At that price, I'm sure plenty will be intrigued, especially those who know nothing about Windows 8 (the vast majority of people).

This is pretty much the same deal as previous Windows releases.

What I'm interested in seeing is whether we will get the Upgrade version at £40, as has been rumoured.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by Stig

This is pretty much the same deal as previous Windows releases.

What I'm interested in seeing is whether we will get the Upgrade version at £40, as has been rumoured.

Yeah we knew this was coming, just not when it would become active.

The main upgrade offer for everyone else - yeah the UK pricing is a mystery, based on this I think they will be doing a straight $-£ conversion so £39.99

I had been hoping they would use some kind of exchange rate and it would be like £30 but hopes for that are receding.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by Jittlov

Windows 7 gives me exactly what I need, I see no need to upgrade, in fact Windows 8 takes away much of what I like about Windows 7.

I have the feeling i'll be skipping this one entirely, like I did with Vista.

Someone at work is looking at buying a new laptop in the next couple of weeks and I said to them that they would be able to buy windows 8 for around £14 as a upgrade.

Their words was why would I want to go and downgrade my computer? I thought it was funny.

I just wonder how many people will bother, some people on here may do as most of us on here know a little bit about computers, but your normal Joe Public may not bother. i learnt from my own experience with vista on my laptop and also on this computer trying to update my windows 7 to windows 8, that things don't always go as planned.

I was able to sort things out, but some other people would be stuck. I did try the RC version of windows 8, but for some reason it would not update my computer, kept rolling back saying that my computer could not be updated.

I know a couple of people who said they may give it a go, but only if they are able to go back to windows 7 if they don't like it.

£14 is fine to try it out if you got a new machine, i got vista for the laptop with the same offer, as long as people make a backup of their original system since computers don't come with a OS disk these days.

£40 on the other hand is a fair chunk of money for something you may or may not like.


When I went for the offer for windows 7, I been using the beta for months, so I knew that I liked windows 7, so I did not mind paying out the money.

The thing that is worrying some people I know is if they buy a new laptop in say 6 months time will they be stuck with windows 8 or will MS have a downgrade service like they did with Vista. Not going to bother me as I doubt very much if I will buy another laptop, I don't hardly use the one I got and desktops I build unless I do change platforms.

It will take a while for me to change, got to save up the pennies.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

Yeah we knew this was coming, just not when it would become active.

The main upgrade offer for everyone else - yeah the UK pricing is a mystery, based on this I think they will be doing a straight $-£ conversion so £39.99

I had been hoping they would use some kind of exchange rate and it would be like £30 but hopes for that are receding.

Always been the same with software, I remember years ago in the Amiga days a mate of mine looked at buying Dr T. the UK price was the same in pounds as the US was in dollars, about £200 I think. My mate got it sent over from the states as it was cheaper.

[Rich_L]

What do you have to do? Send them your receipt for your computer?

[JSemple3]

Originally Posted by Rich_L

What do you have to do? Send them your receipt for your computer?

Seems you just fill in when you got your comp/model/manufacturer and you wait

[c4rv]

Originally Posted by Rich_L

What do you have to do? Send them your receipt for your computer?

If it is the same as the Win7 offer then the distribution of the upgrade will be managed by the OEM. You will need your serial number and put your details into their web site.

Also I remember Acer charged something like £15 P&P for the media, I can't remember there being a download option as there was in the US. And the media was OEM as well so locked to that brand.

[Helbore]

Originally Posted by noise747

The thing that is worrying some people I know is if they buy a new laptop in say 6 months time will they be stuck with windows 8 or will MS have a downgrade service like they did with Vista.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft said they will continue to sell retail copies of Windows 7 until Autumn 2013 and will allow OEMs to offer Windows 7 downgrades until Autumn 2014.

I expect all touchscreen devices will come with Windows 8 as the only option.

[MassiveDynamics]

Amazon UK are quoting £49.99 for the Windows 8 Pro upgrade, no idea if this price is a guess by them or Microsoft's official price for the UK.

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by MassiveDynamics

Amazon UK are quoting £49.99 for the Windows 8 Pro upgrade, no idea if this price is a guess by them or Microsoft's official price for the UK.

This will be with the DVD, I think the download direct from MS will be £39.99

[MassiveDynamics]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

This will be with the DVD, I think the download direct from MS will be £39.99

I hope so because there are a fair few disgruntled comments on Amazon about the £50 price compared to the US price.

Could be worse, they could use Adobe's conversion rate!

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by MassiveDynamics

I hope so because there are a fair few disgruntled comments on Amazon about the £50 price compared to the US price.

Could be worse, they could use Adobe's conversion rate!

The U.S. price for the upgrade with disc is $69.99 so not a terrible conversion

[MassiveDynamics]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

The U.S. price for the upgrade with disc is $69.99 so not a terrible conversion

That is a pretty good rate as I presume the US price is before sales taxes.

At the current spot rate of $1.577 that would be £44.38 ex VAT (£53.26 inc VAT).

[JSemple3]

It does look like that you will be able to download the installation and create your own install DVD?

Can I create my own installation media for Windows 8?
You can create your own installation media on a USB or DVD. During the installation process you are presented with an option to: “Install Now, Install by creating media, or Install later from your desktop”. When you select “Install by creating media”, you will be presented with the options to create USB or DVD installation media

[noise747]

This is something that is a bit worrying, Apple have been said to stop installing optical drives int he computers in the next generation. so all updates and even new operating systems will be downloaded. that is fine, but what happens if the whole Os goes belly up and you need to start from scratch?

i can see this idea of getting rid of optical drives being done on laptops and even desktops, I don't like that idea.

It will cost people more money int he long run because they have to back up the uninstalled OS on pendrives and hard disks.


The back ups of my windows 7 is stored on 4 DVD disks, 2 each for each version (32 bit and 64 bit) DVD disks are dead cheap, pen drives are not dead cheap, they are cheapish.

I still prefer the optical drive to install the OS, I have installed windows and Linux onto netbooks via pendrives mind you, but you need a working computer to sort that out.

[c4rv]

Originally Posted by noise747

This is something that is a bit worrying, Apple have been said to stop installing optical drives int he computers in the next generation. so all updates and even new operating systems will be downloaded. that is fine, but what happens if the whole Os goes belly up and you need to start from scratch?

Are you saying for those that want to, you won't be able to connect an external optical drive ?

[TheBigM]

As well as pendrives and external opticals - Windows 8 has the features of reset and refresh to help this problem.

If the OS gets completely wrecked such that doing a reset doesn't work, I envisage the next step in technology is embedding a very small OS onto a chip on the motherboard that is used to download the main OS.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by c4rv

Are you saying for those that want to, you won't be able to connect an external optical drive ?

That is possible, but it is more cost and yet another box, which for something like a IMac or a windows based all in one Pc, it defeats the object.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

As well as pendrives and external opticals - Windows 8 has the features of reset and refresh to help this problem.

If it works.

If the OS gets completely wrecked such that doing a reset doesn't work, I envisage the next step in technology is embedding a very small OS onto a chip on the motherboard that is used to download the main OS.

But would that not be unfair to Linux distros if this chip only downloaded windows, also will manufacturer of motherboards be expected to build this chip into their products and at what cost to the consumer?

The other problem is if the computer is not connected to the net. I know people may think it is hard to imagine, but there are machines around that are not connected to the net. My mates video editing machine is not connected to the net, never have been and I doubt it will be, nor is his machine that he uses for producing his music.

His computer that he uses for Desktop publishing is and his laptop is, but that is it.

[c4rv]

Originally Posted by noise747

That is possible, but it is more cost and yet another box, which for something like a IMac or a windows based all in one Pc, it defeats the object.

As you said, you only really need a optical drive at installation time. Once done then remove it. And how often do you reinstall ?

Netbooks, ultrabooks, tablets all manage without optical drives.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by noise747

If it works.

It does work. So it's more "if, in the unlikely case it does not work, then...".

People spend £500 (effective) on smartphones these days which aren't much removed from PCs, these do not have optical disc drives for reinstalling OSes. Same goes for tablets like the iPad.

[neo_wales]

I only really use a blu ray drive to watch a film on my laptop or the TV really. I back up photo's and important data to DVD but really they are not used a great deal. Flash drives are so cheap these days, I picked up a couple of 16gb from Argos recently for £9.99 each and have ordered a 64gb off eBay for £22. If its OK, the real deal, I'll pick up another half a dozen for extra backup/laptop movie storage etc.

I think the days of disks are numbered but still want access to my programmes without relying on the internet to download them.