Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for only $39.99!

[commodorejohn]

You've been railing about this for months, if not an entire year or longer and you've never even tried it? :rolleyes:

Correct. I didn't have a spare system and I hated VMs then, too.

I ask again: is there some kind of mysterious revelation, incommunicable in mortal tongues, that is obtained by running the demo version that somehow makes these design decisions not horrid?

[runequester]

eight is bigger than seven

Well, that's lame. Microsoft did windows 98 years ago, and that was a way bigger number. Maybe this "8" business is just for pocket calculators or something :lol:

[koaftder]

Correct. I didn't have a spare system and I hated VMs then, too.

I ask again: is there some kind of mysterious revelation, incommunicable in mortal tongues, that is obtained by running the demo version that somehow makes these design decisions not horrid?

Yea, the start menu is gone and has been replaced with the tile screen. Other than that it's Windows as usual. Not much difference from Win 7. I never use the start menu anyway, so it's removal didn't bother me. [win]-r to launch programs or just tap [win] and start typing to find stuff just like on win 7. Didn't bother with the metro apps, have no interest in them on the desktop. Looks nice for tablets though.

[Bif]

It seems insane to me, too - but they've put heavy emphasis on promoting Metro development, they've outright locked the free version of Visual Studio into only building Metro apps, and simply, it's the logical extension of what they're trying to do.

The old article you linked looks quite wrong, or maybe MS changed their mind after. You can get Express 2012 for "desktop" right now:

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-for-windows-desktop

I was quite looking forward to upgrading to it as I read about it last month. It supports 64-bit EXEs and it sounds like they now may include code coverage tools. Pretty damn good product for free, not sure there is even a need for the paid versions anymore. You had me freaked out there for a while reading that article.

I don't disagree with you all that much about Win8 though. It may be fine now but I would think indeed they will want to lock everything down to Metro and jettison the legacy stuff at some point. Otherwise what is the point of all this. Just try to imagine where it will be 10 years from now. I don't really blame MS for trying this though as I can't imagine how relevant Windows will be if it has to compete with the ease of use and installation of apps and virus issues it's at right now compared to the brain dead experience people are coming to appreciate on mobile/tablet devices.

I do actually think an App store is a great thing though that solves a lot of problems. However there's no way in hell as a developer I will pay $49 for the privilege of providing a free app for it though. If I was ever forced to provide an app that I spent thousands of hours of my time to work on for the benefit of YOUR OS ... I'll be over to the Linux camp. That's just a bit of a slap in the face even if it's not much money.

[commodorejohn]

The old article you linked looks quite wrong, or maybe MS changed their mind after. You can get Express 2012 for "desktop" right now:

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-for-windows-desktop

Hmm, okay. Thanks for the correction.

However there's no way in hell as a developer I will pay $49 for the privilege of providing a free app for it though.

Wait, are they seriously charging even for getting free software added to the Windows Store? Who would bother with that? And where the hell are those 4700 free apps coming from, then? Did they hire an overseas code farm to spend the last six months cranking out Metro apps so that it wouldn't be barren on release?

(Unless, of course, those "free" apps are actually "paid for by in-program ads" apps...)

[Bif]

Wait, are they seriously charging even for getting free software added to the Windows Store? Who would bother with that?

Actually I think I just read the $49 thing a page or two ago in this thread. I've learned to not trust anything I see typed on forums or social media, I should have verified that first. But it checks out. The relevant part is near the end of this link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/br230836

"Windows 8 represents the single biggest platform opportunity available, and business terms of the Windows Store represent a developer-first point of view. The registration fee for individuals is $49 USD, with a $99 USD fee for companies. The revenue share is 70%, but when an app achieves $25,000 USD in revenue—aggregated across all sales in every market—that changes to 80% revenue share for the rest of the lifetime of the app."

So I guess you are in it for at least $49 unless there is some other accommodation for free apps.

Something I find interesting is all this app store stuff seems so bent towards making money. Understandable for Microsoft. I guess I'm more of a free software kind of guy where I like to write and use free software. I'm not sure Microsoft ever even thinks or cares about that, but they could end up irking a lot of the free software types if eventually you HAVE to go through an app store and HAVE to pay to get stuff on it. If I wanted to make money, I wouldn't actually have any problem with their fee structure, but the free software people are in a completely different head space where they won't want to pay $1 for the right to do anything, it's a barrier thing.

[runequester]

50 bucks, and cough up 30% of your revenue, or stick it on your website for the cost of hosting, and keep all the revenue.

Out of curiosity, what cut does places like Steam and Desura take, for selling your game through them?

[koaftder]

They should raise the entrance fee to $1,000 to keep the shovel ware out of the marketplace. The Apple ecosystem is choking on it.

[commodorejohn]

They should raise the entrance fee to $1,000 to keep the shovel ware out of the marketplace. The Apple ecosystem is choking on it.

Given that they're proudly announcing 4700 free apps, I think shovelware is what they're counting on...

[runequester]

Given that they're proudly announcing 4700 free apps, I think shovelware is what they're counting on...

In communist china, crapware writes YOU

[koaftder]

Given that they're proudly announcing 4700 free apps, I think shovelware is what they're counting on...

That's about how many apps are approved on the iOS app store every 10 days.

[commodorejohn]

That's about how many apps are approved on the iOS app store every 10 days.

I assume there's a bit of hyperbole in there? Still, yeesh. Again I'm glad to have never gotten into iOS...

[psxphill]

Not yet, no, because it would be suicide for them to try that. But it's plainly the direction they want to go, which is why they've been telling developers outright that Metro is the future of Windows and they better hurry up and switch. As soon as they think they can get away with it, I guarantee you that Win32 is going bye-bye.

You're being paranoid. Microsoft still support 16 bit apps on 32 bit versions of Windows 8. 64 bit versions include Hyper-V so you can run a virtual OS for older programs.
 
Windows 8 & Windows RT being based on the same code base even allows you to buy an intel tablet that is backward compatible with all your old apps, plus all the new ones.
 
When it no longer makes financial sense to include backward compatibility then I can imagine they will drop it. I don't see that happening any time soon though. There is more chance of Microsoft abducting you and taking you to their Area 51 facility to perform medical experiments.
 
Why am I trying to reason with you? Because you derail a lot of thread and I thought I'd give it a try.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Windows usually gets blamed for a 3rd party app crashing or giving you hell.
By itself Windows 7 is ok, nothing special, but at 10GB minimum install you don't get much. Most people still just want to run some programs and surf the net. Also add the necessary security to prevent viruses and a system crash. 10GB???

[takemehomegrandma]

:lol:

Well, since the thread is here anyway, I have a quad core I7 with fast (and enough) ram, a fast gfx card, etc system running Win7 today. For me, Win7 is working truly great. It's fast, and it's stable, and it runs everything I need in a very good way. Once I got settled with Win7, I have never looked back at XP. I also fail to see the need for "Metro" on my desktop. I really can't see the Unique Selling Point for Win8 to a happy Win7 user as myself?!

So, could anyone a little more educated than myself about the issue please tell me your top 5 reasons (in descending order) to why I should pick up on this offer of $39.99 Win8 upgrade?

Please fill in your arguments here:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

So far, the reasons to upgrade are:

Supposedly faster/more stable
Metro, if you like it
No Metro, if you don't
eight is bigger than seven

You who have tested it - is it really faster than Windows 7? Mor stable? I myself perceive Win 7 to be quite fast already and certainly very stable.

I love the last one there, "eight is bigger than seven" :lol:. I'm sure I saw that in some movie...?

[som99]

I have tested W8 in VM and I did not like it at all, I see no need for me to change on my Windows machine from W7.
Can't upgrade since I have not owned a genuine Windows copy since Windows 95. Since me like most build our computers ourself to get what parts we want we don't get any OEM licence and I can't justify the price tag of buying Windows when I dual boot Linux and use Linux more then Windows.