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| Windows 8 RTM relased to MSDN; Evaluation version released |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-15 21:30:05 |
| Microsoft has made Windows 8's final release available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, so if you are one of those - have fun. The 90-day trial has also been released, so us mere mortals can have a go at it as well. The evaluation version is Windows 8 Enterprise, so it contains a number of features regular users normally won't see. As far as I can tell - it's a bit unclear - the trial version cannot be upgraded to a final version a few months down the line. Happy testing! |
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| RE[4]: No upgrades |
| By ichi on 2012-08-16 18:37:13 |
|
> Is anything ever truly hacker proof though? Women and social relations come to mind :-/ |
 - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: No upgrades |
| By quackalist on 2012-08-16 18:41:49 |
| Doubtless, though imagine the lowish price for upgrades might encourage a lot more to go legit and probably roll in more cash for MS than otherwise. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[6]: No upgrades |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-08-16 18:45:52 |
|
A low price probably will make more people go ligit. But even 99 cent apps get cracked and downloaded by many people. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: No upgrades |
| By jessesmith on 2012-08-16 19:12:26 |
|
I'm fairly certain "original" in this case means unique, not previous. I find it interesting MS claims Windows 8 will run on any hardware which supports 7. My hardware came with 7 pre-installed and Win8 won't boot on it. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Pass |
| By bassbeast on 2012-08-16 20:36:55 |
|
Well I've tried it on around a half dozen machines here at the shop so I'm probably pretty well qualified to give a pretty unbiased review so here goes: Is the device a netbook? Say 10 to 12 inches? If so Win 8 will work just fine since your small screen won't really allow more than one thing at a time anyway. Touchscreen on it? Even better. Do you rarely install more than a half a dozen programs? if so TIFKAM (The Interface Formerly Known As Metro....thanks El Reg posters) won't drive you batty with its clutter. Only use one program at a time? Preferably on a screen 15 inches or less? Ditto. For everyone else? RUN. Run as fast as you can and grab a copy of Win 7 and hang onto it like a fatty hangs onto the last piece of chicken at a buffet because TIFKAM will make you want to pull an Elvis on your PC. More than a half a dozen programs and the TIFKAM UI becomes this giant tiled mess, so bad that its often easier to use the Winkey and type what you want rather than slog through it, the few "advantages" I've seen so far are just cheats, such as the "faster boot" which is really just a form of hibernate, it feels like you have to fight the whole OS to do any task, and the TIFKAM "apps" are just pathetic and are quite obviously just a way for MSFT to further monetize you with an appstore. If you do get stuck with Win 8 for some reason use a program like Classic Shell to kill TIFKAM like Raid kills bugs, dead, but even then frankly you'll have a worse experience than Win 7. The fact that Win 7 Pro is $140 while Win 8 Pro is $40 should tell you what kind of stinker it is, they are practically giving it away. Its a mess folks and as someone who has used every MSFT OS since Win3.x I think its the worst OS they've ever had, even worse than WinME which could be hacked to fix or Vista which wasn't bad once UAC was turned off. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Why would you want it on your PC? |
| By bassbeast on 2012-08-16 20:44:21 |
|
I think a more telling list is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis... Especially the removal of WMC and gadgets as this lets them turn right around and charge you for what was once a free part of the OS, no different than how game devs will rip pieces of the finished product out and turn right around and sell it as "on disc DLC". Also if you used the "previous versions" feature in Vista or 7 be advised you will HAVE to have a shared drive on another system to use the feature in Win 8, as it will no longer work on local drives...yay. take good ideas and break them, thanks MSFT. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Why would you want it on your PC? |
| By bassbeast on 2012-08-16 20:50:44 |
|
Be advised Werecatf that the "faster boot" is an ugly hack that could cause problems down the line. The way it works is it does NOT actually do a clean boot but instead loads the kernel and userland in a hibernate file at the front of the drive and from what I've seen unless you pull the plug or battery it doesn't do a full RAM flush either, but instead does more of a hybrid sleep kinda thing. Its a pretty ugly looking hack and if your OS gets flaky it'll be that much harder to get a true clean boot. No telling what those extra I/Os are gonna do as far as wear and tear if you go SSD either. That said at $40 I'll pick up a copy of Pro just in the off chance I run into a program that requires Win 8 for some reason but I'm advising my customers that they'd be better off picking up one of the Win 7 Family Packs where you get 7 HP for $40 a copy for 3 installs and then if they need XP Mode simply use Virtualbox. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: No upgrades |
| By bassbeast on 2012-08-16 21:13:10 |
| It'll still have to be wiped as Win 7 won't be able to upgrade and keep the Win 8 apps. Its not really surprising as frankly the few times I've seen an upgrade from Vista to 7 tried it ended up a flaky mess so it'd probably be better to just clean install it anyway. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: No upgrades |
| By bassbeast on 2012-08-16 21:18:36 |
|
If you didn't know this is why Secureboot is required of OEMs, as it allows the BSA to catch pirates easier. If you go to TPB and look up "Win 7 all versions pre-activated" you'll see that thanks to the bootloader hack they have had a version of Win 7 that passes WGA for a couple of years now, it even greys out the Windows Update that would upgrade WGA and catch it, pretty slick those pirates. Personally I think the whole thing is retarded because even a humble PC repairman could wipe out Windows piracy in the west in a week. watch how easy it is to wipe out piracy...Win Starter $35, Home $50, Pro and Family Packs $100. with those prices nobody would bother to pirate and that would cover every use case, from those on older P4s that need to get off XP to those that are building their own systems. I know they are currently selling Win 8 pro for $40 but that's a time limited deal like they did with Win 7, whereas my plan would kill piracy dead. |
| - Score: 1 |
| linux instead anyone? |
| By andih on 2012-08-16 21:33:16 |
|
I would do a real upgrade instead; installing linux ;) I will not waste my time or money on windows. "Where is the power off button?" roflol |
| - Score: 2 |
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