Microsoft offering Windows 8 upgrade for $40 to everyone with XP and later - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;36601005]I don't know if you've ever tried transferring a great deal of data over USB 2.0, but it's slow as FUCK. USB 3.0 would be useful for external hard drives, et cetera. I've never had the privelege of owning one though.[/QUOTE] I have and I didn't really see an issue with it.

well what can I say, some people are just more willing to wait for 35Mb/sec

[QUOTE=Yersinia;36600903]My computer does not have USB 3.0 host ports, nor do I own anything that uses USB 3.0, nor do I find any reason why I should use anything with USB 3.0 considering it is retardedly overpriced compared to perfectly adequate USB 2.0[/QUOTE] what's expensive about it it came with my 99$ mobo

Yeah it's getting pretty mainstream now anyway. It used to be a high-end thing now it seems everything's got it. That is a good point.

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;36601005]I don't know if you've ever tried transferring a great deal of data over USB 2.0, but it's slow as FUCK. USB 3.0 would be useful for external hard drives, et cetera. I've never had the privelege of owning one though.[/QUOTE] I have a 32GB Flash Drive with 2.0. It's a decent speed and with my Motherboards application that speeds up transfer speeds it helps too. But even I must admit that it needs to be faster. Thank god for 3.0. Problem is, yes it's rather expensive to get a 32GB 3.0 USB compared to a 2.0.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;36600806]Does win8 still make you do a registry edit to enable AHCI? In 7 if you installed with SATA set as IDE and then later changed to AHCI mode in the Bios it would crash during the boot. So you had to boot up in IDE mode, change the registry, the reboot with AHCI. IIRC if you installed in AHCI mode it would work. I think it only happens if you installed in IDE mode. Really huge pain in the ass regardless.[/QUOTE] Pretty much any motherboard made in the last two or so years is set to AHCI by default But to answer your question, probably not [editline]2nd July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Yersinia;36600903]My computer does not have USB 3.0 host ports, nor do I own anything that uses USB 3.0, nor do I find any reason why I should use anything with USB 3.0 considering it is retardedly overpriced compared to perfectly adequate USB 2.0[/QUOTE] any motherboard made in the last year or two has USB3.0 ports. Do you plan to be on the exact same motherboard forever?

Actually if we compare the lowest prices on Newegg for [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007601+600030763+600030775+600003484&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=414&description=&hisInDesc=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&AdvancedSearch=1&srchInDesc=]1TB USB 3.0 external hard drives[/url] to [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007601%20600030763%20600003446%20600030775&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20]1TB USB 2.0 external hard drives[/url] there is very little difference, in fact USB 2.0 has less options so gets to be more expensive quicker. For flash drives, [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007960+600082309+600000463&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=522&description=&hisInDesc=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&AdvancedSearch=1&srchInDesc=]32GB USB 3.0[/url] and [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007960+600082308+600000463&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=522&description=&hisInDesc=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&AdvancedSearch=1&srchInDesc=]32GB USB 2.0[/URL]. 3.0 does not have as much of a selection, and gets expensive faster.

My USB3.0 point was just a random example to show how Windows 8 has tons of under the hood non-visual improvements, some of which may be random or small things. That wikipedia article is long and detailed if you want to see everything changed Caused lots of people here think Windows 8 is merely a GUI change with no improvements

I was more responding to Jurikuer but my newegg research took too long and I was ninjaed.

Only been using Win 8 for about 30 minutes now, the difference is almost negligible, although I didn't have much use for Metro, so I'm gonna treat it as a like a root to all the things I actually use, like an alternate desktop, suppose that Steam's 10' UI will work like an app? Although without the start button, I don't know how to turn my computer off.

[QUOTE=MaddaCheeb;36595597]Can someone tell me the differences between W7 and this besides shitty metro and the lack of a start button?[/QUOTE] Instead of taking ten hours to search your entire drive for a file, it takes but a few seconds.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;36602093]Only been using Win 8 for about 30 minutes now, the difference is almost negligible, although I didn't have much use for Metro, so I'm gonna treat it as a like a root to all the things I actually use, like an alternate desktop, suppose that Steam's 10' UI will work like an app? Although without the start button, I don't know how to turn my computer off.[/QUOTE] ctrl-alt-delete power button in corner That's how I do it, I don't know if Microsoft had some more efficient way hidden in the bowels of Metro that they intended us to use.

I also just had a shocking moment when my GPU Drivers stopped working and the screen went into a dizzying array of blue pixels. Getting Certified Win 8 Drivers from Nvidia.

Was thinking this was going to be another Vista scenario, but at $40 why not give it a shot?

Not interested until they get those kinks finished.

That price is absolutely fantastic. My parents PC has Win 7 Home Premium x64, I have Ultimate. Is the Pro version the top or not? I don't want to downgrade. edit: my shit laptop also has Win 7 Home Premium. I might upgrade there to see how it works.

[QUOTE=Ezhik;36595706]Better file explorer, task manager, multi-monitor support, it's faster overall.[/QUOTE] And in return I get to use a tablet UI on my mouse and keyboard desktop. Start button > shitty mandatory fullscreen metro

They should be paying *us* to upgrade to Windows 8.

[QUOTE=thisispain;36601229]what's expensive about it it came with my 99$ mobo[/QUOTE] And I bought a cheap-as-chips pci-express X1 expansion card that gave my computers 2 USB 3.0 ports. It's pretty boss.

But I love my XP.

This is pretty nice of Microsoft.

[QUOTE='[Seed Eater];36597167']Iunno, that's a good deal, but I'm not sure about W8. I really hate some of the changes they made. Like, this: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/RASwN.png[/IMG] is really a dealbreaker for me. I'm still using Office 2003 because I refuse to use that retarded fucking ribbon layout. If there's an option to use the normal Windows convention then that would go a long way for me, because just that sort of thing- changing ingrained items- is really what's keeping me against Win8.[/QUOTE] I bet you haven't even used Office 2010, they made extensive changes to the ribbon, it looks better, can customize it and you can collapse it instead of double clicking on a tab.

why upgrade from Windows 7? from what I have read in this thread the new Windows 8 uses about half the amount of RAM W7 does and can search for files quicker.. I have 8GB of memory and I've never found RAM usage to be an issue. and hard drive search times? I know where my things are, and when I DO need to search for something it [I]does not[/I] take 30 minutes like some people say it does. sure, W8 is cheap but having just built a new windows 7 PC, what other reasons are there for an upgrade? A lot of people are being rated dumb for sticking to Windows 7. is it really THAT much of an upgrade? there must be something I am missing here.

The only reason why they are offering Windows 8 at a such cheap price is to shoehorn their terribad Metro UI everywhere. Microsoft apparently thinks everyone will start buying Windows tablets and Windows Phones after they are forced to use Metro on the desktop. Microsoft is just too scared that Apple and Google will dominate them as mobile space is becoming more and more relevant. Hell, if Windows 8 would be the only choice, I'd rather buy a touchscreen computer than using it with a mouse and a keyboard.

[QUOTE=McGii;36602624]And in return I get to use a tablet UI on my mouse and keyboard desktop. Start button > shitty mandatory fullscreen metro[/QUOTE] Except that it works great with mouse and keyboard. In my experience, the people that say this are the people who've never tried it.

I was thinking of getting windows 8. This has just solidified my resolve.

Unless Windows 8 miraculously uses half the amount of RAM that 7 uses, Not going to bother

My parents still have an old pc running windows XP. Would windows 8 run well if windows XP did?

[QUOTE=TheTalon;36603306]Unless Windows 8 miraculously uses half the amount of RAM that 7 uses, Not going to bother[/QUOTE]From most accounts in the thread, it does seem it uses up to half the amount of memory 7 does.

Why do I get the feeling Microsoft's kinda desperate with Windows 8 ?