Windows 8 Users Can Upgrade to Windows 9 For Free - Update

[Nuxxy]

I just want to see what else they have done. Because if they think the only problem was "No start menu" then they will still have a problem with adoption. The biggest issue is the horrid mish-mash between Metro and Windows UIs - badly planned and badly implemented. The Start Menu was just the most obvious symptom of that.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I do hope they spent enough time working out the bugs to make a proper operating system this time. Windows 8 was such garbage at release that it took no time at all to cause fatal errors by doing normal activities that one uses an operating system for and being able to remotely edit and delete code without the users permission was security nightmare. Regardless of techs refusing to use it or even give assistance to those who do, trying to manually shut down the holes in security was a like trying to untangle a ball of yarn, needlessly tedious and time consuming. I don't even want to get into the UI problems and how companies just flat out refused to make software for it. Although I am concerned about the rushed windows 9 coming out too soon, I can understand their hurry to get it to market due to the mess 8 was.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

But I like the metro start menu. Hopefully it's still an option for desktops or they at least make the old start menu less shit. Being able to pin everything in place and quickly open shortcuts via muscle memory beats out a great big list any day.

Yeah, I have to agree. Although the Start Screen shares faults with the Start Menu (mainly in making it a PITA to find your newly-installed programs), I love the way I can put all my commonly-used programs on it, plus get my news and email sent to the Live tiles.

Hopefully there will be a manual override option for the desktop users that want to keep the Start Screen, but if not, it's no huge thing. I used the Start Menu for fifteen or twenty years. It won't be that tough to go back to it.

OT: Hope this news turns out to be true. Even though I'll probably snag a stand-alone copy at some point, updating my current systems for free would be a sweet deal.

I really think you two are in the minority. I hate it so much that I prefer just going through the folders one at the time to find what I need. I've also manually erased every tile because their existence offended my sensibilities.

Anyhow, my biggest gripe with 8 was the permissions lock. It is so annoying that you are working as Admin and have to figure out how to bypass extra locks to make changes to things as simple as the Program Files directory. Literally, to mod games you have to fight the system. Now I know how to do it so it's easy, but I was so upset by that change and the presumption that I'm an idiot who can't take care of my own computer.

LOL! Worse than that, it was easier for someone to remotely edit and delete code than it was for the average user to!

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I bet it will be a 20gb download. No more than 30. Maybe.

 

[JET1971]

Did Microsoft pay for this ad? Because I see vista is not mentioned and it was considered a catastrophe, but it's temp patch Win 7 is mentioned.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Is Microsoft really desperately trying to distance itself from Windows 88?
Or are they just continuing their plans for yearly Windows releases?

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bd5a21e6-3a53-11e2-baac-00144feabdc0.html

EDIT: Here's a google link to the article that doesn't give me the sign up to Financial Times thing.

http://www.google.be/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fbd5a21e6-3a53-11e2-baac-00144feabdc0.html&ei=ny4pVLaZGMO07QbdsoHQBg&usg=AFQjCNG5TpHsK0zzlMZcikXifTWxD1tRxQ&sig2=XdQ4do_-6PartrYo_YQ9TQ&bvm=bv.76247554,d.bGQ&cad=rja

 

[The Wykydtron]

Good, Windows 8 is shit as fuck. I put all of my paths to my standard folders on my desktop because I was sick of waving my mouse over the right side side of the screen hoping that eventually the thing would wake up and give me the menu.

I'm not going to blindly run into 9 because it might have compatibility issues or whatever but once it looks fine i'll get it if it's free.

 

[Flames66]

yes but you see I want the newest operating system

Why? I use Windows Vista/7 (they are the same thing now) on all my Windows based PCs and expect the same longevity I got from Windows XP. I have no intention of getting a new overpriced operating system for over a decade.

I just want to see what else they have done. Because if they think the only problem was "No start menu" then they will still have a problem with adoption. The biggest issue is the horrid mish-mash between Metro and Windows UIs - badly planned and badly implemented. The Start Menu was just the most obvious symptom of that.

I don't understand why those features couldn't be released as optional extras for Vista/7.

 

[Benpasko]

Or you could install games somewhere other than C:\ ... Still, I don't mod a lot of games, but I've never had a problem with that.

I use 8, and I agree with you about it being fine, but this is an annoying bit. You have to setup notepad to run as administrator by default, or else you can't edit ini files.

Also, interestingly, I've never had compatability issues with win8. I was even able to play Jade Empire and Kotor 2 on it. It's certainly not as nice as XP, but Win8 gets a bad rap for user error a lot of the time.

 

[maxben]

Anyhow, my biggest gripe with 8 was the permissions lock. It is so annoying that you are working as Admin and have to figure out how to bypass extra locks to make changes to things as simple as the Program Files directory. Literally, to mod games you have to fight the system. Now I know how to do it so it's easy, but I was so upset by that change and the presumption that I'm an idiot who can't take care of my own computer.

Or you could install games somewhere other than C:\ ... Still, I don't mod a lot of games, but I've never had a problem with that.

In any case, it was a lose-lose decision for them; Before UAC, people kept bitching about how "insecure" Windows was. Now, people are bitching that the OS doesn't "trust them" with constant Admin rights... They made the right choice though. At least idiots are more secure now and non-idiots should know how to adapt.

Well if you were the person who had to deal with these kinds of issues you would know why they are so frustrating, I mod and change things within all my games, but I also deal with other aspects of the computer that are locked (the games is just a go-to example). What they should have done is hide a button somewhere deep that you can turn on to get out of "I'm an idiot" mode. Because while I can deal with it now, it is still frustrating and takes time. Such a button would solve my issues while protecting the idiots, and that's what we call win-win.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I heard some people talking nice things about Windows 8 and I had a chance of buying a Windows 8 Pro licence for only 10 euro. I though that the price was so low that even if I end up disliking it, it won't be much of a waste.
Oh boy have I been wrong. Windows 8 and 8.1 are nothing more than 2 piles of shit. This is literally the worst Windows Microsoft has ever released. During the first day I had experienced the Windows 8 equivalent of BSoD 3 freaking times. What the fucking hell Microsoft?
Boots up faster than Windows 7? Yeah, my ass. It boots at least 25% slower. It doesn't even shut down buy hibernates. If you compare the ridiculously fast hibernate from Windows 7, this is a freaking snail. And if you actually shut down windows 8, it gets ridiculously slow to boot up.

The star menu is obviously made for tablets and phones. The whole OS feels like it's made for phones and then someone during the last month of development thought "hey, why don't we add Windows Explorer to it and shit it out as a PC OS?" and he got promoted because of this idiotic decision.

The only thing that Windows 8.1 does better than Windows 7 is the icon for the start menu and the ability to pause copying/moving files from one location to another. If I wasn't this laze, I would have installed Windows 7 again but I can't be bothered now. I will do it during the weekend.

So MS, Windows 9 better be a huge leap forward. Taking DirectX 12 hostage won't help you sell that shit if it's even remotely as bad as Windows 8.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

After using Windows 8 I wonder if all the complaints were knee jerk reactions. The start menu worked no different from window 7,seeing how I pinned stuff to the start menu. The only issue I had was figuring out why a program had use the minimum screen resolution my moniter couldn't support. Took a hour to realize it was a app for the tablet, something a friend of mine claimed took him all day to figure out which is why he hates Windows 8. Most of the time it sounded like not knowing how to use the new UI, if so then I wonder how. All in all after the not steep learning curve it works like 7 for me. Like 8 I'll wait a year for 9 to have issues resolved. Seeing how I don't wanna use my pi as a main driver.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

While I thought it was a bit fiddly when I started with it, Windows 8 has been fine for me. Granted, I didn't have it day one so most of the kinks were ironed out by the time I got there. Unlike a fair few Windows OS, it runs quite light. Even with Firefox open, I'm not drawing more than 10% of my CPU(an AMD FX 4130) and just a bit over 10% on 16 GB of ram.

I probably won't take them up on the offer. Every time a new OS comes out, a whole bunch of shit breaks. If I can upgrade at any time, I'll wait a while before I grab the new OS. If I can't, this will work fine.

 

[kasperbbs]

Great news, assuming that Europe will also get the free update. Even though i don't really hate my windows 8.1, i only used the old start menu for search and i do the same with this one and everything else works better for me than with win7 since i had some annoying driver issues with 7.

 

[ryukage_sama]

Well, Windows 8 has been running smoothly with my rig, so I'm curious about how 9 would perform.

This may be a clever ploy by Microsoft to keep the price and sales of 8 high. It was never widely adopted like XP or even 7, so without the free upgrade, I wouldn't see any value in existing licenses for 8.

 

[Qizx]

Did Microsoft pay for this ad? Because I see vista is not mentioned and it was considered a catastrophe, but it's temp patch Win 7 is mentioned.

Yes they paid for an ad for their free upgrade.

I personally am quite looking forward to W9, I can't stand W8.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Considering that I like Windows 8, I'll happily decline MS' offer of a free upgrade. I rather not use software I don't know about and 8 strangely serves me well, if not better than 7.

 

[thedarkfreak]

words

Thank you for this. I've tried to explain so many times that all those options are still there.

Hell, that "each file has a checkbox thing" isn't even a default in Windows 7. If you get an official Windows 7 disc and install it, you won't see those. If you see those on your computer when you opened it, it's from your OEM changing things.

Well if you were the person who had to deal with these kinds of issues you would know why they are so frustrating, I mod and change things within all my games, but I also deal with other aspects of the computer that are locked (the games is just a go-to example). What they should have done is hide a button somewhere deep that you can turn on to get out of "I'm an idiot" mode. Because while I can deal with it now, it is still frustrating and takes time. Such a button would solve my issues while protecting the idiots, and that's what we call win-win.

While I see your point, I guarantee the first thing everyone would be told to do would be to click that button [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/07/28/54583.aspx]. And then we're right back where we started.

Look how many people recommend turning off UAC completely as the first thing to do.


As for your modding, and other things, I recommend learning about NTFS permissions. That way, you can set specific folders to be writable to you without issues, and yet still have the main stuff protected. (i.e. the game's executable can be protected from being overwritten, but it's /mods/ subdir can be writable to regular users to allow mods).

Just an example, but file permissions are extremely flexible, although they take time to learn.

Some people say to give them Linux/Mac as an alternative, and I honestly wonder how well that would go over, since 1) both enforce permissions just as strictly as Windows does, and 2) to elevate yourself above those permissions, you need to type in your password every time, not just click "yes".

 

[Zipa]

I hope so, I can't wait to put Windows 8 and having to show family members how its different behind us. Now all Microsoft have to do is not fuck up and fix a couple of minor things, put the start menu back to pre Windows 8 and people will be far more accepting of their OS.