Windows 8

[AbhishekS]

That's cool. I upgraded via Upgrade Assistant. Everything is working perfectly but I forgot to take the image backup on a disc. I can still do so but for that I'll have to download all those files again and I wanna avoid that as far as possible.

 

[zeustrojanstark]

Just a small doubt,how about the drivers?Does it generate all generic drivers itself like what Linux does?Because i dont find any windows 8 drivers in my HP Driver downloads page.

 

[SaiSrini]

Just a small doubt,how about the drivers?Does it generate all generic drivers itself like what Linux does?Because i dont find any windows 8 drivers in my HP Driver downloads page.

I have not had an issue so far with the drivers. Windows has automatically installed drivers for all of my devices by itself. For example, my HP Officejet printer was connected to my laptop even before I installed Windows 8. After installation, my printer was working as if nothing happened. No prompts to install any driver, nothing.

 

[AbhishekS]

Just a small doubt,how about the drivers?Does it generate all generic drivers itself like what Linux does?Because i dont find any windows 8 drivers in my HP Driver downloads page.

Apart from Bluetooth, there is no driver issue for me. Acer says that the new Bluetooth driver shall be available within 7 days, so no issues whatsoever.

But beware, two friends of mine are not being able to use their printers and scanners.

 

[SaiSrini]

Yesterday, initially had a super slow internet connection on Windows 8 even though the internet connection was working perfectly fine on my personal laptop which was running Windows 7. Did a system restore, then re-installed the software's that were deleted by the system restore and more importantly restarted after each software install. Also followed a few tweaks to my internet proxy settings and wireless network settings (googled for 'windows 8 internet slow'). That fixed the problem for me! Now my internet on Win 8 is as quick as any!

Upgrading it now on my personal laptop too.

 

[Abhas]

I am very tempted to make the jump.. Is it really better than windows 7 performance wise?
Is the start screen responsive? I mean, does it take up a lot of memory??
Bearing in mind I don't have a touchscreen, and I make full use of the desktop (I have more than 150 icons/files on the desktop.. If I had 2 desktop screens, the 2nd would be half full as well ) I need to ensure I'm not bogged down with the new UI..

 

[SaiSrini]

I am very tempted to make the jump.. Is it really better than windows 7 performance wise?
Is the start screen responsive? I mean, does it take up a lot of memory??
Bearing in mind I don't have a touchscreen, and I make full use of the desktop (I have more than 150 icons/files on the desktop.. If I had 2 desktop screens, the 2nd would be half full as well ) I need to ensure I'm not bogged down with the new UI..

From my experience, YES it is better than Windows 7 when it comes to performance. The start up and shutdown are incredibly quick on my 3 year old HP Pavilion laptop. The start screen is the most responsive, and is the fastest to load. And since it has the Desktop mode, all your icons/files on the desktop can be put on the desktop thereby keeping the start screen as clutter free as possible. The Windows key on your keyboard is the switch between the start screen and the desktop screen. Press it once and it switches from desktop to start screen, and vice versa.

Windows 8 is flexible. You can completele live under the Desktop mode if you find the new UI to be hard to get used to.

 

[Skater]

I like how fast it is and I've found a great app that lets me watch TV for free. It's remarkably cheap compared to previous releases.

 

[Hitterman]

I don't own Windows 7 and have never used Windows 7. All I have is two original licenses of Windows XP Pro and one license of Vista Home Basic. Is there any upgrade for me? I know I'm using old OS but I can't do anything. My both the desktops are 7-8 years old and my Laptop is Dell Inspiron 1525. I have a feeling that if my Laptop supports Vista then it can support Windows 7.

If there are any upgrades available for me please provide me some links.

Best Wishes!

 

[MattW]

The $40 upgrade offer (at windows.com/buy) is for an upgrade of either XP, Vista or Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro. You will need to reinstall software/fix settings if you do an upgrade from the older versions instead of 7, but otherwise there's no difference.

Driver wise the only issues I had were with the graphics card, and most of that seems to be because AMD's general driver software isn't ideal for Windows 8 - I downgraded to a special driver version they did pre-release and it works right. Though, I was having a huge amount of problems with AMD's graphics drivers on Windows 7 too.

My next PC is getting Nvidia graphics that's for sure.

 

[SaiSrini]

I don't own Windows 7 and have never used Windows 7. All I have is two original licenses of Windows XP Pro and one license of Vista Home Basic. Is there any upgrade for me? I know I'm using old OS but I can't do anything. My both the desktops are 7-8 years old and my Laptop is Dell Inspiron 1525. I have a feeling that if my Laptop supports Vista then it can support Windows 7.

If there are any upgrades available for me please provide me some links.

Best Wishes!

As Matt said, you get the $40 upgrade offer if you have XP, Vista or 7. So you should be eligible for the upgrade. Go to Microsft website and you can easily find links to download Windows 8 Pro (for $39.99). When you click on "Download Windows 8 Pro ($39.99)", it will download the Upgrade Assistant and will tell you if your system is ready/compatible for Windows 8. Based on that, you can go ahead with the upgrade/purchase of Windows 8 Pro for $39.99

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Driver wise the only issues I had were with the graphics card, and most of that seems to be because AMD's general driver software isn't ideal for Windows 8 - I downgraded to a special driver version they did pre-release and it works right. Though, I was having a huge amount of problems with AMD's graphics drivers on Windows 7 too.

My next PC is getting Nvidia graphics that's for sure.

My Windows 8 Upgrade (with settings, personal files and apps retained) failed just now. I am now planning to wipe out my hard drive to do a clean install (got to note down the softwares that I need to re-install back again). Don't know why it happened, as I was upgrading from Win 7 to 8 and this laptop is almost a brand new one (Inspiron 15R with a very hep config).

 

[SaiSrini]

I like how fast it is and I've found a great app that lets me watch TV for free. It's remarkably cheap compared to previous releases.

Mind sharing that app? I too love the option of watching TV for free from my computer.

Pretty smart and wise tactic by Microsoft to downgrade the pricing for Windows 8 during the early stages of its release to public. By Jan 31, 2013 most of the people would have upgraded all their PC's to Windows 8. And the reviews about its speed/performance will force people to get a Windows PC for cheap which has been a rarity.

 

[Chewie]

Does it still put every single exe file from your installations onto that tile screen? I ran a much older version of Windows 8 at the end of last year on my old computer and it put a bunch of exes onto the tile screen thing like the uninstaller and other similar things

 

[MattW]

Does it still put every single exe file from your installations onto that tile screen? I ran a much older version of Windows 8 at the end of last year on my old computer and it put a bunch of exes onto the tile screen thing like the uninstaller and other similar things

It hid everything from my upgrade apart from what I had pinned on the Windows 7 start menu - but every new thing I install it seems to put all the exes on there, but that's a simple unpin.

 

[SaiSrini]

Guys, does anyone know how to update BIOS when you don't have a proper working Windows installation on your hard drive? It seems my Dell inspiron 15R has a BIOS issue which gives a black screen of death when installing Windows 8, and I am at that black screen now. Dell has released a BIOS update to fix this issue, but I have wiped out my hard drive to do the clean install, and I am now struggling to update my BIOS so that I can move forward.

Any one can help? Didn't know this issue existed.