Upgrade to windows 8 ?

I am thinking of upgrading to Windows 8 from XP has anybody got any comments good or bad about it.

Should 32bit or 64bit be installed.

Am I correct that my older programs will install on Windows 8 64bit version?

Any comments welcome.

Windy

I would wait a while for Microsoft to iron out the bugs in it, it's still very new and getting some bad press at present earning it the accolade of 'The Next 'Vista'!

Windows 7 is superb and a vast improvement on XP and Vista especially.

The main feature of Windows 8 is it's support for touch screen monitors, if you don't have one, then no real advantage over Win7, a lot of users are also bemoaning the fact that the start menu has been done away with!

Your older programmes may run on it because the 64 bit operating system will install 32 bit support, best thing you can do is download a compatibility progrmme and run it on your present rig, it will confirm which hardware and software will or will not run on it!

John

Yet again Microsoft throws the world into turmoil!

An interesting question which does not impact me immediately as I went from XP to Win 7 64bit about 18 months ago when I changed my pc. The good thing about Win 7 is that it can be run in "XP Mode" which enables me to run some old programmes which will not run on Win 7 alone. The question is though does this facility still exist on Wn 8? Of rather achedemic interest at present as I find Win 7 good - fulfilling all my requirements - and I have no plans to upgrade. It will need to be faced at some time though as I find the life of a pc is about 5 years.

Norman

I'm sticking with XP forever and have all the programs I need for the future

The computer market is rapidly breaking up now with the rise of the non windows internet tablet

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"It will need to be faced at some time though as I find the life of a pc is about 5 years"

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Just teach yourself to rebuild a computer, only moderate intelligence is required because everything plugs in

Six months ago I had a 1.4 GiG celeron

Now, in the same box is a 3.4gig dual core

The board, with 1gig memory, was 45 quid and the chip a tenner

Everything else plugged back in and win XP reinstalled

doddle

btw

unless you are doing serious mathematical research I wouldn't worry about 64 bit either

If you want compatibility and reliability then, for the moment, stick with 32bit

Edited By Ady1 on 04/12/2012 10:55:56

Windy

Slightly tongue in cheek comment, but I doubt MHS have tested the forum software on Windows 8.

There is always the chance that problems like 'adverts over text' will be infinitely worse!

I am going to stick with XP, if I bought a pc with win8 I would probably run it in classic or XP mode anyway. I'm not opposed to new software or technology but XP is ultra reliable and does everything I need for now.

Ian

Hi

I've just bought a new laptop with windows 7. I didn't like 7 after XP and the computer came with a free upgrade to windows 8 so I took up the offer. WHAT A MISTAKE!! Its obviously designed for people who don't want to write letters, store documents or any of the things I consider normal. It is very difficult to find any of the things I seem to use - you have to run the curser off the side of the screen to make various things happen. Nothing is obvious like on the old systems. I am going to struggle on a bit longer as I feel I should keep up with technology. I also bought an iphone about the same time and this is a doddle in comparison although it is clear the microsoft are trying to emulate them.

If you decide to upgrade - good luck!

Nick

Hi Ady

You say "I'm sticking with XP forever and have all the programs I need for the future" and if that's the case then that is a sensible course for you.

As an example though I spend a lot of time ( probably too much!) with photography and the software I use for this is constantly upgraded ( and ever more speed and memory hungry) . In addition image files get bigger and bigger - this machine has 6 gigs of RAM and that really makes a difference.I have no reliability issues with Win 7 whereas XP crashed regularly. Build my own? Yep I'm sure I could and at one time would have done so. Now I prefer to spend my time on other things.

Norman

"whereas XP crashed regularly"

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Can you tell us which program it is you run to crash XP regularly?

The board, with 1gig memory, was 45 quid and the chip a tenner

Everything else plugged back in and win XP reinstalled

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Actually I didn't have to reinstall anything. It all ran straight away because it's all on the hard drive

Sorry Ady I can't remember. The changeover was about 2 years ago - and I have a problem remembering what I had for breakfast today! I do know that since I've had this machine it has been very stable and MS upgrades are infrequent unlike the deluge that used to accompany XP. The new computer came with Win7 installed ( also MS Office 2010 which HAS taken some getting used to - why did they change where everything was?)  I have no desire at present to go to Win 8

Even if I was running XP successfully now I would change.The latest version of Lightroom ( version 4), that I consider to be the best image editing software available, will not run on XP. and that alone would make the change worthwhile for me. If you are happy with the S/W applications that you run and have no need to add others or increase performance then stay as you are and spend the cash saved on useful things like lumps of metal, milling cutters etc.

Cheers

Norman

Edited By NJH on 04/12/2012 12:59:56

Hi Windy,

I've been running Windows 7 64bit since it came out, mainly to replace Vista which hogged too much system resources. I find Win'7 much more capable than XP for network connectivity and support for hardware/software.

32bit or 64bit. Although 64bit operating systems will run 32bit software quite happily, if you have any hardware that runs on 32bit now, make sure there is a 64bit hardware driver for it unless you intend to upgrade that piece of hardware too.

Cheers,
Ed.

Windows 8 is fine and not at all buggy on either of my pretty old systems.

It's bound to be different to previous incarnations of Windows or it wouldn't really be worth the effort developing it, would it?

Anyone that finds putting the mouse pointer in a corner of the screen difficult, will struggle though, as that is where some things are tucked away. It may also be necessary to look on the Microsoft website to discover other changes and new features in this version.

Windows 8 now has Internet Explorer 10 which has a spell checker that seems to be automatically available on forum web pages (except this one of course ) and I find that to be quite convenient.

It looks the way it does because Microsoft has provided a common interface across all platforms, such as phone and tablet etc,. I think it's a good version - different, but good and very stable too.

Martin.

Another satisifed Windows 8 user here. My all-in-one type PC has a touch screen, but I don't use it as such as I don't care for finger prints.

It's a shame some people can't imagine life without a Start button! I quite like how you press the Windows key, then all you have to do is type "i" or "in", for example, to bring up Internet Explorer (not that I use IE!). It's just a bit different - change does you good!

I've not had one issue with it - sure, it takes a bit of getting used to.

I paid £24.99 (it's £14.99 in many cases). On top of this I got Media Center free - mainly got this because my PC has Freeview. I remember paying well over £150 for Windows 98, so £25 for Win 8 - and the fully featured version at that - is an absolute give away.

My PC now starts from true off in 10 seconds, and is fully ready at that stage to use (not like XP and 7 where it can be a bit busy thinking for a few minutes once it appears to ahve loaded). That was worth the upgrade from Win 7 alone.

Hello Everyone, A bit of info. regarding upgrading to Win8. There is an upgrade assistant to help you. **LINK** This info is from the Computeractive magazine. I'm sticking with Win7.

Regards, Bear..

I am looking to purchase a copy of Alibre 3D CAD software so that I can start designing my own engines... so I took the opportunity of going and getting the advice of our IT organisation: they tell me that XP which I have happily been running for years will stop being supporting in 2014 so their first advice was to do my operating system first before buying the new software. They then said check that the software you want to run operates under your new operating system. Alibre does not currently run under Windows 8, so that rather limits my choice.

The other advice they said was that there is a big jump from XP to Windows 7 and an even bigger one to Win 8, you need to understand if it is for you, so go and play with it. Tomorrow someone is bringing in a copy of windows 8 for me to try out running on their Mac

Jo

Edited By Jo on 04/12/2012 17:39:31

MAC, I thought you were a MAC fanatic, so it's odd to see you waxing lyrical about Microsoft after the drubbing you gave me on my MAC topic!

BTW, I bought the MAC! ..................

John

John.

I suppose Alibre isn't a native CAD application?

Jo.

Have you checked out ViaCAD or even MoI? Both excellent CAD systems, that'll model just about anything you can imagine and plenty good enough for (jet) engine design.

Martin.

Edited By blowlamp on 04/12/2012 18:17:26

So you Windows 8 users. Is it possible to use WIN 8 in a " Virtual Machine" mode, as it is with Win 7, which then allows programmes designed for XP to run on it?

Norman

I have programs on my Windows 8 systems that were written for XP and they run as normal.

Windows 8 also has Compatability Modes like Windows 7 did - I haven't needed to go there yet as everything transfered without intervention from me.

Martin.

I had to buy a new laptop as the old one wouldn't send emails any more. It came with W8 and I initially hated it. Now I have spent some cash on manuals it is beginning to make sense. The jury is still out as to if I like it but it sure works awful quick, thoughit could be the quad core processor and the 6 gb RAM!. If you're happy with what you've got don't switch but if it came with then all is far from lost as the desktop function works more or less as Vista did. best wishes to all Andries