Windows 8: Would You Update? (5 Viewers)

[jameson_uk]

that's good to know, looks like most people with personal experience who have commented on win8 & MP have had little/no problems, This goes against what I've read previously

There are some issues...
Unless you change the whole shell you get the metro interface and the auto start / green button does not quite so the job.
I believe there are issues mounting images and possibly creating thumbnails (running exes from inside MP).
MP will not quite install properly (kind of works in compatibility mode but is not working all the time)

Not come across anything that is causing me a problem yet though.

 

[Paul Shirley]

I see you are running 64bit. Looks like I will upgrading to Windows 8 pro (64 bit) form Windows 7 pro 32 bit as soon as MP is stable on Windows 8.

When I tried the $39.99 download the installer would only give me 32bit Win8 from 32bit XP. To switch 32->64 beg, borrow or steal a 64bit installer/DVD, the download key will work with it. It's also a hell of a lot faster and easier to install from DVD than the Upgrade Assistant.

Be careful with drivers on 4Gb+ 64bit systems, MS include broken drivers for my 7010ix, windows update then updated to a later but still broken version! The LAV video decoder also completely borked graph construction and they're are all sorts of other annoying compatibility problems. I'd be tempted to stick to 32bit for a dedicated HTPC.

BTW: the $39.99 download does not come with downgrade rights. Not a cheap way to buy Win7.

TBH I find Win8 just as annoying as Win7 on the desktop but far uglier. Put Classic Shell on or leave MP running and it's just an ugly version of Win7 and avoiding Metro is pretty easy. Might as well just go Win8 while it's cheap, someone will eventually work out how to de-uglify the steaming pile if GUI.

 

[jameson_uk]

When I tried the $39.99 download the installer would only give me 32bit Win8 from 32bit XP. To switch 32->64 beg, borrow or steal a 64bit installer/DVD, the download key will work with it. It's also a hell of a lot faster and easier to install from DVD than the Upgrade Assistant.

The way around this was to use the upgrade assistant on XP and buy upgrade. When you get the email receipt there is a link. If you download and run this on a 64 bit Vista / Win7 machine you can then create install media. Then you can upgrade your XP machine to Win8 64 bit.

There was so good guide (search for XP to windows 8 64) to doing this as once installed you get an error saying Windows 8 key is for upgrade only and you can not authenticate.

 

[tommyc2k7]

Been using Windows 8 on my dev PC at work since the Developer Preview came out and it's better than XP/7 in every way. Can't understand the hate for it at all, if you don't want to use metro apps no one is forcing you to (I've never needed to), and the new start menu is excellent, very responsive and great for searching. Even without metro and the start screen, Windows 8 is still faster at everything than Windows 7 and it's not like it's missing any of Windows 7's features/functionality.

 

[Infidelus]

Been using Windows 8 on my dev PC at work since the Developer Preview came out and it's better than XP/7 in every way. Can't understand the hate for it at all, if you don't want to use metro apps no one is forcing you to (I've never needed to), and the new start menu is excellent, very responsive and great for searching. Even without metro and the start screen, Windows 8 is still faster at everything than Windows 7 and it's not like it's missing any of Windows 7's features/functionality.

People don't like change, so the easiest response for them is "It's different so it therefore must suck".

When I first heard about Windows 8's new start menu, I wasn't overly impressed either. I then installed the customer preview (in a VM) and didn't think a lot of it (and didn't give it much time). Tried it again when the release candidate came out and decided to give it a bit more of a bash, and found i disliked it less. Once the RTM came out I installed it as my main machine, and there it stayed for a week until I ran across a standby issue (which I've since tied down to Hyper-V). Bought the £25 upgrade on release day and haven't looked back.

So as it turns out, the more I used Windows 8, the more I actually liked it. There's some decent under the hood security and performance improvements, and if you really, REALLY don't like the ModernUI, you can always use one of the tools people have created that give you the classic start menu back.

 

[tomma123]

I tried a Windows 8 beta in a VM months and months ago and hated it, swore I would never install it. Then for some reason when it officially came out I decided to give it another try. After again running in a VM I decided it really wasn't so bad after all and took the plunge, and I love it. I honestly have not had 1 issue yet (now I will for saying that). Now, I'm running MP 1.2.3 in on it in client mode only, my TV server and all my music/videos live on my WHS 2011 box. But I have to say, Win8 is hugely faster than 7, at least for me, it's much more responsive, boot/shutdown times are much, much faster, and there's some great new tools like Storage Spaces.

I know I probably sound like an MS commercial, just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

 

[4Fred]

I will update, but I'll wait a month or two. I'm waiting for 1.3 and see where it goes from there.
I wont perform and update, I will get a new disk and install Win8 Pro then MePo and all that stuff on it so I can switch back if things go bad.
I have a separate disk for media files so this is easy for me.

I have tested MePo on Win8 Pro using MePo 1.2.3 with Live-TV and it runs fine. If there are issues on Win8 I cant see them or they are plugin related. And oh yeah, I didn't have to install anything in compatibility mode or anything like that.

 

[Atomic7431]

i tried windows 8 for a few days (probably not long enough) and just couldnt see why microsoft had made this os for the desktop pc, seemed very much phone/ touch screen based in the way its been designed and at that point i had no love for it at all. I havent yet tried it again but i was massively put off by my initial venture.
I remember the very early beta builds of xp and just about downloaded every beta there was just to see what had changed and what was coming next, seemed to capture my interest a lot, where as now i just think its been changed for the sake of change and see no reason to upgrade from 7 yet as its more than capable.

 

[4Fred]

For just running MePo there is no point at all,I'd say prefered (right now) is Win7. Used by alot of people here supported and runs 99.9 perfect.
But for me there are other features of the OS I want that makes it worth to work/hassel getting to Win8.

Storage spaces, Hyper-V, SMB performance, and so on.
If any of this is of interest to you but you just cant get over the new "look and feel" there are ways of making it look just like Win7 but still running Win8: http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

 

[jameson_uk]

For just running MePo there is no point at all

It is probably worth it for those on XP. Win 8 Pro upgrade is £25 where as Win 7 is still £72 for home premium.

Not planning on upgrading my win 7 machine though.