October 25th I think.. maybe 26th.
Will the retail stores have it on shelfs then ?

Unless you have a touch screen monitor and are familiar with a tablet or similar device you may want to buy one with windows 7 before windows 8 is all you can get. I have been dual booting with the windows 8 preview version and it is quite a change. Look around on this page and it might help you decide. There's no start button, no all programs list, none of the accessories that are built into Win 7. Everything is downloading apps and the icon is on your start screen like on a tablet. You can install programs and they will appear as icons on your start screen.

I agree with Bob.

It's a stark change. They're not going to lose their OEM business (new PCs) anytime soon (unless Google is gunning for that), but many will be unhappy with the new interface. I myself just bought a new PC to avoid Win 8. I wonder if they have an old-style interface hidden in the back room but ready to go, in case the complaints get too loud.

Top 10 Differences between Windows 7 and Windows 8

That makes me want to buy a stand by computer.I think it would be fun to play around with Windows 8, but don't think I would want it for reg pc.

I've been reporting my intent to buy a mid-grade laptop this winter with Win8. Since this will be nothing more than a toy to supplement my Vista desktop Win8 will be fine. For me it's just a case of moving forward. Learning is most of the fun.

Now for a novice or someone planning to upgrade from XP I think the appropriate purchase to consider would be a Win7 with the discounted Win8 upgrade for later use.

DA

Save a system image of your drive(s) before doing the Win8 upgrade. Then you can go back to win7 & its boot drive,, or vista,,, or xp.

I'm hoping the online $40 upgrade lets you make an install dvd for an option. To do a clean install.

Win8 as a retail upgrade DVD will be available for 70 dollars during the promotion release period. Or so I have read.

I agree Dave, learning how to fix a problem or learning a new system by myself is a real feel good for me. I had thought to buy an all one computer with W 8 which would be 2 new things to experience. But I want to keep my old W7 too.

I agree DA. I like to be up to date and play around with my computer too. That's why I've been dual booting the preview release. I'm entitled to buy the Windows 8 Pro update for $14.95 but unless I can dual boot with it I won't bother. I may find that I can dual boot with an update version and in that case I will invest the $14.95. If not and I want to play around with Windows 8 I will buy a Surface. That's what Microsoft has designed it for anyway. That way I'll at least have a touchscreen which will help. By the way, the screen on the Surface in the link above is exactly what the screen on my PC looked like when I installed the preview release. After 3 or 4 months I still haven't found a way to turn the computer off without hitting Ctrl/Alt/Delete. Then an icon pops up to turn it off.

Microsoft usually tries to keep some degree of compatibility as new OS and program versions are issued. Apple, on the other hand, uses intentional non-compatibility to club people into upgrading OS versions.

Win 8's biggest factor is the UI, that's clear. The list raven posted is useful to see. Some will scramble to get it, others will scramble to avoid it.

Change doesn't always mean enhancement, it can also mean the same but done differently. I find such situations annoying and wasteful of time, I'd rather learn something truly new.

It sounds like I am not a good candidate to receive 8 with open arms. I do plan to get a new computer fairly soon and have been told by an employee of Staples that they will have good sales/bargains around Christmas time. I definitely don't want to wait until it is too late to choose the computer I want and have it come with 7. How long can I expect to have a choice, and not just leftover stock, of computers with 7 preinstalled? Also, I would like to hear which brands are respected by this forum. Thanks.
Nancy

Bob,

You have to remember I left the Win98 era and came into the Vista era kicking and screaming, and no in-between. I only moved forward as too many O/S systems' knowledge and experience were passing me by. Members here and at other places almost fell down when I made the move.

As I have reported before, I think Vista got a bad rap as to all the negativity it received. It was created for security and then followed by Win7 which at 70% the same code was built for performance. It also faced a perfect storm; so many new XP users with a vast number of them seniors, the industry was then being driven by the gamers, and a core of unsatisfied users as to the loss of functional peripherals.

I am now waiting for the negative hype for Win8 which could be worse than ever before. Some users are never satisfied. Some users are resistive to change.

DA

You should have seen how I resisted going from MS DOS to Windows? A GUI instead of a CUI? Why? Now I laugh about it. I skipped Vista entirely. Not because of anything I heard about it but because I was so pleased with Win XP after that Windows ME miscue. Now I'm happy with Win 7 and don't want to leave it but do like playing around with Win 8.

The only problem I had with Vista in 2 years was a few white screens and they eventually stopped. It was not as bad as I had heard it would be.

Might be time to investigate a Raspberry Pi perhaps?

Looks like Windows 7 will be supported till 1-14-2020. Why panic about upping to W/8?

Here is a link that might be useful: W/7 End of Support

If there is any panic with me, it's not support I am worried about, it is being force to buy a W 8 because of repair costing more than my W 7 is worth and because of learning that system at my age and with memory. As it stand now it would be fun to learn and play with, but to use regularly

Emma,

Maybe you should get a Mac? Everyone says they're easier to use, no knowledge or experience required. (Whether true or not, I can't say)

I don't have any problem with computers, but I don't want a touch screen. I have dropped out of most of the forums so am spending more time playing games than any thing else. I have about 22 games on this machine at last count and I can't play them on a Mac.

I figure this question is somewhat germane to this thread so here it goes.

I haven't upgraded a system since I went from Win95 to Win 98. That experience was an adventure to say the least. Assuming all system and software variables are compatible has the experience in general improved?

I am kicking around the idea of starting to be on the lookout for the new "toy" with the low-cost Win8 upgrade. However, if the upgrade process still leaves a lot to be desired I will wait for an OEM install.

DA

Microsoft will start selling the 'Surface' Surface tablet hybrid at midnight on October 26 from microsoft stores. And rumor is Apple is planing on making a killing marketing screen magnifiers that snap on to the 'Surface' tiny displays to get the apple logo onto them.

That would be an interesting toy. Hopefully it comes with windows 8 installed. But who knows, maybe it will have 8.1

One of the microsoft hot dogs says it will be available in the hot spot pricing range of 300 to 800 usd.

Here is a link to another good article on the subject of windows 8 should anyone be interested.
Should You Upgrade to Windows 8?

Looks like Windows 7 will be supported till 1-14-2020. Why panic about upping to W/8?

just an FYI, according to the link given, mainstream support is until 1-12-2015. Extended support (to 1-14-2020) is only available for commercial customers.
At least that's what I read...

Not sure what is meant by extended support only for commercial customers. There are thousands of us still using XP, and we are still getting regular monthly updates, so is that "extended support"??? Perhaps it means additional service packs???

Fully explained in Microsoft's usual way of dancing around a question without ever answering it. Reminds me of politicians. LOL!

Playing around in 8 in a virtual machine, it doesn't seem too bad. I could probably get use to it. Not sure how much tweaking I would have to do but it seems okay even for a desktop.


Desktop:
{{gwi:1499413}}



Start:
{{gwi:1499414}}

Would I buy it? I won't rush out to get it but I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it either.

Hehe, I kinda like the Power Shell, it doesn't throw a fit when I forget and do and "ls" instead of a "dir", which I always do. :)

@ chuggerguy, What virtual machine are you using, have a link for it. Where is the download for Win ?

Thanks Joe

It is supposed to come out Oct. 26th with the launch of "Surface" the ms new tablet.

Leftwood

Looks like you read it more thoroughly than I did.

Something don't add up on that because the W/XP mainstream support ended in April 2009 according to the chart and extended till April 2014 and we are still getting updates and I sure don't feel like a "commercial customer."

This link might shed light on that or go my previous link and click on "What is the Diff between Mainstream and Extended Support" then click the imbedded link "Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ."

I read it that the extended support is somewhat less than the mainstream support but the updates continue. If that's rong lemme know. Sure hope not.

Here is a link that might be useful: Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ.

@zep516

Oracle VirtualBox

Windows 8 Release Preview The Product Key is there on the download page, I did not notice and ended up searching. :-)

You gotta wonder how microsoft even stays in business.
Windows XP came out over 10 years ago and for most of us it came with the computer we bought back then.

The computer manufacturer probably paid microsoft like 20 dollars for the license.

Microsoft has given each and every xp computer over the past more or less 10 years, updates at least monthly ... for only $20 in total.

How does Microsoft stay in business? By collecting $20-$50 on 90% of PCs shipped for individual end user customers (ie, not servers). And by having effectively done so for the history of the PC era. I don't think any tech company has a higher profit or net income margin than MS.

Its challenge has always been to develop other reliable income streams besides their OS, and the results of those efforts have been spotty.

Thanks, mxyplx.

Now it's you who read more thoroughly!

Well they are now on some shelves for sale, fully loaded with windows 8. They jumped the gun a bit on the start date.

First Windows 8 PCs appear early, crapware included

Raven, why do people get so upset over crapware on a new PC? I go through and clean it up after I set it up. Does it leave stuff behind when I do that? If I find something I don't know about I google it. I understand newbees might not know what to remove.

I think I would be too OCD about finger prints on the screen.

well because it takes time to go through and remove all that junk that no one wants anyway and yes often times stuff does get left behind. If they wanted to offer that junk they could include it on a disc so you can install it if you want it but pretty much all of it is just a trail version anyway so you end up having to either buy it or remove it.

I use pc decrapifier on the computers I set up to get rid of that stuff.

Yes you are right you can go through the time and effort to google each one and see what it is and if you might want it then take the time to fully remove it which means installing a good removal tool. And why? you never wanted it to begin with.

The pc manufacturers are making money off us anyway with our purchase but they want to make even more by putting a ton of garbage on there too.

That was one of the reasons I really like the new vizio computers they don't do that.

Many people get a new pc and immediately wipe the entire hard drive and do a clean reinstall of just the Operating system to be fully rid of the extra junk.

My experiences have been most of those pre installed programs that come with your new computer,, are not really installed. They install the first time you try to run one. My laptop is about 6 months old .. still has microsoft office icons in a Lenovo desktop folder I made. Its never been installed. Surprisingly Lenovo had almost none of the normal freebies or trials.. not even a anti-virus program anywhere to be found.

Right click the icons to find the folder they sit in and delete what you dont want before it installs, then get rid of the desktop icons,, pretty easy.

Thanks Raven.

I had a problem, or thought I did reformatting one of my PC's. I took it to a shop and he reformatted it for me. When I got it home, I was bombarded with white pop ups telling me to put in the supplemental CD and install the items. I called the shop and he said you don't need all of that crap on your PC. I could not use it the way it was so I did the install. I didn't have the option for a clean install. I realized afterward that reformatting that PC was a bit different than what I was used to. Took a long time with a LOT of blue screens.

The few times I've had to do a System Recovery (due to A-V program failures, incidentally), I found the so-called "factory image" included all the trial and advertised software as when the PC was new, so that doing a Recovery on those PCs wouldn't have accomplished what raven described. Perhaps that's not true for all brands.

It doesn't take more than 5 minutes in Control Panel to delete the promotional and obviously unneeded software, and 30 seconds for icons on the desktop. The other essential task is to periodically go into msconfig and prune back all the auto-load garbage. Doing so improves performance noticeably.

I've found it takes much longer to add what you do want, than to delete what you don't want.

I've never bothered to do anything more, much less look anything up. Whatever is left is just like the spider in the garden, doing no harm, it can stay where it is.

I only have 3 things running in start up, weather watcher, MSE and super anti spyware. I have never found spyware blaster in start up with a name I recognize or I would leave it to run also.

Prices and packaging for Windows 8 go public
another good article with lots of pictures of what it will look like on the shelf