You've not seen some of the users I'll have to educate about the differences!

The start menu is coming back - on Enterprise and Pro (as long as you're connected to a domain).

Is there a specific way of doing this?

Is there a specific way of doing this?

Not yet (except by using third party apps).

The start menu is coming back - on Enterprise and Pro (as long as you're connected to a domain).

State your source, please.

They need to do that and give the option to default to desktop and/or ditch Metro.

Booting to windows and pressing a button is too much effort for some it seems.

State your source, please.

They need to do that and give the option to default to desktop and/or ditch Metro.

A guy I went to school with is Chief IT Officer for a very large US corporation (40000+ computers). He had a face-to-face meeting with a Microsoft representative after threatening to cancel a rolling contract.

Another source, who I can't name, has told me the same.

Microsoft are in a mess over this one with enterprise users. MS has ****ed off the corporates before with Office Ribbon but they knew in that case that if they stood their ground, corporates would be forced to upgrade as Office 2007 documents were exchanged.

This is different. Many corporates have support contracts for XP that don't expire until October 25th, 2015. Support contracts for Windows 7 dont expire until October 22nd, 2019.

Support and continous upgrades are usually rolled up into a single package for enterprise customers, but many are now questioning whether these deals are the way to go. Many VARs are offering web based thin clients so some corporates are questioning if windows is needed at all.

Went into PC World this evening and it looks like someone has been playing. There's a sea of borked Windows 8 machines all unable to repair themselves.

Had another play on one in yesterday. Still have the massive oversight in that you can have two totally separate iterations of a program open with no connection between them, e.g. open IE in Metro, and open IE from the desktop - two processes, running independently!

Had another play on one in yesterday. Still have the massive oversight in that you can have two totally separate iterations of a program open with no connection between them, e.g. open IE in Metro, and open IE from the desktop - two processes, running independently!

IE? shame on you!

A guy I went to school with is Chief IT Officer for a very large US corporation (40000+ computers). He had a face-to-face meeting with a Microsoft representative after threatening to cancel a rolling contract.

Another source, who I can't name, has told me the same.

Microsoft are in a mess over this one with enterprise users. MS has ****ed off the corporates before with Office Ribbon but they knew in that case that if they stood their ground, corporates would be forced to upgrade as Office 2007 documents were exchanged.

This is different. Many corporates have support contracts for XP that don't expire until October 25th, 2015. Support contracts for Windows 7 dont expire until October 22nd, 2019.

Support and continous upgrades are usually rolled up into a single package for enterprise customers, but many are now questioning whether these deals are the way to go. Many VARs are offering web based thin clients so some corporates are questioning if windows is needed at all.

I'm not surprised at all, I may consider rolling it out once that change has be implemented.

In the meantime I will stick with Windows 7 Pro x64.

Paul

My MD decided he wanted a new machine and it had to have an i7 with 8GB RAM, 1TB hdd and 2GB graphics card. Lovely machine but wasted on him. It did mean that I needed 8 so that I can teach him how to work it. Rather than load it on my main machine, I loaded it on the laptop and so far I am impressed. Needed a little bit of getting used to with where everything was, but the speed is something else. I am running a HP 630 i3 with 8GB RAM and I can be up and running within 30 seconds including login so pretty quick. Tested it against my i5 desktop and I was up and running before the login appeared on 7. We shall see if this carries on.

I haven't really missed the start menu. Got metro with the most used apps and there are some witihn the taskbar that were there before I upgraded. £25 seemed a good price, £15 if you purchased the machine after June 1st

One question. I am running Vista still ( ) so no brainer re upgrade for £24. I would like to buy a new SSD to have that W8 install on it, a clean install. Will it let me do that? I am not that good with Operating Systems really, more of a hardware guy...

Or, upgrading the current system on the current HDD and then somehow (no clue how) migrating it to a new SSD?

Any advice welcome! Thanks:)

You would need to either clone the drive or take a full backup and restore to the new SSD via something like symantec ghost

Windows 8 is poo. Worst UI I've seen on a major OS. IE 10 is the pits, I've removed it. Make sure you've got God mode you'll struggle without it.

You would need to either clone the drive or take a full backup and restore to the new SSD via something like symantec ghost

i would try to avoid using ghost etc when going from a HDD to SSD.. there are changes to partition layouts and other stuff that may make the SSD perform less than optimal.

Oh and the cheezburger app on the Win8 store is reason in itself to install win8!

Talking to a mate he said Just fresh instal. Otherwise windows doesn't set the partition table up correctly. 

I will have a go tonight and see of there is any info on the Necrosoft site...

One other option is to buy that SSD, do a clean re-install of my current Vista on it and then upgrade to W8. You recon it'd work?

Been using Win8 Evaluation for over two months. As a one time Windows junkie, I personally don't like 8. Have just uninstalled it at home, and at work it's not going to be taken up. No one likes it and it's expensive for an organisation to upgrade when you have hundreds of puters to furnish with it and some retraining to do. Our workplace evalution of it was however moderately successful in that we did eventually get all our test machines to run on it but some of our software did not. We have no interest in the touch screen facility either, not really a problem I know. In fact, it's unlawful to use it in the workplace on desktops where someone has to type to do their work. It's non compliant with H&S workplace practice. H&S Executive are watching this one and will warn organisations about the health risks if anyone is daft enough to try using it for typing. Surely no one will. Too uncomfortable. My organisation instead is going completely Linux Ubuntu 12.04LTS. My own network runs Linux Ubuntu already at work and has already upgraded to 12.04 form 10.04. We've run that for the last two years. It works remarkably well and the new 12.04 is simply superb. Forget all the old negative remarks about LInux of old from 12 years ago or longer. Ubuntu in my view it's one of the best OS's out there. I use it at home too. So I will be upgrading some 412 computers over the next 4 months and training for the new OS begins inhouse in 3 weeks. Can't wait.

There is something more serious to be considered about the launch of Win8 though this time. For once there are some really serious alternatives to Windows, yes like Linux which is well supported and costs nothing to download. Mac is still a good contender although not to my taste for work. Yes I know, it's just me not liking it. And there are some others too. Judging from the way my other organisational colleagues across the country are reacting to Windows 8, with most just not getting on with it, and comments about the expense, I have serious doubts as to wether it will take off like XP and 7 did. I guess we'll had to wait and see. My advice is to stick with or go with Windows 7 Pro for the extended support until near 2020. Or better, make a break for it and go with Ubuntu 12.04. So many organisations are doing just that now. The learning curve is not that great.

I will have a go tonight and see of there is any info on the Necrosoft site...

One other option is to buy that SSD, do a clean re-install of my current Vista on it and then upgrade to W8. You recon it'd work?

This would work...

Although if you get Win8 onto usb/dvd beforehand, then add the SSD chances are itll see the original vista install and still work.. i know its pretty intelligent as a dual boot mode

SSD William a big difference and cheap if you don't want loads of storage. I used a Samsung 128 gb in my netbook and it made a huge difference.

Don't install over Vista or you won't get a good setup - go for fresh then reinstall your apps.

You can pop the vista disk back in to copy data to USB stick or something.

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@EstateMan

Ubuntu would be brilliant but... Does it run office (open office is fine), Battlefield3, Canon software, drivers for printers etc

Otherwise I'd do it NOW:)

SSD William a big difference and cheap if you don't want loads of storage. I used a Samsung 128 gb in my netbook and it made a huge difference.

Don't install over Vista or you won't get a good setup - go for fresh then reinstall your apps.

You can pop the vista disk back in to copy data to USB stick or something.

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Ok, so how would I be able to do the cheap upgrade without installing it over Vista? Sorry of this is naive but I really don't know...

Ubuntu (offtopic) is excellent - printer support is good - only problem is if your company is tied into MS for mail etc.

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Ok, so how would I be able to do the cheap upgrade without installing it over Vista? Sorry of this is naive but I really don't know...

Not tried - prior releases needed to see your cd / installation. Sorry

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