Is it worth doing the Win8 Upgrade now?

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kiwidude83

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Topic # 111652 10-Nov-2012 10:57
Is it worth purchasing the Win8 upgrade now for $20? or would it be ideal to wait until the last 1-2 days of the promotion in case of service pack fixes?? I want to upgrade a netbook from winxp to win 8 - netbook is only used to run isky on tv so its nothing major but i dont want to be downloading a fix after fix after fix for it....

freitasm

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Reply # 715074 10-Nov-2012 11:00
There won't be any service pack release for months. A service pack is a collection of hotfix patches. Those hotfixes are released as needed. Go and install now if you want it. Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure, my tweets, Web Performance Optimization) Geekzone Price comparison \| Amazon Kindle order page \| How to get the best out of Geekzone \| New Zealand IT Jobs \| Geekzone News \| Jinglebugs

sidefx

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Reply # 715075 10-Nov-2012 11:01
It's $50 - $20 is the price to upgrade an eligible (recently purchased) win7 system. (Though I think there was a loophole that you could use to get this price even without a win7 system but this is now closed) If that's all it's used for (isky) I'd maybe just leave it on winxp...

joker97

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Reply # 715080 10-Nov-2012 11:16
will a netbook run win 8 smoothly? gosh mine netbook (single core and lousy GPU) wouldn't even multitask on XP let alone windows 7

freitasm

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Reply # 715081 10-Nov-2012 11:20
One of the reasons netbooks failed to capture a market is because once the consumer bought one and realised they weren't really that great for anything except for booting the OS they were either (a) returned or (b) forgotten. Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure, my tweets, Web Performance Optimization) Geekzone Price comparison \| Amazon Kindle order page \| How to get the best out of Geekzone \| New Zealand IT Jobs \| Geekzone News \| Jinglebugs

kiwidude83

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Reply # 715124 10-Nov-2012 13:25
sidefx: It's $50 - $20 is the price to upgrade an eligible (recently purchased) win7 system. (Though I think there was a loophole that you could use to get this price even without a win7 system but this is now closed) If that's all it's used for (isky) I'd maybe just leave it on winxp... I purchased a laptop recently so am able to get the $20 upgrade - but instead of putting it on my win7 i thought may as well chuck it on a netbook and see how it goes....

linw

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Reply # 715130 10-Nov-2012 13:38
I have W8 on my I3 powered netbook. Runs fine.

joker97

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Reply # 715161 10-Nov-2012 14:46
I3 is very powerful ... Can run a desktop ... I thought netbooks run atom

netspanner

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Reply # 715832 12-Nov-2012 13:36
Been working with updating classroom machines and laptop to Win 8 at the moment. We need them for programming Win 8. Man what a job!! Once you get it working its great but the incompatibilities and issues we have make me wish we hadn't tried. Although there isn't a service pack, at present its downloading almost a gig of windows updates, so there is tons of something out there it needs.

Ragnor

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Reply # 715905 12-Nov-2012 15:31
joker97: will a netbook run win 8 smoothly? gosh mine netbook (single core and lousy GPU) wouldn't even multitask on XP let alone windows 7 You should check your netbook meets the minimum resolution(s) for Windows 8: 1: The minimum resolution in which Windows 8 "Windows Store" apps will run is 1024x768. 2: The minimum resolution required to support all the features of Windows 8 (including multitasking with snap) is 1366x768

mattwnz

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Reply # 715915 12-Nov-2012 15:54
Unless you are running a touchscreen device, I would stick with windows 8. Also win 7 will be better on a low res netbook, as some windows 8 features, including apps aren't supported on low res screens, which makes it pretty useless for low res netbooks.

joker97

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Reply # 715958 12-Nov-2012 17:29
You mean win 7

martyyn

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Reply # 716203 13-Nov-2012 09:36
I installed it recently on a spare laptop and have been playing with W8 this week. I have to say the more I use it the more I like it. For 'Joe Bloggs' its going to be pretty good. You can easily get to your email, facebook, music and videos etc and if everything you need has a 'tile' I doubt you will end up in the old style desktop too often. If you want to do more than that it can sometimes seem a little frustrating to end up in the desktop and on a smaller screen (mine only does 1280) you wont get to use the 'snap' feature. Not having basic information like a clock and date in the gui, for me, is a mistake. I shouldnt have to use a couple of tiles for that given the extra space around the side of them. Its clearly built for a touch screen, but once you get the hang of the 'four corner' approach and how you do the common tasks its pretty easy on a laptop. Interestingly my wife (who can barely use Skype on a smartphone) opened this laptop instead of hers (they are identical), had a quick look around and immediately said 'oh this is nice'. X-Case Q-Box \| Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G with Onboard ATI HD3200 \| AMD Phenom X4 9500 CPU \| Corsair 2GB DDR2-800 x 2 \| WD Caviar 1TB HDD x 2 \| HVR-4000 with MCE Remote \| XP Pro SP3 \| Mediaportal 1.1.0 RC6 \| CoreAVC2.0 \| Samsung UN32B6000 32" LED \| Sony STR-K660P Receiver

tchart

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Reply # 716212 13-Nov-2012 09:51
Ragnor: 1: The minimum resolution in which Windows 8 "Windows Store" apps will run is 1024x768. This! I had the consumer preview of Windows 8 on my HP Netbook. The OS itself ran very nicely. No "metro" apps would load though due to the 768 minimum resolution. I did manage to force the resolution to be 768 (squashed the pixels) but it wasn't workable long term. I went back to Windows 7 but that was for another reason. Im now running Widnows 8 on my laptop now as my main OS and cant fault it. I never/rarely use the "metro" apps as most of my work is in the "dekstop" world so to sum up I will probably put Windows 8 back on the netbook soon.