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General discussion

Will Microsoft upgrade Windows 8 &.8.1 to 9 free of cost

Aug 23, 2014 12:42AM PDT

I had bought a Lenovo laptop just a month a go with Windows 8. now MS is coming out with 9 version, now will they upgrade us to 9 without any pay?.

Why cannot someone bell the CAT?

Discussion is locked

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It's the ultimate end of the combination factor
Sep 4, 2014 3:24AM PDT

MS has spent so much time and effort to protect their system from "piracy" and putting that security monkey on the back of the system, ever increasingly more, even now with "Secure Boot" and adding "hardware solutions" that make it more difficult to install anything other than MS newest systems, only under exacting conditions, an increased number of areas to trip over when installing, that the use of the OS and the anti-piracy strait jacket seem to be clashing with each even worse than it did with XP. The closest description I can come up with for it is Software Schizophrenia.

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Reply
Aug 31, 2014 3:39AM PDT

You are bringing up troubleshooting problems that I said nothing about...acting like I simply missed something or mis-understood something...I am not stupid as you are insinuating...I have already thought of all of your 'theory' and 'ghost' problems that dont exist or even enter into this...and no am not trying to apply fixes from a different OS version. How ridiculous...I am a Tech, which means I am not even considering your stupid theories that you bring up, because I know what I did with the machine...I configure them and load all software that is needed in the company before I hand it over to the user...You were told I am a tech for a company...which means I get paid for what i know how to do.
Youre makin **** I'm a ******* that simply forgot to think about the simplest issues...like some user who cant find the power button...
With your made up scenarios and the like you are arguing for the sake of it...
At least I know who not to check with next time I have an issue with Win 8.1...

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I have to wonder
Aug 31, 2014 4:58AM PDT

I have to wonder, because you keep making all kinds of claims, but never offer up any kinds of specifics. I offered you an opportunity to outline some of the things you've done to actually back up some of your claims and what do you do with it? Two posts. The first is a bunch of disjointed comments trying to draw some kind of a connection between macroeconomic policies and executive pay with... Well, I'm not really sure to be honest, because you're all over the map, but I'm guessing somehow in your mind because Steve Ballmer was overpaid, that somehow equates to why everyone (also in your mind) hates Windows 8. The second post is you trying to act all offended, but still failing to cough up any specifics.

You keep bringing up the same arguments, but you never actually back them up with anything. Clearly you don't like Windows 8, but you can't even make a single cogent post explaining why. You're are constantly bringing up completely unrelated topics like executive pay or relying on logical fallacies like saying because people on InfoWorld don't like it, that somehow means you're justified in not liking it.

You want to think Fortune 500 CEOs are overpaid? Join the club, but what does that have to do with Windows 8? Same for Ballmer buying the Clippers. What evidence do you have that Microsoft was responsible for the former owner making some racist comments that triggered massive public backlash and prompted the NBA to force the sale? None? Right, moving on.

I'm not making you sound like anything, you're doing that all on your own. You have yet to present a single coherent post. You'll make one post, full of random conspiracy theories, then immediately move on to a second post, again full of random conspiracy theories. Naturally you have no evidence to support a single one of your outlandish hypotheses, or you would have presented it by now. I honestly question whether anything you say is true, such as being employed as an IT tech or people coming to you with problems. If you were this erratic in the workplace, I don't see how it is you could ever manage to hold down a job. And we can skip the whole "I'm a different person at work" nonsense. People are not that duplicitous as a general rule. They may tone down certain behaviors, but they aren't radically different people between 9-5 M-F.

So here's one last chance, and feel free to take your time. Setting aside issues of executive pay and who owns what sports team, what evidence, if any, do you have to support your claims? Quoting an article from some publication is fine, but you need to actually link to it as opposed to just claim it exists and point out the relevant bits. Even better is if you can find multiple independent sources which all say more or less the same thing. Better still is if you can back that up with your own analysis of the situation. Just as a starting point, how about that there are 375 million people, give or take, using Windows 8. You're going to need to find more than 10%, or roughly 4 million, unique individuals who have the problems you describe before you get beyond a reasonable margin of error.

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Reverse Thinking?
Sep 4, 2014 3:18AM PDT
But let's go a little deeper. Let's say 50 different people have approached you personally. Out of those 50 people, and be honest here, how many of them are what you would call technically savvy or sophisticated? How many of them would fall closer to the "has trouble figuring out how to turn it on" end of the spectrum? Do any of them even spend 5 minutes searching with Google to try and find the solution to a problem or do they just give up immediately? And still being honest, how much time did you personally spend inspecting each computer? How much time did you spend interviewing each individual who approached you to find out whether or not they have any risky habits, where they absolutely sure they were free of malware, the ever important follow-up of how do they know? How much time did you spend doing a forensic analysis of the computers you were approached about? Did you ever even lay eyes, let alone hands, on a single one? How exactly is it that you personally know that each and every one of these cases was a result of the Windows 8.1 update?

Isn't this the same argument you've made in past about why Linux didn't catch on with more people? That it required more than people were willing to do to learn the system? Has it now come full circle where Linux desktops and Android are now easier than windows 8 to use, but you do a turn about and complain people aren't devoted to putting in the effort to do windows 8 switch? Isn't this the "have your cake and eat it too" approach?
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August 2014 statistics
Sep 4, 2014 3:14AM PDT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

windows 8 and 8.1 has 13.37%

The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, and was released for general availability on October 26, 2012.

Two years later and it's still beat by both Windows 7 and XP, each separately. Desktop share overall of windows has dropped to 90% from the 95-97% it enjoyed during XP's day.

If instead you look at Web Clients, the story suddenly looks much worse. Windows drops to 58% and Linux climbs to 20%. Apple is 17%. This means many who abandoned desktops or when given a choice at purchase time of OS to use, actually prefer something other than windows!

When you look at choice of browsers, the story gets even worse for Microsoft. IE and Firefox are about equal in preference, but Chrome is beating them both, and the mobile systems, which are mainly Apple and Linux are also beating IE.

Microsoft needs a home run on version 9, or the crowds will quit coming to the game.
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Reason for no media
Aug 30, 2014 11:05AM PDT

Reason for no media coverage is because MS wont even acknowledge their mistakes...
try some of the MS tech forums...The 'Big Guys' on there wont even comment when people are on there BEGGING for help...losing all of their data.

We pay for the OS, either OEM or retail and get no real help from the people at MS...

Get on the MS forums, then get back to me.
SAD.

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I wouldn't be surprised, ...
Aug 29, 2014 1:27PM PDT

Windows sales fell off a cliff with the introduction of Windows 8 (and the iPad, Android tablets and so on), and Microsoft got lots of bad press for Win 8. There are still a lot of XP users out there that Microsoft would really like to upgrade. So a promotion to get XP users moving and to sweep Win 8 under the rug makes sense. It will probably be short term, though.

Bob Meyer

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Possibly but...
Aug 29, 2014 8:58PM PDT

they didn't do that last time, Windows 7 was a significant upgrade price after the disaster that was Vista but the Windows 8 upgrade price was relatively cheap. Take your pick, a reducing trend or keep the price up after a less than stellar release because people will be eager to move on.

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Vista was hardly a disaster
Aug 30, 2014 12:39AM PDT

Vista was hardly a disaster, at least on the technical side of things. Vista gets the blame for hardware makers being slow to release new drivers and then doing lazy and sloppy ports that were riddled with bugs. Without all the under the hood changes Microsoft made with Vista, Windows 7 never would have been possible. XP was a developmental dead end, representing decades worth of design decisions based on an industry which had suddenly swerved to the right after decades of moving steadily left. Huge chunks of the OS had to be tossed out and rewritten from scratch.

Windows XP, let's not forget, had a bumpy first couple of years as well. Despite being a barely even warmed over Windows 2000, a lot of companies had the same problems getting drivers out. Then there were the software issues because now a lot of programs had to contend with not just multiple users, but filesystem permissions and a security model that enforced the prohibition on accessing the hardware directly. Much like Vista, the hardware on most store-bought systems on the low to mid-range were not up to the task of XP's Luna skin and it took a couple of years for integrated graphics chips to both rise to the new challenge and filter out into the wider world. You also had a lot of computers at the time only shipping with 128-256MB of RAM and anyone who's tried running XP on only 128MB of RAM will tell you its an exercise in extreme patience. At 256MB it becomes tolerable, but still slow. It's not until you get to 512MB and beyond that XP starts to run at acceptable speeds. After 2-3 years, most integrated graphics were up to the task of handling XP's skinned UI, 256MB was the new minimum for RAM with 512MB being more common and most program authors and hardware developers had gotten their heads around the new reality XP presented. That's when all the complaints about XP being slow, bloated, having a fisher-price/tonka toy look, programs not working, hardware not working, etc, started dropping off.

By the time Vista SP1 came along, most of the complaints had dried up about it as well. Hardware caught up with the software, even the low end hardware makers had upped the quality of their drivers and imagine that, people suddenly stop having issues with Vista.

It's amazing how history repeats itself, including people conveniently forgetting facts that don't fit in with the popular narrative. You talk to people today, the only consistent complaint you see about Windows 8 is people don't like the tile interface on the desktop. Fair enough, and in large part I share that sentiment thinking MS should have given a bit more thought to how it would work on a desktop/laptop before release, but if you set that aside and consider the rest of the OS, it's quite possibly the best one MS has come up with to date. Better security, faster boot times, more efficient memory use, less memory use, more efficient use of the CPU, more of the GUI is rendered by the GPU than CPU making for longer battery life on tablets and laptops... And that's just compared to Windows 7. It strikes me as short-sighted and idiotic to let something as trivial as the tile interface, which frankly you rarely have to see after 8.1 Update 1, put you off of what is otherwise a great bit of software. But maybe it's my upbringing where I was raised to value substance over flash.

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Now there's an idea
Aug 30, 2014 3:14AM PDT

sort of came to me while reading yours about 8.1 and Vista. Maybe Microsoft would win more fans back if in the last year of an operating system's support they gave it away at cost for disc, product key, and postage. In fact that wouldn't impact sales that much, while garnering some good will among the bleeding heart crowd too. It could be as a special release with inbuilt advertising and videos included of the upcoming or current market system. As a Linux user I'd hate to see that happen because it would negatively affect those who might crossover to Linux instead, but Microsoft could make all it's sales of the new system be dual purpose for full install and upgrade together.

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Interesting thought
Aug 30, 2014 5:23AM PDT

Interesting thought, except that the general idea is to shuffle people along to the next OS. I could see it being a good PR move for low-income people, maybe partnering with local charities to make sure low-income people have a basic computer they can use to look for work, maybe take some online courses, let their kids do schoolwork, etc and offering very steep discounts on older versions of Windows. Like say costs + 10% or something.

Of course rumor has it they've already been toying with this general idea and having some special "Bing Edition" of Windows 8. They offer it for next to nothing to OEMs, but the catch is that the rather limited customizations OEMs can make to the UI are even more restricted. So they can't change the default search engine from Bing, they couldn't bundle say Firefox or Chrome and there might also be some kind of advertisement system.

Personally, I'd like to see them take all those Surface and Surface 2 tablets that would normally have been compacted and dumped in a landfill somewhere donated to schools and charities. Instead of writing them off completely they might be able to get some kind of tax deduction out of it, or at least some good PR.

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maybe a combo package
Aug 31, 2014 12:00AM PDT

Have the first packages of the latest system include keys and disc for the previous system AND the new system. Call it the "Delux Edition" and have the previous system included be a "SE" or "Special Edition" and as a respin including the last updates to it except for those which would come out in the last year of support. Many who don't want to slipstream 2-3 service packs and who expect they will eventually need to upgrade will be more willing to jump on it.

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No they didn't
Aug 30, 2014 12:13AM PDT

No they didn't. PC sales in general fell off a cliff before Windows 8 even came along because everyone became enamored with tablets and considering most people just use a computer to do some basic web browsing, word processing, etc... What does a new computer offer them anymore? A tablet, maybe paired with a BT or dockable keyboard, can do those things almost equally well. It had absolutely nothing at all to do with Windows 8, that's just a convenient excuse people like to toss out instead of doing even a modicum of research into the subject.

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Yes...
Aug 30, 2014 10:44AM PDT

Thats what I'm talkin about...MS, give us some incentive, not threats such as 'MS wont be supporting W-XP after such an such date...changed three times now...cant keep up...

XP only became stable after many fixes and updates, upgrades and service packs...

So, they are trying to use the same scare tactic on us about W-8.1...If you don't update from 8 to 8.1, we can no longer support security issues. Scares these older people who cant work on their own machines.

People are realizing that there are more OS's out there than MS...especially the many masses who own Apple I phones. They see there's not so much to be afraid of trying Apple and Mac devices...
I have people who tell me they would NOT have a Windows phone after having an I phone.

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unless they give an upgrade
Sep 4, 2014 4:07AM PDT

to recalcitrant XP users which still outnumber W8 users two years later, Microsoft will face defections to other OS, such as free Linux, or new Apple computers. I'm always surprised by the increasing numbers of former XP users who have shunned W8 and Vista to move over to Linux. Won't see it here much in these forums, although there has been an increase in those who admit it, but the Linux forums are being overrun by newbies in the past year especially. Ubuntu forum has 1.93 million members, Mint forums with 120 thousand members, half a million at Linux Questions forum, I don't even know how many million at Android forums, but as I type this, over 6,000 members online at the time and over 20 thousand "guests". If they don't go to windows 8 and can't get windows 7 retail anymore, even if for the interim, where do you think they will go? Their choices are continue using XP till the first bit exploit that isn't patched, buy Apple, or some distro of Linux, hold their nose and go for W8 if they get a price break or free windows 9 later on.

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My Guess is a Qualified "NO"
Aug 29, 2014 2:58PM PDT

First of all, it depends where you got the Windows 8.x from. Did you go to the store and buy it? Was it an OEM version that came with your PC? Usually, when a new version is coming out, you can find a deal that comes with a FREE upgrade to the new version. So, you see an add for a new PC and it says that you get a free upgrade. You might want to ask when you buy the computer how you do that. If you just bought the 8.x version you probably won't get the free upgrade. Think about it; if you just bought the old version, you would think you could return it for the new version, but that is only good for a short while.

The other thing you have to remember is that the new version may NOT necessarily work with the old hardware. You may think "of course, it will" but the answer is "depends". Maybe or maybe not. Not every piece of hardware has drivers in the new OS from Microsoft. Sometimes you can get them from the OEM if your system is not too old.

So, it pays to do your homework. Chances are, if you are talking about a current machine (already in use) with Windows 8.x, the odds of you getting a free upgrade are very slight.

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Qualified NO...
Aug 30, 2014 5:06AM PDT

See my above post..."the way MS figures all aspects, that they have us by the proverbial 'Balls'."
We have to pay for their upgrades in one way or another.

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MS has been releasing public
Sep 2, 2014 11:08PM PDT

Beta testing for years. They break records each Beta test they release.

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" Why cannot someone bell the CAT?"
Sep 4, 2014 2:39AM PDT

If you seriously wanted to do that, you'd switch to a Linux OS instead.

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Usually software is
Sep 10, 2014 10:03PM PDT

classified by the version number. If the upgrade is a new version to the right of the decimal point it's a minor update and usually no charge but if the number to left of the decimal increases it's a major upgrade. Microsoft does full public beta testing for major updates. There wasn't a major public beta testing for 8.1 but there will be for 9.0.

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MS will do extensive public
Sep 10, 2014 10:13PM PDT

beta testing. They will offer the Beta free for download to anyone. They have the largest Beta testing number sof any software company out there. I've been a Beta tested since Windows 98.