Upgrading from Vista

Lum

Jivesinger wrote: »

Windows 8 Pro upgrade from Vista is currently only £50 from PC World (and probably other retailers will have similar or better prices).

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/microsoft-windows-8-pro-17907965-pdt.html

Oooh, there are still cheap copies around. MS put the price up at the end of Jan, but I guess the cheap ones haven't sold yet since they were still twice the price of the download version!

For 50 quid it is a lot more appealing, especially as Pro is well into the 3 figures at full price.

Be sure to run the Upgrade Assistant to check if your machine is suitable to upgrade first, but do not let that thing do the upgrade as you will pay full price for it. Once it's said you're suitable for an upgrade cancel the process and go out and spend the money.

kwikbreaks

Lum wrote: »

I guess the cheap ones haven't sold yet since they were still twice the price of the download version!

Some download versions are very cheap indeed if you dare risk them

Lum

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Some download versions are very cheap indeed if you dare risk them

Mine was from Microsoft when they had the upgrade offer on.

I would suspect any cheap ebay download you got now is highly likely to be a dodgy copy, unless it's someone who just bought a whole load of product keys at the cheap rate and is now trying to sell them on.

kwikbreaks

I bought a Win 7 Home some years back just after it became available. Can't remember where from but it was a legit source and cost ~ £60 iirc.

It was to upgrade a Vista laptop because I hated Vista. I've since put Vista back on it and got shot of it so I have the Win 7 DVD and licence as a spare if I ever get a barebones machine or some time in the future get a Win 8 machine and can't stand that, which looking at it seems quite possible.

I was actually referring to completely hookey downloads which Id never risk in case they had code embedded to phone home and report tasty snippets such as my passwords, credit card info, etc. I've never seen reports that they do but it would clearly be possible and there is always a first time...

Jivesinger

kwikbreaks wrote: »

I was actually referring to completely hookey downloads which Id never risk in case they had code embedded to phone home and report tasty snippets such as my passwords, credit card info, etc. I've never seen reports that they do but it would clearly be possible and there is always a first time...

With Windows 8, if you're upgrading from XP/Vista/7, then the main thing you need is the Product Key.

Once you have the upgrade product key, you can download it directly from Microsoft, thereby avoiding malware.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

If you were buying the product key on ebay or whatever, the main risk would be that someone else had been sold / was using the same key.

Lum

This is true for all current versions of Windows, even XP.

Microsoft only care about a legit product key being used. They don't care where you got the disc from. Beg steal or borrow one if you need to reinstall.

It's a bit more complex with XP due to the oem/retail/corp fiasco and setupp.ini however, but really you shouldn't be installing XP on anything in 2013.

waddler_8

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/howtotell/Software.aspx#Digital

zappahey

Skint_Catt wrote: »

7 yes, 8 - wouldn't bother - it's only a front screen to 7 anyway.

In reality, it's much more than that with improvements in performance and security.

The new UI takes a bit of getting used to, though

Lum

zappahey wrote: »

In reality, it's much more than that with improvements in performance and security.

Agreed, people seem to overlook this in amongst all the "OMG! Metro!!!111!1" panic

The new UI takes a bit of getting used to, though

Or just get rid of it: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4323561

googler

Vista couldn't even complete a Cut/Paste operation properly.

I often move batches of folders between drives; when I select Cut and Paste, they should all move from one drive to the other. Vista didn't achieve this. It left some folders behind in the source folder - no error, no explanation, just seemed to forget about some of them.

This was the deal-breaker for me