Full Upgrades To Windows 8 Only From Windows 7? 222
CWmike writes "Microsoft will support full upgrades to Windows 8 only from the three-year old Windows 7, according to a report Thursday by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley. Citing unnamed sources, Foley said that Microsoft has informed select partners of the upgrade paths to Windows 8. While Microsoft may be revealing upgrade paths to some partners, it has been much more reticent to keep customers informed than three years ago when it rolled out Windows 7. Among the details the company has not disclosed are the on-sale date and the pricing of the two retail editions. By this time in 2009, Microsoft had revealed both: On June 2 that year, it pegged a launch date for Windows 7, and by June 25 had not only posted prices for the operating system but had also kicked off a pre-sale that discounted upgrades by as much as 58%. The increased secrecy from the company was demonstrated best last week, when it unveiled its first-ever tablet, the Surface, but left many questions unanswered, including the price, sales date, and even the hardware's battery life."
doesn't matter... (Score:3, Interesting)
What is the problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you have to have the previous version to upgrade... what is the problem? Doesn't everyone do this?
Off hand: Adobe, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian all require the immediate previous version to upgrade.
Honestly, I didn't even know you could upgrade Windows from a version older than the previous version.
Re:And... (Score:5, Interesting)
corporate america is full of old legacy programs that most of the company has forgotten but are essential to the operation of the organization. Somewhere in the sub basement there are a few machines only a few members of the IT department are aware of... they are often the reason it takes "two days to process" certain requests... you could argue they whole thing should be reprogrammed from scratch but you're dealing with proprietary programs that could be very complicated and were built bit by bit in spaghetti code fashion over decades.
It's something of a mess. But the companies work and if everyone does their jobs the system runs.
You see this sort of thing in big international banks. Large retail chain head quarters. Or even medium sized businesses that have been operating a few franchises since the 80s.
Requiring them to upgrade isn't going to work. They're already trying to move these system to VMs. But compatibility for these old programs even in VMs is spotty. It's a serious problem.
Re:And... (Score:3, Interesting)
"XP is fine on 10 year old computers without all the bells and whistles, 7 is a lot heavier on the resources and requires a more recent computer to run well even with all the bells and whistles turned off."
I respectfully disagree. XP SP 3 runs shittier than a stock Windows 7 when the UI dialed down and the background processes tamed. I would not run either without 4 GB of RAM (and by that I mean XP SP3 which recognizes 3.5 and thus is maxed out) and Windows 7 recovers from dumb shit like accidentally browsing a dead network share.
7 was the same (Score:3, Interesting)
You could only do a 'true upgrade' from Windows Vista to Windows 7, so how is this any different? I don't think you could upgrade from Windows ME to XP either.
Vista is how old now? It came out in 2006. How many years old will OS X 10.8 allow upgrades from? Snow leopard from 2009.
They aren't saying XP or Vista don't meet the requirements for an upgrade edition, just that you can't do an in place upgrade. Of course you can't, the file structure isn't the same.
This is even better, it means once again you will be able to use the upgrade pricing for clean installs. Good deal!
Re:And... (Score:4, Interesting)
Spoken like a true novice!. Well done partner!
Have you ever seen a multi-year budget survive, intact, the five-year you period are postulating?
What sort of company you work for? Any company I have worked for, in the last 35 years, will NOT let you bank $100 thou yearly towards some future whatchamacallit... At least you will be reprimended for over-budgeting. At worst, you'll be fired for cooking the books
If the auditors don't get you, then a couple of years into your fantasy, a downturn will occur and, wham!, your budget is cut so that your precious $100 k will be gone and if you did indeed happened to bank away any money, it will be used to cover running expenses.
I just spent a fucking week putting together a Pentium III computer so that a fricking old system could run again. Imagine, get a P-III refurbished with a 20 GB IDE HD, with 256 MB RAM running Win-2K... But the upgrade was only $145 k, no dice in this economy, get it working or else...
Please provide the name of your employer, I do need a job like yours