Microsoft announced upgrade offer in India. With this offer, consumers can get a downloadable upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of Rs 699 and 90 days of support from Microsoft. What would be the pros and cons when consumers decide to upgrade to Windows 8 in the future?
Hi Tracy,
The way I see it is that the pros of this upgrade is the new experience of windows 8 which include:
– Very fast boot time: this is because of the better resource allocation for the applications and the system.
– A very interesting UI: which is talked about a lot as being mind blowing.
– Windows To Go: which allows the operating system to boot from a USB device with all the settings, programs, etc. But it lacks the hibernation feature.
Windows store: which is considered a competition to apple store which will allow the developers to publish their old Metro-style apps.
And the major icon is actually not liking all that new stuff and feeling that Windows 7 is better for you. But downgrading is always an option.
Tracy Carlson,
Hello,
Similar to the way that Windows Vista/7 were largely an evolution of Windows XP, Windows 8 is a much more fundamental change that can be compared to the leap from MS-DOS to Windows 95. Any upgrade is expected to promise better speed and stability. Windows Vista/7 were proven to be faster than Windows XP.
But there are many security features of Windows Vista version which always irritated the user while accessing new applications which always prompted for permissions. In order to avoid this, we need to change the user control settings. It is good in a way that the version is provided with high security features.
But the consumers or users should be careful before upgrading keeping in mind the complexity of usage that might be as an added problem. It is the same case of Windows 8. Please find the pros and cons of upgrading to Windows 8 from Windows 7.
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Pro |
Con |
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Win 8 is well designed for tablets. On phones and tablets the home screen looks very nice with large icons to click and use the applications. Hence it makes very much sense for smart phones where people like to access their applications faster. |
But on computers desktops, too many shortcuts make the desktop look too much of clutter. Because there will be shortcuts to key folders, important documents and most-used programs. One would never like to re-learn using their systems which they have been using for a long time for ages. For example, for a simple task of shutting down a computer, today we are going to start menu and select shutdown from the menu. But with windows 8, we have to hover over the “Zoom” icon in the lower right corner, then select the “Settings” icon, and then finally we can find “Shutdown” option somewhere there inside. Maybe it will make more sense on tablets and mobile phones, which you rarely need to shut down. But it doesn't make much sense on the desktop. |
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It is a nice cloud integration synching to Windows mobile devices. The same thing can be achieved by Google Docs. But if the internet connection goes down abruptly, we cannot access the documents. But on Windows 8 we can continue working. Hence the usage of windows phones and tablets improve the productivity and efficiency. |
But the current market is split between Apple’s iPhones and its iPads android devices. Most of the users do not like using windows mobile devices. |
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Since Microsoft is planning to stop supporting Windows XP, it is better to start getting rid of those old machines and upgrade to systems running on modern OS by switching to the latest one with the latest upgrade. |
Still 43 percent of computers are running on Windows XP. This shows how dominant XP is out there and companies never like sudden changes in their environments since they don’t want to support multiple operating systems and do not want to deal with the new software and hardware compatibility issues. They do not prefer to train the employees on two different platforms. Apart from this, Microsoft is not that great in its latest products. So, considering the major changes in windows 8, it is better to wait until it is proven stable and user friendly. |
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It is easier to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 than Windows XP to Windows 7 with less number of hardware and software compatibility issues. |
More incentive to be paid to upgrade to Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 8. Besides there might be other compatibility issues like Microsoft may restrict or limit the third party browsers, such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. |
Comparing the above Pros and Cons, it is suggested to stick with Windows 7 and wait until all these controversies are ruled out and the OS gains stability.
Charle Faru
