Microsoft revealed that it would run an upgrade promotion in most markets that would allow Windows customers to buy a downloadable upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99. Joe Wilcox does a survey and asks if $40 is too much to pay for Windows 8 and current results show that customer opinion is split in half. About 43 percent of all users who participated in the poll stated that they would upgrade for the price, while roughly 42 percent stated they would not.

However, respondents are missing crucial information, because the original announcement at Blogging Windows fails to address certain upgrade-related aspects that Windows customers need to make an educated decision. One requirement will shock many Windows users.

Among the questions not initially answered:

* Is it possible to install the upgrade on a PC without operating system?

* Are clean installations an option during the upgrade process?

* Can users upgrade from public Windows 8 releases that Microsoft has made available?

* Do Windows 7 Family Pack customers have to purchase three licenses, or just one?

More about the Answers to these questions

The good thing is, that once a check is done for a valid version of Windows, a clean install can be done. While it doesn't say "clean install", this will be the end result, as the drive can be formatted.

Compared to previous Windows editions, especially the Pro versions, $39.99 (plus local taxes) is a steal. The Pro versions typically offer the most for the money, & being that BitLocker To Go is included, as well as the Media Center, this is virtually a giveaway. MS is determined to meet it's goal to sell 200 million Windows 8 licenses that Steve Ballmer quoted earlier this year.

I have no doubt that that quota will be met & then some.

Cat

This article does not affect my decision in the least. With a $40 price, I can upgrade 2 PC's for less than the original price we paid for Win 7 for each PC.

I will always do the Clean Install. I want a "CLEAN" installation and that is the best way to guaranty that.

My decision won't be changed either. I tried the upgrade install to RP from Windows 7 "just for kicks", the end result was a disaster, what I was expecting anyway. Just wanted to see it myself.

For me, it's a CLEAN INSTALL all the way, there's no other feasible option in my opinion. Data is simple to backup/copy from the old install & restore/copy back to the appropriate folders on the new.

I still don't understand, after all of these years of having proved beyond beyond a shadow of a doubt, upgrade install failures, that MS would even put this option on the table. It's certainly not for the lazy, as it's probably takes 10x the amount of time/work to fix the mess left behind.

I have no doubt that we'll be helping to sort the aftermath of these installs out.

But not mine!

Cat

I did the "Upgrade" from '98 to XP with no problems what-so-ever. It was designed to work, and it did.

However I won't be doing any upgrades to Win-8, at any price.
Why would I? It won't run half of the software that I need to run on an everyday basis.

TM

I believe that one could do things with earlier versions of Windows that's hard to accomplish today. Also, back in those days, the procedures weren't as automatic as today, there was more user input involved.

Lots more so. I remember seeing a Windows 98 install being done from a '95 one, that took a lot of work. I recall seeing at least a half dozen floppies. After an hour or so, it was done.

There's no way that I'd attempt the upgrade install again after what happened last month. Still boggles my mind that MS would even sanction such an install. I mean, they have their own forum (Microsoft Answers), many reported the upgrade install from Vista botching. Of course, those moving forward from XP had to clean install.

A clean install is a happy one.

Cat

I guess you're too new, to remember Windows 3.11, Eh?
It came on over 30 floppy disks! Remember those?
Most people today have never even seen one. I still use them.

I still have '98 on CD, including the Upgrade Version, and Windows-ME too.

Windows XP is the ONLY OS that will run the software that I use every day.
And it's the last version of Windows that will run on a FAT-32 formatted HD.

I do love these little strolls down memory lane. Don't you?

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

3.5 inch or 5.25 inch? The first PC's I used were at work and they had dual 5.25 inch floppies (Truly floppy, not the hard case of the 3.5 inch floppies.) They had to be handled with care as the case was made of paper or cardboard I believe. The "Good, Old Days".

Young uns!

The first floppy disk I ever saw was an 8". The drive that used those was the size of a boot box and weighed in at over 10#. It was called the "Winchester Drive". I worked on one ITT, VTLC, Controller that had four of them installed. It also boasted four 'Z-80' processors and could control 256 terminals.

But my first computer, the Commodore 64, used single sided 5.25" floppy disks.
I made a small fortune, re-aligning those disk drives, and altering them to write to both sides of the disks.

My first PC had dual 5.25" floppy drives. I acquired an alignment disk for those drives and did a lot of cleaning and re-aligning on those drives. Oh what fun!

But Windows 3.xx came on a stack of 3.5" floppy disks (not so floppy any more, since they use hard plastic cases).

A while back, looking for something to do, I went through all my old 3.5" Floppy Disk Drives, cleaning and oiling them and checking them for proper drive speed and alignment. I threw a few away, but still have about eight of them. I also have two USB Floppy Disk Drives.

Wanna take a little trip down memory lane? Then click this link.
https://www.google.com/search?q=8%22...w=1600&bih=773

The very first picture is an 8" floppy disk drive.
Enjoy!
TechnoMage

I do not remember using any of the 8 inch floppies. I do remember writing a simple computer program in Fortran, then key punching the cards to run through the server in college. This was in 1971 or 1972. The first PC I used was a Compaq with the dual floppies. This was probably early 80's. This was very advanced at the time. I do not remember much else about it.

Now I have problems remembering what I had for breakfast, LOL.

By the way I still have a lot of those 3.5 in. floppies. I do not have anything to use them on so eventually they will get thrown out.