Windows 8 Will Run On All Current PC Hardware

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Windows 8 Will Run On All Current PC Hardware

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday July 12, 2011 @04:31AM from the just-a-little-slower dept.

Stoobalou writes "Microsoft exec Tami Reller told attendees at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 taking place in Los Angeles yesterday that any PC capable of running Windows 7 today would be capable of running Windows 8 when it is released, towards the end of the year."

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Windows 8 by Dyinobal · 2011-07-12 04:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

I just upgraded from Window XP to WIndows 7 now you want to tell me you're planning windows 8 already with in the year? It's not like windows seven is another vista, it's a solid OS and is remarkably stable, why do I want Windows 8?
1. Re:Windows 8 by Skarecrow77 · 2011-07-12 04:58 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Traditionally, MS has released a new retail OS every year to two years. the huge gap between XP and Vista was the oddity, not the rule.
  Windows 3.0 was 1990
  3.1 was 1992
  3.11 and NT 3.1 were both in 1993
  NT 3.5 was 1994
  95 was... 1995.
  NT 4.0 was 1996
  98 was 1998
  98se was 1999
  ME and 2000 were both in 2000
  XP was 2001 ...
  Vista was 2006
  Windows 7 was 2009
  seems to me that they're right on schedule for windows 8.
2. Re:Windows 8 by toastar · 2011-07-12 04:59 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I just upgraded from Window XP to WIndows 7 now you want to tell me you're planning windows 8 already with in the year? It's not like windows seven is another vista, it's a solid OS and is remarkably stable, why do I want Windows 8?
  What you've never heard of the every other windows curse? It''s like the star trek movie curse
  Win 2k was great
  Win Me Sucked balls
  Win Xp was pretty good
  Win Vista was smoking crack
  Win 7 is usable
  
  you might as well not even bother checking out 8
3. Re:Windows 8 by DrgnDancer · 2011-07-12 05:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It'd be nice if they adopted Apple's more recent model for OS upgrades. They are relatively more frequent than they used to, less revolutionary than evolutionary, and extremely inexpensive for upgraders ($35 or so). There's nothing so OMG Awesome about Lion that I have to have it, but it's got a few nice features, and for less than the price of most app software I'll upgrade the Macbook (once I figure out if it's second gen or first gen Intel). Similarly I doubt Windows 8 is revolutionarily different from Windows 7, but if it's got a decent number of useful upgrades and is only going to cost me $30-50, I'll do it. If it's going to cost $150, forget it till they force the issue.
  
  --
  I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
4. Re:Windows 8 by Mia'cova · 2011-07-12 05:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You'll want it for an ARM-based tablet.
5. Re:Windows 8 by TWX · 2011-07-12 05:39 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  But back then there were two separate product lines:
  Windows 3.0 1990
  Windows 3.1/3.11 1992-1993
  Windows 95 1995
  Windows 98 1998
  Windows ME 2000
  Windows XP 2001
  Windows Vista 2006
  Windows 7 2009
  Windows NT 3.1 1992
  Windows NT 3.5 1994
  Windows NT 4.0 1996
  Windows 2000 2000
  Windows XP 2001
  Windows Vista 2006
  Windows 7 2009
  The other consideration is the relationship between the OSes in these channels. Windows 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 are substantially similar, and Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5 are as well, sort of blending into 4.0. Windows 95, 98, and ME were also similar enough to be the same product family with incremental changes. Windows 2000 and XP are the same product family. Windows Vista and 7 are the same family.
  I'm probably going to skip 8. I've got too many XP-running computers to upgrade, and Microsoft's three-seat volume packs for home users bring the cost down to between $35 and $50 a PC for Win7 Home Premium (depending on the vendor and any deals at the time) makes it easy to justify buying two or three sets of three, and the benefits in the UI scaling, newer APIs for newer programs, and better multicore support seem worthwhile. It also was eight years from the release of XP to the release of 7, so there's probably been some actual real improvement there, even with the new bugs. 8, coming this quickly on the heels of 7, is probably going to only screw up the UI again, without having any real reason under the hood to compel me to change. I figure if I go to 7, I can probably wait to upgrade OSes until 2017 or so before it becomes a real issue.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:Why hello there! by MightyMartian · 2011-07-12 04:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think more likely it's Vista SP5. Between Microsoft and Firefox, version numbers have been rendered meaningless.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's almost like by jdpars · 2011-07-12 04:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's almost like an operating system doesn't need to amp up its requirements with every new release. Once it gets to a certain point, really, there's no need for an increase in necessary resources. Sure, you can make it scale well and perform better, but it really shouldn't be hard to keep the minimum fairly low.
But... by SwedishChef · 2011-07-12 04:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

You won't be able to find anything until you either take a certification course or spend hours clicking on buttons searching for the simple commands you used to be able to find instantly.
Bwhahahaha!

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No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Re:Windows 8 in my pants by tripleevenfall · 2011-07-12 04:53 · Score: 3, Funny

Does that explain all the performance issues? :)
Re:Why hello there! by beelsebob · 2011-07-12 05:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's actually the first time I've seen the new UI, and I had two responses...
Initially I thought "wow, that's such a massive change they should drop the windows name, windows 8 doesn't do the change justice". Then when I saw that normal Windows apps dump you straight down to a windows 7 desktop I thought "wow, all they've done is a motorola... They've tacked an additional UI layer on top of the existing one and created an ugly cludge that doesn't work right in either scenario".
If I had been MS I honestly would have taken the opportunity to start again with Windows – call it something new, make it their OS X. Some of the stuff in there is cool – like the fact that in the Windows 8 UI you can easily access "files" stored in another application's DB, but it doesn't seem to fit together right – what happens when you want to access that "file" in the windows 7 layer?
All in all, it's very MS – it's a cool idea, but they've not gone the whole hog and rejigged everything, they've tried to maintain compatibility and in doing so created something that doesn't work right.