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Windows 8 Will Run On All Current PC Hardware

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."

4 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. But... by SwedishChef · · 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!

    --
    No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
  2. Re:Windows 8 by toastar · · 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:Why hello there! by beelsebob · · 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.

  4. Re:Windows 8 by TWX · · 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.