My experiences with Windows 8 as a consumer

[Wesley]

Can you confirm for me if swipes that work for tablets also work for your touchpad? Swipe in from the right-hand edge of the touchpad should open the Charms bar and swiping in from the left edge should switch between open Modern UI apps. Have you also tried using Windows 7 drivers for your printer? Sometimes you'll have to add them in manually from the Device and Printers menu but make sure you uninstall the original ones first.

[Turok_sa]

Is windows 8 good for a media center i have win7 on it and use boxee on it whats the best media center program and os

[Wesley]

Boxee is fine. When I get my media center up and running, I'll be using an old coy of Windows XP with XMBC loaded on for streaming media or watching it directly off an internal drive. If there are any issues with that, I'll just use VLC, Media Player Home Cinema or Realplayer for handling my media duties. XMBC is the best out of the lot, though.

Windows 8 becomes a fine media player once the Xbox Video service launches in South Africa and if you get Windows Media Center along with the Pro package, that is also great and easy to use. Media Center is free to download until the end of January next year for anyone buying the Pro license from Incredible Connection for R700.

[Turok_sa]

Media Center is free to download until the end of January next year for anyone buying the Pro license from Incredible Connection for R700.

If u buy the R700 win 8 is it a disc u get

Also with XMBC cant get it to work i have 5 hhd and it doesnt want to pick up my tv show or movies i scan it but nothing

[Wesley]

I'm told the physical box you buy at Incredible Connection comes with 64 and 32-bit discs. You don't need to have an existing OS on your PC to install it because the upgrade media works as a standalone installer. After January 31 though, none of these will be sold through retailers and you'll have the standard licenses from then on.

Proof (its from a three-post wonder, but I've seen other people having success with the physical media)

[Turok_sa]

Ok 1 last thing until when can u get win8 for that cheap

[Wesley]

Ok 1 last thing until when can u get win8 for that cheap

Your guess is as good as mine. I'm expecting that prices will rise a little after January, but the vanilla version should retail for R800 and the Pro version should be R1400.

[Wesley]

Better on the inside: under the hood of Windows 8

Windows 8's most obvious—and most divisive—new feature is its user interface. However, it would be a mistake to think that the user interface is the only thing that's new in Windows 8: there's a lot that's changed behind the scenes, too.

Just as is the case with the user interface, many of the improvements made to the Windows 8 core are motivated by Microsoft's desire to transform Windows into an effective tablet operating system. Even those of us with no interest at all in tablets can stand to take advantage of these changes, however. For example, Windows 8 is more power efficient and uses less memory than Windows 7; while such work is critical to getting the software to run well on low-memory tablets with all-day battery life, it's equally advantageous for laptop users.

Linky

I love reading Ars' articles, they go into a great deal more than other sites bother with. Definitely worth the read if you're a network admin and considering the move to Server 2013 and getting a Windows 8 tablet for remote admin tasks and support.

[Wesley]

Just going through Windows 8's desktop mode, a few nice touches just keep leaping out at me every now and then. Like this:



Windows 7 never picked up what brand my flash drives were when I plugged them in. Just thought that was pretty cool. Minor, but still cool.

[Toxxyc]

^ That's actually pretty darn neat. It'll solve a lot of problems if you have like 3 or 4 memory stick plugged in at once, all named "Memory Stick" or whatever. I always had to remember what sticks I stuck in first so that I knew which letter of the alphabet I should Safely Remove. Annoying...

[maxdamage]

Get “Windows Media Center Pack” for Windows 8 Free

We all know that Microsoft has removed Windows Media Center from Windows 8. If you use Windows 8 and want to install Media Center to watch or record live TV, you'll need to purchase it separately from Microsoft in form of a new "Windows Media Center Pack".



Once you purchase a license of "Windows Media Center Pack", you can install Media Center in Windows 8 using following tutorial:

How to Enable or Install Windows Media Center in Windows 8?

Now the good things is that Microsoft is providing an absolutely free license of "Windows Media Center Pack" to Windows 8 users. Its a time limited offer which will expire on January 31, 2013. The license key is valid up to 5 computers.

To get the free license key of "Windows Media Center Pack", you just need to provide an email ID and Microsoft will send you the free license key on your email ID. Different email IDs can be used to get more than one license key.

Go to following page to get free license key:

Get Free License Key of "Windows Media Center Pack" for Windows 8

Please note that the offer is valid from October 26, 2012 to January 31, 2013 and the product key must be activated no later than January 31, 2013.

What is Windows 8 Promo Code and How to Get or Use it?

[Wesley]

Windows Store will pack mature titles after all

Earlier this year a document pertaining to app certification inside the Windows Store that comes with Windows 8 pointed to Microsoft choosing to not stock apps that had mature and adult ratings according to the ESRB and PEGI standards. This meant that adult titles and "mature-rated" apps would have to be bought online elsewhere, which seemed like Microsoft was drawing up it's policy to match that of Valve, which recently kicked off a mature game that featured sexual references from the Greenlight service. Microsoft has now confirmed they will be offering mature and adult-rated titles, using the ESRB content ratings system to properly rate apps and games bought from the store.

Source: TechpowerUp!

[Wesley]

For those of you already using Windows 7 with an AMD graphics card, I'd like for you to test out if a bug exists (currently in contact with a Microsoft and AMD rep). Set your screensaver to "None" and then set the time limit to 1 minute. Does your screen black out after a minute? This could apply to the Nvidia and Intel GPU-runners as well, since I believe this is a bit more widespread.

Also, set screensaver to five minutes (or lower) and go play a game. Pause or stop moving in the game (it should change to white if you've set it back to "None"), and wait for the screensaver's timeout to pass. Does it enable the screensaver and crash your game?

[DXeXodus]

Just a quick two questions if you would be so kind as to answer for me.

- Groupon currently has a promo on for Win8 Pro for R599. Is this a digital download or will it come as a Hard Copy? (I only have 3G internet at the moment and big downloads are out of the question)

- I will be upgrading my Legit Windows 7 Ultimate to Win 8 Pro but my mothers PC has a non-genuine win 7 installed on it. Will I be able to buy her the legit 8 pro upgrade as indicated in my point above and install it over the non-genuine windows? I am not sure if the Windows 8 install will detect that the Win7 install is not legit. Sorry for mentioning pirated goods on the forum but please note the intention to make her version legitimate.

Apologies if these questions have been covered elsewhere. Thanks :)

[Toxxyc]

Stay away from Groupon. They're not reliable.

[DXeXodus]

Stay away from Groupon. They're not reliable.

I haven't had any issues with them before but thanks for the advice.

[KalMaverick]

- Groupon currently has a promo on for Win8 Pro for R599. Is this a digital download or will it come as a Hard Copy? (I only have 3G internet at the moment and big downloads are out of the question)

- I will be upgrading my Legit Windows 7 Ultimate to Win 8 Pro but my mothers PC has a non-genuine win 7 installed on it. Will I be able to buy her the legit 8 pro upgrade as indicated in my point above and install it over the non-genuine windows? I am not sure if the Windows 8 install will detect that the Win7 install is not legit. Sorry for mentioning pirated goods on the forum but please note the intention to make her version legitimate.

- Yes it is the hard copy. Just remember to allow up to four weeks for delivery, the same thing can be bought from Makro and CNA for similar prices (without waiting a month for it).

- Technically you must have a legit version of a previous Windows to upgrade it, however a thread on Mybroadband seems to indicate that is not the case, the person installed Windows 8 on a hard drive that was completely formatted a couple of times and still activated it.

[Wesley]

- Groupon currently has a promo on for Win8 Pro for R599. Is this a digital download or will it come as a Hard Copy? (I only have 3G internet at the moment and big downloads are out of the question)

Avoid Groupon, GAME has Windows 8 Pro packs on sale for R569. Cheaper than Incredible Connection as well, Makro should be the same as GAME's price.

- I will be upgrading my Legit Windows 7 Ultimate to Win 8 Pro but my mothers PC has a non-genuine win 7 installed on it. Will I be able to buy her the legit 8 pro upgrade as indicated in my point above and install it over the non-genuine windows? I am not sure if the Windows 8 install will detect that the Win7 install is not legit. Sorry for mentioning pirated goods on the forum but please note the intention to make her version legitimate.

It won't matter since you can do a clean install on an upgrade pack and you should be able to do an upgrade on a copied version of a previous OS - the disc versions and even the ISOs you can download don't check if the license key is valid, only that Windows is installed properly. I'm waiting for confirmation that this is so, but you could do it with the move from XP/Vista to 7.

[DXeXodus]

Excellent, thank you for all the answers. Much appreciated.

[maxdamage]

Finally got to try out windows 8.Not really impressed.Battled to get back to the desktop from the tiles when I figured that you have to find the desktop tile to click on and really working in windows 8 on a laptop isn't fun at all.You need to have a mouse plugged in for better results or as a tablet pc etc....

Trying out a Nokia Lumia with wm7 installed seems to be more fun!