Why do people "upgrade" at all?

In my opinion W95 was a clean interface but still a bit primitive; W98 offered improvements but was still tender. XP got the stability issues right, and is still the backbone many businesses use. Vista was "pretty," a useless attribute for me. W7 fixed Vista's issues.

Now along comes W8, meant to be the end-all to both mouse and touchscreen users (yawn).

It seems to me that with some exceptions people have been dragged along this evolutionary path simply because Microsoft said so, because they (MS) were the ones who dictated what came preloaded on new PCs. Call me an antique but I'm still perfectly happy running solid-as-a-rock XPpro. Whizzy interfaces are for game consoles. I do work on my computers.

Okay, so XP is a dead end in that, for example, V12 won't run on it. So what? I see no need for V12 over V9, which is a pretty great version, like V7d before it. Ah, but Sony won't sell you a V9 any more. Like Microsoft, they control what you are allowed to buy. But for me V12, like Windows8, doesn't give me any cravings. At least not at this point.

Is anybody considering upgrading to W8 at all , for anything ?!!!

Handy if you want to draw little horns on pictures of people, with your finger, and email them. I guess ....

geoff

I actually have a Lenovo Touchscreen i7 computer that I thought would be an ideal candidate for upgrading to Windows 7. Unfortunately, there are several components on this PC that have no Windows 8 drivers yet, including the Bluetooth interface that I use for my keyboard. I "upgraded" to Windows 8, then reinstalled Windows 7 rather than lose some of my hardware. This is an all in one PC so I can't simply replace components.

i certainly wouldn't upgrade a 'work' system till sp 1 has come out.

Have to say, riredale pretty much echoed my thoughts.

I still think it's foolish for SCS to not sell old versions.

Agree with Kelly. I do work on my PC and unfortunately, SCS has lost my business. I got V11 to operate on my XP machine but never used it. Use 9 and 10. No reason yet to upgrade OS and can't upgrade Vegas. Don't really feel the loss.

I wanna see Vegas working on a Touch/Swipe Screen Mac, so I can swipe and toss Events around a table top.

"Minority Report"? Almost there - yeah, baby!

Grazie

I use and love XP but I want to upgrade to something later for 2 reasons only:

1. Better colour management in Vista and later.
2. Hopefully getting over the replaced media bug in VP10 by upgrading to VP12.

I'm split between Windows 7 and 8. Not interested in the new features of 8, but have read that it's faster than 7.

Not going to upgrade.........didn't upgrade when Millennium, or Vista were offered either. XP & Win7 work great.

robert

I did upgrade from 7 to 8, it lasted about two days and I uninstalled 8 and went back to 7. For several reasons, but mostly I did not like the new UI. I didn't like the lack of a Start Button, and I didn't like that you had to go into the Options menu to shut down the computer! What were they thinking?!?!?

And underneath the WIndows 8 UI is the same old Win 7 UI (minus the start button)
So what's the point unless you have a touch screen?

I was SO happy to get WIndows 7 reinstalled!

+1 leee

If you buy a new computer it is bound to come with Win 8 installed, like it or not. Another advantage of build-it-yourself computers.

I hung onto XP for a very long time (Vista was a total dog, like WIndows ME), but now that I finally have Windows 7 on all of my PCs, I really don't miss XP at all - ESPECIALLY after installing the free and perfectly stable Classic Start Menu and getting back an XP-style cascading start menu. There's really nothing to miss about XP, workhorse though it was.

Now as for Windows 8... I'm really not seeing the benefit to this one. Besides for a new interface I'll never use with a keyboard and mouse... there's nothing attractive about it. I think I'll stick with Windows 7 until Windows 9 comes out..

i had been using Vista64 on an i7 for many years without issues. However, it was taking a very long time to boot, 7 or 8 minutes as i recall. i knew i had to re-load the OS, and since it was cheaper to upgrade to Win8 than 7, $40 vs $150, i made the leap. Of course i instantly put in the classic start menu, so i have never had to deal with the GUI. The windows key combinations don't work, so i will have to fix that. i should point out that the computer with windows 8 on it is only used for video and photo work. For my day today surfing the net i use Kubuntu.

I've been using Vista business 64bit as my main edit station for almost 5 years. Hasn't missed a beat, loads very quickly. Totally different ball game to the Vista home on my laptop. Slooooooow to load, hogs resources. Just generally...slow!

Windows 8 has power, performance, and security improvements that make it a worthwhile upgrade.

I tried out the Preview and absolutely detested the UI changes. They force you to interact with Metro when you don't want or need to, removed the 'Start menu', has an interface style that I think looks like it was designed for children, etc. etc.

The new idea that you should only have one or 1-and-a-half apps visible would seem to make it more apt to call it 'Microsoft Window' instead of 'Windows'.

Then there's the aspect where they want you to have to buy all your new Apps from their 'store' so they get a cut in the process...

At least for me, it was a terrible leap backward in productivity. You couldn't pay me to 'upgrade'.

(Can you tell I'm cranky about it?) :-)

My only reason to go from XP to 7 (the latest version with good reviews at the time) was to get 64 bit operation. If version "x" comes out with 128 bit operation or thought control or other must have feature, I may upgrade to version "x+1".

I hate to constantly come to the defense of Windows 8. No one is obligated to upgrade. I do, however actually love using it for several good reasons. Main reason, I guess, is the overall zippiness of the system, on identical hardware, which is all I've installed it on (4 separate systems) it performs noticeably faster than Windows 7, not by a long shot, mind you, but there are subtleties to the graphic response that I now find my main system, which is still Windows 7 x64, slightly lagging. I intend to update my main machine but it will be a somewhat time consuming effort as I have projects to finish, and I just haven't had the time. Another reason, somewhat related is the hardware support, in particular the audio interfaces I use, a line 6 UX1 and an M-Audio Fasttrack USB that both work better under w8 than in w7, specifically, I am able to utilize the lowest latency settings of both devices with no ill effects on any of my 4 w8 systems, all using standard current w7 x64 drivers.

The other issue, the Metro apps side, lack of a start button... of course, like everyone else, the first day I used it I was confused and griping but now I prefer it most of the time, mostly, I think, because things switch so quickly, it actually seems faster to accomplish most things. Another thing I had to get used to was just starting to type in the name of something I'm looking for, generally a rarely used application that doesn't live in my quickstart or desktop, which I used to use the start button for Start/Video/Adobe CS6/Media Encoder to find that app, now, on the main Metro desktop, just type "ado" and there is a short list of all my adobe apps, there's media encoder, click, simple and fast but it did take some effort on my part to think the way W8 wants you to think. Is it better? I don't know, it is faster, I'll give it that.

Lastly, and this is what most surprised me, is the functionality of some of the free metro apps, and these are not big apps, but simple apps, like wikipedia or any of the Bing news aggregates, they're just hands down better at presenting you with all the same info you can get on countless websites, just easier, more accessible and far better looking, much more like a well laid out magazine. I could actually go on, but I think you get the point, I like w8 for what I would consider excellent reasons, oh and Vegas 12 runs like a charm.

<<I hate to constantly come to the defense of Windows 8.>>

But I'm glad that you did!

I dislike change for the sake of change, but the changes you described sound like useful improvements once I get tuned into them.

Sticking with stone tablet and chisel here.
Hate change.
Awkward to flip for motion, but I'll find a work around.
Upgrade, schmuckgrade!!!
Pass the dino stew.

I would agree with DDM.

I have been running VMS11 on win8 CP, and RP, and have not upgraded to Win8 release yet. Vegas is very stable on on my configuration. I build my own systems and select hardware more for stability instead of how fast it runs Crisis. Old hardware that no longer works with the new OS gets the trash can, since the drivers were apparently not well programmed to begin with if OS changes obsoletes it, or the company is not with it enough to keep up. My copy of VV4 still works on Win8, why would it not, it was programmed well and uses architecture standards that are still supported. I used to use AVID on windows, that was like using an old rusty lawn mower with a broken wheel. Every patch to windows broke the application, which is a pathetic demonstration of programming. I started using VV1 back in the day, and my 1st thoughts were that VV was like Word and Excel for video, it just works well. You can just feel this with software on windows, you can tell almost by feel how well it is programmed. Vegas seemed to lose some of the programming chops right around the sale to Sony. Sonic Foundry seemed to have some great developers.

The whole moving the shutdown selection, and start menu button is a rather weak argument for not upgrading. I find the new full screen start menu to be much more efficient for searching apps and files. If you do not believe me, try it for yourself. Hit windows key and type "WO" for word and see how long it takes you find that app on Win7. Try "VE" for Vegas and see the difference. Win8 is about 2x as fast, and that is splitting seconds to begin with. The Win8 interface is really more an improvement on the start button and how it works and not a huge change like most tend to think.

The touch screen stuff is just not here yet, and developers are writing the new apps that will blow your mind as we speak. It took about a year or more for all the Win32 apps to appear for Win95 and NT. Sound Forge was one of the 1st true 32-bit apps on NT. Win8 is NT still since that is where the number scheme stems from.

Aaron's abridged history windows NT:

NT3.5 - 32bit Windows.
NT4 - change interface to look like Win95 interface. Enter Sound Forge, enter VV1.
WinXP (NT5) - change graphics subsystem to a more unstable method to better support gaming.

Win Vista (NT6) - under pressure to change the image of poor security, implement UAC which was not well tested. Make more changes to graphics again for gaming reasons. Try to produce what was suppose to be "longhorn" and fail.

Win7 (NT7) - Implement improvements to UAC and UI, and stabilize NT6. Some might call this a service pack to NT6, but MS rolls it out as a new OS to distance themselves from Vista brand.

Win8 (NT8) - Under pressure to make mobile devices that use less power, lean out WIN7, change core functions to work better with instant on devices like mobiles, implement changes to graphics again, hardware UI, and gaming on portables. Strip out a lot of legacy stuff that would have normally shipped with WIN7->8, and leave that up to the end user to install what they need legacy wise. Re-think windows UI since Windows tablets under WinCE and Win7 tablets were not widely accepted. This all seems like a company that is working to offer what people are asking for.

WinRT - feels like WinNT's support for PowerPC, and or WinCE. This is a device to lure Devs back to programming for windows instead of iOS and take advantage of ARM's lower power operation.

There is no reason that the Metro version of Vegas has to look any different. Most of the changes would be moving options to the charm bar and saying good by to drop down menus. The menus would be popup menus that are contextual to what you are doing, vs. grey out options that are not allowed at the time. I do not really see what the problem is here. The future looks good.

Watch some Build 2011 or 2012 videos on whats under the hood of Win8 and it becomes clear how much of an improvement Win8 is over 7. If you do not understand all that, then Win8 will at least give you more ram to throw at Vegas, if that's all you understand.