Windows 8?

[Qtip1318]

i am looking at windows 8 because my cd key dose not work on windows 7 any more. i know a guy who is selling windows 8 64x for 60 and i just wanted to know some things about it. 

 

first thing is, is if a free up grade to 8.1 if i buy this?

 

and what is the difference from 8 to 8 pro

[cjeffcoatjr]

It is a free upgrade to 8.1, and the only real difference between 8 and 8 Pro is that 8 Pro has that encryption service whose name I foget

[madknight3]

8 pro also lets you host a remote desktop connection I believe. Not something you can't do with other software though.

 

Edit: Wikipedia mentions the differences here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions

 

it includes all the features of Windows 8. Additional features include the ability to receive Remote Desktop connections, the ability to participate in aWindows Server domain, Encrypting File System, Hyper-V, and Virtual Hard Disk Booting, Group Policy as well as BitLocker and BitLocker To Go. Windows Media Center functionality will be available only for Windows 8 Pro as a separate software package.

[GoodBytes]

The big features of Windows 8 Pro are:

 -> Remote Desktop (while they are other solutions, free, out there, none are as good at Remote Desktop)

 -> Nominal fee (10$ if I recall correctly) to get Media Center with DVD playback codec for it (includes all Media Center codecs as well for recording and playback of shows). This was removed in Windows 8 to drop the price. Based on Microsoft telemetry data, extremely few people played DVD's on their PC, and optical drives are disappearing. If you don't have the Pro, you need to upgrade to the Pro to get it (170$)

 -> Hyper-V Virtual Machine (64-bit Windows 8 Pro only)

 -> Bit-Locker

 

Windows 8 can be upgraded for free to Windows 8.1. You need to access Windows 8 App Store once you have all the system updates done, and that all your drivers are installed. When you do it, please remember to uninstall your anti-virus and any other security software as it may block the upgrade process, and ended up with an error at some point in the process, or a none working system, where you'll need to format and re-install everything and repeat the process. Yes, it has happened to many people. Yes Microsoft does says to uninstall your security programs installed on your system before starting the upgrade process, and Yes, Microsoft does have a notification system for security software to be notify them that a Windows upgrade is taking place and not screw it up, but apparently most security software choose to ignore to implement it.