[ghshephard]

Quick question, without searching - what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you?

My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, and just outright hanging. I'm going to wait at least a year from now on before upgrading my OS, and then, only if there is some "Must Have" feature in the new platform.

I've got a Windows XP Desktop to the left of me, on a January 2004 Precision 650 - it runs pretty much flawlessly; no blue screens/hangs or other problems in two+ years. I use it mostly for outlook+lookout, Microsoft Visio, VMware Workstation - Zero need to upgrade - So I've been able to skip Vista, Windows 7 and now, apparently, Windows 8. About the only thing I've done is go through two monitor upgrades (Started with a 45 Pound 21" CRT, went to a (considered extravagant back then) 21" LCD - it's now sporting a Dell 30".

I'm honestly interested in knowing how long I'll be able to keep this desktop running. (Clearly, the $40 to $200 jump is having no impact on me)

[arde]

Windows 8's UI is noticeably faster than its predecessors.

And if you have a Windows 7-based tablet like I do, you'll appreciate the new touch UI because Windows 7's was not very good while Windows 8's is more reasonable.

Also, Windows 8 doesn't seem as half-baked as previous Windows versions did at the time they were released. Then must have improved their testing process because being a Windows 8 early adopter no longer feels like being a beta tester.

I'm not a Microsoft lover, not by a long stretch, but for Windows users this is an offer too good to pass.

[arde]

This one wasn't one of the reasons I considered, but I find it interesting:

Suppose you upgrade any old OEM Windows XP or later that's bound to the hardware that you bought it with. Once you upgrade, you are no longer bound by the old license but by the new one. So you now have a full Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, that you can move somewhere else, virtualize, etc. That's what the license says, as far as I understand it (IANAL, but I have read it thoroughly).

Edit for clarification: even though you get a Windows 8 Pro, not OEM, it's still a Windows 8 Pro Upgrade. So yes, you can move it somewhere else or virtualize it, but it still needs to be installed over an existing and properly licensed Windows copy (XP or later).

[xradionut]

Must Have feature?

I must have it to test software for clients. Otherwise it's as about as useful as a foot steered automobile.

[bchjam]

The best reason for me was the gating of tools for building Win8 apps. I haven't actually made any Win8 apps yet but I've worked with the XAML stack before and occasionally get tempted to play with it.

[mrng]

> My OS X Lion System finally (finally!) stabilized > around 10.7.5, stopped kernel panicking, beach balling, > and just outright hanging.

May I ask what you've been doing? Old Unix/NT guy here (Unix from 1988, NT from 1994), using OS X since 2008. Never had such a problem with my 17" MB Pro (early 2008)

[Osmium]

Just wanted to second this. Regular kernel panics = something seriously wrong. Either a hardware fault, or a bad kext or something. If anyone reading this has problems with OS X and stability, try running this:

http://khiltd.com/software/consultants_canary

It'll give you a list of every "non-standard" thing you have installed (e.g. kernel extensions), and between that and log files, it might help pinpointing the issue.

Apologies for being off-topic, it just seemed to be perverse to me to avoid upgrading because for stability reasons, when the new version should generally be more stable not less.

[ghshephard]

I think we can all agree that 10.6.8 was delightfully stable, and the first few versions of 10.7 were a bit of a clusterf*ck. My pain just went on a bit longer than most people. Lesson learned.

[ghshephard]

The Transition from Snow Leopard to Lion was a Fiasco. Six months in I was sorely tempted to see if I could revert back to Snow Leopard, and in hindsight, I wish I had.

Late 2010 13" MBAir (Best Laptop I've ever owned) - lots of KEXT issues, VMware Fusion interaction issues, FTDI Serial Driver Issues, Recovery from Sleep, and lots of beachballing on Mail.app.

Things started to get better on 10.7.4, and they returned to circa 10.6.8sh Snow Leopard Stability on 10.7.5. About the only thing that causes this laptop to Kernel Panic now is pulling out the USB Cable when it has an FTDI Serial Device and I'm running VMware Fusion - Kernel panics used to be a weekly thing, and, with the exception of the FTDI/VMWare thing - it's now been two+ months since I've seen one. Beachballing, also, is down to what you would normally expect.

Anyways - I'm happy now, and I'm one of those guys who will wait a year (or two) before moving to Lion. Or maybe I'll just buy a new laptop, and keep the old one for work, and wait for the new one to stabilize. Anyways, no new operating systems for me.

[Havoc]

>what's the driving "Must Have" feature in Windows 8 for you?

The "8" part mainly. I'll probably buy it just for good measure in case its an advantage upgrade wise when win 9 rolls by (Assuming MS is still dominant then).

[diminoten]

Speed mainly, improved bootup times. Improved task manager too, and also integrated Windows Defender.

Nothing huge, but $40? Pretty damn cheap.