sliderider wrote:
Windows 8 Pro users can get a free backgrade to 7, but not the consumer version. Sort of like how 7 had an XP mode on the expensive versions that the consumer version didn't get.
Not quite the same as XP Mode - XP Mode is virtualization to run some XP-based apps, and primarily targets business users who need to support IE6.0 among other things (and Vista actually offered a similar feature for business/enterprise users, its called MED-V). XP Mode is available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate as a free download; here's a good article about it: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology … indows-xp-mode/ (note specifically that it is not for gaming). 8 Pro offers downgrade rights to Vista Business or 7 Professional (and in that situation you actually are uninstalling Windows 8 and loading Vista Business or 7 Pro in its place, not running a VM), which also isn't new for Microsoft (downgrade rights for pro/enterprise versions that is; Windows 7 Professional includes the same rights to downgrade to Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional). It also isn't universal to all 8 Pro users; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2832566
Microsoft has offered this for quite some time; I think since either Windows Vista or Windows XP. I know I remember hearing about people taking advantage of it with new OEM Vista machines to get XP after its retail availability ended, for example. I'm not sure if XP Professional allowed you to downgrade to 2000 or ??? (Windows Me? 🤣) though.
Oh, and I knew the Bill Gates thing was Vista and was making a joke - I didn't expect to learn about some new horror... 🤣
F2bnp wrote:Main reasons I want to get rid of Windows 8 are the following: […]
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Main reasons I want to get rid of Windows 8 are the following:
1) Pathetic support for MIDI, setting up BASSMIDI, MUNT and my own Roland SC-7 has been a pain
2) Compatibility with older games and full-screen speed
I had to play an RPG Maker game in a small window because fullscreen was running at like 15fps
Drakan : Order of The Flame is also running fine in a window, but slows down insanely when run full-screen
3) Some weird issues with administrator rights and write privileges on my main disk
Other than that, I have been enjoying the insanely fast boot times and overall snappier feeling to everything. I like the new Task Manager somewhat and some other stuff like the window the combines "Copying files..." windows. I never use the damned Start Screen though.
If Windows 8 could somehow fix the first two issues, I'd never go back to Windows 7.
Is the "admin rights and write privileges" by chance the "take ownership" issue that Vista and 7 also experienced (especially if you're coming from disks that were formatted/used in a Windows 2000 or Windows XP environment)? Otherwise I got no idea there. I've heard the MIDI support is botched from other folks too, so that's probably just "how it is" unfortunately. 😒
On the games running poorly, does disabling desktop composition do anything for it?