Windows 8

[BlueToffee]

Have had an invitation to upgrade from XP to Windows 8 for £30.

Is this a good offer, and should I take it up?

Your views will be appreciated.

[hc4361]

Yes! I was doubtful at first having read the bad reviews but I find it very good - quicker in every respect and easy to use.
It seems a bit strange at first (no start button!) but you will soon get the hang of it.

[KJN]

Depends where the invite came from? Reliable source??

[sfby]

Don't forget to check that you've got the hardware to run W8 - I would imagine that it requires a quicker processor / video card and more RAM than XP did.

[hc4361]

You can use the official upgrade assistant (free) to check compatibility.

[AB Editor]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/system-requirements

It's certainly not much more than Windows 7...

If you want to run Windows 8 on your PC, here's what it takes:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 (more info)
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

MS have been making Windows might lighter recently.

[jake-the-peg]

"upgrade" is a bit of a euphemism from XP

It's as near as damn it a fresh install

You dont get to keep applications or much other than your data

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj203353.aspx

[hc4361]

Installing any operating system, even XP, will give the pc a new lease of life. Worth doing once every two or three years - but not for the faint hearted.

[AB Editor]

"You dont get to keep applications or much other than your data"

This is true. The upgrade assistant here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8

Will let you see what you can keep. You'll need to work out what you need exactly.

[ichkeria]

I believe you need XP Service Pack 3 to upgrade to Windows 8 without actually doing a fresh install. Don't forget also you'll lose your system settings and applications, which will need reinstalling.
And of course you'll be backing up your files beforehand :-)

[BlueToffee]

Who's a silly Billy? Me. I am not running XP but Windows 7. Really sorry.

Thank you everybody for your informed replies.

By the way, the invitation appears to have come from Microsoft.

[hc4361]

Run this and copy and paste the results

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8