Microsoft May Limit The Number of Windows 8 Editions

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According to C|Net, Microsoft may limit the number of Windows 8 editions to just three (six if you count 32bit - 64bit versions). Missing from the list is any mention of a basic or a high end ultimate edition. Odd, don't you think?

Software giant could cut back on the different editions, or SKUs, for Windows 8 to just six, according to two HP documents. Microsoft could be aiming to simplify Windows 8 by trimming the number of editions, or SKUs, sold to the public.
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How about just limit it to one disc, but make it unique by CD key code. The keycode will determine if it's Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
 
I thought 32bit Windows was supposed to die a quick death after Windows 7.
 
I never got the point of expanding the number of editions in the first place.
 
Good.
Have a few base OS editions then sell certain things as upgrades.
For example, I *love* Windows Media Center, but the vast majority of people on Home Premium never ever use it.
 
wiseoracle said:
How about just limit it to one disc, but make it unique by CD key code. The keycode will determine if it's Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
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they kind of have that with 7. You can buy upgrade cards or something and type the code in and it will unlock/download the features
 
Skripka said:
I never got the point of expanding the number of editions in the first place.
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Usually it's so they can get businesses to pay more for Windows, but cut home users slack to encourage everyone to run the latest (and theoretically most secure) version.

The W8 SKU system is probably going to be similar to Windows XP.

Standard = Everything except joining Active Directory
Professional = Everything including Active Directory support
Enterprise = Volume licensed version of Professional

So basically 99% of the people will just be running Windows 8.
 
I agree, would like to just see Standard and Enterprise versions. I have Windows 7 x64 Home Premium and love it but wish I had gotten Professional because Home Premium only supports up to 16GB of memory. I know most people will say that is overkill and it would be but I love using RAMDISK to cache my temp files and encode to, play games from, etc. Really wish I had 32 or 64 GB or RAM. If your not using a RAMDISK then you should and if you are you know what I'm talking about. Now to find that RAM icon I had on my Amiga Ramdisk back in the 90's...
 
Oh and an upgrade from Home Premium to Professional for $89.95!? WTF Microsoft. don't even think Apples iOS full upgrades cost that much, much less a step up!
 
DizConnected said:
Oh and an upgrade from Home Premium to Professional for $89.95!? WTF Microsoft. don't even think Apples iOS full upgrades cost that much, much less a step up!
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True.. I agree, step-up Windows upgrades cost too much.

But, I can also say that full version iOS upgrades are underpriced. apple can do that because they have already scammed extra money out of you by charging 2-3x the amount a comparable PC/Laptop would have cost.
 
DizConnected said:
I agree, would like to just see Standard and Enterprise versions. I have Windows 7 x64 Home Premium and love it but wish I had gotten Professional because Home Premium only supports up to 16GB of memory. I know most people will say that is overkill and it would be but I love using RAMDISK to cache my temp files and encode to, play games from, etc. Really wish I had 32 or 64 GB or RAM. If your not using a RAMDISK then you should and if you are you know what I'm talking about. Now to find that RAM icon I had on my Amiga Ramdisk back in the 90's...
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I have 16GB and all SSDs in my system and I have been looking at RAMdisk software in the last week or so. I really want to get any temp files, etc., off of the one platter drive that I have (only there for storage; no programs run from it) and I certainly don't want any running on my SSDs.

What RAMdisk software would you recommend? I tried Dataram's RAMDisk trial but it just crashes when I run it and it was the most highly recommended of reviews that I looked through. So, it's not an option to buy of the trial will not even run correctly.

Thanks.
 
Dataram's RAMDisk is the one I use, never had it crash on me yet.

From working tech support for Frontier DSL for 9 Months I can tell you the most people that called in with viruses were running Windows XP most without any virus protection. So yeah most of the country needs an upgrade of some sort to a new OS. I recommend Windows 7 to everyone but most people would be just fine running Linux or Chrome OS.
 
Rebel44 said:
MS should kill 32bit versions.
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And kill a large portion of potential upgrades in the process. A lot of tech people update their families computers to the latest & greatest for them and many (if not most) of those PCs are still 32 bit machines. I think they could get away with it going into Windows 9, but as of right now I still think it's too soon. My parents just got rid of their 32 bit machine and my uncle is just now about to get rid of his. Those are but two examples; however, it's indicative of the general PC landscape that I've seen over the years.

I'm cool with cutting down on the number of SKUs though.
 
Randle2I said:
And kill a large portion of potential upgrades in the process. A lot of tech people update their families computers to the latest & greatest for them and many (if not most) of those PCs are still 32 bit machines. I think they could get away with it going into Windows 9, but as of right now I still think it's too soon. My parents just got rid of their 32 bit machine and my uncle is just now about to get rid of his. Those are but two examples; however, it's indicative of the general PC landscape that I've seen over the years.

I'm cool with cutting down on the number of SKUs though.
Click to expand...

Look. Sooner or later you have to cut the umbilical cord of compatibility. Look at OSX.
 
Randle2I said:
And kill a large portion of potential upgrades in the process. A lot of tech people update their families computers to the latest & greatest for them and many (if not most) of those PCs are still 32 bit machines. I think they could get away with it going into Windows 9, but as of right now I still think it's too soon. My parents just got rid of their 32 bit machine and my uncle is just now about to get rid of his. Those are but two examples; however, it's indicative of the general PC landscape that I've seen over the years.

I'm cool with cutting down on the number of SKUs though.
Click to expand...

I don't know that you'd want to run Windows 8 on any of the old 32bit CPUsnyhow. The last time mainstream CPUs where CPUs was with the Athlon-XP and Early/Mid lifecycle Pentium 4s. Then the Athlon 64s and 64bit Pentium 4s took over.
 
Randle2I said:
And kill a large portion of potential upgrades in the process. A lot of tech people update their families computers to the latest & greatest for them and many (if not most) of those PCs are still 32 bit machines. I think they could get away with it going into Windows 9, but as of right now I still think it's too soon. My parents just got rid of their 32 bit machine and my uncle is just now about to get rid of his. Those are but two examples; however, it's indicative of the general PC landscape that I've seen over the years.

I'm cool with cutting down on the number of SKUs though.
Click to expand...

I find it hard to believe that there are a huge number of pre-64 bit capable machines still being used that would even be worth upgrading the OS on.

Any AMD Athlon64 or newer and the newer Intel P4 chips can run 64-bit OS.

Any single core older AMD or Intel CPU is going to be horrid if going to anything past XP, not to mention that they probably won't have the RAM needed for a good experience on a newer Windows OS.
 
Randle2I said:
And kill a large portion of potential upgrades in the process. A lot of tech people update their families computers to the latest & greatest for them and many (if not most) of those PCs are still 32 bit machines. I think they could get away with it going into Windows 9, but as of right now I still think it's too soon. My parents just got rid of their 32 bit machine and my uncle is just now about to get rid of his. Those are but two examples; however, it's indicative of the general PC landscape that I've seen over the years.
I'm cool with cutting down on the number of SKUs though.
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Microsoft should just drop the 32 bit version with Windows 8.

Almost every system bought withing the last 5 years should support a 64 bit OS, and anything older than that should be fine with 32 bit Windows 7 for the few useful years they have left.

In the office, the only reason I've had to deploy any 32 bit Windows 7, was for a few users running a very old application. We are finally talking about replacing this app as it is so out of date, that a current version would save alot of time.

All my home systems have been running 64 bit for almost 2 years. Most people (non-technical) don't upgrade thier OS, they buy a new system, with the new OS. They shouldn't be shipping any new systems with a 32 bit OS any more due to the 4GB memory limit.
 
Skripka said:
Look. Sooner or later you have to cut the umbilical cord of compatibility. Look at OSX.
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Regrettably, Microsoft will go to enormous lengths, and spend vast amounts of resources — corrupting clean code with dirty hacks in the process — to ensure compatibility with old software/old platforms.

I do feel like they should do something to at least make getting a copy of 32-bit Windows 8 difficult or more expensive, but that also goes against their business interests. Microsoft is very much interested in selling as many copies of Windows as possible, so they can't feasibly take an idealistic approach to the 64-bit transition and just cut everyone off.

We all have to do our part. As software developers, hardware developers and as people involved in the tech world, it kind of has to be our fight. If you're writing a Windows app, for instance, just go tell 32-bit users to pound sand.
 
There's too many third party controls/toolkits out there that prevent a full transition to 64 bit for us. Nuance.... I'm looking at YOU.
 
cyclone3d said:
Any single core older AMD or Intel CPU is going to be horrid if going to anything past XP, not to mention that they probably won't have the RAM needed for a good experience on a newer Windows OS.
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I'm actually upgrading some of the old office P4's (single core, 2.4 Ghz, 2GB ram) to Windows 7.
I ran some tests, and Windows 7 (32 bit) actually felt faster when running Office 2010 than compared to the same system with XP and Office 2010.

Of course I wouldn't actually spend real money for this upgrade, as it wouldn't be worth it. However, the OS license doesn't cost me anything, and I can strip some of the extra systems to upgrade the memory, so the only cost is my time (doesn't take long to drop an image on a drive). Having everyone on the same OS & Office version is well worth the time.
 
It doesn't really matter. Metro has turned it into a Pumpkin anyway.
 
That makes sense and makes it easier for their customer service. I'm also on board w/ killing off the 32-bit version. Sure, there's still a small # of folks using low end processors, but for them, let them stay on the Win 7 train. Win 7 will be supported for another decade, I'd guess, so no biggie.
 
Is my point earlier about ARM CPUs incorrect or something? I thought ARM CPUs currently are mostly still 32-bit. If one of the big pushes with Win 8 is ARM support and mobile devices, wouldn't not supporting 32-bit be self defeating?
 
All they need is a total of 4 versions.

Windows 8 32 and 64
Windows 8 Server 32 and 64

I'm so tired of dealing with all the different versions. Stop trying to screw people on such stupid little upgrades, this is why people pirate your software. OSX is 30 bucks full version
 
limitedaccess said:
Is my point earlier about ARM CPUs incorrect or something? I thought ARM CPUs currently are mostly still 32-bit. If one of the big pushes with Win 8 is ARM support and mobile devices, wouldn't not supporting 32-bit be self defeating?
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I don't think windows 8 for arm is going to be a mainstream release. Just the manufactures of arm devices will get it. Much of the code base for windows 8 for arm is not the same as x86/64 windows 8 so Microsoft could most likely ditch 32 bit without impacting arm.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5527/microsoft-provides-windows-on-arm-details for more info.
 
macboy said:
All they need is a total of 4 versions.

Windows 8 32 and 64
Windows 8 Server 32 and 64

I'm so tired of dealing with all the different versions. Stop trying to screw people on such stupid little upgrades, this is why people pirate your software. OSX is 30 bucks full version
Click to expand...

It's already been said in this thread an many others that OSX costs $30 to buy, but Apple makes so much on their hardware that it can cover development costs. They aren't making much if any money off $30 for their OS and certainly not enough to fund the whole business.

Also, I don't know why most people would ever buy anything except for Home Premium edition any way. The only thing you get with Professional is domain support and more than 16 gigs of ram. The only things ultimate gives you are more langauges and some encryption stuff you could get from truecrypt. So yeah Microsoft does charge more for different versions, but almost nobody is connecting to a domain at home or running 16 gigs of ram. If they spend the money to upgrade instead of picking the correct version in the first place, they probably are just stupid.
 
The big issue is that 64 bit versions of windows do not support 16 bit software. Yes, it is an issue, particularly in corporations.
 
Skolar said:
It's already been said in this thread an many others that OSX costs $30 to buy, but Apple makes so much on their hardware that it can cover development costs. They aren't making much if any money off $30 for their OS and certainly not enough to fund the whole business.
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Apple and Microsoft are also very different companies. Apple makes the hardware and software for all their products. I realize they buy in parts, but they do it all themselves. Microsoft just makes the software and sells that so I guess it makes sense to make multiple versions to get more profit for doing the same work and just editing their software. A lot of business's have to have Pro versions, but for the general public Home Premium works just fine. I just think they should bundle all the things and just make one OS. Or drop off some of the dumb things that take up extra space and make it a download like windows mail.
 
macboy said:
All they need is a total of 4 versions.

Windows 8 32 and 64
Windows 8 Server 32 and 64

I'm so tired of dealing with all the different versions. Stop trying to screw people on such stupid little upgrades, this is why people pirate your software. OSX is 30 bucks full version
Click to expand...


I completely agree about only 2 versions.

Apple doesn't make money off of the software so much as screwing everyone on the hardware. At 30 bucks a shot I'd be surprised if they even break even selling the OS. Also if it wasn't for ARM I'd say ditch 32 bit also. It's been 8 years since the first 64 bit consumer processors came out. It's time to move on.
 
Rebel44 said:
MS should kill 32bit versions.
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We can't do that without violating the "if it had a logo for win7 or vista it will run win8". There are 32 bit only systems and components out there with logos - e.g. some boards for Intel's Atom processor.
 
I've never owned an apple product, but to upgrade their OS can't you just by it and download it from their software center like you can a game on steam? Seems to me that without packaging and physical media they should be making something on $30.

I'd be fine with a Windows 7 or 8 that I could download onto a USB thumb drive and install for $30.
 
Skolar said:
Also, I don't know why most people would ever buy anything except for Home Premium edition any way. The only thing you get with Professional is domain support and more than 16 gigs of ram. The only things ultimate gives you are more langauges and some encryption stuff you could get from truecrypt. So yeah Microsoft does charge more for different versions, but almost nobody is connecting to a domain at home or running 16 gigs of ram. If they spend the money to upgrade instead of picking the correct version in the first place, they probably are just stupid.
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Ultimate does give you acess to more physical CPUs (so anyone with a SR-2/dual xeons is going to need it), and windows XP mode (which isn't really great but you can run items in "VM mode" outside of the VM). It has better backup restore stuff, and better remote network things. The full dwitchable OS langauges are useful in a number of situations with multilingual users. If you are coming from vista ultimate, it's the only edition which will allow an in place upgrade.

But for 95% of people it has no use now they removed tinker and dream scene. :(
 
macboy said:
Stop trying to screw people on such stupid little upgrades, this is why people pirate your software. OSX is 30 bucks full version
Click to expand...

OSX "new" versions (they are really just paid for patches) come out every year it seems, windows editions come out every 3-5 years, so the OSX versions cost much more. They also break a whole ton of crap, or break old programs compatibility (plus it's a crappy OS that I wouldn't wish on anyone).
 
wiseoracle said:
How about just limit it to one disc, but make it unique by CD key code. The keycode will determine if it's Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
Click to expand...

Err...7 and Vista already do this. All the editions are on one disc (separate discs for x86 and x64, most likely for space reasons). What makes you think MS won't do the same for Windows 8?
 
DeathPrincess said:
Ultimate does give you acess to more physical CPUs (so anyone with a SR-2/dual xeons is going to need it), and windows XP mode (which isn't really great but you can run items in "VM mode" outside of the VM).
Click to expand...

Source? I thought Professional had support for multi-processor machines as well as access to XP Mode.

DeathPrincess said:
But for 95% of people it has no use now they removed tinker and dream scene. :(
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But now you can get Tinker for all editions of Vista and 7: http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/games/pages/tinker.aspx

Dreamscene, too, can be hacked in nearly all editions of 7 (Aero is required though): http://www.dreamsceneseven.com/
 
GushpinBob said:
Source? I thought Professional had support for multi-processor machines as well as access to XP Mode.
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It does, but it was about the differences over windows home premium! Professional only lacks some of the more "advanced" features, but usually sell for about the same amount (probably because ultimate is more popular).

But now you can get Tinker for all editions of Vista and 7: http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/games/pages/tinker.aspx

Dreamscene, too, can be hacked in nearly all editions of 7 (Aero is required though): http://www.dreamsceneseven.com/
Click to expand...

So now there is 0 reason for an ultimate edition! :D

Unless...they come out with some new ultimate addons... I want a surround/eyefinity 3d version of starfield... or blu ray player software...

There reall only is 3 versions of windows 7:
Starter (netbooks, 32bit only)
Home, (home stater is home without a few things) and
Ultimate (enterprise is volume ultimate, professional is ultimate minus a few features).
 
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