When Microsoft first announced the release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I did some quick figuring, and found out that, based on past performance and technical issues, this OS was doomed to fall under the "Microsoft Curse", where every other OS they released would suck*, and each "cursed" OS would suck at an order of magnitude worse than the last (and let's face it, Vista was pretty horrible), but I fired up my VirtualBox software, and decided to give it a go, anyway. Sadly, I hated most of what I saw. First off, where the F%&* was my Start Menu? And secondly, what did they DO to my Desktop?!?!?! Little did I realize that those two were the same thing. There were a lot of interesting things going on, but I was too blinded by the entire Start Screen thing to see them objectively. Whatever the reason, I decided that Win 8 was cursed, and simply gave up on it.

Then I hear that Microsoft is practically giving Win 8 away (and the "Pro" edition, no less!) for a ridiculous price of $40USD, and I was tempted, but I stuck to my decision not to be seduced by the price, or all of the reviews of "it loads crazy fast!" and such. After all, it was only a matter of time before the world realized that I was right, Win 8 was cursed, and I would become vindicated for not turning to the Dark Side. Then Mom went ahead and succumbed, botched the install on her laptop, and I had to fix it.

The fix was actually a simple matter of updating the graphics driver, and was fairly simple to do. Mom had an HDMI monitor attached to the laptop, and I was beginning to notice some things with a multiple screen setup that I never would have noticed with Win 8 in a single screen, VM environment: They've FINALLY started treating each monitor as a separate entity!

That was the final blow. I broke down, scrabbled up all my pennies, and timidly handed Uncle Bill my $39.99USD and asked, "Please Sir. Might I have some more?" From that moment on, my downfall was assured.

I now have Windows 8 Pro installed on my desktop computer. The horrible trials and sufferings that I described when I went from XP Pro to Win 7 were practically non-existent, the computer still has the same file layout and structure, and the install process (not including app/program installation of course; that's still ongoing) took less than 2 1/2 hours, total, and had only one minor glitch - again, a video card problem that required updated drivers; go figure!

I still hate the Start Screen, and quite likely always will, but all of the other "plusses" so far outweigh that one "minus" that I don't think I'll regret having made the switch. So as you can see, I've turned to the Dark Side, but that's ok. It's better over here.









*Note: The curse only seems to apply to consumer products, rather than including enterprise/server editions

Sure I been trying to get you to switch for some time now, and a driver issue with your moms laptop changes your mind. shesh  go figure 

anyways congrats, now let the fun (program installing) begin