Free upgrade to Win 8 pro

Link to article http://www.tomshardware.c...ro-free-key,19259.html

  I use VLC Player. It's free unless you care to donate. It works great in Windows 8. I can even play my DVD/DTS audio disks which is something you couldn't do with WMP.

MS removed that ability from the regular Media Player in Win8.

What? Why would they do that? Man that company peeves me off sometimes. The media player that came with 7 is next to useless as it is. What a joke. Yet another reason for me to avoid Win 8. Maybe next time I need a heavy duty system I'll have the cash for a Mac. Hopefully Cakewalk will start coding that way. PCs are starting to lose any ground they had over Apple... because they're trying to BE Apple and failing miserably. Lame.

Beepster

MS removed that ability from the regular Media Player in Win8.

What? Why would they do that? Man that company peeves me off sometimes. The media player that came with 7 is next to useless as it is. What a joke. Yet another reason for me to avoid Win 8. Maybe next time I need a heavy duty system I'll have the cash for a Mac. Hopefully Cakewalk will start coding that way. PCs are starting to lose any ground they had over Apple... because they're trying to BE Apple and failing miserably. Lame.

Beepster - take a deep breath.  Windows has removed things in the past due to legal requirements from battles with various litigants, like the EU, among others.


They HAD to pull out things like Windows Movie Maker from automatically being included in the install, to satisfy anti-trust lawsuits in the past, and I would imagine this has happened again here.  For the Movie Maker, they moved it to still being free, just requiring a separate download - bundled with Live (or whatever they called it).


And, I happen to like Windows 8.  I have had zero crashes or issues, and things run smoothly.


It's going to be ok - :)

Bob Bone

Beepster

MS removed that ability from the regular Media Player in Win8.

What? Why would they do that? Man that company peeves me off sometimes. The media player that came with 7 is next to useless as it is. What a joke. Yet another reason for me to avoid Win 8. Maybe next time I need a heavy duty system I'll have the cash for a Mac. Hopefully Cakewalk will start coding that way. PCs are starting to lose any ground they had over Apple... because they're trying to BE Apple and failing miserably. Lame.

I don't know what to say to you except it really is not an issue. The ability is still there with a simple free down load. Further there are a number of media player type programs out there that can be used along side MP. Also I use extra codecs that again are free that give Windows complete audio and video compatibility. There is nothing to get upset about. I should mention you get more than one media player with Windows 8 anyway. 

You loose nothing going to Window 8. However you gain a lot. 

The way I look at Win8, MS did go back to the basics. They took what they already had and squeezed every drop of performance they could get out of it, all the way down to removing the Aero theme. And if it's all related to getting it to run on more devices, that's fine with me. Everything from Win7 is still there and more. I even installed Win8 on an eight-year-old laptop I have that could barely run Win7, and it's given that machine new life.

It's not just that, John. It's the way MS makes everyone... EVERYONE chase their tails. I'm currently a little sore about it right now. As you know I built my system to work with Sonar... specifically. That included the OS. Now I've got this amazing piece of DAW software (X2) but it's not working at capacity. I was more than willing to wait for a decent patch, that's just how things are and I understand that, but it seems the bakers put more time into working on making things work with a barely released OS than making sure it's solid on the tried and true OS most of us are using. Do I blame Cakewalk? Well... maybe just a little but I understand. They gotta keep up with the times or potentially risk getting left in the dirt because people can't resist the shiny new thing. 

I'm not that guy. Shiny things can bugger off. I want my trusty old workhouse that's mottled and covered in crap. Unfortunately because of MS now it's being force fed sparkles and fancy froos. 

No, sir. I don't like it.

Anyway... I'm just cranky today and MS annoys me at the best of times. The whole leaving out basic functions of a basic media player... well it made me extra cranky.

I'll be go old and bitter somewhere else for a while so ya'll don't have to suffer anymore. ;-p

CakeAlexS


> You may be unaware but its selling better than Windows 7 did.

However less are installing it, people are taking advantage of cheap prices... Real test is in Feb.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/09/microsoft_windows_8_sales_up/

John do you work for Windows 8 marketing dept nowadays? :). Serious you are doing better than they are not kidding! (I don't mean this sarcastically!).

>what MS has done is create an OS that now is platform independent in that it can run on a phone or a tablet or a laptop or a desktop.

Unsure what you mean by "platform independant", that seems like a generic term for all OS's. Do you mean platform compatible? If so that is a common misconception. Phones etc (e.g Surface) run on "Windows 8 RT" or "Windows Phone" and that only works on ARM devices. It's got nothing to do with Windows 8 on desktops (just looks the same for some UI screens, and is marketed the same).

It makes life a little easier for developing software across the platforms however, although I'm told MS aren't quite there yet. It's basically a bridge betwen the gap of Windows 7 and 9 which may have far better compatibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions

Anyway I like Windows 8, just not using as much as Win 7 - YET. Anyone who was using Vista or earlier will be sure to like Win8 regardless.

I'm not too sure that it makes a difference. No a phone isn't going run Sonar but my desktop can run everything that phone can. 

Windows 8 is basically Windows 7 under the hood. The put a gui shell on the 7 thats all. You can get tools to remove this shell and you have a nice windows 7 back again if you are not into all that flashy interface.

Beepster


It's not just that, John. It's the way MS makes everyone... EVERYONE chase their tails. I'm currently a little sore about it right now. As you know I built my system to work with Sonar... specifically. That included the OS. Now I've got this amazing piece of DAW software (X2) but it's not working at capacity. I was more than willing to wait for a decent patch, that's just how things are and I understand that, but it seems the bakers put more time into working on making things work with a barely released OS than making sure it's solid on the tried and true OS most of us are using. Do I blame Cakewalk? Well... maybe just a little but I understand. They gotta keep up with the times or potentially risk getting left in the dirt because people can't resist the shiny new thing. 

I'm not that guy. Shiny things can bugger off. I want my trusty old workhouse that's mottled and covered in crap. Unfortunately because of MS now it's being force fed sparkles and fancy froos. 

No, sir. I don't like it.

Anyway... I'm just cranky today and MS annoys me at the best of times. The whole leaving out basic functions of a basic media player... well it made me extra cranky.

I'll be go old and bitter somewhere else for a while so ya'll don't have to suffer anymore. ;-p

I don't know what you mean about making everyone chase their tales. If you look at it from my perspective I am the one that should be upset with CW. They dropped Vista support. You advised me to upgrade to Windows 7 when I said I was going to Windows 8. Windows 7 still has full CW support so I don't get in what context you are peeved. All I am doing is extolling the clear advantage in Windows 8. You don't need to upgrade to it. You are fine staying with Windows 7.  I decided to move up to 8 because I saw real reasons to upgrade. First the OS I was using was no longer going to be supported by CW. The other main reason was 8 offered new and to me revolutionary new abilities. Windows 7 did none of that for me. It may have been an improvement over Vista but not enough for me to justify an upgrade. I did test it out and was not impressed. That did not mean it was a poor OS. It just meant I did not see a significant reason to upgrade. 

You can be upset with MS if you wish. I'm not sure why when the other main OS out there is much more likely to not support any legacy programs or drivers when it is updated. When Apple offers a new OS not only are they likely not going to support their own hardware but require one to buy a new computer to run it. 

I have nothing against Windows 7. I just like Windows 8. I like it for all the reasons I have been talking about for months now. With the way MS is dealing with new OSs these days by letting people try them and test them out while at the same time getting feedback on issues and in a very timely fashion fixing them I don't get the hostility. 

I will admit I am an MS fan and always have been.  I am a fan of PCs and always have been. The two to me go together. I don't feel cheated or made to buy stuff I don't need. I don't feel that CW or MS are out to get me. I look at it as a wonderful new world with great possibilities for now and in the future. 

You seem to have that same view with Sonar. I think you may forget that the OS and the program go hand in hand. If you buy into CW you are also buying into a developer that has always been at the cutting edge with the OS that MS provides. It isn't just features that impact a DAW its how well integrated the DAW is with the OS. Of all the DAWs that run under Windows Sonar is the most particular in how it works with the OS. This is both a curse and a blessing. 
 

 

 

The big thing for me with Windows 8 is potentially decent backup software. No need for third party. Previous iterations of Windows backup didn't cut the mustard. Also virtual machine with the pro version although not much use with DAWs.

I can't ask for any better right now with Win7 performance wise. CPU load may or may not be faster with Win 8 but I don't give a darn as I've never maxed out on Win 7. Recorded live today with 3 guitars (3 overloud virtual amps), a keyboard (soft synth and virtual amp) and vox (breverb). Plus four additional line ins for drum machines. Also running session drummer. I've got loads of additional plugins. One recording went on for two hours. CPU never went above 40%. Not one crash even with rough mixes later. This certainly would have been a different story with XP and Vista.

BTW if you don't like Win 8s metro interface you're probably haven't worked out how to use it efficiently. Just as effective as the start menu. Codecs smodecs, there's always a solution.... If you want a decent media player fork out for J River which is peanuts. Microsofts media player sucks in comparison.

For me the start screen is an option. I fine it useful but only to a point. I fully get Frank's view and have no problem with it. In fact I support it because it works for him.  Oh I also know how to use the start screen. 

What I like is that we now have choice back. 


Also at the end of your other post Alex you say  "This certainly would have been a different story with XP and Vista." I did just fine when I was using Vista and just fine with XP. I did lots of recordings that went on and on. Recording is an interface issue. If you have a good interface you should be able to record without problems. This was true back in the win 98 days too.