Win 8 /64-bit sticky needed?

If your system is working well; WAIT!
All those questions will be answered in 6 months.
You'll be ready to upgrade your DAW then anyway.
Follow Jim's (StudioCat) and Scott's (ADK) posts.
When they start offering Win8 on their machines, then it'll be time to move.

T

I haven't lost a thing going to Windows 8. In fact I have gained much. One thing people and developers should understand is unlike when Vista first appeared Win 7 and now Win 8 have been well tested in real world environments for a long time by real people. When I hear developers talk about not being sure about Win 8 I have to wonder where have they been. Win 8 is no surprise to anyone yet we see the same kind of angst that we saw with Vista. They had a right to be shocked by Vista or even unprepared for it. With Win 8 there is no excuse except for their own laziness. 

Also there is still a group dedicated to bashing anything  coming from MS no matter what it might be. They may resent MS's success or it could be simple pure dislike.

What the reason is is unimportant but if you read blogs that consistently bash it or past offerings from MS your BS meter should tick to high.  

People seem to be surprised when I praise Vista. Its not what they heard about it. None of them bothered to try it yet they have a strong view. Please don't be fooled by those that would want you to past it by.  They are not speaking the truth. This is even more so with Windows 8.  

We went through this same thing with X1. Some of you will remember the nasty posts by seemingly knowledgeable users. Then you heard others like myself defend it. I was attacked and ridiculed by some. A few still hold a grudge. But I can only relate what I have experienced. When I have seen an issue I report it and confirm it for others. But I do not automatically jump to the conclusion that its a problem with the program.

What happened with X1 was it was a first release and it did have bugs but much of what was thought to be bugs were simple user error. X1 changed how we are to use Sonar. Some didn't get the memo thus they thought it was irretrievably broken. That was not the case. And you all know it now.

Now we have a new OS and a new Sonar are those same people going to make the same mistakes? Are you going to be held back because they caution you? 

Do a dual boot or as I did get a new HD and clean install it. Use a flash drive or whatever and see for yourself. Than transition over as you see fit. Or go back to what you know so well. 

Just don't take anyones word for it, including mine.  

I am here to help if I can. 
   

John, totally minor, but I was never to get a bootable 8 install on a USB drive. I use Linux this way, but I'm pretty sure you can't install Windows 8 on a removable USB drive. I even tried an ESata drive and it caused some confusion which I eventually abandoned.

I'll keep you guessing and leave it to another thread John. Group policy objects, windows server integration and stability.... Sucked... Compared to xp and win 7. Oh just google it the info is everywhere.... All machines ran on Windows update....Hey you build your own machines John so by your own experience you are qualified to know everything ;) I'm stupid enough to own a Dell with a 5 year warranty so what would I know... Heh.

John, CakeAlexS seems stung by a bad experience. I don't read that he's taking his frustration out on you. More that he's throwing up his hands. Vista was hard for lots of people for lots of reasons. The biggest one IMHO is the rewrite of the driver model. It was the first in the LongHorn alley of OSs (which I feel included 7 and at least half of 8 - Long horn didn't predict the need for the same OS to run on many devices so the lightweight part of 8 isn't really part of the longhorn vision). It sounds to me like CakeAlexS might have been deploying Vista in a company environment, and very few large companies chose to do this, but some smaller ones did. Schools did. And they paid a rather high bleeding edge price imho. Tech support is usually minimally staffed anyway, and if you have to get every one-off device working well, the change in the driver model would have meant lots of struggles around those printers the bosses connect to at home, etc. Personally, I'm surprised Alex mentions GP. Wasn't GP new in Server 2000 and wasn't it also applied to XP? Why Group Policy would have been a problem in Vista only, I'm not sure. There may have been people trying to implement GP for the first time with Vista. In GP each object can be in 1 and only 1 OU, so a person would be in an OU. Their computer would be in an OU. Many stratified the OUs of he people and the computers so the Sum of the 2 OUs (OU for human and OU for machine) made sense. Like... and OUs for each department and add the machines to those OUs and OUs for employee pay grade and add Users to those OUs. Then a VP of Sales would have some privileges as a VP but would not have some things as being in Sales. An Analyst in IS would have broad privileges from being in IS but restrictions as an analyst. This TMI for this thread. sorry. Mostly, I wanted to chime in that I didn't read Alex as trying to call you a know it all, really. Mostly, he's stung by an OS. Obviously, both you and I got Vista working fine and made a bunch of great recordings with it. Vista is when I went X64. I remember working with you to do it, and I appreciate the help you gave me.

I just thought a sticky would be a more organized, but there are many topics for the Win 8/ 64 bit controversy.
I posted this in another topic, but it helped me make up my mind for now.  

 I love this summary from Focusrite about Windows 8 drivers for most products over a year old:  If you are serious about music making or rely on your Focusrite hardware to earn a living, we strongly advise that you wait for at least 6 months or more before updating to the latest OS until any unexpected issues arise and are dealt with.  no support yet for the Saffire Pro 24 so guess I'll wait. 

Looking at the Focusrite OS checker it seems they have no support for Win 8 at all.  I would wonder why when Win 8 has been out for over a year already and many developers have developed drivers for it. It would seem that it serves them well to make such a statement considering they seem to not be ready for it. As for it not been tested how much more is needed? 

As for a drink how about tomorrow at noon at the OK coral?