Windows 8 Pro, Ultimate Upgrade $39.99

[13Gigatons]

Last day....and I'm goooooooing tooooooooooooo skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip it.

Hope Windows 9 is better.

 

[sze5003]

The real pain isn't now, its months from now when some project is due and the OS takes a nose dive, and you get to try and remember all the hoops to jump through to re install like installing a previous version again first for upgrade only keys.

BTW I DO pin it on MS, their quasi hokey security, total lack of meaningful error messages if incorrect options are selected, and both the need to do a clean install and having that blocked if you use an upgrade key.

You can clean install and do the registry change plus re arm from cmd prompt and it will be activated. You should select keep nothing if you don't want install errors.

 

[Childs]

Last day....and I'm goooooooing tooooooooooooo skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip it.

Hope Windows 9 is better.

I was going to skip it as well, but I caved. $78 for two licenses isnt bad, and if I buy now I can update the PVR to MCE for free. I'll just keep the other license handy in case I want to update my gaming machine down the road.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

First post from windows 8 pro. So far I kind of like it although I have been using a windows phone 7 for a bit.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Now I'm off to get my media center code...

 

[nickbits]

Now I'm off to get my media center code...

Here you go.

24393-V74YQ-Y76N7-HQTBH-PWCM3
97K3G-WCJTN-KP79P-P6QQQ-MDTB3

I have more if someone needs one but they quit working in 1/2 hr I think

 

[mikeford]

You can clean install and do the registry change plus re arm from cmd prompt and it will be activated. You should select keep nothing if you don't want install errors.

Ah, that would be my first go round, selected keep nothing, install went smoothly, but with no error message or notice it showed windows 8 was not activated, and would not accept my "upgrade" key at that point. I tried a few things with no success, then rebooted from the Win8 install DVD and got the message "something like install already in progress, remove install media and boot to windows then run install from windows" and oddly enough that worked.

*** I say oddly as when I selected "install and keep nothing" I thoughtfully clicked the option to format the drive first to be sure it was a single full partition, so the upgrade only installed Win8 on a freshly formatted drive, wouldn't accept my upgrade key, but then cheerfully installed again over the first win8 install and worked fine.

Here you go.

24393-V74YQ-Y76N7-HQTBH-PWCM3
97K3G-WCJTN-KP79P-P6QQQ-MDTB3

I have more if someone needs one but they quit working in 1/2 hr I think

I am fairly certain you must request the free WMC key prior to midnight 1/31/13 from an activated Win8 install, and the key is linked to that specific install, but you can do the install any time. I am doing one right now.

Last night I finished my son's Win8 install just after midnight and activated, then went to the request free WMC site and put in the email associated with that install, but I don't have a WMC key from that request yet, takes up to 3 days. Since its MS taking up to 3 days to give me the key, how can they put a time limit on activation? or manage reinstalls months from now?

 

[Childs]

Here you go.

24393-V74YQ-Y76N7-HQTBH-PWCM3
97K3G-WCJTN-KP79P-P6QQQ-MDTB3

I have more if someone needs one but they quit working in 1/2 hr I think

Thanks! I used the one in bold since my key hasn't been emailed yet and I didnt know if it would be good in 1-3 days later. I'll post mine when I get it in case it can still be used.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Just took this one thanks

24393-V74YQ-Y76N7-HQTBH-PWCM3

 

[Childs]

Man, this is like the same MCE that was in Windows 7. I'm surprised they are charging for this.

EDIT: I want my money back...

 

[jlee]

I got a MCE key for my laptop but ordered a copy of Win8 for my desktop as well and they wouldn't give me a key. Oh well. I got one license for $14.99 (with MCE) and one for $39.99 (without), so I guess I'm set for a while - not sure if I'll end up running 8 or not, but it's nice to have the option.

 

[Crow550]

You have to enter the WMC key by the 1st or it expires.

I was thinking they would have added features like Blu-Ray playback which is why they are charging $9 for it. Sadly I see nothing new and they removed the always on top setting.

I'd use something like XBMC if it had native DVR support. Last time I looked WMC was the best simple option. Unless there is one I missed?

 

[darkewaffle]

Blu-ray licensing would make it cost way more than $9 I'd wager. Plus I get the impression it's a feature they're trying to get away from, not really expand.

 

[Zargon]

ugh totally forgot to get my last license

 

[nickbits]

I am fairly certain you must request the free WMC key prior to midnight 1/31/13 from an activated Win8 install, and the key is linked to that specific install, but you can do the install any time. I am doing one right now.

You didn't need to request from win8.. all you needed was a unique IP and email and you could get it. I got several from my phone since I could get new IPs easily.

I got a follow up email for each key stating "This promotion ends on January 31, 2013; your product key must be activated no later than February 1, 2013. "

So maybe they can still be used today.

Here are the last of my keys:
VJJ9D-MKPX6-3N46G-C66DJ-33TB3
MCGMB-V4GHH-67KVJ-NWTX8-4VRFQ
9FG79-T2YFY-3MC2N-MHQVB-3GJY3
TKB7F-HRQ63-NVG8K-6PT8X-C7GB3

 

[SunnyD]

lol @ posting media center keys. Given the KMS hack, you guys are basically giving away free copies of windows 8.

Anyway... if you still have any of the promo codes laying around from the upgrade offer... guess what:

Shopping cart
Promo code: applyApply
Windows 8 Pro $199.99

Edit shopping cart

Subtotal $199.99
Promo code: **-****-****-****-GFX ($185.00)
Tax $0.00
Total $14.99

 

[PokerGuy]

WMC is a "big feature"? Only about ~1.5% of users ever had it open for more than 10 minutes.

With regard to WMC, apparently you're not familiar with cablecard. If you use a cablecard so you don't have to use the crappy box from the cable company (which also saves money), WMC is the only game in town. Without it, no cable card.

It might not be a big feature for everyone (or even for most), but certainly for me it is. Why should I pay a ton of money to upgrade to a new OS that lacks features that were there previously and doesn't bring much of anything new to the table? Metro is utter crap.

Win7 has no "must have" feature aside from the fact that WinXP was finally reaching EOL.

Actually, Win 7 brought lots of features. Well, Vista technically brought them, but win 7 was essentially vista done correctly. Also, Win 7 didn't take away stuff you had in prior versions (like Aero, WMC and so forth).

At $40, one could justify getting win 8 for some of the under the hood improvements and things like storage spaces. Now that the price is more like $200 for the pro version (oh, and that's without WMC), you'd have to have your head examined if you consider paying that.

 

[PokerGuy]

lol @ posting media center keys. Given the KMS hack, you guys are basically giving away free copies of windows 8.

Anyway... if you still have any of the promo codes laying around from the upgrade offer... guess what:

The KMS hack loophole has been closed if I remember correctly. It will let you apply the WMC code, appear to be activated, but then become unactivated again. There are still ways to do it, but not as easily as it was before.

Looks like MS has adopted Intel's "tick-tock" method, but they've modified it to mean "tick" is good, "tock" is crap. Then the next "tick" does all the things the previous "tock" should have done.

 

[Childs]

I was thinking they would have added features like Blu-Ray playback which is why they are charging $9 for it. Sadly I see nothing new and they removed the always on top setting.

Yeah, I dont get it at all. I at least expected a refreshed UI to go with the Metro theme or something. But no, they couldnt even be bothered to update the icon, so it looks pathetic when pinned to that home screen. If anything, it was a total hassle because the upgrade to 8 wiped out my channel settings and I had to go through the long channel scan.

 

[chucky2]

Checking out the Windows 8 Get Started page...Micro$oft is now wanting $200 for Win 8 Pro Upgrade?!?! Are they insane?!?!

I foresee Win 8 sales plummeting...

 

[SunnyD]

The KMS hack loophole has been closed if I remember correctly.

I stand corrected.

 

[Basilisk]

Now that the price is more like $200 for the pro version (oh, and that's without WMC), you'd have to have your head examined if you consider paying that.

Actually, now that I've loaded W8+WMC I need my head examined.

In the past 24 hours I've spent considerably over two hours on the phone with MS, mostly on hold. When they finally answered last night, the department that handled WMC download problems had closed. When I called back this morning, they repeatedly argued that the Free WMC plan was now dead and I should pay even though (a) I couldn't download it yesterday because their register-to-get-the-ProductKey page failed, indicating I'd have to call MS (as many others over the past several weeks have had to), but (b) MS was under-staffed and didn't answer before the required staff left.

Why did I wait so long to try and download it? At first I was anxious about the problems that might ensue, and then I wanted to install my 256GB SSD first. The latter took a couple of days to get working because the MS back-up and restore utilities simply would not work [with several failure modes] and I had to try three other packages before I could get a copy that circumvented MS anti-copying strategies. Sigh. Wasted hours with each attempt. [EaseUS finally got it close enough that DiskPart could complete the task.]

Last night, downloading W8, I was impaled on the dread "we can't install until you provide additional drivers but we won't tell you -which- drivers are needed" issue (reported by many on the web). The only work-around was to open the computer and pull hardware. (I could finally get past the msg after disconnecting my RAID array and two other drives.) Ignoring that tedious hell, this was the slowest installation process I've experienced since those days when we did it off floppy disks... and here I was dumb enough to think the install would FLY with my new Samsung SSD. It made me think of the way Adobe products load: each time you think it can't really take this long just to load! Even just getting WMC to "use old settings" took 20 minutes!

Now I have a computer which seems to run W8 and I've finally figured out how to turn the computer off(!! not obvious), how to view my hard-drives and how to run many of the old programs. The learning curve for W8 is a PITA; I've gotta find some walk-through / introduction that makes sense of their omissions and subterranean relocation of system tools.

There's a lot to learn to cope with or work-around. Their presentation of s/w pkgs seems ponderous and I'll have to figure out some way to group tools in more accessible collections. Sigh... the old Start Menu worked better for me.

 

[Basilisk]

If you use a cablecard so you don't have to use the crappy box from the cable company (which also saves money), WMC is the only game in town. Without it, no cable card.

Amen, brother. The good news is my Centon quad-stream appears (with one test) to be supported. We've lost the (to me unused) ability to have remote computers stream CC channels [the protocols used are no longer supported in W8], but WMC seemed little changed.

WMC's a lot saner than any DVR I've used (mostly SciAtl), so it's a shame the cable companies have made CC so difficult to access, keeping their staffs incorrectly or un-informed about them. 'Took 5 weeks to get my CC because of ComCast miss-statements with no internal follow-through [repeated "we'll mail it to you" -- no... they didn't and couldn't). Not that WMC couldn't be improved with fairly minor changes.

 

[gill77]

I need some help from those smarter than I.

I paid, downloaded and have my product code. I discovered my USB drive was MIA so I brought one from work.

Long story short is my machine got rebooted before it could be transferred. Can the download be found or can I re-download without paying the $199.

Thank you in advance.

Gill

 

[Lucifer Lost]

've gotta find some walk-through / introduction that makes sense of their omissions and subterranean relocation of system tools.

Right click in the bottom left hand corner for system tools. Quicker than in 7.

And if you still can't find what you are looking for, just start typing in what you are looking for when you are on the Start Window. It will dynamically start searching for you.

It's easier to do almost everything in 8 once you learn a couple things.