You will be waiting a VERY long time. Win8 ARM edition is restricted to very specific tablets and anything currently on the market would not have the hardware necessary to run it. If you wanted to put it on future hardware then you would need to crack the protection schemes used to lock it to approved hardware.
MS is heading to become a lot more like their competition at apple.
I would not consider that list final in any way. MS has already said they're looking at shaking up the number of editions, and they have plenty of time to do that ahead of this fall.
The good thing about MS OS, people will find a way around to make it work with any hardware.
Heh... don't forget all of the Server versions and Embedded versions of Windows 8 as well, let alone the special versions of Windows for the EU that have Media Player removed by default.
Add up all of those, and you have over 20 versions of Windows 8 to support! And people complain about fragmentation in the Linux community.
There are 3 true versions of Windows 8: "regular", Server, and ARM. It should be as simple as a build setting to switch between the traditional Home, Professional, and Enterprise versions of Windows.
And since when was digging into the registry and reporting on something the standard for news? Heck, if Microsoft put in 100 registry keys in that section, does that mean Microsoft will have 100 versions? Of course not.
I find this news story silly. The version of Windows people get when they buy a new computer (how 99% of users get a new version of Windows) is whatever is included on their computer. And few even know there are multiple versions to begin with.
The GREAT thing about GNU/Linux is hacking is encouraged, and the companies will help you. My timing for dropping Windows was impeccable. I really don't like the direction they're heading in.
Heh... don't forget all of the Server versions and Embedded versions of Windows 8 as well, let alone the special versions of Windows for the EU that have Media Player removed by default.
Add up all of those, and you have over 20 versions of Windows 8 to support! And people complain about fragmentation in the Linux community.
It's news because it gives insight into the number of SKUs they plan on releasing and that's interesting to people because of how much of a PITA it's been with Vista and Win7. Sure, most people just use whatever they get with their PC but that doesn't really mean anything. If there ends up being 100 SKUs it makes support 100x harder because you have to remember which features exist in which SKUs and which don't.
Your 3 "true" SKUs sit at the top of the hierarchy, but they're far from the only 3.
Posts like these are great to read for shock value. "Over 20 versions!" Blah, whatever. If you work a help desk or implement a network, you're maybe using 2 different versions of a Windows OS, most likely 1 (i.e. Professional so you can connect to a domain).
In addition to that, you guys make it sound like it's rocket science knowing what version comes with which features. Come on guys, it's not difficult. We've been through this with Vista, W7, and now W8, and it's never been difficult to distinguish what's what. If you're really having a tough time with it, you can jot it all down within 2 minutes on a piece of paper and hang it on your cubicle wall.
W8 will not be the downfall of Microsoft, it's all the unfounded hate and subsequent illogical thinking about their products.
And if you work for a consultation/support company that deals with dozens or hundreds of different companies a week? And it's even worse because a good number of those users can't easily be walked through hitting Properties on Computer to tell you which edition they have. Most can't even tell you if they have XP, Vista or Win7 as it is.
Win8 won't be the downfall of MS, sadly, but they're definitely not making things simpler with it either.
Very well said!!The majority of my daily job is help desk support. I work with a team of 8 guys supporting over 200 clients that each have anywhere from 5 to 300 employees. They all connect to domains and very, very few upgraded to Vista. This immediately puts 99% of people into Windows XP Pro or Windows 7 Pro. Very few have need or want for anything higher in the W7 line. Even if they did, that only adds a couple of things like BitLocker and Branch Cache, nothing you can't remember after seeing it a couple of times.
My point is that it's becoming tradition with Windows editions where people like to hate on Microsoft because there are 8 different editions or whatever, but half of them aren't even sold in the U.S. (the dominant country on this forum) and half of the remaining are very specialized editions. You end up with about 2 versions that are used by the vast majority of people, a home version and a business version.