Calling the forum geeks.
My main desktop PC at home is still running XP and is due an OS refresh as it's getting slow.
2 Options.
1. Refresh it's XP build and keep with a fairly stable OS that folks tend not to bother writing new virus for or...
2. Upgrade to Windows 8. It seems currently you can upgrade for just £25.
Now I know W8 is brand new so bound to have a few issues but this sort of upgrade offer is pretty unusual for Microsoft.
I was thinking about upgrading the physical drive in the PC anyway so how about this....
Get new 1TB drive for about £50
Do a fresh XP install on it using the recovery disks that came with my PC (or more likely restore the backup I did after I refreshed it last time, applied all the SPs and installed office etc but same end result of clean and legit XP build)
Get the W8 upgrade offer at £25
Upgrade the new install
Run W8 for a bit and see if world ends
If it's a nightmare just put the old drive back in for now and consider options
If it's all good then keep old drive on shelf in case of emergencies and have a fresh build PC with W8 and a bigger drive for the princely sum of £75.
I suspect some of my ancient hardware (Canon Scanner etc) will have a moan about drivers but I should be able to get away with most of it.
I'm currently running the assessment software to see just what will be expected to work but thought I'd ask the random cross section of folks on the ORG for an opinion.
Oh and if you want to check out if the offer applies to you too, you can download the assessment software
<Here> then click on the "Download upgrade assistant" button which will tell you what does/doesn't work and how much it will cost when it's done. Tested it on my netbook and it said £25!
Appreciate this may come across as an iffy post possibly linking to some random virus or other but in an attempt to provide a bit of self-authentication to show I'm not some random Chinese spam-bot, I ride a loud SV1000 and my throttle body recently fell off. If on the other-hand the Chinese Spam-bot is good enough to have come up with that level of authentication then we're all well and truly buggered anyway!
Thoughts?
Oh and anyone got a good deal for SATA drives about the £50 mark?