How to Upgrade your Computer to Windows 8

By Ashwin Ananthapadmanabhan

How to Upgrade your Computer to Windows 8


Windows 8 is finally here. I just upgraded my Windows 7 desktop to Windows 8 and the process couldn’t be smoother.
All the existing software programs work just fine in Windows 8 and the built-in Windows Store offers a plethora of new full-screen “apps” to choose from. Desktop search is so much better in Windows 8, the UI feels more snappy and the system will boot faster. You don’t need to install a separate anti-virus program as Windows Defender is already included in Windows 8.
If you haven’t played with the Windows 8 beta versions earlier, it may take a day or two to get comfortable with the new layout but overall, Windows 8 is a must-have upgrade.
Windows 8

Upgrading to Windows 8 – Step by Step

If you are also planning to make the switch to Windows 8 this weekend, here are 3 things you would need:
  • A Windows machine running Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP. It doesn’t matter if you have computer is running Windows XP Premium or Windows 7 Home Basic.
  • A valid credit card or a PayPal account to pay the upgrade fee – you will be required to pay $39.99 for the Windows 8 Professional edition.
  • An internet connection for downloading the Windows 8 installer (2.05 GB). You may also order the Windows 8 installer on a DVD though it may not be necessary as it is quite easy to create your own Windows 8 DVD.
Please note that you are opting for an “upgrade” so it will overwrite your existing copy of Windows and there’s no way you can uninstall Windows 8 to switch to the previous Windows installation.
Also, your existing software programs will only be preserved if you are moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your current PC is running Windows XP or Vista, all your files and data will be preserved but you will have to reinstall the software apps after upgrading to Windows 8.
Ready? Here’s how may upgrade your computer to Windows 8.
First download and run the Upgrade Assistant program. This will essentially perform a few checks on your computer and will also suggest a list of software programs / hardware devices that may not be compatible with Windows 8.
Windows 8 Compatibility Report
Next you need to order your Windows 8 upgrade pack right inside the installation wizard. Choose the “Checkout” option, enter your Credit Card details and the next screen will show your Windows 8 product key that you may need at the time of installation. You don’t have to write then down on paper and Microsoft will also send a receipt of your order and the Windows serial number to your email address.
Important: What you are buying is the upgrade license that will only work on an existing Windows machine. You cannot use this Windows 8 license on a new machine that you could be building from scratch. If you wish to install Windows 8 from scratch on a new hard disk, you need the System Builder that may not be available at all locations.
Order Windows 8 Upgrade
The upgrade assistant will now download the Windows 8 installer files to your computer. This process may take a while since it will require the transfer of ~2 GB of data from Microsoft servers to your disk.
Tip: The Windows 8 installer files are stored in the C:\ESD\Windows\Sources folder – it’s hidden so you may not find it inside Windows Explorer.
Downloading Windows 8
Once the installer files have been downloaded, you can continue with the installation or you may pick the second option that says – “Install by creating media.”  Here you can save the Windows 8 installer files in a single ISO file and then, from the wizard itself, burn the ISO image into a bootable DVD. This may come handy later when you want to repair or reinstall Windows 8 later but have deleted the installer from the disk to free up disk space.
Windows 8 Installation Options
Once the DVD is ready, double-click the Windows Setup shortcut (you’ll find it on your desktop) to run the setup again.
You can either do a clean install and choose “Nothing” or use the “Windows settings, personal files and apps” option to preserve your files as well as programs (recommended).  Also, if you choose “Nothing,” your personal files (anything saved inside the User folder and on the desktop) will be moved to a windows.old folder.
Choose the first “Install Now” option and Windows 8 will finish installing itself. Simple!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LOADING TIME OF YOUR WEBSITE

By Ashwin Ananthapadmanabhan
Image
CHECK LOADING TIME OF YOUR WEBSITE Now a day’s everyone is using Google to search their information. There are millions of websites are available in Google, each websites is with its own content.  When you search any information in Google, it will list the links, which is related to your topic. Each link is directed to some websites. While searching, the  user always  wants to load the websites very fast. Because now a days, in this  busy world no one has the patience. If the sites are loading slowly then the user may get tensed. So it may lead the people to get bore while using your website. If you are the blogger you should focus on your web page loading time. Loading time is very important goal to run a successful website.  So if you want to attract the visitors to your site you have to reduce the loading time of your website. Here are some websites to check your site loading speed freely. S...
Read more

Run ChatGPT-Like LLM Models offline on your PC

By Ashwin Ananthapadmanabhan
       Ever since ChatGPT hyped the use of AI, everyone wanted to try similar AI models on their devices for daily queries. These are powerful AI models capable of executing high-level tasks. Now with the help of customized tools, users can install various Large Language Models (LLMs) on their computers for offline use. If you want to make your computer an AI chat tool that you can access anytime you want, then the answer is the tool that allows users to install various AI models such as Llama 3, Phi 3, Falcon, Gemma, Replit, and more. Let’s now see the steps to get these tools and setup AI Models. M inimum Requirements: Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3) with macOS 13.6 or newer Windows / Linux PC with a processor that supports AVX2 (typically newer PCs) 16GB+ of RAM is recommended. For PCs, 6GB+ of VRAM is recommended NVIDIA/AMD GPUs supported Note: You can follow this guide for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. AI Models use a high amount of RAM, CPU, and GPU. I...
Read more

How To Watch Time-lapse In Google Earth: Largest Video On The Planet!

By Ashwin Ananthapadmanabhan
Image
It’s a good way to see the world. Representative image. Image by Greg Rakozy on Unsplashed      In the ‘biggest update to Google Earth since 2017,’ Google has added the new Time-lapse feature. Time-lapse in Google Earth combines 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years to make a 4D interactive model. As the name suggests, the Google Earth Time-lapse feature lets you go through a time-lapse of how things have changed over the years.      Time-lapse in Google Earth consists of photos taken from 1984 to 2020, which equals 20 petabytes (1 Petabyte is one million gigabytes) of satellite images. Google took these pictures and stitched them into a 4.4 terapixel video. The company says that this entire video is equivalent to over 5 million 4K resolution videos. That said, Google is also calling Time-lapse on Google Earth the largest video on the planet.  In its blog  post , the company has also promised annual updates to Google Earth for the nex...
Read more