Windows 8 is not your conventional Windows upgrade. With Windows 7, Vista, and XP, you got an upgrade that added new tools, more capabilities under the hood, new interface options, and a new look. But all of these were variations on the basic Windows theme, and ran all your existing Windows programs. Windows 8 changes all this, because it has a bigger mission—to extend Windows for use on touch tablets while still keeping its ability to run your existing Windows programs. This way, Microsoft can tap into its installed base of over a billion users, bringing them
With this goal came a whole new class of apps that run on the operating system, and that brings us to our first point of confusion: Metro apps vs. desktop apps. But even before delving into which types of apps run where, you have the choice of which kind of machine you want—tablet or desktop/laptop. In fact the lines between tablets and laptops start to blur with Windows 8, and many manufacturers are coming out with convertibles that start out looking like laptops but detach or swivel to transform into tablets.
As with the earlier major Windows releases, we still have the "which edition?" question. Thankfully, this time around there's actually a less-confusing array of choices than we had in the past for Windows 7: It's pretty much Pro vs. standard Windows 8, unless you're in a developing nation or in a large enterprise's IT department. Also in the past, you had questions of upgrade or buy new, 64-bit or 32-bit, and upgrade or clean install. But those are more familiar and less existential than most of the dualities we cover below.
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Clearing Up 5 Windows 8 Confusions | News & Opinion | PCMag.com