Microsoft offers Windows 8 Pro for less than Windows 8
Microsoft has quietly reduced the price of Windows 8 Pro to £45 in the UK. Updated on 6/3/2013.
With no announcement, Microsoft has slashed the price of its Windows 8 Pro operating system. It now costs £44.99 to upgrade to the more advanced version instead of the previous price of £190 inc VAT. See also: How to upgrade to Windows 8
In bizarre circumstances, this means that users can get hold of Windows 8 Pro for less than the regular version of Windows 8 which costs £99 from Microsoft's website. It's also cheaper than upgrading to Pro for those already on Windows 8 which also costs £99.
Microsoft has made no comment or announcement on the changes. The Surface Pro tablet maker ramped up the price of Windows 8 at the beginning of February after its upgrade offer ended. The offer allowed users to upgrade for £25.
Microsoft's online store says "It's easy – choose from two editions". Well at these prices it's more than easy to decide which to go for.
Strangers still is the fact that the price of Windows 8 Pro remains at the increased price of $200 in the US. Users can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro from XP, Vista and all versions of Windows 7 except Enterprise.
Users running the Windows 8 Release Preview and Windows Consumer Preview can also upgrade to full Windows 8 Pro for the £45 price. Be aware that upgrading from these versions completely wipes all applications and personal data from the machine.
Update: Microsoft has confirmed with us that the price drop was an error and has been reverted to £190. Read more: Windows 8 Pro price drop was an error.
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Comments
Trash-bin said: I have windows 8 on a netbook fortunately a tile allows me to switch to the dell desktop amp use it as if it was windows 7 Otherwise I would be lost
Duncan said: upgraded ours a while ago now took a little bit of getting used to and I made it a triple boot system I have still got W7 and also have Unbuntu installed so get the choice of the three OS when I boot my laptop only problem I found is I could not migrate my ms student office suite but I just boot in W7 when I need to use it so not really a problem
Murray Snudge said: In other words its a flop as many predictedIve got Win8 on a new laptop and its ok but I use the desktop version of IE so its not much different to Win 7 I dont see any point in upgrading my other machines to Win 8 whatever the price