my "old" hardware doesnt have win 8 drivers what now???

Yes it does. NVIDIA and AMD now have video quality optimizations within their drivers. You can even tweak the level of sharpening, noise reduction, colour correction, etc. to your liking.

@roger_m: NVIDIA makes GeForce graphics, AMD makes Radeon HD graphics. "NVIDIA Radeon HD" is not a proper name. Please verify this.

 

That is true. Radeon came from ATI, now part of AMD - not NVIDIA.

 

Yes, I got confused. I'm so used to using computers with nVidia graphics chips.

I've set my T400 to only use discrete graphics now in the BIOS, and the ATI graphics are working fine now with a Microsoft driver Windows installed.

 

No, they use the same drivers so that should not be an issue.

Since Window 8 was available free for to try out for many months, and a trial product key came with the download, I don't see this as a problem.

That said, I seem to remember a Skip button during W8 installation - where it would prompt you later for the product key. Am I dreaming?

 

I'm sure there isn't a Skip button. I know about the trial version - but you can't upgrade from this to Windows 8 Pro, you have to do a clean install. Would be good if you could trial Windows 8, and then if you decide to keep it just enter a valid product key, rather than having to do a clean install.

 

Interesting. I've got an upgrade and new build scheduled this week. Will see what happens.

 

@ Bill, if they have an Intel USB 3 port see if you can find a way to install windows 8 from it.

EDIT:

MS and Intel do not seem to be interested in answering this question BTW

 

@Bruce - there seems to be plenty of documentation out there to do this, as seen here. I wonder if the notebook you were trying that on is a bit too proprietary - as notebooks tend to be.

 

@ Bill - USB installing yes, not USB 3.0 on an Intel controller, you wont find that guide anywhere aside from windows 7.

When you try to install windows 8 from an Intel USB 3.0 controller you are asked from drivers right where you do when you try the same in windows 7. The only difference is that in windows 8 there are no dedicated Intel drivers for their own controller.

 

Okay, I see what you are saying now. Sorry for my mix up.

Interesting that Intel released a new driver here on 10/27/12, but it does not mention W8.

Did you try this driver?

 

If you hack the inf files you can force it to work windows 8 post install environment and get better USB 3.0 performance but when I tried the same merging them into boot.wim the integration failed even when I used /forceunsigned. I guess this means that the windows 7 drivers should work, if they wanted them to.

 

It is my understanding W8 uses the same W7 drivers so there "should" be no compatibility issues.

I find this very confusing. It is not like W8 (or USB 3.0) came out the blue so I don't understand why there is this compatibility issue - other than it appears someone at Intel dropped the ball.

 

I just did another driver scan with Driver Genius, and it found a Radeon driver which did install on my system. So now I am using the official AMD driver including the Catalyst Control Center rather than one from Microsoft.

I'm starting to get used to Windows 8, and the lack of the traditional start menu isn't bothering me anymore. Pressing Windows + Q to do a search works well. If I had hundreds of programs installed, which is something I usually do, then I might be missing the start menu, but for now it's hard to fault Windows 8, even with the tablet orientated design. I'm not too fussed on Metro apps as they are designed for tablet users more than anything. But, you don't have to use Metro apps, and the non metro apps I'm using are running without any issues.

 

AFAIK The issue with the Intel USB 3.0 ports is not just limited to Windows 8. My motherboard manual clearly states USB 3.0 ports cannot be used for BIOS flashing or for boot purposes.

 

I have installed windows 7 from USB 3.0 on 3 different systems, this is not a BIOS issue as many sandy bridge and ivy bridge boards support it just fine once you add the drivers to boot.wim. This is an Intel issue as they are not providing USB 3.0 drivers for windows 8. This is also a windows 8 issue as their promised universal USB 3.0 support does not extend to the pre install environment.

Intel or MS could fix this if they wanted.