Month: June 2012

Upgrading from Windows8 Developer to Consumer Preview will lose your settings.

Even when running the Windows setup from within Windows, this is the option you get when upgrading from Windows8 developer preview to Consumer Preview. What a User Friendly screen! If I can “chose” what I want to upgrade, why only give me one option – which is nothing? Interestingly I could keep settings if I was upgrading from Windows7 – so it’s weird how you can’t keep settings from the Developer preview to the consumer preview. The Windows 8 faq has a table of what can be kept when upgrading from previous versions of Windows.

Current operating system What you can keep
Windows 8 Consumer Preview
  • Nothing (your files will be saved in the Windows.old folder)
Windows Developer Preview
  • Nothing (your files will be saved in the Windows.old folder)
Windows 7
  • Programs
  • Windows settings
  • User accounts and files
Windows Vista
  • Windows settings
  • User accounts and files
Windows XP
  • User accounts and files

It might be a good idea to have the upgrade options within the application itself and not as a link to an external website – this way the user gets to see what options they have.