What’s New in Windows 8?

• Faster: Across the board, Windows 8 is faster than Windows 7 and Windows XP in boot time, file compression, and even opening tabs in web browsers. For more on Windows 8's performance, see this benchmark comparison between Windows 7 and Windows 8 from PCWorld.

Works Better on Older computers — Windows 8 will not only work on your older IT equipment, but it runs faster than Windows 7.

• Energy efficient: Windows 8 saves battery life by dropping to a low-power state when you're not doing anything power-intensive.



• Security: Windows 8 comes with Windows Defender, which protects against malware and spyware. For more on Windows Defender and other security enhancements, read Windows 8 Security: What's New, What's Different.

• Protection against hardware failure: Windows 8's Storage Spaces employs a software-based RAID system to protect data and ensure that it remains available in the event of a computer crash.

• SkyDrive sync: Microsoft’s cloud storage program is built in to just about every application in Windows 8.

• Multilingual: You can more easily switch between display languages, and additional display languages are available in Windows 8, which is of value to multilingual organizations.

Is Windows 8 Right for You?

Windows 8 offers some new features that may help your staff's productivity as well as the performance and longevity of your organization's computers.

To help you decide whether Windows 8 is a good fit for your organization, we’ve come up with four questions for you to consider.

Interested in discovering more about Windows 8?

Watch this pre-recorded webinar to learn more. Topics covered:

• Key considerations and Features
• Look and Feel
• Differences from Windows 7
• How to Find Frequent Functions

Learn More:

• How to Upgrade to Windows 8
• Watch this pre-recorded webinar on how to Upgrade to Windows 8 using Software Assurance.
• Visit Guide to Windows 8 Resources at TechSoup.org (USA partner) for comparisons hardware overviews, and more!  
• Microsoft's Windows 8 Compatibility Centre
• Microsoft's Windows Blog for the full list of features on available editions
 

Easily See What You Can Request 

To help you manage your Microsoft donations, we've created the Microsoft Donation Centre which you can view once you are logged in to your account - under "My Requests". Organizations can easily track what donations they have received so far, what remains of their software allotment, when their cycle resets, and the value of their Microsoft software donations to date. 

Get Full Versions of Windows 8
In addition to upgrades, Microsoft has also made donations of full versions of its Windows 8 operating systems available through the Microsoft Get Genuine program.