Windows 8 Pro Upgrade Price to Rise to $200 Starting Feb. 1

By Vincent Funaro, Christian Post Reporter Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Windows 8 Pro upgrade price will rise from $40 to $200 starting Feb. 1. Microsoft announced its decision to raise the price on the software upgrade on Jan. 18.

Many Windows fans thought the $40 upgrade fee would remain indefinitely; however, Microsoft crushed that idea earlier this month confirming the price hike for after Jan. 31.

The company currently allows Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 users to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for a $40 fee. Once the price is raised, those same Windows customers will have to pay $120 for Windows 8, and $200 for Windows 8 Pro.

Testers working with Windows 8 preview builds have also had the option of upgrading throughout this period. Those preview builds include Developer Preview, Consumer Preview, and Release Preview. All of these expired earlier this week.

After they expired, users with those builds saw that their Window 8 restarted every hour and it will continue to do so "until they've installed a released (RTM) version of Windows," according to a Microsoft representative.

Users choosing to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 can do so at this point while maintaining all of their exiting Windows settings, personal files, and applications.

Users can update to Windows 8 Pro from other builds of 7 including Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. They can do so without making any changes to their settings and applications.

Windows Vista users also have the option to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro without any of their personal data or system settings being altered.

Windows 8 launched towards the end of last year and comes pre-installed on various desktop computers, laptops and tablets. The OS is specifically made for touch-screen devices.