Windows 8 upgrade for Windows 7, and what you get

If you purchased Windows 7 or a computer with Windows 7 installed on it between June 2 2012 and January 2013 you are eligible to upgrade to Windows 8 for $14.99.

You can register your purchase on the Windows website. Then you'll receive an email with a promotional code along with purchasing instructions and when the download is available.

A nice Bonus that is included? 90 Days of Microsoft technical support at no charge.

There are some new great features that Windows 8 has to offer. There's the Windows Store similar to Google Play, or Apple App store.Prices will range from $1.49 to $999.99. There will still be free apps available, but if a developer decides to charge for the application, pricing has to be set to a minimum of $1.49, NOT the regular 99¢ that we're all used to seeing in other app stores.

Windows 8 is optimized for touch screens. That's pretty cool but irrelevant for most PC users, but a big boost for tablets.

Windows 8 can integrate with other Microsoft Accounts to synchronize user data. Do you have Xbox Live? I sure do. Well that is considered a Microsoft account and can now be managed in the new operating system.

Better use of multiple monitors. The task bar can be displayed on more than one device. That's great. But not only that, you can customize each task bar so they are different per screen. This will come in quite handy for my home set up where I do a lot of graphics. I can keep all my Adobe programs pinned to one side and all my resources and specs on the other.

Also the look of the Task Manager is going to change some. Tabs will be hidden by default and only the running applications will show. Resource utilization will be represented by a heat map, with darker shades of yellow for the heavier use. Performance will be categorized by CPU, memory, disk, ethernet, and wireless. The Processes tab lists application names, application status, and overall usage for CPU, memory, hard disk and network resources.

Integrated parental controls will be pre loaded. This allows Administrators of the system to monitor user activity, filter web sites, restrict applications and limits usage time.