Start Installer
When you boot to a Windows 8 installer, you’ll see dialogs identical to those in the WIndows 7 installer.
Repair Your Computer
If you choose Repair Your Computer, you start seeing Metro-style menus.
Get the Latest
When starting an upgrade installation, you’re first prompted to download updates for the installer, but since this was the first day of availability, I skipped this step.
Troubleshoot
The installer offers the Refresh and Reset options, though these don’t work with Windows 7, even though you can choose that as a target.
Checking Your PC
Before you can upgrade, the installer checks if your PC has enough memory, disk space, and CPU and graphics horsepower.
What to Keep?
The upgrader will let you keep your accounts, documents, and programs; just accounts and files; or nothing at all.
Do Something First?
This is a new step. You may have to trash some overly large files.
Clean Up
I had to clear out some disk space.
Searching for Problems
The install is starting, but still taking precautions.
Ready to Install
Finally, a final reminder of the choices you’ve made, and the go ahead.
Installing
This part took just about 20 minutes.
Getting System Ready
There followed several bouts of "Preparing," "Getting system ready" and "Applying user settings."
WIreless
The first thing I had to do before finally getting to see Windows 8 was to choose a Wi-Fi router to connect to. This and the next step are identical to first-run setup on a mobile tablet.
Lock Screen
Finally, that beautiful mountain scene.
Log On
To take advantage of Microsoft’s cloud services, you’re encouraged to log in with a WIndows Live ID. You could also simply log in with a PC password.
More Preparing
One final preparation before we can get to the Metro Start screen.
Finally, WIndows 8!
The much touted Metro Start screen appears.
Charms
To get to these main menu icons, or "Charms," you move the mouse to the lower left corner of the screen.
Desktop
My upgraded-from Windows 7 destop was preserved, with the same wallpaper and shortcuts.
Control Panel
This is the Metro Control Panel, the standard WIndows-7 style Control Panel, with far more options, is still available.
User Options
Here’s where you log off or switch users.
Tile Options
You right-click a tile to get to the options shown at the bottom--choose the smaller, square tile size, uninstall, or unpin.
Metro App Menu
The right mouse button brings up the app options at the bottom left.
Wide Multi-screen Wallpaper
Note the Windows Extended choice here, which lets you extend one wallpaper across multiple monitors.
Task Manager
Finally, the Task Manager gets a lot more power. Notice how Metro apps are suspended, so you don’t need to exit them.