Windows 8 not impressed

With my PC's recent beer problem, I have been working around not being online.  I also have general "PC/Windows" agro issues.  (On top of this between the cat and a toothache I got 5 hours of sleep last night)

I pulled out an old half height  PC, took it's lid off and put in a medium sized video card (meaning that the PC's lid is still off).  That got me running (walking?) waiting to get my main PC fixed.

My main PC came with Vista 32bit that I "upgraded" back to XP 32 bit.  With the beer problem, not much of the original equipment is left.  6 months ago I upgraded the video card, power supply and disks.  The beer meant a replacement motherboard, CPU, memory.  The Case is the original that I bought too many years ago.

I kept my Windows XP install disks, but lost my Vista disks some time ago.

Fail #1 - XP

My original plans were to re-install Win XP.  That failed due to a blue screen of death suggesting I run a chkdsk /f.  I unplugged all of my hard drives; just in case.  I still got the blue screen of death.

Fail #2 - Wine

Ok, nice shiny new system.  My primary gaming needs are Eve, and I have full expectation that Linux gaming will get a boost (I liked what steam is planning in that regard, though I cancelled my steam account over their latest EULA).  So I install Ubunto 64 bit; Wine, and Eve.  Eve installed and upgraded the last 2 mini patches.  But then Nothing.  I can't get past the loading screen.

Fail #3 - Windows 8 download to burn to DVD

I then planned to get the Windows 8 64 bit OS online, and transfer it to my new PC.  My understanding (I am sure I read it somewhere in the download EULA) is that the licence is retail and transferable to a new PC.  I have plenty of older XP systems around to sacrifice.

I dutifully bought the upgrade online.  From the windows website Windows 8 Pro gives you everything in Windows 8 plus enhanced features that help you easily connect to company networks, access files on the go, encrypt your data, and more.

Though it does say you need a working system.

I find lots of online reference to downloading Windows 8 and then burning it to  DVD.  But for the life of me, I can not find out how to burn it from an ISO.  Lots of websites suggesting you can; but all short on detail (it's almost as if everyone is quoting everyone else sourced from a earlier press release, and no one has personal experience).

I defer the install hoping for a DVD burn option.  No luck.

I break down and hit the install button; hoping that I will get a DVD install at some point.

 I get instead an install on this PC, and I still can't work out how to burn it to DVD.

Fail #4 - Windows 8 32 bit

So at the end of the day at least I get a system I can upgrade the RAM for right?  Wrong. 
Despite an expected consolation prize of 64 bit windows (required for more than 4GB of RAM), I am left with the wrong system upgraded, to a version of windows I didn't want (32 bits), with an operating system I don't know how to drive.

Where to now

Well, I have re-installed eve, as I kept my most recent download files.  And eve still plays, though first impressions are that it is very sluggish (14 Frames/second).  I don't know how quick it was before but I didn't feel the need to go looking. (Edit: got back to 35 FPS by changing video settings to minimum)

I can however at least log in and trade/do PI/move ships. This is one win at least, however small.

I am also off to a local shop to get a DVD installer and see what luck I have with that.