LIVE TODAY: Windows 8 licensing - Speak your brains, believe your eyes

Taking a snow day today? You might want to join your fellow Reg readers in assessing what Windows 8 actually costs. We don’t mean in the sense of estimating the financial fallout of poor Q4 sales for Microsoft and the PC makers, but rather: what do you get for your money?

Putting Metro aside and forgetting the fact you must buy a brand new PC, there’s another set of considerations that – as ever – are being overlooked by a tech- and gadget-obsessed press.

That is software licensing and the upfront costs of Windows 8, especially when buying it in large numbers, along with a consideration of the fine print of the terms and conditions that Microsoft has attached to its new client.

Join Reg software editor Gavin Clarke, Microsoft licensing analyst Paul DeGroot - hosting his Microsoft licensing bootcamp next week - and readers for a Live Chat on:

• what happens to your Windows XP downgrade rights;
• whether you'll need to pay extra to install custom apps on a Windows RT tab;
• what Enterprise Agreements have been added to Windows 8 Pro edition; and
• which licence you’ll need to run on Windows 8 in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenarios.

You can join the Windows 8 Live Chat on 22 Jan at 14.00 GMT, 9.00 Eastern and 6.00 Pacific; you can also sign up for a reminder in the window below. ®