Just for your information clean installed Windows 8 Pro 32bit last night (the 25 pounds download offer) from the downloaded ISO + emailed key.

Went in control panel and updated drivers for the Yamaha SW1000XG - pointed it at the Windows XP drivers I had and it reports success - no more unknown devices. Audio out playback OK - from windows sounds and also from YouTube.

Not tested audio in but then I'm not bothered about this - plenty of other means to capture analogue audio. The key thing about this card is access to all those lovely sound patches - I'll try to update on this later. Not tested MIDI yet either.

The card also works with Windows 7 32bit.

Only 32bit precision/variant/sub edition compatible as the original Windows XP drivers are 32bit so this card will not work with 64bit editions.

That's interesting. What motherboard are you using?

Btw, you might want to check out the SW1000 forum over at http://www.ds2416.org/ if you haven't already.

Update (more good news! Complete enough for me!)

MIDI IN works! (will try to test MIDI OUT later)
Sounds banks accessible!

Tested using a Korg M1 MIDI OUT connected to the card's MIDI IN
Using XG Gold program (downloaded and installed from http://www.midiweb.de/main/download_e.htm - got link via http://www.xg-central.com/xgc-software.php )
Used 7-zip to unpack the self extracting XG-Gold.exe zip (from the download http://www.midiweb.de/downloads/XG-Gold.exe ) using 7-zip rather than running the self extracting file itself
Then set the compatibility mode of the XG-Gold.exe application (in properties) to run as Windows 98. Then double clicked on it to run it. Ran perfectly. Sounds selectable and can drive it from the Korg M1 via MIDI.

Motherboard: MSI P4M900M2-L
http://uk.msi.com/product/mb/P4M900M2-L.html

Other specs:
(A PC that I have upgraded fairly extensively (but cheaply!) to a fast machine running Windows 8 effortlessly that originally was a cheap Celeron Vista Basic Medion PC bought from Sainsbury's in 2006/7)

Upgrades I did:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Dual Core 1.86Ghz 6320 bought from ebay, new quieter fan from quietpc.com
http://ark.intel.com/products/29754/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processo...

- Memory: 2Gb RAM from Crucial (max the motherboard will take - another reason, apart from the 32bit drivers for the SW1000XG, that only 32bit Windows 8 is required!)

- System Drive (Windows 8): Samsung 840 SSD Pro 128Gb (very fast SSD) from Kikatek
- 2nd drive: Seagate SATA 150Gb 7200rpm that came with the machine (ST3160815AS)

- StarTech IEEE 1394a / FireWire / iLink 400mbps dual socket PCI card. Works well capturing from standard definition DV tape

- TP-link Gigabit Ethernet PCI adapter from amazon

- ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 PCI Graphics Card from Maplin

- Optical drives:
- LG DVD +/- P-ATA internal DVDburner came with the PC
- Philips 1640 P-ATA internal DVD burner from spares

Floppy
- 3.5" floppy disk drive from spares

4 x USB 2.0 rear and 2 x USB 2.0 front

Original case, bog standard metal

Higher rating power supply to take on increased power from graphics card etc and CPU, also quieter fan, from Maplin

Anti-virus: Norton Internet Security, Malware-bytes anti malware
(both used to scan the downloads for the SW1000XG).

Using the SW1000XG's SPDIF coaxial digital audio out for the audio output - connected this to a Lindy DAC closer to my Spirit mixing desk. This resulted in a cleaner sound avoiding interference (from other devices, cables in and outside the PC) compared with using the SW1000XG's analog out.

Not really bothered about testing MIDI OUT as I intend to use the PC as a sound module - to just take MIDI IN commands to drive the SW1000XG tone generators.

Summary:
A versatile, swift custom-built desktop machine, very quiet, quiet purr of the CPU fan.
Good general purpose work horse (runs Adobe Audition 3.0, Premiere Pro 7.0, Beyond Compare 3.0)
And now that it runs the Yamaha SW1000XG PCI card successfully on Windows 8 32 bit, it will serve as a sound module controlled via MIDI by Logic running on a 2010 17" MacBookPro with Tascam US-144MKII USB Audio/MIDI controller.

Goddard thanks for the
http://www.ds2416.org/
link

I will be happy to share my success to encourage others by posting these results and specs there too. Cheers!