Windows 8

[Lon More]

Has anybody tried this yet? is it worth the money for something that just seems to be solving the problems with Win 7?

[rgbrock1]

Lon Moore:

I'll begin by stating that I am not a Microsoft fan at all. I don't like their products and I don't like them as a company. My preferred operating system - for home use - is iOS, followed by Linux.

Having said all that I have indeed used Windows 8 for quite some time.

In a nutshell? Windows 8 will give the vast majority of users a migraine, at a minimum. It is far, far from intuitive and should you make the mistake of moving away from all the pretty little tiles on the desktop and back to the more common Start menu, going back to the pretty little tiles desktop is an exercise in... thousands of mouse klicks.

It is also slow. Much slower than Windows 7 and XP.

If you're using Win7 I'd say stick with it until... whenever.

[Lancelot37]

I replace my laptops and desktop every three years. I'm due to do that in November but having looked at W8 I think I'll stick with what I'v e got for now. It looks total rubbish. I read 3 PC magazines. Why change something that's not broken? They could have kept developing W7 but it's because money is involved, and Microsoft need an income the same as any other company. This one could sink them.

[Tom!]

The only reason I bought a new computer last month is so that it would come with Win7 instead of that excuse for an OS called Win8 :ugh:

It can imagine it works great on smartphones and tablets but not on a normal keyboard/mouse computer.

[Lon More]

Thanks.. My wallet will remain securely closed.

[Tom!]

How Real People Will Use Windows 8 - YouTube
haha

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Nobody is supposed to use Windows 8. We've been supposed to use every other version of Windows for some time now.

[seacue]

Microsoft desperately needs something that is suitable for tablets and the like. Thus Windows 8.

I know someone who has a desktop with touchscreen interface to Win 7 ... they quickly disabled the touchscreen and went back to keyboard . mouse with Win 7. They felt that touchscreen interface is not suited to desktop computers.

I, too, very recently bought a laptop with Win 7 Pro so I could get virtual XP on the same machine. I hope it lasts a long time.

I remain convinced that Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot in the desk/lap top market in order to compete in the (very important) tablet market.

How long before Win 9 appears? It could well be "what Win8 should have been". (cf Vista/Win7) In other words, Win 8 is not likely to have a very long life.

[FullOppositeRudder]

It won't be seen on any of my machines based on my one and only foray into the supposed advantages of Windows 7 in a new Dell laptop which is fast becoming one of the most frustrating combinations I've encountered (I start at TRS80 model 1 with a cassette data storage :eek:)

I know my way around XP pretty well by now and I'm reasonably confident and competent in getting it to do what I require. However Windows 7 seems to be some kind of sad game where almost everything has been changed for no obvious reason, and it seems to be damn near impossible to do anything like configuring a modem or a network without unlearning everything picked up over the past 30 years and starting again. Far easier to grab an XP laptop and get the job done.

Bah! Humbug! When M$ finally cease their support for XP, I'll probably go either Linux or Apple (perish the thought) :(

Rant mode <OFF>

[Mac the Knife]

The answer!

Welcome to Classic Shell (http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/)

Mac

:ok:

[FullOppositeRudder]

The answer!

Welcome to Classic Shell (http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/)

Mac

http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

Thank you Mac, that may indeed be the answer. I'll have a close look at it.

(This forum is amazing :D)

FOR

[green granite]

When the beta of windows 7 came out I downloaded it and dual booted it with XP, after 2 weeks I never went back to XP, when 8 came out I did the same, after 2 weeks I never went back to windows 8. The classic shell improves it a bit.

[Tom!]

Windows 8: An exceptional OS undone by dreadful marketing | ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-an-exceptional-os-undone-by-dreadful-marketing-7000005475/)

[seanbean]

Some more views on Win8 here:

N00bs vs Windows 8: We lock six people in a room with new OS ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/26/civilians_test_windows_8/)

[hellsbrink]

I downloaded the beta of Win 8 a while back and put it on a "spare" PC. That didn't last long.

Why oh why didn't they just give the option to set up a "classic" windows instead of trying to force what would be an interface for a tablet or smartphone upon us?

[bnt]

I used the pre-release for a while; it wasn't that bad. I soon got used to the way you launch applications: hit the Windows key, type the name or part thereof. e.g. "Word", or "Control" for Control Panel.

I got rid of it not to go back to Windows 7, but to go to Linux. On that laptop I'm back to Win 7 for reasons related to applications. If I'm to try Win8 at all, it will need to be really cheap ..! :hmm:

[dazdaz1]

Hellsbrink......"Why oh why didn't they just give the option to set up a "classic" windows instead of trying to force what would be an interface for a tablet or smartphone upon us?"

It does and you can. This was demonstrated on the 'Click' program (today) on BBC News 24 from what I can recall, touch one of those screen icons and it's the good old times again.

Daz

[MG23]

Windows 8 is the main reason I just bought the parts to make a new games PC; I figure that way, I can keep going with Windows 7 at least until Windows 9 and, at the rate Microsoft are releasing new versions, probably Windows 10.

It's clearly designed for touch screens and just looks like a disaster for desktop machines.

[mixture]

I seriously think this will be Microsofts last installable desktop operating system. After this it will all be embedded systems, "thin" terminals and "cloud" architecture
Customers will just have a pad / slate / thin client with an embedded operating system, and will access their files and applications over the internet.

Only thing in the cloud is your thinking Milo. :E

As long as Microsoft continue to have the emerging countries in their sights as a source of prospective and continued clients, there will be offline versions of Windows.

Same goes for government and corporate accounts with their laptop estate. Those who are already willing to embrace change will be starting to work on it now .... the more conservative accounts will continue to lean on their Microsoft account managers. :cool:


Sure there may be a cloud version of Windows brewing (just like you have "home", "pro" etc. editions at the moment), but it ain't going to happen across the portfolio in the next decade or two.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I agree with both of you -- the only Indefinite Article is the Time Scale.

( and if we had that breadth of knowledge we wouldn't be sat here typing into PPRuNe ! )

[Ancient Observer]

This idea of "thin" clent and all the real computery being done in Heaven, (er, in the cloud, geddit) or somewhere else, has been around for many years. Fortunately, when the techies were floating this back in the early 2000s where I worked, I was senior enough to invite two of them to come with me to Calcutta. As they chickened out, I told them to go forth and multiply with their great idea. (City of Joy doesn't begin to describe what a dump much of Calcutta is).

This stuff is mainly touted by techies who have never had to work in parts of India and Africa, and even the UK, where access to "Heaven", either by wire or wireless, is a rarity and a luxury.

For many years, we'll need proper pcs.

[seacue]

The PAST is the FUTURE.

When I was first seriously involved in computing, we had dumb terminals and the "smarts" were a big box down the corridor. Sometimes a PDP-10, other times I used an early UNIX ... it was mid/late 1970s.

Back then my dumb terminal was an Omron ... which I sometimes respelt as Moron. In fact, the Omron was better than the fancier terminal which had "personality" and could become befuddled.

Now almost 40 years later we are supposed to be WOWed!! by relinquishing our work to the "cloud", even less under our control than the Big Box Down The Corridor. I don't have enough faith to rely on the Internet and C*mc*st and some cloudy host to simultaneously be working.

And now back to the original thread about Winnows 8.

[seanbean]

A useful Win8 "Primer" here (http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/software/3407687/maximize-your-first-30-minutes-with-windows-8/) for anyone thinking of having an initial play with it.

[ExSp33db1rd]

A useful Win8 "Primer" here for anyone thinking of having an initial play with it.

That's just confirmed my resolve. ( i.e. have NOTHING to do with it ) Hopefully, by the time Bill Gates makes me I'll be too old to care about computers anyway.

Luddites Rule - Okay ?

[Guest 112233]

Windoze 8 is great for tablets, but if you want to do some "real work" its Win 7 or a trip to an apple store. I'm on linux now and plan to stay there as long as I can.

Some software is windows only and I can live with that - emulators are going to play a bigger part in my life from now on. Thanks Microsoft.

CAT III

[vulcanised]

Here's another video link for the BBC's take on it.

BBC iPlayer - Click: 27/10/2012 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nr47n/Click_27_10_2012/)