Finding my laptop bogged down by malware which nothing seemed to be able to remove, I decided that the best solution was to nuke it and start all over again. Instead of just using the original back up discs, I downloaded and installed the consumer preview version of Windows 8. The short version of what I think of Windows 8 is as follows: It ain't horrible, but its strengths (and there are a few) aren't so great that I'd be eager to upgrade if I didn't have to. Pros: It boots fast. No long drawn out splash screen or agonizing wait for it to start up. MS says that Win8 isn't fully ready to go the moment it launches, but portions of it are and it adds functionality as it goes. Frankly, I can't tell if anything takes longer than anything else to load or not. So far, I've not ran into any serious compatibility issues with any of the programs I've installed. The one problem I've had is with Secunia PSI, and the program still runs, but it renders itself funny so its kind of hard to read. The desktop (when you can get to it) resembles Win7 a great deal. The big changes are that instead of windows having rounded corners, they've got sharply squared off ones, and there's no Start/Windows button. Cons: The UI formerly known as Metro. I get what MS is trying to do with the UI (merge desktop and tablet computing into one OS), but the Metro UI takes up a huge amount of screen real estate, while displaying less than the regular desktop UI does. The other changes to the UI would be confusing to anyone who hadn't read up on Win8. For example, if you're in the desktop, and you need the Start button, to find it, you can either mouse over to the lower lefthand corner of the screen, hit the Windows key on the keyboard, or mouse over to the righthand side of the screen and hope the Charms bar pops up. It is not easy to hit the target in the lower lefthand corner to get a small box, showing the start screen, which you then have to click on. Getting tossed back to the start screen after being in the desktop is jarring as hell. One the start screen, you have a tiled interface, and you just type the name of the program (or file) you want and it'll pull it up for you. I have no idea of how that's supposed to work on a tablet or other touchscreen device. How're you going to be able to bring up the onscreen keyboard and start typing without hitting the tiles on the start screen? Bizarrely, if you're in the desktop and move your mouse to the top of the screen, it suddenly turns into a hand. If you click, the screen shrinks down to a small size and can be moved around. Releasing the button, and the screen springs back to full size. What function this could serve, I've no idea. It certainly doesn't seem to be the abortion that Windows ME was, but I wouldn't rush out to upgrade to it. I just think that the idea of merging the two types of UIs (Metro, aimed at touchscreen devices, and plain ol' Windows) on one device and forcing people to use both (even if the device isn't the optimal one for certain features) is a bad idea. I don't think that Win8 will kill MS, but I can certainly see it being another Vista.
Who here even owns a PC with touch capability? Seems like much of the functionality will go to waste...
The idea is to use the same kernel and UI across all platforms so that programs, and not just data can be seamlessly transferred from one device to the other.
That's all well and good, but the Metro UI wastes an enormous amount of screen real estate. Instead of your icons taking up part of a screen, as they do in the Windows UI, in Metro they take up two or more screens. Just effin' stoopid, if you ask me. I can't imagine what that'd look like on a tablet. Probably three or four screens, for just a handful of icons. ETA: Oh, and finding how to reboot your computer in Win8 is completely non-intuitive. You have to go to the charms bar, select settings, then select power, and then you get the option to reboot.
Heh, if I want to reboot in a hurry on Vista, I just type windows-u-up-enter (I exclusively use the Classic theme; don't have a Win 7 box to compare to). Your opinion then: Vista vs. 8? I've developed a love-hate relationship with Vista, having used it since 2008. All in all, my favourite version of Win was 2K Pro, followed by XP Pro and 98SE.
Vista sucks. Windows 7 is great. I'd find a way to upgrade to that if 8 sucks. I will just stick with 7 if the mess up 8.
Yep. Having read the reviews, and ran the beta version of Win 8, I am sticking with Windows 7. Why pay more money to lose functionality? Plus, Windows 7 has been pretty damned awesome. I'm happy with what I have. If I'm ready to move up in two years, the release of Windows 9 will be chugging along by then.
Not having used Vista, I can't comment on it, but I'd say that it'd probably be less annoying than 8.
To be honest I'm not too impressed with what I am seeing with 8. Damn if AutoCAD would just create an Android version I would ditch Windows entirely. They are moving to where you can access it from the could with their WS app, but it still isnt the same. Considering though that it took them until 2010 (IIRC) to come up with a Mac version, I'll probably be at retirement age before they do what I want.
I don't know what the hell it is, but Microsoft seems to have the Star Trek Movie Curse(tm). Every odd numbered release sucks rancid balls, and every even-numbered release cleans that shit up and makes it worth experiencing.
Umm, I think you got that backward. 1 no comment 2 no comment 3 Decent, particularly 3.11 for Workgroups 4 (9x) Good, for what it was. "4.3" (ME) Donkey balls 5 (XP) Good 6 (Vista) Blargh 7 Good 8 Not looking good. NT 1, 2, 3, 4 no comment NT 5 (2000, particularly Pro SP 2) Tits. (NT 6 is really Vista, not Win 6, but the distinction doesn't really matter anymore, save for Server 2k3)
Am I the only one that didn't have a problem with Vista? Aside from some issues with a music composition software I wanted to buy, I had no complaints about how Vista ran.
What's sad is that the hardware is definitely there for Android, it's just missing some critical software. My Nexus7 tablet has as much processing power as a Core 2 Duo E7200, which is insane given how small the device is and how little power it consumes, but the software just isn't there.
It's not terrible once User Account Control gets slapped down hard. But then Vista complains it's turned off each time you start up What music software? I use Sibelius 4 and 6, and neither fight with Vista.
Oh yeah, there's nothing like the old Control Panel that I can find in 8. There's a Control Panel, but its in the full screen Metro UI mode, meaning that you can't minimize it, and it looks (and acts) completely different than the old Control Panel. I have yet to figure it out completely. Honestly, I can't even see how the Metro UI would make a good tablet UI. I think that Apple and Android have vastly superior tablet UIs.
It's Microsoft's latest attempt at "We can be cool! We can! Please for the love of all things holy give us a chance! Look! It's all sleek and square! You kids like square things, right?!"
And it looks like someone's come out with a hack to restore the Start button! I haven't tried it out yet, but judging by the screenshots, it looks good. Of course, the last time someone did this, MS quickly pushed out a patch which prevented folks from using this.
And here comes the first privacy and security hole. There's more details in the article and it looks like MS has fixed some of the problems, but it still bears watching.
So how are 'apps' different from regular programs I may download from the internet or install off a disc like in previous versions of Windows? For example if I install some old game is that considered an 'app'? Or are 'apps' a different class of programs?
You know, "apps" isn't really a new word, as it's been used for years to refer to programs, primarily the executable. Sure it's being used now instead of the more common "programs", but "app" is still short for "application", which is a perfectly legitimate usage. Plus, how many of you here, aside from myself, remember when commercial software was referred to as "canned"?
Can't say I remember it being called 'canned', although I'm sure that has something to do with why incremental dev releases are "dogfood".
Here's a screen cap of a sample Start Screen. Notice the slider at the bottom of the screen. You use that to get the other screens with more live tiles on them.
Yep. I used to buy Commodore 64 programs. They were referred to as "canned" software in the old catalog. That is another reason why I don't like it. On my desktop, I want to have access to everything on one page, and in a single click. Scrolling to see other parts of the desktop is stupid and inefficient. Even Windows 95 had a Start menu, because you could have hundreds of programs immediately available to you in a single click of the button. That's why the Start menu makes sense. Taking that away and replacing it with tiles that offer a dumbed down, watered down application just makes for poor implementation. Add in the fact that to access everything you'll need to use the "classic" desktop, a desktop that lacks an easy access start menu, and it gets tedious very quickly. The UI for "Metro/Modern/whatever the hell it's called now" is an amalgam of half baked implementations that only kind of work. Yeah, Windows 8 has some positives, it's speed for one, but what the hell good is faster application access if you, the user, have to use convoluted methods to run those applications? I believe the UI is a step backwards.
Why can't they just have it toggle between a mouse and keyboard friendly version that is more like Windows 7 and a touch friendly version that can be used on tablets or laptop/tablet hybrids in tablet mode? Even if it doubled the size of the OS, wouldn't it still be relatively small? Then they could leave it up to the software makers to produce software that can also toggle.
They want it to be easier to use on tablets, so they sell lots and lots of tablets to business customers. That's the only thing I can think of. Screw them. I might just buy my first Mac.
