New Windows 8 user - my thoughts

peteyt

New Member
Messages
5
Location
UK
Hi there. I decided to upgrade a few days ago to Windows 8 as I decided £25 wasn't much of a loss if I didn't like it. I wasn't too sure what to expect but I'm mostly presently surprised.

The main big change that originally annoyed me when I first saw the early versions of Windows 8 was the missing start menu but weirdly I am kind of glad it's gone. With it missing I found myself having to use the new start screen, having to learn it and get used to it. It's not 100 percent perfect but I do like it. I think if the start menu was there I'd probably have just used that mainly again.

My main criticism, and one I've seen others share, is the switching between metro (Modern UI) and the desktop classic windows. I feel that not enough apps have a metro counterpart at the moment so I have to keep going from one mode to another e.g. my media player Winamp has no metro mode. Also some that do have a Metro app, have an incomplete metro app. For instance Skype's metro app, which is funnily owned by Microsoft, doesn't even offer simple file transfers right now.

I also thought most of Microsoft's apps would have a metro counterpart e.g. paint, notepad etc. And I thought they would have done a control panel metro style but with all the features that the desktop one had.

Finally also the search function while great, can't find everything. Because in Metro mode, Windows updates is in the metro settings area, I can't simply search for it in the normal search bar while in Windows 7 I could search for it and just about anything else.

Oh and while I remember, I've had a few apps which like to suddenly close themselves while in Metro mode. This could be a windows thing or a developer thing, I'm not really too sure.

I do hope more developers create Metro style apps, as right now while I really like the new look, I feel it's just not got enough to use it properly. I also hear that Microsoft is working on an update or something to make the desktop feel metro style (maybe with the ability to change to classic) so that will be interesting.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
Oh and while I remember, I've had a few apps which like to suddenly close themselves while in Metro mode. This could be a windows thing or a developer thing, I'm not really too sure.

Its not just a Windows thing, Android and IOS are really good at that, when I first got my iPad3 Safari crashed about 5 times per day, numerous other Apps, in Android and IOS do the same thing.

I personally havent had that many close down in Windows 8, just the odd couple.

Oh, and when you're on the Start Page just type in updates, then settings, a lot easier to find stuff there than Windows 7.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro/Windows 8 Pro/Windows 7 64 Bit64Bit/Windows XP
Oh and while I remember, I've had a few apps which like to suddenly close themselves while in Metro mode. This could be a windows thing or a developer thing, I'm not really too sure.

Its not just a Windows thing, Android and IOS are really good at that, when I first got my iPad3 Safari crashed about 5 times per day, numerous other Apps, in Android and IOS do the same thing.

I personally havent had that many close down in Windows 8, just the odd couple.

Oh, and when you're on the Start Page just type in updates, then settings, a lot easier to find stuff there than Windows 7.

Yeah I have a Samsung galaxy s2 and while I love it the apps can be unreliable. Chrome has been fine on my desktop 99 percent of the time but is often buggy on my Android phone. Maybe it's just apps. At least you know when native Windows apps have closed. I can try and see if someone has replied via a message app to realise its closed itself probably a while back.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
Back
Top