Enough Is Enough!

[echrada]

There must be something wrong with me, I've installed it on a Netbook, had to install the Windows 7 drivers, ran like a charm. Installed it on 3 other PC's no problem, installed it on another one, had to put Windows 7 drivers on it, now no problem.

I've got Windows 8 Pro running perfectly on 4 PC's, would never even think of going back to Windows 7.

Same here, I do not understand all the agony people seems to be going through, it has been painless for me on a pc, laptop, 2 tablets and an htpc.

 

[caperjack]

im running 8 pro on a 5or6 year dell SFF optiplex 745 ,and im not having the problems that i see people in this forum and other forums having ,but maybe im just lucky or haven't loaded some of the apps they have that might be causing the trouble ,any all for one and one for all good luck in the future

 

[Nuccii]

Before making the transition, I investigated, researched and prepared. When I dove in, I didn't belly flop. Luckily, no problems before or after. I knew what I was getting into and have no regrets. Works for me. I respect the opinions of others, they do what they have to do.

 

[Max Peck]

Just spent the day yesterday building my machine back up to Win7 Ultimate from scratch. I'm done with "8" for the duration. Latest problem: hard crashing when more than one Metro app open with busy desktop.

Sorry guys ... this thing just ain't an upgrade. I've got better things to do than fool with a tablet O/S on my desktop. It's been fun.

Wow ... I forgot how much I liked Aero Glass!

-Max

My hat off to you, Max. Your OP here and your following ones are to the point, eloquent, and honest. I like how you correct those judging and spamming either way. I feel we should all try to practice that more, including me. I know I can get quite cocky with my attitude at times.

In reading your posts these past months, I know that you gave it your all with trying and testing 8.

I just installed my Windows 8 Pro OEM System Builder edition to dual boot with 7 the other night. A few reasons why I've decided to do so. It's not that I don't like 8, but rather I'm a little leery of it, for I think they may have pushed it out the door a little too soon. We all know the pattern of good and lousy of every other OS, not to say that 8 is lousy, but rather a little unstable. I'm sure MS will do their all to work bugs out. I cannot afford to run a business on an OS that I think is not quite stable yet. Although I consider myself luckier than some with their horror stories here. I just feel this is the best way to go for me at the present time.

Another reason is that I need to update some software, especially Office 2000 Pro and rightfully so. I surely got my money's worth there.

Anywho, we all need to decide what's best for us. I respect your choice. Does this mean we won't be seeing you here on the forums any longer?

Hippsie,

Thanks for the kind words. I do try to be honest and relate my experiences. That's what these forums are for, no?

No, I won't disappear. There's been some good discussions from this group. While I won't consider myself among the Win8 "supporters" I'll still monitor and chime in to good discussions I see going.

-Max

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Oh good, Max! Things just wouldn't be the same around here without you.

 

[Max Peck]

Oh good, Max! Things just wouldn't be the same around here without you.

Nice to be appreciated. Thanks!

-Max

 

[pparks1]

Same here, I do not understand all the agony people seems to be going through, it has been painless for me on a pc, laptop, 2 tablets and an htpc.

It's all due to the fact that we use our computers differently. Most of my agony is simply not liking the way that I now have to do something. It's not that I cannot do it.

 

[pcRat]

But ok, if you need to run xp because customers are still running it, it'd probably just be best to run the actual OS of xp versus a mode. A VM would bode better I'd think than that. xp mode was more or less designed to run xp era programs in a new OS to push people onto 7 than stick with xp because of that excuse.

XP Mode is NOT a mode, it's a VM, plain and simple. It's just licensed and ready to go. Microsoft just elected to call it XP Mode instead of XP VM. I don't know why they did it that way.



Thanks Coke for simple definition to clarify XP mode not being XP OS & VMs in general.

 

[Mystere]

The reason it wasn't noticed is that we don't run Windows 8 on employee machines at my office. I was experimenting with Windows 8 on my extra desktop (on a second hard drive), and decided to set up a few of the things that I would normally use to see if they all work (VMWare Workstation 8.x, etc). That's when I noticed that you could not use XP Mode. My primary laptop and primary desktop both run Windows 7 Enterprise and I can use XP Mode on them.

My point was that you've been "playing with" 8 for quite some time, based on your arguments against it over the various months. If this was such an important feature to you, it seems like it would have been one of the first things you looked for, whether or not you intended to use it while playing with it.

I know that I can use a volume license copy of our Windows XP install media (or my own MSDN copy) and install Windows XP into a VM just like anything else, but then I have to actually do the setup and input our key..yadda, yadda, yadda. I didn't have to do that with XP Mode. It was extremely small, ready to go, and worked perfectly without being in a grey licensing area whatsoever.

I just don't like loosing functionality and features when I upgrade my operating system. I expect the same feature set and more when I go to new versions.

My point was that Client Hyper-V *IS* more functionality. You're not losing any functionality, you're getting more. It's like complaining that someone replaced your Yugo with a BMW, and saying you're losing the functionality of having a crappy car.

No, you don't get the XP license, but most of us already have more XP licenses than we can sneeze at. I've got boxes full of them, not to mention tons of testing licenses through TechNet and MSDN. What you can do is install XP once, copy the image, and reuse it over and over, which is basically the same thing as you were doing with XP Mode.

 

[pparks1]

My point was that you've been "playing with" 8 for quite some time, based on your arguments against it over the various months. If this was such an important feature to you, it seems like it would have been one of the first things you looked for, whether or not you intended to use it while playing with it.

Fair enough, in my playing, I didn't notice it was missing. But I did say it was not a showstopper, just a disappointment...so it's not like I ever declared it to be the most important thing to me. I have not ever seriously considered Windows 8 for a daily use machine...so I never really considered these other things that I might want to do and could not do.

My point was that Client Hyper-V *IS* more functionality. You're not losing any functionality, you're getting more.

While Hyper-V has more functionality than Virtual PC ever had, in this case it's the "free license" to Windows XP that I appreciated the most and that is what has been lost. You certainly can run Windows XP as a Hyper-V VM, but you gotta come to the table with your own license to do it.

On the plus side, having Hyper-V included in Windows 8 pro is super nice. In many cases, it would prevent somebody from having to buy the $200 copy of VMWare Workstation as I have done. I still want VMWare since I use it so extensively at work, but most people could care less.

No, you don't get the XP license, but most of us already have more XP licenses than we can sneeze at.

I'd say most of us have OEM licenses of XP, which technically are not legally transferable to a VM.

not to mention tons of testing licenses through TechNet and MSDN.

Yes, I noted that I have volume license options and my MSDN license options for myself personally. I just appreciated that with Windows 7 I didn't have to use them. It was a nice add-on, freebie license. However, when investing in the newest version of the OS, you don't get anymore.

What you can do is install XP once, copy the image, and reuse it over and over, which is basically the same thing as you were doing with XP Mode.

Yes, understood. I actually make heavy use of the linked clone template functionality of VMWare Workstation. I just liked the 1 min setup and install of XP Mode versus the 20+ minutes it takes to setup a VM, load the OS, answer the question, provide the license, and then mark as a template and re-use.

 

[thatmanbrian]

Rightly or wrongly, when anyone throws their dummy out of the pram like the OP, poor chap, I always have a sneaky suspicion it is the user at fault. I'm not saying this about the OP but just in general. My own upgrade from Win7 to 8 was a nightmare but only because I hadn't understood the role UEFI type bioses now play and why it isn't a good idea to try to upgrade a system that has two bootable hard drives! Silly errors on my part!

 

[Max Peck]

Same here, I do not understand all the agony people seems to be going through, it has been painless for me on a pc, laptop, 2 tablets and an htpc.

It's all due to the fact that we use our computers differently. Most of my agony is simply not liking the way that I now have to do something. It's not that I cannot do it.

That's basically how it broke down for me, except of course the fact that I was getting a daily hard lock and I couldn't keep a remote desktop session with my office machine open without repeated timeouts. To me those became deal breakers, particularly since I found the Metro end of it to literally be a vestige to me. I'm sure if I'd continued the struggle for a few more months these issues may have been worked out, however it simply came down to what bean counters call a cost/benefit ratio. The ratio was getting too high. The benefit part of the ratio (the denominator) was approaching zero which means a BIG number! (BIG is bad).

OTOH, once I finish configuring a Win7 box it runs for months and months with no problems at all. Continuing to force myself to try and like Win8 became silly.

-Max

 

[Mystere]

Uh huh.

I suspect you're one of those people that likes to do all that configuration stuff. After you get your Windows 7 box "perfect" you'll get bored, and want to reinstall 8 again

 

[thatmanbrian]

Yep, a perfect system is boring!!

 

[Max Peck]

Rightly or wrongly, when anyone throws their dummy out of the pram like the OP, poor chap, I always have a sneaky suspicion it is the user at fault. I'm not saying this about the OP but just in general. My own upgrade from Win7 to 8 was a nightmare but only because I hadn't understood the role UEFI type bioses now play and why it isn't a good idea to try to upgrade a system that has two bootable hard drives! Silly errors on my part!

I'm not a "poor chap", I'm a software developer with 36+ years of experience with these systems. I've written everything from O/S kernel code to device drivers to process control code to financials to ... (list about 2 dozen more here). I've been configuring these boxes since they were running DOS 1.1.

I figured that at my level of experience and expertise that if I couldn't make myself like the thing after a year-and-a-half (going through the DEV and Release Preview Process then onto the "gold" release) that it was time to hang the thing up and return to a system I've proven to be completely reliable so I can spend more time doing what I do best, write code. This O/S tinkering and tweaking was costing me big-time in terms of time and aggravation. The last time I ran into this kind of frustration was back in the OS/2 vs. Windows days.

-Max

 

[Max Peck]

Uh huh.

I suspect you're one of those people that likes to do all that configuration stuff. After you get your Windows 7 box "perfect" you'll get bored, and want to reinstall 8 again

There has been some component of that, sure, but this time it cost me way too much time to retool back (I have a damned complex system set up). I'll pull the Ruger out of the drawer next to me and shoot the machine before I'll go through that aggravation any time soon again! (That little .380 will make a NICE hole in this box!) I've got a product to build and fooling around with this thing is stealing time from that!

-Max ;-)

 

[thatmanbrian]

I wasn't being personal as I tried to make clear! I was being sympathetic to your experience. I too go back a long, long way and still enjoy the challenges. But as you say, someone in your position can't afford that luxury!

 

[Max Peck]

I wasn't being personal as I tried to make clear! I was being sympathetic to your experience. I too go back a long, long way and still enjoy the challenges. But as you say, someone in your position can't afford that luxury!

I didn't take it personally, I was trying to be "tongue-in-cheek" with the "poor chap" stuff. Sorry!

It's not that I can't "afford" it ... I'm just tired of the aggravation. I really LIKE Win7 and its presentation. Microsoft got this one right and Win8, as good as it may be, just ain't fitting here. That's all.

-Max

 

[Hopachi]

Uh huh.

I suspect you're one of those people that likes to do all that configuration stuff. After you get your Windows 7 box "perfect" you'll get bored, and want to reinstall 8 again

True.
Luckily I can divert the reinstalls mostly to VM tests BEFORE I mess or forget some data or tweaks.

 

[JLyman]

Who's excited for the next version!?!?!