Windows 8 really isn't that bad

[Fredledingue]

Well, Vista wasn't so bad neither. Aero and the indexing service were drags on resources, but once you disabled these it was a pretty decent OS. Same with W8. What we don't like, we fix it by installing Classic Start or Start8 among other things. Others learned how to configure the Start Screen in a more useful way. If I have to ues W8, you can make sure I''ll will dismantle it down to the chassi and rebuild it to my liking.

 

[Coke Robot]

The DP and Enterprise are the only versions that can correctly install my sound driver.

I'm very confused as to why the Enterprise would handle your sound driver any differently than say the Windows 8 Pro version. Seems very odd to me.

Agreed.

Still drivers are unreliable.
Just look at all of the driver problem threads on the Internet.
You will often see a group of people complaining and another group saying that the driver works perfectly.

W8 CP and W8 RP both reported the sound driver as correctly installed, but they would only make buzzing noises.
I tried reinstalling the RP 3x (and I checked the hash numbers) just in case it was an install failure.
No dice.

I think that MS screwed something up in the CP and RP and it has been fixed in the latest releases.

I should point out that I am running W8 (DP, CP ,RP and ENT) on VHDs.

But if you don't need fullscreen apps, don't use them. If the Start Screen is what bugs you, ok, great. I don't understand how that's a huge problem when at most, I don't see what's on the Desktop for a few seconds when I click on Desktop app tile. I don't get how it's counterproductive to have your Desktop windows as they, go to the Start Screen, and start a new program and quickly get back to the Desktop as you left it.

Once you install real programs, you can (mostly) avoid the Metro screen and Apps (e.g. Photo and PDF).

If you don't install real programs, the Apps will hijack your session.

Desktop apps will be the major chunk of what people will install as they normally have done in the past. The metro apps are just additional. I personally don't want having the Music app open when I want a music file played when I'm on the Desktop, so I changed that. That's me. And also the current iteration of Xbox Music isn't even feature complete either.

 

[Coke Robot]

Well, Vista wasn't so bad neither. Aero and the indexing service were drags on resources, but once you disabled these it was a pretty decent OS. Same with W8. What we don't like, we fix it by installing Classic Start or Start8 among other things. Others learned how to configure the Start Screen in a more useful way. If I have to ues W8, you can make sure I''ll will dismantle it down to the chassi and rebuild it to my liking.

vista was bad all around for me. It needed a few third party apps and digging around system settings to get the hardware optimized. Even then, it felt like it needed weekly attention whereas 8 doesn't even need my input for almost nothing except for a few things that do, like startup items.

 

[R0bR]

Starbuck is making a killing with Start8. Millions of download in a matter of days.

Plus they have millions of people buying their coffee's everyday, what more could you ask for?

 

[Frank1]

OK--I'll admit it, I'm starting to like it and maybe I'llupgrade. Not sure yet, but I might. There is one thing that ticks me off. WhenI hover my mouse pointer in one of the corners, it's supposed to bring up theMetro or whatever it's called; or maybe it's called the Charm. But what I don'tlike is the fact that it doesn't always work the first time. Sometimes I haveto keep moving it around to bring it up. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Hasanyone else run into that and know of a way to make it more consistent?

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Bugs me too Frank, but not a deal breaker.

 

[Fredledingue]

I don't get how it's counterproductive to have your Desktop windows as they, go to the Start Screen, and start a new program and quickly get back to the Desktop as you left it.

It's counterproductive (or annoying) because the Start Screen is totaly concealing the work space. It's creating a cognitive displacement. Some poeple (including myself) experience this: They repair something, then they need to go to another room to fetch a screwdriver. They go to the other room and there they completely forgot why they went there for. Back to the workshop, they remembre they needed a screwdriver and return to the other room to finaly fetch the screwdriver. This is a perfectly normal psychological phenomenon. Same with the W8 Start Screen, you go to another space (and Microsoft does makes sure it looks like another space and makes abundantly clear it is) to fetch a tool. Everytime you go back and forth from Metro to Desktop, your brain makes an inconcious but sometimes concious effort to recontextualize. This doesn't happen with the classsic Start Menu because it only displays collumns of icons. You remain visualy in your work context. You are not taken away to another background.

I don't understand how that's a huge problem

Moreover, you now have to deal with two working spaces instead of one: The Metro/W8 UI with its own applications and its own logic and the Desktop with also its own applications and its own logic. Poeple have been enough complaining that there is no interractivity between the two, that you don't even know which programs are running in Metro, that the Metro Start Screen can pop up at any time, especialy at the least expected moment, that you can't open the same softwares in the two environements, that you even need two different versions of IE etc. It's like dual booting W7/Commodore64 but both OSes boot at once and you need to constantly move from one to amother because you can't do all operations in W7. IMO it will be more productive to be able to do everything on W7.2, aka. W8 without Metro.

If the Start Screen is what bugs you, ok, great.

If at least the Start Screen could leave the Taskbar visible, it would already be much simplier, much easier to understand and with time going, to adopt. (I think that a resize and a minimize is asking too much. ...Isn't it?)

 

[slacker3343]

It's counterproductive (or annoying) because the Start Screen is totaly concealing the work space. It's creating a cognitive displacement. Some poeple (including myself) experience this:

I actually get this, to put it more simply you feel like your swimming up stream, I felt allot of resistance to the 2 separate screens. The 2 worlds are like oil and water, I can see cokes point about using it long enough, but for me it's more like settling. If you swim in the sewer long enough you may not smell it anymore but it really still stinks. However after 4 days of solid use I did get over that feeling, however metro is still not as efficient as my classic shell menu.

 

[jeffrys]

Well, Vista wasn't so bad neither. Aero and the indexing service were drags on resources, but once you disabled these it was a pretty decent OS. Same with W8. What we don't like, we fix it by installing Classic Start or Start8 among other things. Others learned how to configure the Start Screen in a more useful way. If I have to ues W8, you can make sure I''ll will dismantle it down to the chassi and rebuild it to my liking.

Vista not so bad.......YEAH RIGHT. MY GOD......

Come on Fred get serious.

Win 8 is the best thing MS ever produced. I say this again and again and again.

And again and again...if one does not like it stay on Vista, Win 7, XP, Win 95, Linux, whatever, but PLEASE

Jeff

 

[FSeal]

Well, Vista wasn't so bad neither. Aero and the indexing service were drags on resources, but once you disabled these it was a pretty decent OS. Same with W8. What we don't like, we fix it by installing Classic Start or Start8 among other things. Others learned how to configure the Start Screen in a more useful way. If I have to ues W8, you can make sure I''ll will dismantle it down to the chassi and rebuild it to my liking.

Vista not so bad.......YEAH RIGHT. MY GOD......

Come on Fred get serious.

Win 8 is the best thing MS ever produced. I say this again and again and again.

And again and again...if one does not like it stay on Vista, Win 7, XP, Win 95, Linux, whatever, but PLEASE

Jeff

Vista was NOT that bad, the press and local gossip overblew that fiasco by 10x or more. Same exact logic applied to Apple (Though inverted). Apple isn't really all that great, their facade is perfectly shiny, that does not make the ipad or their laptops any better than any windows machine, people just /think/ they are better. People for the most part just /think/ Vista was bad because that's all they ever heard.

Windows 8 on the other hand REALLY IS bad. (Ok Metro is bad, the desktop, while horribly crippled and stripped bare of any beauty it ever had, is still workable... for now)

 

[SIW2]

I still use Vista.

I think there issues at the beginning - lack of 3rd party driver support.

People were plugging in 5 yr old printers and the like , then getting mad when they didn't work. Probably because the printer manufacturer couldn't be bothered to provide drivers - and why should they?

Would have been better if MS had provided slider controls for the rather over enthusiastic uac - and for shadowstorage.

In other respects , a very fine o/s.

64 bit Vista runs beautifully on my 5yr old machine with 2gb ram.

 

[SIW2]

RE: The Fairy Wand

At first it would just pop out apparently at random.

MS have tried to tuck it away to prevent that.

I agree - you have to fish about for the thing - but it's better than having it putting in an appearance whenever the fancy takes it.

If you don't like edge UI - there are programs that will disable it.

OK--I'll admit it, I'm starting to like it and maybe I'llupgrade. Not sure yet, but I might. There is one thing that ticks me off. WhenI hover my mouse pointer in one of the corners, it's supposed to bring up theMetro or whatever it's called; or maybe it's called the Charm. But what I don'tlike is the fact that it doesn't always work the first time. Sometimes I haveto keep moving it around to bring it up. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Hasanyone else run into that and know of a way to make it more consistent?

 

[Hopachi]

I still use Vista.

I think there issues at the beginning - lack of 3rd party driver support.

People were plugging in 5 yr old printers and the like , then getting mad when they didn't work. Probably because the printer manufacturer couldn't be bothered to provide drivers - and why should they?

Would have been better if MS had provided slider controls for the rather over enthusiastic uac - and for shadowstorage.

In other respects , a very fine o/s.

64 bit Vista runs beautifully on my 5yr old machine with 2gb ram.

I agree.

I have Vista (the x64) on an older laptop too and works very well.
One you get to SP2 it's solid, it's almost Win7, just the UI differs.

 

[SIW2]

You can in fact get rid of all that useless fiffle from win8 -boot straight to desktop - none of that start screen and edge ui stuff.

Then what are you left with?

A shadow of a desktop o/s that is awful to look at.

I don't know what we are expecting.

It is an o/s for Tablets.

It is not for a proper desktop/laptop. It never was.

It probably works well on a tablet - I wouldn't know.

Of course, it is possible to run it on a proper machine - but it is also possible to rake the garden with a dining fork.

 

[musiclover7]

You can in fact get rid of all that useless fiffle from win8 -boot straight to desktop - none of that edge ui stuff.

Then what are you left with?

A shadow of a desktop o/s that is awful to look at.

I don't know what we are expecting.

It is an o/s for Tablets.

It is not for a proper desktop/laptop. It never was.

It probably works well on a tablet - I wouldn't know.

Of course, it is possible to run it on a proper machine - but it is also possible to rake the garden with a dining fork.

Wonderful comments.. Get ready for yet another post to follow, about how all you have to do to get the leaves raked up properly with that fork, is get down on your hands and knees and duck tape the fork to your hand. Walla.. See, now it performs just like a rake..

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Gentlemen, lets get it right the BEST O/S to come out of Redmond was NT4! Bar none.

 

[Hopachi]

Gentlemen, lets get it right the BEST O/S to come out of Redmond was NT4! Bar none.

Really?

To be honest, I never used it (how is it look like? I guess Win 2000??).

And there may be other posts following saying that Win 95 was the best OS...

 

[FSeal]

XP really was the very best OS for it's time. I mean it lasted 6 years without a major update! It melded the rock solid stability of Windows 2000 with the useful user fluff like plesent graphics in the UI and Direct X so you could play games etc. Windows reached a utopia at that point in time.

Windows 7 is, in the new age, the very best version of Windows. Good if not revolutionary UI. Supremely usable, did everything and did it well.

We'll see where Win 8 winds up on the windows pile in a year or two...

 

[Coke Robot]

I don't get how it's counterproductive to have your Desktop windows as they, go to the Start Screen, and start a new program and quickly get back to the Desktop as you left it.

It's counterproductive (or annoying) because the Start Screen is totaly concealing the work space. It's creating a cognitive displacement. Some poeple (including myself) experience this: They repair something, then they need to go to another room to fetch a screwdriver. They go to the other room and there they completely forgot why they went there for. Back to the workshop, they remembre they needed a screwdriver and return to the other room to finaly fetch the screwdriver. This is a perfectly normal psychological phenomenon. Same with the W8 Start Screen, you go to another space (and Microsoft does makes sure it looks like another space and makes abundantly clear it is) to fetch a tool. Everytime you go back and forth from Metro to Desktop, your brain makes an inconcious but sometimes concious effort to recontextualize. This doesn't happen with the classsic Start Menu because it only displays collumns of icons. You remain visualy in your work context. You are not taken away to another background.

I don't understand how that's a huge problem

Moreover, you now have to deal with two working spaces instead of one: The Metro/W8 UI with its own applications and its own logic and the Desktop with also its own applications and its own logic. Poeple have been enough complaining that there is no interractivity between the two, that you don't even know which programs are running in Metro, that the Metro Start Screen can pop up at any time, especialy at the least expected moment, that you can't open the same softwares in the two environements, that you even need two different versions of IE etc. It's like dual booting W7/Commodore64 but both OSes boot at once and you need to constantly move from one to amother because you can't do all operations in W7. IMO it will be more productive to be able to do everything on W7.2, aka. W8 without Metro.

If the Start Screen is what bugs you, ok, great.

If at least the Start Screen could leave the Taskbar visible, it would already be much simplier, much easier to understand and with time going, to adopt. (I think that a resize and a minimize is asking too much. ...Isn't it?)

But going to the Start Screen from the Desktop isn't like walking through a door opening.... There isn't really anything physical there that makes you forget what you were doing, at least for me. If I'm working on some photos, I go to Start, scroll over a bit and open up Photoshop on the Desktop while still being able to see what windows I have open to compare two photos side by side. I guess I don't forget anything.

As I see it, the Start Screen is taking the tradition Desktop's purpose of hosting program icons and putting that layer on top. These days, the Desktop is being used more and more as a nice picture background with icons pinned to the Taskbar instead of the Desktop. Now, if you had a few windows open, it would be a pain to click on the Show Desktop button, minimize EVERYTHING as to open one program or folder. Then to restore those windows, you need to manually do that. More clicks, more time, more tediousness. Now, that's where the Start Screen's concept comes in. Instead of doing all that, it takes the Desktop, slips it out from the bottom layer and puts in on top of everything when you go to it. So that way, windows stay open and right where they are. That's how I see, if that makes any sense.

But as for the start menu, that argument/debate has been long done and the simple conclusion is that a considerable amount of users don't use it to its fullest extent. On a side tangent, if Windows 8 had to traditional UI, it was stagnate like the mac os. You really can't develop anything better or worthwhile anymore. Windows 7 was the perfect OS and 8 is a beginning of a new series. You can't take Windows 7, made some UI elements prettier/better and call it Windows 8 and ask for 200 dollars to install it. I mean, if you go to the Customization forum and go to Post your Start Screen, you'll see a couple people changing the UI of Start. Basically, I'm trying to get across that by using the Start Screen, there is MUCH more development potential than the menu.

 

[Coke Robot]

XP really was the very best OS for it's time. I mean it lasted 6 years without a major update! It melded the rock solid stability of Windows 2000 with the useful user fluff like plesent graphics in the UI and Direct X so you could play games etc. Windows reached a utopia at that point in time.

Windows 7 is, in the new age, the very best version of Windows. Good if not revolutionary UI. Supremely usable, did everything and did it well.

We'll see where Win 8 winds up on the windows pile in a year or two...

To think that xp's graphics are pleasant today...