I'm using 8 on my primary desktop right now, haven't upgraded to 8.1 yet. Typing this comment on my Macbook Pro.
After using 8 for a while, I honestly don't see why people hate it so much. I don't use the Metro stuff, and the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. As a development environment I quite like it, and prefer it mightily over OSX as Apple tries to shoehorn that OS into an iOS-like frankenstein's monster.
I'll be upgrading to 8.1 as soon as I feel like it, but I just came here to chime in that I really don't get why people abhor 8 so much in the first place. It kind of feels like piling-on to me with no real substance behind. As a developer anyway--I can't speak to a non-technical user's experience with it.
We bought my junior high-aged son a laptop for Christmas last year, and it came with Windows 8. He hates it. I promise you I didn't say anything bad about it (because who wants to convince someone not to like the gift you just gave them?), but he came to me a few days later asking if I could "upgrade it to Mac OS". His words, not mine.
I think the reason he doesn't like it is that it's different from any computer he'd ever used at home or school before, and without any real benefit. He loves the Windows 7 gaming desktop we have in the living room but sees 8 as "weird" without a good reason for being so.
I personally didn't have an opinion on it until I tried to install a network printer and ended up bouncing between the Win 7-style control panel and the Win 8-style wizard thingy because neither one held all of the settings required to make it work. After a few minutes of that, I was about ready to pitch it out the living room window.
TL;DR it radically changed the UI without offering any noticeable advantages for having done so. That's why we came to not like it.
It's difficult to find things you want. Application paradigm is broken down and it's incompatible with previous model. What was a nested directory is suddenly a flat list, with even all the unessential help text files. The new "apps" are completely worthless and have a very poor performance. It seems to me that Windows Search doesn't work half the time. With Windows 7 it worked all the time. There's so much useless things that I have no use for that only clutter the interface unnecessarily. It's very schizophrenic. Context switching is a very expensive operation for the human mind. Doing it for absolutely no reason what so ever is extremely annoying.
Probably because it's the cool thing to do.
I know quite a few people, even some Linux devs that use Windows as their workstation (and a VM for linux).
Why? Because it works. its fast. and the UI ain't bad, in fact (of the classic desktop that is).
Basically, the polar opposite of what the "cool comment against windows" says.
Because it is inconsistent, jarring I might say for no benefit to the user even after a year.
Yes, in many ways it is better than Windows 7 and in some ways it is better than OSX as Windows always has been. But in the most visible ways it is confusing, unnecessarily complex (with a minimalist style!) and get in the way of productivity obnoxiously.
1 example: Windows 8 changed the short cut for input method switching from Ctrl+Space to WinKey+Space, but take you to another dimension (aka Microsoft Design Language née Metro) with a stroke of the WinKey. Often for a multiple language user like myself, the OS beam me in and out of the full screen psychedelically colored app launcher during my Office™ sessions enough times to make me RAGE.
I didn't miss the start button when jumping to Windows 8, because I use the Windows 8 start screen in exactly the same way as I use the Windows 7 start menu: I hit the Windows key and start typing the name of the program I want and select the program as soon as it appears.
Really, search is the only way to work application choosing now. There are just too many programs on a system now to make scrolling through a list of them an efficient use of time. It was fine back on Windows 95 when I only had an 8gb hard drive, it's awful today when I have two 500gb hard drives.
The other OS' (or rather, their window managers) have the basic implementation of this feature, but the Windows 7/8 version seems to be better about context. It seems to know that, if I type in "cursor", I might want to "change how the mouse pointer looks."
Microsoft REALLY wants you use a Microsoft account over a Local account. The link to chose a Local account during install is gone. It only shows up if you get the Microsoft account login wrong, and there is no indication that a Local account is even possible until this happens.
After upgrading to 8.1 some weeks ago I decided to really give the new UI a change.
And it is not actually that bad. The idea in modern UI is nice. I like the way you arrange windows and how you can easily split the screen for example 20-40-40 among three apps without having to manually resize the windows (just start dragging a modern UI app from top of the screen to arrange them). This also works smoothly with multiple screens.
I also think the start menu is ok, I just had to get rid of the default apps. I don't really see point on those tiles that are showing photos or news feed. Start with empty screen and then add applications which you really need.
In multim onitor configuration the start button is handy, since it allows you to open the Start screen in any monitor.
The major problem is that Microsoft decided to split the world into two. You have the modern apps. And you have the desktop apps. IMHO this was a mistake. They should have definitely figured out a way to run existing apps as modern UI apps. Now my most important apps are destined to live inside the desktop view.
Even Microsoft seems to have difficulties getting their apps to the modern side. Outlook is perfect example of app you would expect to exist on the modern side, but nope. Just on desktop. The Modern UI apps seem to usually simple apps. I'm wondering if they will ever manage to convert the complicated Office apps to modern UI.
I still have no use for the full screen (Metro) start menu and apps since I use Windows 8.1 on a desktop and laptop. Classic start shell and running everything in desktop windowed mode is still all I need. I often wonder if I will someday actually want a Windows tablet instead of Android that would make this full screen stuff necessary. Until then, the full screen stuff is just annoying and ignored.
I tried it on a new computer (Haswell desktop with SSD).
But Windows 8.1 is still slower than XP.
Even though I disabled all animations I can feel some lag between clicks and response. Probably it's because of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay-gqx18UTM ("Windows 7 GUI slowness")
I'm going back to XP, but I needed to buy a dedicated graphics card because Intel HD doesn't have drivers for XP. And there's also 3GB RAM limit.
Does that fact that you prefer a 12 year old OS to the latest from Microsoft not make you consider switching to Mac or Linux? There's bound to be security issues using such an old OS (have they not dropped support for it yet?).
That's interesting. Cannot say I can reproduce. I have a Windows 8 machine here with an SSD, and much like Windows 7 & Vista it is highly responsive ("instant").
However I do have 8 GB of RAM so maybe that has a lot to do with it? Anything Vista or later really requires 4 GB minimum (I don't care what Microsoft's official minimum requirements are).
Any less than 4 GB and even with an SSD Windows struggles a little. Particularly with a 64 bit installation which requires more RAM anyway. XP definitely consumed less RAM.
FYI, animations are there to hide the lag between click and response. They do not slow the computer, they are there to hide the perception of slowness. (The computer does something immediately, but it may not have all data needed to finish it, because it is waiting for i/o to complete).
Also, just because the animation is 60 fps, it does not mean that the computer or device are fast. It just means that the animation is smooth and the systems has certain time (0.5 - 2 sec, depending on animation) to do, whatever it is supposed to do.
Very curious to see how much they've fixed. Last year I bought a brand-new laptop which came with Windows 7. The first two months the laptop was running completely perfectly, until Windows 8 came out and I decided to upgrade.
Since then, the experience has been terrible;
- randomly crashing apps without meaningful error-messages, mostly when one app would crash it would take down all other apps with it (this was fixed with an update about half a year ago),
- the built-in mousepad was not recognized for about 2 months until an update magically fixed it, but to this day Windows won't accept tap-to-click properly and all attempts to fix it are reset with each Windows update,
- the windows 8 installer damaged about 10% of my windows 7 restore partition from the harddisk, at the same time corrupting the MBR and making it impossible to either revert to Windows 7 or to switch OS in general without significantly reworking the entire harddrive,
- and last but not least, just an incredibly confusing user interface which has truly weird functions like "drag mouse from bottom left corner to the right and a mystical menu will pop up.
So do you have to make a "Microsoft account" and log in to their app store just to download something that was for previous versions a Service Pack, reachable from the web?
What happens with the existing local accounts then, anybody tried?
"Brandon LeBlanc: We're not releasing the ISO images to folks who don't have MSDN and TechNet subscriptions. Best way for everyone else is to update through the Windows Store."
I can't upgrade Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 because I've moved my "C:\Users" folder to "E:\Users" (to move it off the SSD). The 8.1 installer tells me "it can't install because either the Users or Program Files directory has been moved to another partition".
Somehow every other program on my machine manages to run thanks to environment variables like %USERPROFILE% and %APPDATA%.
Has anyone been able to download the update via the Windows Store? I'm on the 8.1 Preview and the Windows Store keeps throwing an error about not being able to connect.
IIRC you cannot upgrade from the preview of 8.1. You will have to do a clean install. So try getting an iso or some other file download from microsoft instead of the in-store one.
This is incredible, I'm running 8.1 preview and actually can't find a way to download the release. Just keep getting redirected around to dead links. Another Microsoft stereotype proven right.
*Edit: Switched to IE from Chrome and one of the links opens the native Store app. lol
Been using this for a few days already since it was released to MSDN. Definitely better than Windows 8.0 and even Windows 7.
If you don't like Metro, it's pretty easy to get rid of now but not entirely (it occasionally pokes you in the eye). My setup guide:
1. Use group policy editor to get rid of lock screen.
2. Set IE to open tiles on desktop.
3. Set start menu to display apps only and turn off hot corners. Then set to boot to desktop.
4. Uninstall all the metro apps that come with it.
You will still get the "start screen" but in apps view and the search stuff but to be honest it's pretty good. I rarely see it though as everything I use is pinned to the taskbar.
Use Windows+X as your new start menu afterwards - it rocks. In fact I wish earlier versions of windows had that!
Reasons to upgrade: faster boot, power management seems more stable, Hyper-V, explorer UI enhancements, nicer file copying, new task manager, better Powershell integration.
PuTTY and Firefox still work which is the most important thing for me though...
Edit: just to add I haven't installed a start menu replacement or metro killer.
Edit 2: I haven't figured out backups yet. Windows 7 backup was trivial with an external disk.
Edit 3: to bypass microsoft account login/creation on installation (I did this on Pro edition):
1. When it asks you to sign in, click "create a microsoft account".
2. There is a link at the bottom to "use a local account" on the page this sends you to.
You say that Windows 8.1 is better than windows 7 while occasionally poking the user in the eye?
I'm not sure nicer file copying is worth being pokes in the eye by Metro. Faster boot and power management sound interesting, but I would really need independent benchmarks before I would trust any such claims. A 5 seconds or less decrease in boot time (like http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-vs-windows-7-benchmarked_p2-7...) would not be worth it for me. A significant power boost (+10%) for a laptop might be worth being poked in the eye, if said 10% can be gained while I use the computer (ie, not while sleeping/idling/suspended). For desktop however, power management is not really a feature Im looking for.
I feel the Windows+X menu is a disaster. It is the worse UI for a menu ever. Is it a traditional start menu? a context menu? It feels really out of place with the entire Windows 8 UI. You want a shortcut to the Control Panel? Device Manager? Event Viewer? Let's just throw it on the start/context menu! The whole Windows+X menu seems like it was added by an engineer and was completely overlooked by the design team.
You know, right after Windows 8 was released, I noticed something really interesting. While I was struggling with it [1], there were a lot of people on reddit and here being extremely positive, and on reddit there were attacks against anyone that was negative about it. At first, I figured I was just out of step. Gradually, the number of people complaining about Windows 8 grew to overshadow the boosters, where finally the boosters were nowhere to be seen. I believe it was a campaign by Microsoft to try and turn the tide they knew would be there, against it. It failed because Windows 8 was so horrible.
So, 8.1 comes out and here we have a new account (6 days old) with a glowing review. Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical. I've been had before.
When I started using 8 I wasn't too bothered by the missing start button, now I think I might actually prefer it without. I like the start screen, but I don't use any actual metro apps.
How long did the upgrade take? I'm just wondering if this is more like a service pack, or if I'm going to lose a better part of an afternoon doing the upgrade.
[+] [-] jasonkolb|12 years ago|reply
After using 8 for a while, I honestly don't see why people hate it so much. I don't use the Metro stuff, and the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. As a development environment I quite like it, and prefer it mightily over OSX as Apple tries to shoehorn that OS into an iOS-like frankenstein's monster.
I'll be upgrading to 8.1 as soon as I feel like it, but I just came here to chime in that I really don't get why people abhor 8 so much in the first place. It kind of feels like piling-on to me with no real substance behind. As a developer anyway--I can't speak to a non-technical user's experience with it.
[+] [-] kstrauser|12 years ago|reply
I think the reason he doesn't like it is that it's different from any computer he'd ever used at home or school before, and without any real benefit. He loves the Windows 7 gaming desktop we have in the living room but sees 8 as "weird" without a good reason for being so.
I personally didn't have an opinion on it until I tried to install a network printer and ended up bouncing between the Win 7-style control panel and the Win 8-style wizard thingy because neither one held all of the settings required to make it work. After a few minutes of that, I was about ready to pitch it out the living room window.
TL;DR it radically changed the UI without offering any noticeable advantages for having done so. That's why we came to not like it.
[+] [-] 127|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zobzu|12 years ago|reply
Why? Because it works. its fast. and the UI ain't bad, in fact (of the classic desktop that is).
Basically, the polar opposite of what the "cool comment against windows" says.
[+] [-] AllenKids|12 years ago|reply
Yes, in many ways it is better than Windows 7 and in some ways it is better than OSX as Windows always has been. But in the most visible ways it is confusing, unnecessarily complex (with a minimalist style!) and get in the way of productivity obnoxiously.
1 example: Windows 8 changed the short cut for input method switching from Ctrl+Space to WinKey+Space, but take you to another dimension (aka Microsoft Design Language née Metro) with a stroke of the WinKey. Often for a multiple language user like myself, the OS beam me in and out of the full screen psychedelically colored app launcher during my Office™ sessions enough times to make me RAGE.
[+] [-] pasbesoin|12 years ago|reply
Could someone speak briefly to the "faster" part of the parent's description?
I'm currently reinstalling and have the choice between 7 and 8.
[+] [-] tejinderss|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moron4hire|12 years ago|reply
Really, search is the only way to work application choosing now. There are just too many programs on a system now to make scrolling through a list of them an efficient use of time. It was fine back on Windows 95 when I only had an 8gb hard drive, it's awful today when I have two 500gb hard drives.
The other OS' (or rather, their window managers) have the basic implementation of this feature, but the Windows 7/8 version seems to be better about context. It seems to know that, if I type in "cursor", I might want to "change how the mouse pointer looks."
[+] [-] optimiz3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ratscabies|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hanifvirani|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randlet|12 years ago|reply
That's pretty strange wording and makes it sound like desktop users are an afterthought compared to mobile devices.
[+] [-] jpalomaki|12 years ago|reply
And it is not actually that bad. The idea in modern UI is nice. I like the way you arrange windows and how you can easily split the screen for example 20-40-40 among three apps without having to manually resize the windows (just start dragging a modern UI app from top of the screen to arrange them). This also works smoothly with multiple screens.
I also think the start menu is ok, I just had to get rid of the default apps. I don't really see point on those tiles that are showing photos or news feed. Start with empty screen and then add applications which you really need.
In multim onitor configuration the start button is handy, since it allows you to open the Start screen in any monitor.
The major problem is that Microsoft decided to split the world into two. You have the modern apps. And you have the desktop apps. IMHO this was a mistake. They should have definitely figured out a way to run existing apps as modern UI apps. Now my most important apps are destined to live inside the desktop view.
Even Microsoft seems to have difficulties getting their apps to the modern side. Outlook is perfect example of app you would expect to exist on the modern side, but nope. Just on desktop. The Modern UI apps seem to usually simple apps. I'm wondering if they will ever manage to convert the complicated Office apps to modern UI.
[+] [-] benferris|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] createaccount0|12 years ago|reply
Even though I disabled all animations I can feel some lag between clicks and response. Probably it's because of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay-gqx18UTM ("Windows 7 GUI slowness")
I'm going back to XP, but I needed to buy a dedicated graphics card because Intel HD doesn't have drivers for XP. And there's also 3GB RAM limit.
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UnoriginalGuy|12 years ago|reply
However I do have 8 GB of RAM so maybe that has a lot to do with it? Anything Vista or later really requires 4 GB minimum (I don't care what Microsoft's official minimum requirements are).
Any less than 4 GB and even with an SSD Windows struggles a little. Particularly with a 64 bit installation which requires more RAM anyway. XP definitely consumed less RAM.
So how much RAM does your PC have?
[+] [-] vetinari|12 years ago|reply
Also, just because the animation is 60 fps, it does not mean that the computer or device are fast. It just means that the animation is smooth and the systems has certain time (0.5 - 2 sec, depending on animation) to do, whatever it is supposed to do.
[+] [-] rplnt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ellisd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burpee|12 years ago|reply
Since then, the experience has been terrible;
- randomly crashing apps without meaningful error-messages, mostly when one app would crash it would take down all other apps with it (this was fixed with an update about half a year ago),
- the built-in mousepad was not recognized for about 2 months until an update magically fixed it, but to this day Windows won't accept tap-to-click properly and all attempts to fix it are reset with each Windows update,
- the windows 8 installer damaged about 10% of my windows 7 restore partition from the harddisk, at the same time corrupting the MBR and making it impossible to either revert to Windows 7 or to switch OS in general without significantly reworking the entire harddrive,
- and last but not least, just an incredibly confusing user interface which has truly weird functions like "drag mouse from bottom left corner to the right and a mystical menu will pop up.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] acqq|12 years ago|reply
What happens with the existing local accounts then, anybody tried?
I've found only this:
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2...
"Brandon LeBlanc: We're not releasing the ISO images to folks who don't have MSDN and TechNet subscriptions. Best way for everyone else is to update through the Windows Store."
[+] [-] Surio|12 years ago|reply
:)
[+] [-] dereferenced|12 years ago|reply
Somehow every other program on my machine manages to run thanks to environment variables like %USERPROFILE% and %APPDATA%.
GG.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] SaulOfTheJungle|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Achshar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabbeer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerta|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NKCSS|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krambs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joemccall86|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tericho|12 years ago|reply
*Edit: Switched to IE from Chrome and one of the links opens the native Store app. lol
[+] [-] chrissmeuk|12 years ago|reply
If you don't like Metro, it's pretty easy to get rid of now but not entirely (it occasionally pokes you in the eye). My setup guide:
1. Use group policy editor to get rid of lock screen.
2. Set IE to open tiles on desktop.
3. Set start menu to display apps only and turn off hot corners. Then set to boot to desktop.
4. Uninstall all the metro apps that come with it.
You will still get the "start screen" but in apps view and the search stuff but to be honest it's pretty good. I rarely see it though as everything I use is pinned to the taskbar.
Use Windows+X as your new start menu afterwards - it rocks. In fact I wish earlier versions of windows had that!
Reasons to upgrade: faster boot, power management seems more stable, Hyper-V, explorer UI enhancements, nicer file copying, new task manager, better Powershell integration.
PuTTY and Firefox still work which is the most important thing for me though...
Edit: just to add I haven't installed a start menu replacement or metro killer.
Edit 2: I haven't figured out backups yet. Windows 7 backup was trivial with an external disk.
Edit 3: to bypass microsoft account login/creation on installation (I did this on Pro edition):
1. When it asks you to sign in, click "create a microsoft account".
2. There is a link at the bottom to "use a local account" on the page this sends you to.
[+] [-] belorn|12 years ago|reply
I'm not sure nicer file copying is worth being pokes in the eye by Metro. Faster boot and power management sound interesting, but I would really need independent benchmarks before I would trust any such claims. A 5 seconds or less decrease in boot time (like http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-vs-windows-7-benchmarked_p2-7...) would not be worth it for me. A significant power boost (+10%) for a laptop might be worth being poked in the eye, if said 10% can be gained while I use the computer (ie, not while sleeping/idling/suspended). For desktop however, power management is not really a feature Im looking for.
[+] [-] chazandchaz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e40|12 years ago|reply
So, 8.1 comes out and here we have a new account (6 days old) with a glowing review. Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical. I've been had before.
[1] http://envoy510.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/windows-8-worst-win...
[+] [-] chli|12 years ago|reply
There is a CLI option but the GUI is gone.
But you don't need backup since you have SkyDrive now ;)
[+] [-] brokenparser|12 years ago|reply
1. This is probably a matter of running gpedit.msc (IIRC) and then enable disable lock screen somewhere.
2. This might be an option in inetcpl.cpl, perhaps under Advanced?
3. Task bar properties? Not sure if the "boot to desktop" option sits there, though.
4. That's probably using Windows Setup, so appwiz.cpl and select "enable/disable features" or something like that.
Asking because people often resort to me for their Windows problems even though I don't run it myself.
[+] [-] runjake|12 years ago|reply
Look up the File History feature. It's essentially Time Machine for Windows.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8Step0TurnOnContinuousB...
[+] [-] duiker101|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmaswell|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eertami|12 years ago|reply
If you mean launching apps with Winkey+number then it isn't new and is most definitely in Windows 7.
[+] [-] esw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bchjam|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solnyshok|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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