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How many people are getting Windows 8?


MJCRO

  

101 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you getting Windows 8?



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This thread has been dead for over a month now, but after spending the weekend with a Windows 8 machine I can see both sides of the argument.  Installation was painless and I was impressed that the installation routine had drivers for all but one piece of hardware on the build.  At least serviceable enough to get the rig completely up and running before updating hardware drivers.

 

There are a lot of tricks to learn with Windows 8 that would "improve" the user experience.  One of the first I learned was the Windows key + I to bring up a shutdown screen (one of a two or three different ways to turn off the machine or put it to sleep).

 

I hate the built in XBOX music player (however I might feel different if I actually had an XBOX).  However, it's easy enough to change the default file open with behavior.

 

Originally I was really put off by the missing start button, but found that if you hover your cursor in the lower left hand corner of the screen you can mouse click and bring up a quick jump menu that gives you back a lot of the functionality some people would have pinned to the start button menu any way i.e. task manager, command prompt, run, folder search etc.

 

I'm going to keep using Win8 for a couple more weeks and see if it doesn't "grow" on me.  So far all of the apps I use that worked on Win7 appear to be working without issue on Win8 - which is nice.

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This thread has been dead for over a month now, but after spending the weekend with a Windows 8 machine I can see both sides of the argument.  Installation was painless and I was impressed that the installation routine had drivers for all but one piece of hardware on the build.  At least serviceable enough to get the rig completely up and running before updating hardware drivers.

 

There are a lot of tricks to learn with Windows 8 that would "improve" the user experience.  One of the first I learned was the Windows key + I to bring up a shutdown screen (one of a two or three different ways to turn off the machine or put it to sleep).

 

I hate the built in XBOX music player (however I might feel different if I actually had an XBOX).  However, it's easy enough to change the default file open with behavior.

 

Originally I was really put off by the missing start button, but found that if you hover your cursor in the lower left hand corner of the screen you can mouse click and bring up a quick jump menu that gives you back a lot of the functionality some people would have pinned to the start button menu any way i.e. task manager, command prompt, run, folder search etc.

 

I'm going to keep using Win8 for a couple more weeks and see if it doesn't "grow" on me.  So far all of the apps I use that worked on Win7 appear to be working without issue on Win8 - which is nice.

That is really great to hear!! I want to try this on my friend's Win8 machine because two problems with Win8 that I cannot look passed are:

1)Harder than hell to shut down/Can't shut down/sleep/hibernate/reboot blind like Win7

 

2)Windows search doesn't show control panel results along with the "app" results...and I've grown quite accustomed to getting to settings at lightning speed in Win7

 

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You can pin a Control Panel quick launch button to the Start screen   :)

 

Another cool trick - if you want to bring back front page functionality for most of the Administrative Tools;

 

Open the Charm bar

Click "Settings"

Click "Tiles"

Change "Show Administrative Tools" to "Yes"

 

Then most of the original Administrative Tools will be available on the Start screen - however be advised that they take up a lot of real estate.

 

Unfortunately last night I ran into a problem with the latest Intel Management Engine Driver, Windows 8 and my particular hardware.  After update I started experience blue screens and couldn't resolve the issue and never did find a fix for a persistent memory leak being caused by LSASS.exe either.

 

Since I ended up having to re-install I went back to Windows 7   :(

 

If it hadn't been for the IME driver issue I might have stuck it out for a couple more weeks to see if I might become a "convert".  One thing I don't think I would ever get used to though is launching some things from the Start Screen that bounced you back to the desktop before launching.  That just doesn't make any sense for me.

 

A few other pet peeves;

Launching anything from the desktop screen felt slower than performing the same action on a Windows 7 machine sitting 3 feet away.

Hardly anything in certain menu options were arranged alphabetically or in any order that made sense to me.

For some reason my install wasn't saving folder "View As" sorted options i.e. alphabetical order, list view instead of icon view etc.

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I am not a big fan of the Xbox music player either or the picture viewer. However I do like the radio function of the music player and use it quite often.

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You are forced to use the Start Screen which is not comfortable (or we are not used too due to long years ot use of normal windows) for a Desktop PC.

 

I have tested it because at work we bought a laptop and it have Windows 8. I don't like it. It was designed for cellphones.

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There are 3rd party options to "get around" the start screen.  i.e. Start8, Classic Shell etc.

 

I'm not sure about Classic Shell, but I know that with Start8 you can force the PC to boot to the "familiar" desktop.

 

I'm looking forward to see if MS has managed to tweak the new OS and make it a little more friendly to us old timers with the Release of 8.1.  

 

Lets hope so, because I was floored by the startup and shutdown times on Windows 8.  Outstanding............  And sleep even works whether you choose the Balanced or High Performance Power Plan profiles, and even if you are overclocking.  (at least on my hardware it did).

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You can pin a Control Panel quick launch button to the Start screen   :)

 

Another cool trick - if you want to bring back front page functionality for most of the Administrative Tools;

 

Open the Charm bar

Click "Settings"

Click "Tiles"

Change "Show Administrative Tools" to "Yes"

 

Then most of the original Administrative Tools will be available on the Start screen - however be advised that they take up a lot of real estate.

 

Unfortunately last night I ran into a problem with the latest Intel Management Engine Driver, Windows 8 and my particular hardware.  After update I started experience blue screens and couldn't resolve the issue and never did find a fix for a persistent memory leak being caused by LSASS.exe either.

 

Since I ended up having to re-install I went back to Windows 7   :(

 

If it hadn't been for the IME driver issue I might have stuck it out for a couple more weeks to see if I might become a "convert".  One thing I don't think I would ever get used to though is launching some things from the Start Screen that bounced you back to the desktop before launching.  That just doesn't make any sense for me.

 

A few other pet peeves;

Launching anything from the desktop screen felt slower than performing the same action on a Windows 7 machine sitting 3 feet away.

Hardly anything in certain menu options were arranged alphabetically or in any order that made sense to me.

For some reason my install wasn't saving folder "View As" sorted options i.e. alphabetical order, list view instead of icon view etc.

But I don't want to pin, I wanna just be able to type "prog" and get programs and features or "upd" and get windows update lol. I guess that'd be one way I could deal though.

 

What's that administrative tools part do? does it mix the control panel results in with the app results?? That would be exactly what I'm looking for it to do

 

Wth is a charm bar lol

 

I am not a big fan of the Xbox music player either or the picture viewer. However I do like the radio function of the music player and use it quite often.

Does the stock picture viewer finally allow for animated gifs (that animate) atleast?? I'd probably check out the "xbox" music player, though I think Winamp will always be my favorite

 

There are 3rd party options to "get around" the start screen.  i.e. Start8, Classic Shell etc.

 

I'm not sure about Classic Shell, but I know that with Start8 you can force the PC to boot to the "familiar" desktop.

 

I'm looking forward to see if MS has managed to tweak the new OS and make it a little more friendly to us old timers with the Release of 8.1.  

 

Lets hope so, because I was floored by the startup and shutdown times on Windows 8.  Outstanding............  And sleep even works whether you choose the Balanced or High Performance Power Plan profiles, and even if you are overclocking.  (at least on my hardware it did).

Yeah I was pretty impressed at the startup and shutdown times when I was setting up my boss's win8 laptop. Blown away at how much faster it was even though I had an SSD with my Win7 Dell.

Edited by IVIYTH0S

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