Windows 8

I've heard plenty of reviews. Some people think it's the best operating system in the world and everyone else claims it's Vista all over again. If you have any experience, tell me what you think. I plan on installing my copy to VMWare in the near future.

From what I've heard/read, it doesn't seem like something that you'd upgrade 7 from, but you might just leave it installed if you got a computer with it already on it. It's pros seem to be that it's more resource efficient, and some people may like the metro/modern/whatever they're calling it now interface. If you're used to using the start menu and want it back, you can get something like start8 (costs money), or you can just use 7. Another criticism of it is that Microsoft broke the control panel up and scattered it across the system, making it a bit of a pain in the ass to try and do things that were simpler in earlier versions.

Windows 8 is an amazing tablet OS that is not on any tablets. It's Windows 7 with shittier UI.

Rotaretilbo wrote:Windows 8 is an amazing tablet OS that is not on any tablets. It's Windows 7 with shittier UI.

^This
One of my friends has it and I had a chance to use it.

It's even built on the Windows 7 kernel. Anything you could possibly want of it, Windows 7 offers, but without the terrible, convoluted tablet UI. The only thing it lacks right now is IE10, but honestly, it's a UI nightmare itself. If you open IE10 from the desktop, the address bar is across the top like a normal fucking browser. If you open it from Windows 8's sorry excuse for a Start menu, the address bar is across the motherfucking bottom. Who the fuck thought that would be a good idea? Do you know how fucking difficult it is to explain to a customer who does not understand basic concepts like browsing the Internet how to browse the Internet when there is a 1 in fucking 10 chance that there fucking address bar is going against every fucking standard conformation ever made in the Internet browser market!?

Honestly, for the moment here is my opinion on operating systems.

I admire OS X for its simplicity, but it is often buggy and the big updates cost money.

I like Linux for the openness, but it is entirely too complex for most people.

Windows 7 and XP are the middle ground here. The problem with Windows 8 is that it is sacrificing both simplicity and what openness it had and then throwing it out the window (so to speak). It has the core of Windows 7, but loses all the benefits there and replaces them with the bad parts of everything.

I know quite a few people who love the new Windows 8 UI... and quite a few who hate it. It doesn't seem to be related to technical expertise, either.

I fiddled with it, its okay. BUT i'm happy as hell were not putting it on any computers on campus. I'd be getting emails every hour due to the square menu thingy (technical term) confusing the hell outta people.

So yeah...
>.>

I imagine that the people who love the new Windows 8 UI are also Mac fags? Because there's nothing appealing about it to me. If I wanted a streamlined piece of shit, I'd get a tablet. Windows 8 has no place on desktop computers.

I just payed more money than I wanted for Windows 7 right before Windows 8 came out.



I am not upgrading for a long time.

Ascendant Justice wrote:

Dud Doodoo wrote:

Rotaretilbo wrote:I imagine that the people who love the new Windows 8 UI are also Mac fags? Because there's nothing appealing about it to me. If I wanted a streamlined piece of shit, I'd get a tablet. Windows 8 has no place on desktop computers.

The metro? I hear a lot of people complain about it, but what is legitimately wrong with it? (serious question, not necessarily a disagreement)

It honestly looks like a colorful, full-screen start menu to me. The only thing I can see missing from it is the folder system... which I always disliked in the start menu, anyway.

From what I hear you can't change what's there, so it's just the default shizzle.

I had no trouble changing it up in the consumer demo. I've even seen images where people have re-purposed it to be a nicer looking steam library.

Installed Windows 8 about a week and a half ago. Added in Start8 and PinSteam. Start8 is a nicer start menu than the original... but, honestly, I prefer to use the metro.

Sure, the start menu doesn't take up the full screen, but the folder system in the start menu has always been a bizarre place. I've tried many times to organized the folder system logically in the start menu, but it frequently tries to 'correct' your changes and it ends up looking even worse than before. The recent-applications list and system-locations (Computer, Documents, Control Panel, Devices, Shutdown, etc) on the start menu are nice to have, though.



General thoughts:

I wish they left the start menu in as an option for the desktop, but Start8 is dirt cheap and more useful than the original start menu.

I wish they allowed you to boot into the desktop instead of the metro and remove the metro-style charms and boxes from the corners. Thankfully, Start8 also lets you do that.

The metro is a great place to launch games and applications from (makes an especially good steam library), but it needs the ability to create customized tiles for desktop applications. OblyTiles lets you do this (for free), but it should be a built-in function. PinSteam is also a great tool ($1.25) I use to manage my Steam library in the metro.

The remaining UI and visual changes are great, especially the task manager.

Finally, it takes less storage space and is faster and more responsive than previous versions of Windows.


Closing Thoughts:

If you have Windows 7 and aren't using touch-screen controls, there's no rush to upgrade; it may even be beneficial to stick with Windows 7 until the next version comes out. There aren't a lot of changes, but it's mostly an improvement from Windows 7. If you upgrade or get a new computer with Windows 8, though, I highly recommend PinSteam, Start8, and OblyTiles.

I had the joy today of working with Windows 8 today. I say joy with the most massive sarcastic quotation marks that are conceivable. Now, I wasn't looking forward to this particular job in the first place. A small business needed me to install a program that was native developed on Windows 2000. Now, the program installed fine on Windows XP, but it was a hassle to install it last year on a Windows 7 computer. However, after half an hour of tinkering, I managed to move the contents of the install disk to a folder, set the files therein to compatibility mode for Windows XP, and the program installed just fine.

Enter Windows 8. It has compatibility mode. Awesome. I'd been told that it was built on the same kernel as Windows 7, so I'd figured that I'd be able to effect the same solution. Nope. Windows 8 has some kind of retarded fucking failsafe built in that prevents you from launching programs designed to run in earlier versions of Windows, even if you run the fucking things in compatibility mode. When I try to run the setup launcher, I just get a system message across the screen that reads "This app can't run on your PC. To find a version for your PC, check with the software publisher." Well that's just great. You see, this particular small business is using this incredibly outdated version of this software for two reasons:

A) Buying the newest version of the software, which is, of course, the only version that the software publisher will provide, will cost thousands of dollars per license. This particular business would need no less than six licenses, and they simply do not have the money to spend.

B) Due to how shitty both the old and new version of this software is, upgrading would require that the entire database (oh, did I mention that the software is their entire business database, inventory, etc?) would need to be re-entered manually after the upgrade was performed. Fifteen fucking years of work orders, sales orders, part orders, accounts receivable records, accounts payable records, and God knows what else would need to be manually re-entered into the new version, which would literally take weeks to do. Moreover, because of the way that the software handles sales orders, it would have to be entered in chronological order, meaning that the entire company would be unable to process any new orders of any kind until what time that the data had been re-entered. So pretty much not an option.

So, in short, fuck Windows 8. Who the fuck includes compatibility mode that goes all the fucking way back to Windows 95, but then prevents you from running programs that predate Windows NT 6.0? The same idiot who thought it would be a great idea to move the address bar for IE10 to the bottom of the window if you launch it from that sorry excuse for a Start menu, but keep it at the top if you launch from your desktop.

I've installed a number of games in compatibility mode on Windows 8 without problem.... >.>

Rot, why did a company that can't afford to upgrade its 15 year old software decide to upgrade to Windows 8?

Because upgrading one old Windows XP to Windows 8 cost $300 and 4 man hours, while upgrading to the newest version of Quantum costs $12000 and 1000 man hours.