Anyone of my JA friends take the W8 plunge yet? Any thoughts?

I'm still maintaining my close association with XP. 

Originally Posted By tincup2 (18 NOV 2012 3:33pm)

Anyone of my JA friends take the W8 plunge yet? Any thoughts?

ANY THOUGHTS ?
YES – Easy to answer that question.

Originally Posted By Caroline (18 NOV 2012 5:24pm)

I'm still maintaining my close association with XP. 

Haha... from afar W8 looked too wacky to me so I decided just to move up to W7 instead. So a few moths ago, after years of a solid XP experience I added an SSD and W7 to my main gaming rig. I didn't remove the hard drive with XP so I can dual boot to XP any time by going into Bios and re-setting the boot drive. Truth is I don't boot to XP much. But I miss the greater freedom to customize one had in XP - W7 is more of a straitjacket.  I'm curious if W8 is even more so.

Recently one of the kids at the office brought in a laptop with W8. The look/feel wasn't as bad as I'd expected but the 2-faced nature of the UI still seemed strange. The "Metro" UI begins to do some intereststing things and seems at least moderately customizable, but I achieve much the same funtionality with my own desktop arrangment using the vanilla Windows UI.

Benchmarks in a review of W8 over at Maximum PC show you shouldn't expect much of a performance bump over W7, but I was curious if anyone here with first-hand/real-world experience could offer some observations...

Originally Posted By tincup2 (18 NOV 2012 8:34pm)

Originally Posted By Caroline (18 NOV 2012 5:24pm)

I'm still maintaining my close association with XP. 

 

Haha... from afar W8 looked too wacky to me so I decided just to move up to W7 instead. So a few moths ago, after years of a solid XP experience I added an SSD and W7 to my main gaming rig. I didn't remove the hard drive with XP so I can dual boot to XP any time by going into Bios and re-setting the boot drive. Truth is I don't boot to XP much. But I miss the greater freedom to customize one had in XP - W7 is more of a straitjacket.  I'm curious if W8 is even more so.

 

Recently one of the kids at the office brought in a laptop with W8. The look/feel wasn't as bad as I'd expected but the 2-faced nature of the UI still seemed strange. The "Metro" UI begins to do some intereststing things and seems at least moderately customizable, but I achieve much the same funtionality with my own desktop arrangment using the vanilla Windows UI.

 

Benchmarks in a review of W8 over at Maximum PC show you shouldn't expect much of a performance bump over W7, but I was curious if anyone here with first-hand/real-world experience could offer some observations...

 

I don't have a Win8 computer, but I got the chance to work with Win8 a bit. It's obviously an attempt to bind the 2 worlds of tablets & regular computers. Whether it does well that remains to be seen, I wasn't really able to give it a fair test.  I've stuck largely with WinXP, but I find when I use my one Win7 laptop, it has enough similarity to XP that I can find my way around okay. I've always hated Vista and only have one computer that uses it.

So, I'm in no rush to convert to Win8. I get enough of a tablet OS from my iPad. Plus, my WinXP computers still serve most of my computer purposes and I like the feeling of control...being the control freak I am.

I will say that W7 ironed out wrinkles in a number of new games that struggle a bit but still run under XP. A heavyweight like DCS A-10 Warthog now runs smoothly, and at higher settings than it had under XP. These sort of resource hog games exhibit *far* fewer qwirky graphic and performance issues now. The move to W7 from XP opened up DirectX past the venerable 9.0c, and also seems to have confered an overall performance booth across the board - and that's a step in the right direction from a gamer's perspective.

W98->XP and XP->W7 were pleasant and substantial upgrades. The move to W8 doesn't seem to offer any obvious reward yet. Not that I've heard at any rate.

Originally Posted By tincup2 (18 NOV 2012 3:33pm)

Anyone of my JA friends take the W8 plunge yet? Any thoughts?

I installed the RTM version when it became available, and after my best attempts to get warm and fuzzy with it I decided to back it off. So far as compatibility was concerned it seemed to fair quite well, but I found the new interface to be just plain annoying. It works well for Metro, but leaves you hanging when it switches to the Desktop for traditional applications. The lack of a Start Menu was another frustration, and while there's no shortage of 3rd party software packages to restore it, those I used would occasionally have issues. I suppose they'll eventually work them out, but why would you want to install a new OS and then a slew of unsupported 3rd party applications to restore a functional environment?

The entire range of the latest Microsoft products have been revamped to remove Aero and square off the edges to conform to Windows 8. To me, they have the look and feel of Windows 3.1 (maybe even DOS), so I'm taking a wait and see approach.

Interestingly enough, Sinofsky departed Microsoft shortly after the public offering of Windows 8, rumors are... it wasn't his idea.

Maximum PC is reporting that MS *may* back down and allow directX11.1 to integrate with W7 - if so that's good news.

Originally Posted By tincup2 (19 NOV 2012 12:24pm)

Maximum PC is reporting that MS *may* back down and allow directX11.1 to integrate with W7 - if so that's good news.

To do otherwise would be idiocy on the part of MS. It would, in effect, be saying that they are not supporting what is the prevailing Windows OS on computers sold in the last 3 years and that they want to arm-twist people, particularly gamers, into converting to Win8.

Why do companies shoot themselves in the foot this way by not planning to make directx 11.1 available for Win7 in the first place? Even though MS appears to be changing its mind, it has already left a bad taste in MS-based computer users' mouths. And this at a time when MS is in a major OS-based (read iPad/tablet) battle with Apple.

Ι use Windows 8 Professional x64 for more than a month now. Till this point I was a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 user. At the beginning I was skeptical, because there were so many negative comments about the new OS. So i gave it a shot, having my Windows 7 system image stand by, just in case. I was so possitive surprised by the performance of Windows 8. It is in my opinion the most stable OS Microsoft ever had. It's clear.Microsoft wanted to make unified OS for Smartphones, tablets and computers. And that worked!

The first thing I wanted to make clear was to see if working with desktop was as good as with Windows 7. Windows XP is a legacy OS, and it doesn't count in this comparison. The absence of the start button and the metro interface are themain reasons that have caused so many negative comments. And indeed working without having a start button and start menu is at least weird, if not user unfriendly but only IF (and only IF) someone is an old windows user. Linux and MacOS users shouldn't have a big problem with that.

I searched and found many 3rd party utilities which restore the start menu and the start button and have other functions too, like disable metro and hot corners, boot directly to desktop. etc. They all have worked well without any bugs, after all they get updated regularly and any bugs should be eliminated by now. I personally use Classic Shell, which is not only a very friendly, full customizeable start button/start menu utility, but it's even better than the classic Windows 7 start menu.

Now let's go to metro. At the beginning I was pretty sure that I would disable it, in order to be able to boot directly to desktop. But after I worked a little bit of it I noticed  that is very user friendly and it is not the "demon feature" that many have claimed.It provides a great apps market with many freeware and commercial applications, the hot corners are very easy to use, the feeling is smooth and clean. It is an all purpose modern interface. I didn't disable it at all, I find it useful. It's clear, I still use the Desktop much more than the metro Interface, but Metro still expands the OS functionality and offers an alternate working enviroment which is very user friendly even for the Destop user.

Windows 8 has double the speed of Windows 7. It boots and shuts down faster than Windows 7 and even if Windows 7 is installed on SSD and Windows 8 on a Sata Drive. I have my Windows 8 installed on a 600GB  WD Velociraptor (10.000RPM/SATA III) and beleive me, this combination is as fast, or even faster, than having a WIndows 7 system on SSD. WIndows 8 is generally faster and smoother than WIndows 7. It has native support for all kinds of latest drivers, which was not the case with WIndows 7 (even Network, or USB 3.0 Drivers were not recognised natively in Windows 7). It has new features,like mounting ISO files natively and has integraded Microsoft Security essentials (which is the new Windows defender). Windows explorer is easier to navigate. The useless aero feature is gone, and now everything looks much better. Now the application windows borders have the colour of the desktop wallpaper, which means, if the wallpaper is changed, the apps windows colour is changed too. The whole OS is far more customizable than windows 7. We are talking about a fully misunderstood OS. It is a good step ahead.

Programs compatibility is not a big deal. Many Windows 7 versions work with Windows 8, and already the latest versions support it officialy. Latest games too. There shouldn't be any big problem.

After all I didn't regret it. Still Windows 7 is a good alternative and now with Internet Explorer 10 and maybe Direct X 11.1 will stand as almost equal next to Windows 8. I would say that WIndows 8 is an improved Windows 7 System in every aspect.

.

yes, Classic Shell is a great utility. I use it with W7 to restore lost functionality.

Originally Posted By YellowBlackGod (21 NOV 2012 2:10am)

...After all I didn't regret it. Still Windows 7 is a good alternative and now with Internet Explorer 10 and maybe Direct X 11.1 will stand as almost equal next to Windows 8. I would say that WIndows 8 is an improved Windows 7 System in every aspect.

 

YellowBlackGod, that's a great post. It has both a balanced perspective and 'power-user' credibility. It is more persuavive for me than a lot of the anecdotal flim-flam about Win8 that is all over the internet.

Sort of. Although I'm keeping all my OS's (starting from DOS 6/Win 3.11) around, I'd like to upgrade my Acer laptop's HDD to 2 TB, partition, and then set it up as a dual boot of W7 and W8. Am looking at the W8 upgrade for $40 dated from release to Jan 31, 2013.

$40 Win8 upgrade

Me, I'm going to burn this upgrade on a disc if I get it.

I plan to upgrade sooner or later, though I've never been a big fan of upgrading to a new OS shortly after it's launch. There are usually a slew of bugs & security holes that needs to be fixed, so I'm going to wait about a year before I switch to the new OS. That being said, my experience with 8 have been pretty good. I've not used it a whole lot, but it seemed both fast and easy to use. 

Originally Posted By Fnord (22 NOV 2012 6:56pm)

I plan to upgrade sooner or later, though I've never been a big fan of upgrading to a new OS shortly after it's launch.

In this case that's particularly wise due to the drastic change in direction (which may be temporary, if we're lucky). If Microsoft continues in their current path, support for the Win32 API will eventually be phased out and replaced by the new core, WinRT. Which basically equates to no native desktop support.   

Just speculation on my part, but it seems to be a prevailing thought shared by some developers.   

Originally Posted By JKing (22 NOV 2012 9:21am)
Tincup, I'd be curious to know what aspects of customization you find lacking in Windows 7.

Remembering window size, customizing separate window panels [some with navagation bar some without etc.], adjusting the width of icon text - without adjusting font size, are the ones that I missed immediately. W7 resizes everything to the same, and does not remember other settings for separate windows, and the twidth of a block of text under an icon can not be adjusted -nly scaled/font re-sized [adjusting the test width parameter no longer functions].

I'm big into customizing the look/feel of my desktop which is basically a set of shortcuts to folders which in turn hold shortcuts to the various files, apps and games on my systems, arranged by type, genre etc. I like my final icons parked on windows with none of the left hand Windows navigation/functionality - just the backup key.

W7/8 "Libraries" functions similarly but is too limited for me, requires a few extra clicks, and lacks a graphic desktop prescence as compared to what I put together up to XP.

Regarding W8 I was/am intruiged by the Metro UI since I see in it the potential to duplicate more closely what I've tried to do on my own. The problem I found in my brief introduction to W8 is that too many of the organizational aspects are automated and preset... but I may be wrong and may find that I can adapt the Metro UI to my needs *better* than before...

minor update:

the kid at the office who jumped on W8 a month ago and was pretty enthusiastic about it came in complaining how many bugs he runs into and how incomplete many of it's features seem to be. He also says he would now prefer a leaner, more performance oriented OS, one without as much bloat nor with as many contraints on what he can do with it. Interesting turnabout.

Well, if I felt more contrained by W7 than with XP, I'll wait for an SP release before considering 8. At least 7 offered tangible game performance increases, but even in this arena W8 is pretty much a wash... 

Sounds much like myself, I went in eyes wide open - didn't even bother to image the hard drive.  I mean how bad could it be? Like I said, I gave it my best shot, there was just nothing in it for me. Not a single thing.