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Windows 8

Austin

Austin
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
I realize there are older threads on this topic but they haven't been responded to in several months and are off the front page. I think it's time for a fresh thread.

My own experience is below.

wot i like

I really like the new visual style. It seems like they went for a more simplistic approach which I prefer immensely over the cheap flashy look I think Windows 7 and Vista had. 8 just looks much cleaner and attractive overall. I like the new task manager as well. It fits the theme and it seems more efficient with how it displays information. Minor, but I also like the lock screen. It gives me yet another desktop to put a background on.

wot i dislike

Touch gestures. At first, I wasn't sure if this was the OSs fault or if the laptop I bought that had Windows 8 just had very poor drivers. However, I spoke with several other people running 8 on their laptops from completely different brands, and they all reported similar issues. Therefore I am placing the blame for this solely on Microsoft. It seems that they wanted to borrow OSX's idea of porting keyboard shortcuts over to trackpad gestures. It just works out really awfully for Windows 8. I'm in control of it now after a few months (mostly), but at the beginning I was sliding all over the place, opening Metro by accident, opening the little right sidebar, switching between apps like crazy, etc. It was actually a bit of a nightmare. I still have an issue where I try to scroll down on a webpage but I end up zooming it towards infinity. but that's happening less often now.

I also do not really get the point of Metro overall for desktop use. It seems to me like Microsoft wanted to enter the tablet market, but did not want to develop a separate OS for those products, either because they did not want to invest in developing two operating systems at once or they wanted greater compatibility between their devices. However, it ends off coming really awkward for non-tablet use. I don't really hate it so much as I... don't really get why it's there. 95% of my time is spent in the desktop app. The apps themselves for the most part seem pretty useless. I only really tried the Netflix app. It plays back video just fine, but it definitely loads slower than Netflix on a regular browser and the interface seems much less efficient as well. I've also heard nothing but bad things about the Skype app, although I've never tried it myself because running it normally just seems a lot easier.

Overall, Metro isn't really a deal breaker, it's just something that'll leave you confused as to why it's there sometimes.

wot i want to know more about

I've used Windows 8 on my laptop for a few months now, and I feel pretty acquainted with it, but there's still more I'd like to know that I haven't already figured out from personal experience.

I've heard that the Backup and Restore tool from Windows 7 was removed in favor of something else? I recall hearing that it saves older copies of files somewhere locally. This seems easier for just deleting a file but pretty useless in the event of hard disk failure, which is the main reason I have a backup.

I like Windows Defender overall (the new version of Microsoft Security Essentials now baked directly into the OS), but I can't seem to find a way to run regular scans. Windows 8 seems to not have that option in favor of kludging it together with a bunch of other processes in something called "Automatic Maintenance". If I've missed something I'd be interested to know.

I've heard reports of not being able to launch certain games. The most I've experience about this was Fallout 2 crashing once in a while but I'm not sure if that's Windows 8's fault specifically. Everything else seems to run fine but I do not do much gaming on my laptop so I'd like to hear more from someone who does.

Summary

Overall, Windows 8 is not the horrible catastrophe people have made it out to be, at least in my overall experience. Rather it seems to just be a bit disappointing. It's complete usable and possible to work with, but you can't help but wish they went in another direction.

What are your thoughts on Windows 8? Do you have any computers running it?
 

Vanessa28

Angel of Darkness
Staff member
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Administrator
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Jan 31, 2010
Location
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Thanks Austin for this review. I know there are people on here using Windows 8 and hopefully they will post their input. Is it true some programs are no longer compatible with Windows 8? This is one of the reasons why I didn't upgrade Windows 7 yet. Because suppose I upgrade and many programs I have installed won't work.
 

Austin

Austin
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Is it true some programs are no longer compatible with Windows 8? This is one of the reasons why I didn't upgrade Windows 7 yet. Because suppose I upgrade and many programs I have installed won't work.

I have yet to run into an application that doesn't work yet, but I can't say whether there's one or two applications that aren't compatible anymore. I've heard reports of games not working, so it's possible that any application that no longer receives updates won't be Windows 8 ready, but I feel pretty confident saying that anything running on 7 should run well on 8. There's always compatibility mode if it doesn't.
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2011
Location
Malibu, CA
As some of you may know, I run Windows 8 on my second computer. (I run Ubuntu on my other) Honestly, there is nothing wrong with it, and in fact, it may be one of the best operating systems out there; those who seemingly dislike Windows 8 are either Apple Fanboys or haven't given it a shot. Sure, it takes a bit to adjust to having no Start Menu and whatnot, but in my opinion it's well worth it. I'm able to easily access any of my files with the Run command, opening my home folder, and of course, the Start Screen.

It is definitely not the crap pit it's chewed out to be.
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
My thing was when I tried using Skype on windows 8 it made me use a Microsoft account to sign in and I'm like "does this have to do with everything??"

But eventually I was able to get used to it but eh, its not as great as I thought it would be. I enjoy the fact that it is more organized but it can get more cluttered so easily
 

tysonrss

Keyblade Master
Joined
Jul 31, 2012
Location
OH, USA
My thing was when I tried using Skype on windows 8 it made me use a Microsoft account to sign in and I'm like "does this have to do with everything??"

But eventually I was able to get used to it but eh, its not as great as I thought it would be. I enjoy the fact that it is more organized but it can get more cluttered so easily

That's something you now have to do on any platform of Windows.
 
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Location
Ohio
I had a small problem when setting up. I had miss entered my wifi's password and it gave me no feedback saying I wasn't connected. I thought I was making a live account when I ended up just using an odd user account name.

Miss start but like the quickness of the search so I haven't used classicshell yet. Still prefer the old menu though. Without the start menu i have put the bar on the left.

Love task manager. Apps are a joke on pc. Having most apps scroll to the right make navigation troublesome.

I am odd and I miss the xp scroll bar lol. Also my pc drivers don't have options to turn off gestures.

Still not my preferred os but I deal.
 

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