It is just me or do other hate Win8

[Greg Gebhardt]

I do not want Win8 on all of my new laptops and it looks like MS is not going to give us a choice. I really think this is the biggest flop for MS since Vista!

Anyone else want the option to delete Win8 and have your new laptop to revert to Win7 without the Win8 button panel?

[Cigarguy]

Dude this is nothing new with MS. Win 98 good, ME sucks, XP good, Vista sucks, 7 good, 8 sucks, 9?....hopefully good. IMO, Win 8 is to Win 9 what Vista was to Win 7. It's just a beta version for Win 9.

Having said that, I've tried Win 8 RC and hated it. I've recently went back to Win 8 and don't mind it now.....that's because of Classic Shell. Without Classic Shell I would not be running Win 8. Some people rave of how fast Win 8 boots. IMO, yes Win 8 boots faster to Metro. But if you bypass Metro like I do and boot directly to the desktop, Win 8 is not any faster than Win 7. A lot of people are having issues with drivers which was identical to the complaints that early Vista adopters had. When Win 9 is out, by then Win 8 will be much more mature (SP 1?) just as Vista turned out to be a good OS after Win 7 is released.

Of course with every release it means more $$ for Microsoft with the advantage of the consumer being the ultimate beta testers.

Just my $0.02.

[pianowizard]

Some people rave of how fast Win 8 boots. IMO, yes Win 8 boots faster to Metro. But if you bypass Metro like I do and boot directly to the desktop, Win 8 is not any faster than Win 7.

I love Windows 8's Metro buttons. It's so much faster to find what I need than going through the classic Start menu, where I need to click so many layers of folders and often I click the wrong items because the icons are so small. The Metro menu is basically a huge giant Start menu but with all the icons made much larger and distributed over the entire screen, so that they are easier to find and click. BTW, if you want to get to the Desktop faster, just make the top left Metro button the Desktop button. As soon as Metro is loaded, all you need to do is hit "ENTER" to start Desktop.

In terms of driver issues, I wonder whether people are just trying to run 8 on computers that are way too old. I have 8 on two fairly old computers and don't have any driver issues: a Panasonic Toughbook CF-Y7 and a Dell Optiplex 760, which were released in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Windows 7 came out in 2009, and I bet most computers made before 2003 would have trouble running it.

One thing I have noticed: people who like efficiency prefer 8 over 7, whereas those who want to stick with whatever they are used to prefer 7 over 8.

[Cigarguy]

That's where you and I are different in our usage pattern. I'll typically know what I want to launch from the desktop and don't need another interface to get me to where I want to go. Apps pinned to the taskbar and desktops are 99% of apps, programs and files that want use.

As for drivers, on my X201, Win 8 installs and load beautifully. I was only able to load Power Manager via Win 7 compatibility mode but that's more of a problem with Lenovo than Microsoft. Same thing on my T61 and T400. On my X61 Tablet I can't seem to get the tablet buttons working, which for me is an issue. Win 7 however runs fine on older AND new hardware. I suspect that Win 9 will run fine in both newer and older hardware too. But that's just me hoping.

Again, I've tried, boy did I tried, to get used to Metro. But for me it's a no go. The only way Win 8 was tolerable was with Classic Shell. After installing Classic Shell, I never see or work with Metro, which in my books is fine by me. In all practical purposes I was running Win 7 (IMO SP2 of Win 7).

So, hate Win 8? No not with Classic Shell. If forced to used Metro and only Metro I'd rather go back to Win 7 or any one of any Linux distros that do what I want to do. A dinosaur? Yes maybe but it's my money and computers are my tools so it better do what I want it to do in order to make money to spend more on computers.

edit - It's not necessary about "sticking to what I'm used to". It's about what I want and need to do. When I tried Win 7 from XP, I switched over to Win 7 from XP real quick. I have the same reservations about Win 8 that I had about Vista and NEVER really adopted Vista. Why? Because, to me, Win 7 was a better tool than Win XP where as Vista was not better than XP.

[Greg Gebhardt]

Dude this is nothing new with MS. Win 98 good, ME sucks, XP good, Vista sucks, 7 good, 8 sucks, 9?....hopefully good. IMO, Win 8 is to Win 9 what Vista was to Win 7. It's just a beta version for Win 9.

Having said that, I've tried Win 8 RC and hated it. I've recently went back to Win 8 and don't mind it now.....that's because of Classic Shell. Without Classic Shell I would not be running Win 8. Some people rave of how fast Win 8 boots. IMO, yes Win 8 boots faster to Metro. But if you bypass Metro like I do and boot directly to the desktop, Win 8 is not any faster than Win 7. A lot of people are having issues with drivers which was identical to the complaints that early Vista adopters had. When Win 9 is out, by then Win 8 will be much more mature (SP 1?) just as Vista turned out to be a good OS after Win 7 is released.

Of course with every release it means more $$ for Microsoft with the advantage of the consumer being the ultimate beta testers.

Just my $0.02.

Dude! Chill, your 2 cents are noted.

[DaKKS]

With classicshell, some powershell commands and other tweaks, windows 8 isnt that horrible. I've grown quite fond of it actually.

Considering buying a license for my r61 too, but until the 9xxssf guys fix the gfx driver, i'm staying with ubuntu.

[pianowizard]

I'll typically know what I want to launch from the desktop and don't need another interface to get me to where I want to go. Apps pinned to the taskbar and desktops are 99% of apps, programs and files that want use.

So why does the Metro menu bother you so much? You don't need to use the start menu anyway.

Win 7 however runs fine on older AND new hardware.

Naturally, since Windows 7 is three years older than Windows 8, it's compatible with three more years of older computers. Along this line of reasoning, XP is even better than 7, because it's eight years older than 7 and so XP works well with eight more years of old computers.

Yes maybe but it's my money and computers are my tools so it better do what I want it to do in order to make money to spend more on computers.

My computers are my tools as well, so I want them to be as efficient as possible, and Windows 8 is the most efficient OS to date.

I have the same reservations about Win 8 that I had about Vista and NEVER really adopted Vista. Why? Because, to me, Win 7 was a better tool than Win XP where as Vista was not better than XP.

Initial impressions aren't always reliable though. I too hated Vista when it first came out. Now I love it. You might start to like Windows 8 someday.

[Cigarguy]

Tried Win 8 RC for 2 weeks and the regular version for about a month now. Don't care for Metro at all. With Classic Shell I don't mind Win 8. The Metro type of interface is great on my smartphone(s) and Xoom tablet but not for my laptops and desktops.

Yes you are right I don't need to use the "Start" screen so I need to install a 3rd party software to make it work for me. I don't like that.

You find Metro helps you be more efficient, I respect that, but I find Metro just a nuisance. It gets in my way and I don't like it. Without Metro, Win 8 is pretty good but is too similar to Win 7 to justify putting it on more than one machine.

[EasyMac308]

For the record, I'm an IT guy.

I've been playing with 8 off and on since some of the later RCs/Previews. The truth is, I utterly despise it. Everything is harder to find, and unless you use a handful of apps... *ever*... then it's harder to use.

This is coming from someone who only rarely uses the Start Menu. Yes, I like having it there; it's familiar. I typically go to Start | Run or just hit WIN-R to run whatever I'm launching (even Word/Outlook/Excel/Etc).

However, navigating in metro is just horrific. Click here, pull there, hope some leprechaun leads you to the magic charms... BLEGH. Switching to Ubuntu would be less jarring for my users. Our users' brains exploded switching to 7 from XP (a project we just completed earlier this year). People would be jumping from buildings if we tried to force 8 on them.

Win7 will do everything of substance that Win8 will do with none of the worthless garbage and none of the headaches. With luck, Win9 will be an improvement, as someone said when they compared Vista and 7.

[Unknown_K]

People were complaining when XP came out as well (but a few patches and driver support and people didn't want to upgrade from it).

[RDKirk]

I've got Win 8 running well on an X60, an R60, and an X200. But like others, I've put on Classic Shell to tolerate it. On a modern touch screen, Win 8 is fine, but for a non-touch environment, Windows really should have put in a real desktop mode switch.

[mpcook]

I just upgraded my X201 from 7 to 8. I like it pretty well actually. Getting used to it. Two items that bug me. 1 - I would like less steps to shut down. Probably can rig up a batch file or something for that. The other irritation, which I think is not fixable, is no good way to keep the MS Calendar updated from my Google Calendar. I have read that Google has "fixed" it so they now do not talk to each other. Oh well. Overall, I like having tiles and going back and forth to desktop <--> tiles is easy and fast. LCD brightness has been a bit funky but workable. And finally got the BT light to go off, so most everything Lenovo is working well.

[ZaZ]

I love Windows 8's Metro buttons. It's so much faster to find what I need than going through the classic Start menu, where I need to click so many layers of folders and often I click the wrong items because the icons are so small.

I agree. I liked having everything right there, but I have to say if I'm on the desktop I'd like to have a start button. The biggest reason I didn't upgrade were cost and compatibility. I've got four PCs and if I upgraded them all, even when Microsoft was offering Pro for $40, it would have cost $150+. Those PCs are also humming along with Windows 7. If I upgraded to Windows 8, I didn't to have compatibility issues.

[RealBlackStuff]

They got their spelling all wrong: instead of Windows Eight, it should be Windows H8...

[pianowizard]

Tried Win 8 RC for 2 weeks and the regular version for about a month now. Don't care for Metro at all. With Classic Shell I don't mind Win 8. The Metro type of interface is great on my smartphone(s) and Xoom tablet but not for my laptops and desktops.

When I said you might eventually warm up to Windows 8, I didn't mean a month or two. It took me 3 years to finally like Vista.

Yes you are right I don't need to use the "Start" screen so I need to install a 3rd party software to make it work for me. I don't like that.

Like I said, to skip the Metro screen, simply move the Desktop icon to the top left corner and every time you start the computer, just press ENTER to make Metro disappear. Pressing the ENTER key takes a fraction of a second.

However, navigating in metro is just horrific. Click here, pull there, hope some leprechaun leads you to the magic charms... BLEGH.

No need to hope. You can open the charms menu by pressing the Windows key + "C".

With luck, Win9 will be an improvement, as someone said when they compared Vista and 7.

The improvement of 7 over Vista is minimal. Technically speaking, Vista is Windows 6 and 7 is Windows 6.1. To the typical user, 7's main improvement is a less annoying User Account Control, but you can easily disable it in Vista. Benchmarks do show Win 7 to have 5 - 20% better benchmark scores, but for the average user, this translates into insignificant real-life differences. Of course 7 has additional behind-the-scenes improvements, but most people won't be aware of them -- they are not the reasons that people hate Vista but love 7.

I just upgraded my X201 from 7 to 8. I like it pretty well actually. Getting used to it. Two items that bug me. 1 - I would like less steps to shut down. Probably can rig up a batch file or something for that.

The fastest way to open the Shut Down menu has always been ALT+ F4. It has been this way since Windows 95. If you just want to shut down, you can tell Windows to shut down whenever the power button is pushed.

One more suggestion for making Win 8 more tolerable: add shortcuts to Control Panel and Recent Docs on the Desktop.

[Cigarguy]

I don't particularly like using keyboard short cuts. I'll putter with Win 8 until Win 9 is release but I suspect Win 7 will be my daily runner with a healthy dose of Linux. I know me, I doubt I'll like it anymore after a month or after 3 years. As far as I'm concern, if a something takes 3 years to win me over.....it kinda lost me already. You love Win 8, good for you knock yourself out. Just don't force it on me cause that sounds way to much like Microsoft.

[dr_st]

Just don't force it on me cause that sounds way to much like Microsoft.

I think you are confusing Microsoft and Apple here.

[Cigarguy]

^^^ No not confused. Apple would triple the price, sue me for putting the Classic Shell start button on the bottom left corner, and having the background changing every 30 min because somehow, someway I've infringed on their patents.

[pianowizard]

if a something takes 3 years to win me over.....it kinda lost me already.

I am glad that I ended up liking Vista after so many years, because recently, free Vista COA stickers have become increasingly easy to get. There are even more free XP COA's floating around but I don't like XP and so I don't care.

You love Win 8, good for you knock yourself out. Just don't force it on me cause that sounds way to much like Microsoft.

I am sorry that I came across as forcing Windows 8 on you. I neither work for Microsoft nor own shares of its stock, so whether you love or hate Win 8 has zero impact on me. I just thought that since you've already bought a copy of Windows 8, you would probably want to like it so that the money you spent wouldn't be wasted, and I thought you would appreciate some tips for making Win 8 easier to use.

[Cigarguy]

Appreciate the tips. Keep it coming, thanks.

LOL, I love XP. Never thought I like Win 7 as much as I did but I sure ditch XP real quick after a week with Win 7. I kept all the old licenses thinking that I would reuse them on older hardware but invariably I prefer Linux on older machines. Even got a few Vista licenses for next to nothing but never really bothered to get into it. It was either Win 7 or Linux.

[Puppy]

I haven't found how to turn off cleartype blurry fonts in Windows 8 (I can do it in Windows 7 by selecting Windows Classic theme) that makes them useless for me.

[Greg Gebhardt]

Win8 will be looked back as a failure in my opinion. From sales, you need not look too far back to see it is.

Each computer when initialized for the first time should give you the option to not even install it. Plain old Win7 will be around for a long time.

[robert213]

Win8 will be looked back as a failure in my opinion. From sales, you need not look too far back to see it is.

I attended Microsoft's the NEW ERA of WORK seminar.

Windows 8 was re-designed (not for the user community running various programs and apps, but rather) for the developers of Windows, Web-based, and WinPhone apps.

Windows 8 is the foundation for the integration of Visual Studio 2012, Windows Server 2012, and Team Foundation Server 2012. Windows 8 has become a devleopment tool, a system development methology, and a communications tool for project managers, app developers, server administrators, and end-user community.

Unless a person is familiar with the latest features of Visual Studio 2012, Windows Server 2012, and Team Foundation Server 2012, Windows 8 will seem to be a complete failure.

However, the new features of Windows 8 are the first step to aid developers in building apps without regard to platform -- whether workstation, tablet, or smartphone.

The way that developers use .NET Framework is changing. .NET Framework is now built into the fabric of Windows 8. Developers will no longer use "System." directives, but begin using "Windows." directives in their programs.

Learn more by reading about Windows 8 Runtime (Windows RT)

[Puppy]

From my developers perspective, Windows 8 kernel is ok but the user interface is complete failure on desktop/developer machines. The same applies for UI changes in Visual Studio 2012 that many developers hate but there are addons that are able to (partially) revert to the good old productive design. Oh, and the same for MSDN online style that have ditched out Classic style.

Windows Server 2012 UI ? A complete disaster. I don't need big Metro icons and 100px fonts on my desktop machine. I'd like to manage the server as I did before. Well, the PowerShell command-line is still there ...

I can't remember when Microsoft had made that many mistakes in a row like now that too many developers hate. I was happy to work with every new Visual Studio version: 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010. But I hate the 2012 at all. It is supposed to be a development tool, not a phone application. The best thing would be to allow target to .NET 4.5 Framework (to have new C# features async/await) in Visual Studio 2010 and completely skip the 2012 thingy. I've tried to use the VS 2012 many times but after a while I had to close it because it is so awful even with all these tweaks.

Windows 8 Phone development ? You have to buy a dedicated physical machine for it because development in a virtual machine is not supported. Moreover you have to use Windows 8 for it to be able debug the application (the emulator runs in Hyper-V). Could it have been even more complicated ? Windows 7.x Phone development did not have such limitations.

[pianowizard]

As much as I like the new user interface, I wish Microsoft would give people the option to choose whichever interface they want. On the log-in screen, it would be nice to have these buttons: "Click here to log into the Classic interface" and "Click here to log into the Metro interface". Something like this would also have helped when Office 2007 came out, because the difference between Office 2003 and 2007 was even greater than that between Windows 7 and 8.

[yak]

I gave Windows 8 a try and sticked with it.

I use the "metro" thing only as an app launcher. Most of my apps are pinned to the taskbar, for less common ones I just hit the Win key, type its name and hit enter -- just like I did in 7.

On the flipside, I like some changes/additions since 7. It is slightly faster, works better with multiple monitors, has better built-in backup options, etc.

[ThinkRob]

Dude this is nothing new with MS. Win 98 good, ME sucks, XP good, Vista sucks, 7 good, 8 sucks, 9?....hopefully good. IMO, Win 8 is to Win 9 what Vista was to Win 7. It's just a beta version for Win 9.

Yeah, it's even odd, right? Why, just look at the choronology:

Windows 3.1 - good
Windows NT 3.1 - good
Windows NT 3.51 - near-universally loved by businesses
Windows 95 - good
Windows 98 - good, but not as stable
Windows 98 - good
Windows NT 4 - universally loved by businesses and some consumers
Windows ME - garbage
Windows 2000 - universally loved by businesses and some consumers
Windows XP - loved by everybody (after a painful teething period)
Windows Vista - management disaster, but the tech wasn't totaly horrible
Windows 7 - loved by nearly everybody

What a pattern, eh?

The problem with Windows 8 is two-fold:

First, Metro is a good tablet interface and an incredibly bad desktop/laptop interface. Failure to recognize this or to acknowledge this is why I can't help but think that whoever's managing the Windows product team needs a serious talking to.

Second, the whole Windows RT (as an API, not as a platform) thing is just insane. Desktop apps and the open nature of development on Microsoft's platform are the only reasons why people have stuck with MS throughout. That's how they won in the first place: good API support, and a hands-off approach to development -- if you wanted to write a Windows app, you could. Why now they want to change that and lock down their platform is beyond me; it seems to be a search for control for no other reason than to have control.

(I could also rant about how the thread/worker model is completely paint-sniffingly-insane, but that's a relatively minor point, and they're not the first ones to make that mistake when trying to handle mobile constraints...)

[dr_st]

As usual, you bring up excellent and indepth points.

I have no idea the real management decisions behind Microsoft's approach in regards to Win8. If I had to guess, I'd say that it all revolves around them desperately wanting to make a strong stand in the handheld (phone/tablet) sector. And not only be there, but also make money off it. So they are trying to mimic Apple's approach - full control, both for quality and for, well, control.

Pushing WinRT to the desktop is how they want to gain their advantage - they want to have true, full compatibility between the desktop and the handheld.

Whether it will work or not - time will tell.

[ThinkRob]

As usual, you bring up excellent and indepth points.

I have no idea the real management decisions behind Microsoft's approach in regards to Win8. If I had to guess, I'd say that it all revolves around them desperately wanting to make a strong stand in the handheld (phone/tablet) sector. And not only be there, but also make money off it. So they are trying to mimic Apple's approach - full control, both for quality and for, well, control.

That doesn't really make sense to me from a financial perspective. After all, they leave the payment method up to the developer -- so Adobe or whoever is perfectly able to go and implement a payment system for CS atop the "Microsoft Store", and Microsoft won't see dollar zero from that.

I suspect it's just them lusting after control and -- now that they're not the young upstart competing against IBM and OS/2 -- thinking they can get away with it. Time will tell if they're right, but I don't think they are. My bet is that (for the reasons below) developers generally fail to embrace RT and a lot of the presence there by the big players will be "token". Like "yeah, we've got an app with the name of our flagship product, but it's a massively-cut-down version and you're pretty much expected to use the real one on a desktop"-token.

Pushing WinRT to the desktop is how they want to gain their advantage - they want to have true, full compatibility between the desktop and the handheld.

Ok, so I can get the appeal of having a shared API, but they already had that! Windows RT (the OS, not the API) already has a large chunk of the existing Windows API ported and working. You know how Office for RT has some bits that look like they're from the "legacy" desktop? They don't just look that way. Microsoft uses the underlying APIs direcly. Yep, Office RT, the flagship app isn't even a "proper" RT app, and would be rejected were it to have come from anybody else (as it uses "unacceptable" APIs.)

So yeah, RT is a "new" API, but a lot of it sits atop the old codebase. There's no reason that they couldn't expose that same existing API to apps -- only if they did, there'd be no reason to target RT specifically. And without that push, why would you bother putting up with the walled garden aspect in the first place?

I'd be more forgiving of RT if it were a common API shared between two otherwise-very-different operating systems. That'd be a valid reason for devs to target it too -- it would be unifying two disparate platforms. But as it is, RT is a layer that sits atop a perfectly-functional old, mature API, and the only reason that developers can't use the underlying API directly is because Microsoft wants to push people to use the new one (and thus accept the increased control that comes along with it.)

[dr_st]

The RT is supposed to be sandboxed and more secure. I can see why they want to go that way, since the primary complaint against Windows-based OSes has always been that they are not as stable as Linux/Mac. Justified or not, dunno.

So you are saying that Microsoft won't be taking a cut from their store, as Apple does? Interesting. You could be right that it's just an attempt to get control for the sake of control. If that's the case, then I also do not see the point of it. They could have done it years ago. It's been over a decade that they have changed from the "upstart" as you put it to an established company, almost a monopoly. In all this time they never tried to get excessive control, and by not doing so, they actually got more control than anyone else (and in the process caught less "hate" from tech-savvy people than companies like Apple). I wouldn't be trying to change that, if I were them.