Windows 8

[kregoron]

I know a few have started running windows 8/pro

Post your thoughts, comments, ideas, tips and tricks


Currently looking for a better Start menu, using Vistart, but its a little weird..

[TeaLeaf]

Sorry, but W8 is simly not a desktop-suitable OS at the moment, so I'll not be running it any time soon.

[Snokio]

I thought I would of skipped this version due to their history of good/bad/good OS, but I took a bite yesterday, downloaded it for the discount price of £24.99 for the pro version and for a limited time you can get media centre free. (I made clone of my W7 SSD onto an identical one just in case)

Media centre though does not look like it has been touched which is a disappointment, not that it was bad in W7, but you would of thought there would of been enhancement!

The normal desktop does still exist, but with no start button, thats about the only difference (you can still right click on it etc).

I have 2 screens, one has the start menu which can be minimised to show desktop, and my other screen shows my desktop (with icons, task bar etc).
 
The new start menu looks and feel nice, seems to work well and I like the apps (very Google / Chrome like) but why on earth did they not put a button there? Instead, you hover over where the button use to be as if there was a graphics glitch with the icon :blink:

Overall, the start menu seems to be built for tablets, an extra feature over the top of W7, an extension if you will! It's early days yet so might find some other bits!

PS, this was installed over the current W7 and used 64bit version automatically it seems, it kept all the programs installed such as steam and origin and all its files and settings, and luckily my 'my computer' icon, otherwise I'm not sure where it would be :lmfao:, and to think, this is almost half the price of blackops 2!

[Penfold]

Sorry, but W8 is simly not a desktop-suitable OS at the moment, so I'll not be running it any time soon.

What he said

[T-Bag]

I got Windows 8 free since I'm a student in a science department (Dreamspark for science subjects includes Windows). I'd quite happily have bought it. It boots and shuts down significantly faster than Windows 7. I've had no performance issues and it is more stable too (And Windows 7 barely crashed anyway).

It takes about a day to get used to the differences, but after that I've not had any cause to complain. I use multi-monitors and don't struggle finding the "start button" area. The start menu itself is a huge jump in performance over the old version, the tiles give you a sneak peak of certain apps, but the real advantage is everything is on display at once rather than guiding your mouse through a maze of hover menu items. So rather than 10 pinned items you have over 60, plus you can still type to launch apps which was how I did it before anyway.

Biggest downsides are:
Shutdown is tucked away in the charm menu for no reason. In fact the whole charm bar is poorly thought through.
Switching apps with the side bar doesn't treat desktop apps as separate so is of VERY limited use.
Takes a day to get used to
Some RT apps feel underdeveloped for the keyboard/mouse environment

Biggest pluses:
SOOOOOO much faster. This to me is enough on its own.
More stable.
Start menu is more practical once items are group and organised to preference.
RT apps for things like weather and music etc are already quite useful, and more will come.

[Snokio]

If you bought/are buying a Windows 7 PC (not starter edition) between 2 June 2012 and 31 January 2013 you can get the upgrade for £14.99:

http://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-GB

[kregoron]

i can live without the old start menu, doesnt take many hours to change ones habbits, and when you get used to it, tiles work really well.. Tho i installed Start8 on laptop and Vistart on stationary.. both working fine, tho wouldnt mind one with a tad more customization options

Positives:
The options menu (right side), changes depending on what application your using, actually working good when your used to it.
Ive not had anything crash yet, seems atleast as stable as Win7.
Responsive! Im ofc running SSD's, and did so when running win7, everything just seems a bit more rapid responding now.
The new search menu is actually brilliant, very nice overview of search results.
Performance in general is top. In games its brilliant, overall ive had a performance increase of 5-10%, synthetic benchmarks shows a little less.
Current Price is brilliant, cheap! And you can upgrade from XP/Vista/Win7. (even a less legit copy works, and you got a perfectly legal key)
The entegration with Skydrive/outlook is excellent, if you use your hotmail/outlook/live account as system account, everything is there and ready for you. And your windows settings gets synched on whatever win8 clients you use the account on.

Negatives.
Using upgrade option leaves you with a windows.old folder in the 15GB range, which is immensely hard to get rid of. (i just used my upgrade disk to make a fresh install after (ye you can do that as there is no retail licens, and there wont be))
Learning Curve can seem a bit steep, but ofc depends on how much interest you got in learning the new tips and tricks.
Charms menu is a little weird... Not really got my head around it yet, but getting there.
Using your MS account (Hotmail/outlook/live) as system account, forces you to have a login on windows load. (ofc makes sense as it automaticly logs in and synchs settings and stuff)
Synching settings fails if you synch between laptops with different wallpaper resolutions. (turning off wallpaper synch solves it tho)

[b00n]

If you bought/are buying a Windows 7 PC (not starter edition) between 2 June 2012 and 31 January 2013 you can get the upgrade for £14.99:

http://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-GB

If you don't mind being flexible with the truth, you can get it regardless... :norty:

[kregoron]

If you don't mind being flexible with the truth, you can get it regardless... :norty:

Talked a bit with a our MS representative a few days ago. Apperently MS is well aware of this, and not really fudged about it, as their getting rid of a ton of XP licenses this way (eventho we all know there isnt really sold any xp licenses anymore)
Same goes for the fact you can use anytime upgrade on a less legit copy...  MS rather want you to use a valid windows 8, then a pirated win7

[smilodon]

'Conflicted' is the term I think best describes me and W8. I can completely understand that MS want to change their company into something new and competitive.The world changes and now the way we use our tech is being defined by companies like  Google and Apple and we're living online almost permanently. Ironically we're back to the 'ecosystems' of AOL and Compuserve, where we live our lives inside Apple or Google on our desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone and now even TV. Microsoft want to reinvent themselves as something that can compete directly with these other providers. They want us to use MS through choice (plus a bit of bullying IMHO) and that means online services, and an App market.

My trouble is that I have a long memory and I'm still not willing to throw my lot in with MS in the way I have been with Google and millions of others do with Apple. The idea of having to log into MS when my PC starts and wondering what gets sent back to them is a bit worrying. How much will I start to be force fed IE10, Windows Media Player, etc when I want to use Firefox and Chrome and buy my stuff from Amazon and the Google Play Store.

Clearly MS are happy to almost give away their new OS and that has to be for a reason. It seems pretty clear to me that they're doing this to get me into their online store and to start spending money with them. Amazon did it by throwing Kindles at us with wild abandon. Google are selling the Nexus 4 and 7 for buttons to get us to log into to their world 24/7. Apple don't give anything away but still seem to be able to create huge loyalty and sell masses of hardware and software (I wonder how long their model of high quality - high price approach will last though).

Both Apple and Google gave us a choice whether to have a relationship with them. I've do very nicely without owning a single Apple product and I'm sure plenty of people happily don't use Google stuff, or if they do they don't log into search or You Tube etc. My worry is that MS will be unable to resist reverting to their old tricks of forcing me to use their stuff. I have visions of new Metro tiles appearing without warning that provide a 'wonderful opportunity to buy some product from MS' The MS Surface already has ads inside apps that came as standard with the tablet and which I have already in effect purchased.

So Windows 8 isn't really about features for me. Windows 7 is a great, clutter free OS that doesn't require a MS log in to work. I bought it from Microsoft and then completely ended my relationship with them. I can't find a single compelling reason to upgrade to 8 and a few concerns about trustworthiness that hold me back. Plus I'm not at all keen on fighting against a tablet OS every day I use it on my PC.


Still it's new and shiny and thirty quid, and the little 'New Tech Demon' inside me whispers 'buy it....... it's new....... it's shiny....... buy it...."    :sad:

[ArithonUK]

I tried the BETA and consumer preview and wasn't that enamoured. Having trouble running it visualised was an issue, as I had no "spare" PC to try it. I also didn't like the idea of using my Microsoft Live (hotmail) login as the Windows login, as this also was linked into Facebook, twitter, Skype, Flickr etc. - I considered this a security risk and hackers dream - get one password to hack them all! However, this is optional, so you don't have to do this.

I never did find out how to exit Metro Apps. The interface is just not intuitive, or designed for running Windowed. God knows what its like multi-screen!

That said, once you've scraped Metro off your shoes (Classic Shell, Start8) you get a fast, refined OS. Stable, responsive and full of improvements. The lack of customisation functions built into Metro (really poor) can be "fixed" with free applications, like "OblyTile" which allows you to make your own tiles.

I am waiting on the arrival in the post of my first SSD drive, so once that is installed, Windows 8 Pro x64 here I come!

I'll post my experiences here.

[BrotherTobious]

Well my hotmail acccount is my spam account so great I will be getting loads of crap sent to me that I dont want.

[smilodon]

My Hotmail account is for ordering pizza online, so no problem there. I might just buy it for £30 and then decide if and when to install it later.

[TeaLeaf]

I might just buy it for £30 and then decide if and when to install it later.

£30?  That's a big pizza.  It installs in your mouth, but I'm not telling you about the uninstall routine.

:roflmao:

[Snokio]

surely a £30 pizza will cause an Installation fail? unless you get some support ofc?

btw, It's £24.99 or £14.99 :flirty:

I just created a new account as I have a few hotmail's now that I don't use (as I forget the logins)