Windows 8
- Thread starter Bozo
- Start date
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Last Friday I was talking to a VP-level guy at Price Waterhouse Coopers. Right now, PWC issues ipads to senior managers and above.
PWC also uses an internal document management system to maintain operational security.
What that guy was telling me is that the company wants to give every employee and ipad. But also that the ipads won't talk to their VPN end points OR interface with their document management system. So what are the ipads doing for them? "Well, I use it to watch movies when I'm on planes.."
Sounds like their IT staff didn't think that one all the way through. I've seen iPhones connect to our VPN at work so I know that it is possible from the phone but I can't speak for the iPad. Document management is a lost cause on an iPhone or iPad. They are consumer toys and not really enterprise business solutions. That doesn't mean they don't creep into the work place, but I don't see them usable for anything more than basic stuff. I don't even consider the document management in an iPhone for what I do but if PWC wants their documents managed by these devices they obviously never used them before or they need to rely on keeping their important documents synchronized in iCloud. I'm sure that's a nice place for fortune 500 company financial reports. :roll:
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
ddrueding
Fixture
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Not free. Sure, it's only 5$. It might be worth it to someone else, but not for me. Classic Shell does the job for free.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Chewy's review of Windows 8
Now that I've had some free time, I've downloaded a copy of Windows 8 Pro from Dreamspark (formerly MSDNAA), and had about a days use from it. I thought I would like to share my views on the fuss that is "Microsoft Windows 8".
Before I start, I'll mention that Windows 8 was installed inside VirtualBox v4.2.4 (the first version to properly support Win8). 2GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores was allocated to the VM. All default settings were left as is, except 3D acceleration was disabled due to stability issues. I did have some stability problems initially, but turning off 3D acceleration fixed most of those.
1. Installation - that was easy, no issues when coming from a blank HDD. (a 400GB HDD image was provided). I only needed to install the VM guest additions for a few drivers, but no issues with those.
2. The initial user setup. First of all WTF is about linking my desktop account to a MS Live account! No, I don't want to sign in with my Live Account (I don't have one, nor do I want one). Also, why can't I join a domain on first boot? (Something that was possible with Windows 2000 and XP IIRC). But otherwise setting up a local account was easy. BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, WTF is the default new user an ADMINISTRATOR. Hasn't MS learned? FFS, create 2 accounts just like every Linux distro for the last 15 years has done, and educate users, that privileged actions require a f&*(king password. Yes UAC was annoying, but anything that wants to write to %PROGRAMFILES% or %SYSTEMDIR% should need a password as a minimum.
3. The New UI (aka Metro). Playing with the basic applications, nothing special, but I think someone forgot about all the UI research MS did in leading up to Windows 95 and right through until Windows XP was released. It's not the start screen is the issue, as I'm treating it like start menu that take ups the whole screen. (In some ways, most users only use about 10 applications at most, so pinning them to the start screen makes sense). What concerns me, is the "live" nature of it, in that it downloads constantly from the Internet. (Here is Oz, we can still get basic Internet packages that only include 500MB on ADSL, not to mention wireless connections are still expensive).
What took me by surprise, was how easy the new Start Screen was to use, BUT after an hour of playing with the Metro stuff, I though "How do I find all the applications installed"?. WTF, it's under "Search"? So, I mouse to the top-right, click on search, and I can see my Applications... Not ideal, but a habit to be learned.
I didn't play with Mail or Messaging, but IE (the Metro version), sucks. I found it slow, and the full-screen thing was annoying, especially having the address bar pop-up everytime you go to a new URL. (I also like my tabs). But the HTML rendering was on par with what I was seeing in Firefox 16, so can't complain on that part.
The weather tile, was giving incorrect information, so no idea were it was getting it's information from. (Comparing it's information to what I see in GNOME 2.30 and the weather applet, on my Android phone, in the GNOME 3.6 weather applet and also a quick lookup on WeatherChannel.com.au which all 4 agreed, was not the same as the MS tile). ** The GNOME applet gets data for Australia directly from BoM, and I can see all the correct information, including the GPS location of the receiver (Gold Coast Airport), so NFI were MS is getting their data from - and yes MS's data was wrong. (3C lower and said raining, but looking out the window, there were only a few clouds in the sky).
4. The classic desktop, no issues there. Since I normally use Win-R to bring up a Run dialog, had no issues find stuff. I also re-added the default desktop icons, so access to Computer Management, and the local drives was not an issue. But I did find it assuming that on the little system tray icon that lets you safely remove your USB keys, I could "safely remove VBOX HDD C:". Now that would be interesting.
The new task manager is a LOT better than the one on Windows 7. Please MS, can you back-port the task manager into Windows 7. (It's now on par with what Linux/BSD/Solaris users have had for over 10 years). Also, it's nice to see the event log view from recent Server products make it into Win8. (I prefered the server view as it gave the info you needed straight up, not having to use filters).
The switching between the New UI and desktop applications got a little annoying, but overall, it's not that bad once I got used to it.
5. Device setup - very few issues connecting to printers on the LAN, nor any LAN based file shares. (I did have to manually update a HP driver, but I would consider that a non-issue as this is something that's occurred since day zero with any version of Windows, when devices are on different Windows versions).
Overall, I don't really see what the fuss is? Yep, it's a new start screen (it's a f^&(king fullscreen start menu - get over it), the theming looks closer to Windows 1.0 that Windows 7 (not to my taste, but we are have different tastes), the New UI based applications need some colour (to help define the input and widget boundaries), but overall, it's just another iteration of Windows. Overall, it's not a step-down from Windows 7, but a side step into a boggy pot-hole.
Performance wise, it felt just as fast as Windows 7 or Windows XP (whilst running in a VM), so can't say anything in that regard.
My main concern was around Anti-virus. Nowhere was there any indication that an AV solution is bundled with Windows 8, nor is there any indication of how to manually access it. Also, not being able to join a domain first up, and the prompting for using a Live account is just bulls^%t. (I value my privacy).
As for the Metro applications, and the wall-garden - don't give a s&^t. I don't see that as any different to what Apple or Google have... and few complain about either of those in day to day life.
I still have more to play with, so will leave some further comments until I have fully explored those areas before handing down judgement.
PS. Would I recommend Windows 8 over Windows 7? Not really, I would say they are the same product, but just with a different user interface...
Now that I've had some free time, I've downloaded a copy of Windows 8 Pro from Dreamspark (formerly MSDNAA), and had about a days use from it. I thought I would like to share my views on the fuss that is "Microsoft Windows 8".
Before I start, I'll mention that Windows 8 was installed inside VirtualBox v4.2.4 (the first version to properly support Win8). 2GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores was allocated to the VM. All default settings were left as is, except 3D acceleration was disabled due to stability issues. I did have some stability problems initially, but turning off 3D acceleration fixed most of those.
1. Installation - that was easy, no issues when coming from a blank HDD. (a 400GB HDD image was provided). I only needed to install the VM guest additions for a few drivers, but no issues with those.
2. The initial user setup. First of all WTF is about linking my desktop account to a MS Live account! No, I don't want to sign in with my Live Account (I don't have one, nor do I want one). Also, why can't I join a domain on first boot? (Something that was possible with Windows 2000 and XP IIRC). But otherwise setting up a local account was easy. BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, WTF is the default new user an ADMINISTRATOR. Hasn't MS learned? FFS, create 2 accounts just like every Linux distro for the last 15 years has done, and educate users, that privileged actions require a f&*(king password. Yes UAC was annoying, but anything that wants to write to %PROGRAMFILES% or %SYSTEMDIR% should need a password as a minimum.
3. The New UI (aka Metro). Playing with the basic applications, nothing special, but I think someone forgot about all the UI research MS did in leading up to Windows 95 and right through until Windows XP was released. It's not the start screen is the issue, as I'm treating it like start menu that take ups the whole screen. (In some ways, most users only use about 10 applications at most, so pinning them to the start screen makes sense). What concerns me, is the "live" nature of it, in that it downloads constantly from the Internet. (Here is Oz, we can still get basic Internet packages that only include 500MB on ADSL, not to mention wireless connections are still expensive).
What took me by surprise, was how easy the new Start Screen was to use, BUT after an hour of playing with the Metro stuff, I though "How do I find all the applications installed"?. WTF, it's under "Search"? So, I mouse to the top-right, click on search, and I can see my Applications... Not ideal, but a habit to be learned.
I didn't play with Mail or Messaging, but IE (the Metro version), sucks. I found it slow, and the full-screen thing was annoying, especially having the address bar pop-up everytime you go to a new URL. (I also like my tabs). But the HTML rendering was on par with what I was seeing in Firefox 16, so can't complain on that part.
The weather tile, was giving incorrect information, so no idea were it was getting it's information from. (Comparing it's information to what I see in GNOME 2.30 and the weather applet, on my Android phone, in the GNOME 3.6 weather applet and also a quick lookup on WeatherChannel.com.au which all 4 agreed, was not the same as the MS tile). ** The GNOME applet gets data for Australia directly from BoM, and I can see all the correct information, including the GPS location of the receiver (Gold Coast Airport), so NFI were MS is getting their data from - and yes MS's data was wrong. (3C lower and said raining, but looking out the window, there were only a few clouds in the sky).
4. The classic desktop, no issues there. Since I normally use Win-R to bring up a Run dialog, had no issues find stuff. I also re-added the default desktop icons, so access to Computer Management, and the local drives was not an issue. But I did find it assuming that on the little system tray icon that lets you safely remove your USB keys, I could "safely remove VBOX HDD C:". Now that would be interesting.
The new task manager is a LOT better than the one on Windows 7. Please MS, can you back-port the task manager into Windows 7. (It's now on par with what Linux/BSD/Solaris users have had for over 10 years). Also, it's nice to see the event log view from recent Server products make it into Win8. (I prefered the server view as it gave the info you needed straight up, not having to use filters).
The switching between the New UI and desktop applications got a little annoying, but overall, it's not that bad once I got used to it.
5. Device setup - very few issues connecting to printers on the LAN, nor any LAN based file shares. (I did have to manually update a HP driver, but I would consider that a non-issue as this is something that's occurred since day zero with any version of Windows, when devices are on different Windows versions).
Overall, I don't really see what the fuss is? Yep, it's a new start screen (it's a f^&(king fullscreen start menu - get over it), the theming looks closer to Windows 1.0 that Windows 7 (not to my taste, but we are have different tastes), the New UI based applications need some colour (to help define the input and widget boundaries), but overall, it's just another iteration of Windows. Overall, it's not a step-down from Windows 7, but a side step into a boggy pot-hole.
Performance wise, it felt just as fast as Windows 7 or Windows XP (whilst running in a VM), so can't say anything in that regard.
My main concern was around Anti-virus. Nowhere was there any indication that an AV solution is bundled with Windows 8, nor is there any indication of how to manually access it. Also, not being able to join a domain first up, and the prompting for using a Live account is just bulls^%t. (I value my privacy).
As for the Metro applications, and the wall-garden - don't give a s&^t. I don't see that as any different to what Apple or Google have... and few complain about either of those in day to day life.
I still have more to play with, so will leave some further comments until I have fully explored those areas before handing down judgement.
PS. Would I recommend Windows 8 over Windows 7? Not really, I would say they are the same product, but just with a different user interface...
I think my main gripe with the new start menu is there are no folders, so all the links that are usually tucked away in a folder with a meaningful name are now top level with everything else. Uninstall and readme shortcuts etc. The default view for this thing is a bit of a mess, where the start menu on 7 is organized with no effort.
I forgot the password to my server 12 VM, apparently the reset password link does nothing??
I forgot the password to my server 12 VM, apparently the reset password link does nothing??
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
That is my take-away as well. It's fine, just different.
It doesn't actually make a computer any faster, but some things have been reprioritized so that the system seems more responsive in general. That might not be visible in your testing conditions since you're working in a VM. I don't really know why we would expect a Microsoft OS to get make hardware generally faster. I don't think that's ever happened. The appeal, such as it might be, is going to come from the wide use of the Metro UI on non-x86 platforms.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
I totally agree, but the comment was more about it being slower than previous OS iterations, not faster.
(I always wonder why the OS need several hundred MBs just for itself, when on my netbook without X/GNOME running it only needs 97MB, and with X/GNOME on startup it's only using 180MB of RAM - contrast Windows will use 3-4 this amount just for itself). I will note that WIndows 8 is better than 7 in this regard...
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Windows 7 isn't really bad about resource usage either. Generally speaking, hardware requirements for Windows haven't changed since Vista was released.
On the other hand, I have a modded version of XP that will install and run acceptably on a Pentium MMX with 40MB RAM, so it is possible to get a lightweight Windows install if you're willing to look for one.
On the other hand, I have a modded version of XP that will install and run acceptably on a Pentium MMX with 40MB RAM, so it is possible to get a lightweight Windows install if you're willing to look for one.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
First the good news:
Under the skin, Windows 8 is the best operating system Microsoft have ever produced. Contrary to what some other posters have said, it is not just faster, it is lots faster. Basic, common operations like startup and shutdown are much better than Win 7, and vastly, repeat vastly, better than any other Windows version.
And Windows 8 has not only fixed the terrible data-handling bugs in Win 7 (hours to copy modest amounts of data from drive to drive, all that stuff), it also pays particular attention to delivering snappy storage management performance from the desktop. By this I mean opening a folder and showing me the contents right now! not whenever it happens to feel like doing it in a while. By this I mean providing me with a large folder's properties (in particular number of files and total size) almost instantly instead of spending ages clocking over counting things. This alone is a very significant usability improvement.
And Windows 8 is sensibly priced. $40 is about what I'd expect to pay for an operating system - this $100-$200 caper M$ has been getting away with all these years is a disgrace.
In short, under the skin, Windows 8 is excellent, the most significant improvement in Microsoft operating systems since Windows 2000 replaced Win 98.
Under the skin, Windows 8 is the best operating system Microsoft have ever produced. Contrary to what some other posters have said, it is not just faster, it is lots faster. Basic, common operations like startup and shutdown are much better than Win 7, and vastly, repeat vastly, better than any other Windows version.
And Windows 8 has not only fixed the terrible data-handling bugs in Win 7 (hours to copy modest amounts of data from drive to drive, all that stuff), it also pays particular attention to delivering snappy storage management performance from the desktop. By this I mean opening a folder and showing me the contents right now! not whenever it happens to feel like doing it in a while. By this I mean providing me with a large folder's properties (in particular number of files and total size) almost instantly instead of spending ages clocking over counting things. This alone is a very significant usability improvement.
And Windows 8 is sensibly priced. $40 is about what I'd expect to pay for an operating system - this $100-$200 caper M$ has been getting away with all these years is a disgrace.
In short, under the skin, Windows 8 is excellent, the most significant improvement in Microsoft operating systems since Windows 2000 replaced Win 98.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Now the bad news:
The Windows 8 UI is the worst ever delivered by Microsoft. Yes, worse than Vista. Yes, worse than 3.0. Yes, worse than ME. (OK, possibly not worse than Windows/286 or 1.0, but I can't remember either of those two, and in any case, they were not operating systems, they were just shells for DOS.)
The Windows 8 UI is not just bad, it is unusably bad. It is a genuine, cast-iron deal-breaker and it just might wreck the company. It's quite possibly a bigger threat to Microsoft than Vista was - for all Vista's faults (and there were plenty of them!) the Vista UI design could be (with some time and effort) massaged into pretty good shape - speed problems aside, about as good as XP and much better than Win 7 with its glaring lack of the space and time-efficient classic start menu.
The Windows 8 UI, however, is a genuine shocker. The Metro front end looks attractive and fresh ... for about 10 seconds 'till you start trying to use it for anything worthwhile. And the crippled desktop is, well, that's the word: crippled. Hopelessly crippled.
Then we get to the appallingly bad design inconsistencies between the two - any first year design student who handed in a paper like that would fail. Then we get to the complete inability of either one of the two different interfaces to perform the whole job. You can't use and manage your computer using only Metro, and you can't do it from the crippled desktop either. Then we get to the crazy way that bits of the UI do different stuff in different ways depending on where you called them up from. And finally we get to the rank stupidity of designing a desktop operating system that is difficult to operate on a desktop computer with standard desktop controls - i.e., keyboard and mouse. How dumb was that?
In two words, massive fail. Vista was a set of half-decent ideas executed very badly. Win 8 is a technically competent, in places brilliant, execution of a set of ideas so badly thought out that you have to wonder what the company's drugs testing policy is.
Customer interest in Windows 8 is hitting an all-time low. Yes, all-time. At least people used to ask me about Vista. "Is it any good?", they'd say. And I'd say "No, it's terrible!" So they didn't buy it. But Win 8 - they don't even ask about Windows 8. Customers are simply not interested in it.
Summary: massive fail.
The Windows 8 UI is the worst ever delivered by Microsoft. Yes, worse than Vista. Yes, worse than 3.0. Yes, worse than ME. (OK, possibly not worse than Windows/286 or 1.0, but I can't remember either of those two, and in any case, they were not operating systems, they were just shells for DOS.)
The Windows 8 UI is not just bad, it is unusably bad. It is a genuine, cast-iron deal-breaker and it just might wreck the company. It's quite possibly a bigger threat to Microsoft than Vista was - for all Vista's faults (and there were plenty of them!) the Vista UI design could be (with some time and effort) massaged into pretty good shape - speed problems aside, about as good as XP and much better than Win 7 with its glaring lack of the space and time-efficient classic start menu.
The Windows 8 UI, however, is a genuine shocker. The Metro front end looks attractive and fresh ... for about 10 seconds 'till you start trying to use it for anything worthwhile. And the crippled desktop is, well, that's the word: crippled. Hopelessly crippled.
Then we get to the appallingly bad design inconsistencies between the two - any first year design student who handed in a paper like that would fail. Then we get to the complete inability of either one of the two different interfaces to perform the whole job. You can't use and manage your computer using only Metro, and you can't do it from the crippled desktop either. Then we get to the crazy way that bits of the UI do different stuff in different ways depending on where you called them up from. And finally we get to the rank stupidity of designing a desktop operating system that is difficult to operate on a desktop computer with standard desktop controls - i.e., keyboard and mouse. How dumb was that?
In two words, massive fail. Vista was a set of half-decent ideas executed very badly. Win 8 is a technically competent, in places brilliant, execution of a set of ideas so badly thought out that you have to wonder what the company's drugs testing policy is.
Customer interest in Windows 8 is hitting an all-time low. Yes, all-time. At least people used to ask me about Vista. "Is it any good?", they'd say. And I'd say "No, it's terrible!" So they didn't buy it. But Win 8 - they don't even ask about Windows 8. Customers are simply not interested in it.
Summary: massive fail.
Tannin, you nailed it first time out!
People do not like change, and the Windows 8 UI is forcing massive change on the public.
Correction, that $40 price tag is a sale price. It goes back to normal pricing at the start of Feb.
People do not like change, and the Windows 8 UI is forcing massive change on the public.
Correction, that $40 price tag is a sale price. It goes back to normal pricing at the start of Feb.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Cheers P5, nice to see you.
Finally, my own take. This may shock a few people, but I am, of my own free will, not on any drugs or psychotherapy or anything else like that, using Windows 8 on one of my own machines. Yes, me. That's right, the same Tannin who still has an OS/2 machine 'cause it's useful and who religiously uses Windows XP 'cause Vista sucks and 'cause the Windows 7 UI is so pox-ridden.
But why?
Well, it came about like this. One of my machines is pretty much just a glorified file server. It has four big SATA drives plus a boot drive and doesn't do anything much except make the contents of those drives available to the network, plus be there as a handy second screen for those times when I want that. But I was space-constrained. All four drives were 2TB Samsungs and I was out of room. Seagate have Disc Mangler software available to let you use a 3TB drive on XP, but you have a nasty 2.2TB plus 750GB partitioning scheme inflicted on you. OK, the 2.2TB limit is hard-wired into XP, but 3TB drives could be much more usable if you could partition them the way you wish - 1.5 plus 1.5 say, or whatever fits with the size of the data they store.
The only way to overcome this 2.2TB limit (on Windows) and have your 3TB drive in a single partition is to run Win 7 64 (or now, Win 8 64). But Win 7 has a dreadful UI. It's not just the tedious many-clicks start menu (even Vista still had the time-efficient single-click "classic" start menu if you tweaked it right), it's the shockingly bad, designed-for-fools explorer windows with all the crap down the sides stealing screen real estate and the .... I won't detail the lot, you know this stuff.
Anyway, I reasoned that, seeing as I already had to find a way to completely fix up the bad UI in Win 7, I might as well go the whole hog and do it with Win 8. Throw in the $40 on-line price instead of the $230 price of Win 7 Pro, and I reckoned it was worth a shot. After all, this wasn't a machine I used much, so if the UI graft wasn't very successful, it wouldn't really matter.
So I went with Win 8. It was a lot of trouble. The MS download system gave me the wrong product to start with (Win 8 32-bit ffs!), entirely without providing a choice and without providing any form of ISO to make a backup with either. It took some days to get that sorted out with emails and phone calls.
Then I started playing with Classic Shell and Object Dock. It's taken a lot of work, but I've nearly got to the stage where the UI is as fast and pleasant to use as XP was. In some ways it's better (the speed of accessing storage is fantastic), in other ways it's still distinctly worse (I cannot find a way to make the start menu opaque, it's still bloody transparent and hard to read!) but overall, it's workable system. I never see the brain-dead Metro screen and I'm actually thinking about installing Win 8 on my ancient main machine, a Thinkpad T400. That would be a big step, not to be taken lightly, but I've got a couple of months to think about it.
Oh, I should mention the hardware. I needed a new motherboard with large drive support for the Win 8 box (well, new BIOS actually, the rest of it didn't matter) and thus a new CPU and replaced the modest little Athlon X2 245 with an even more modest Pentium G620 - the slowest, cheapest new CPU available to me. For the tasks this machine does, that's ample. It occurs to me that Merc's statement that Win 8 is no faster than Win 7 where I am seeing very, very significant improvements might have to do with this - perhaps Merc hasn't tried it on minimal hardware. Whatever: I work on Win 7 machines nearly every day (build new ones, upgrade, repair, all the usual stuff) and my underpowered little Win 8 box creams them. Maybe it's because I've stripped all the carp out of the UI? I dunno.
Finally, my own take. This may shock a few people, but I am, of my own free will, not on any drugs or psychotherapy or anything else like that, using Windows 8 on one of my own machines. Yes, me. That's right, the same Tannin who still has an OS/2 machine 'cause it's useful and who religiously uses Windows XP 'cause Vista sucks and 'cause the Windows 7 UI is so pox-ridden.
But why?
Well, it came about like this. One of my machines is pretty much just a glorified file server. It has four big SATA drives plus a boot drive and doesn't do anything much except make the contents of those drives available to the network, plus be there as a handy second screen for those times when I want that. But I was space-constrained. All four drives were 2TB Samsungs and I was out of room. Seagate have Disc Mangler software available to let you use a 3TB drive on XP, but you have a nasty 2.2TB plus 750GB partitioning scheme inflicted on you. OK, the 2.2TB limit is hard-wired into XP, but 3TB drives could be much more usable if you could partition them the way you wish - 1.5 plus 1.5 say, or whatever fits with the size of the data they store.
The only way to overcome this 2.2TB limit (on Windows) and have your 3TB drive in a single partition is to run Win 7 64 (or now, Win 8 64). But Win 7 has a dreadful UI. It's not just the tedious many-clicks start menu (even Vista still had the time-efficient single-click "classic" start menu if you tweaked it right), it's the shockingly bad, designed-for-fools explorer windows with all the crap down the sides stealing screen real estate and the .... I won't detail the lot, you know this stuff.
Anyway, I reasoned that, seeing as I already had to find a way to completely fix up the bad UI in Win 7, I might as well go the whole hog and do it with Win 8. Throw in the $40 on-line price instead of the $230 price of Win 7 Pro, and I reckoned it was worth a shot. After all, this wasn't a machine I used much, so if the UI graft wasn't very successful, it wouldn't really matter.
So I went with Win 8. It was a lot of trouble. The MS download system gave me the wrong product to start with (Win 8 32-bit ffs!), entirely without providing a choice and without providing any form of ISO to make a backup with either. It took some days to get that sorted out with emails and phone calls.
Then I started playing with Classic Shell and Object Dock. It's taken a lot of work, but I've nearly got to the stage where the UI is as fast and pleasant to use as XP was. In some ways it's better (the speed of accessing storage is fantastic), in other ways it's still distinctly worse (I cannot find a way to make the start menu opaque, it's still bloody transparent and hard to read!) but overall, it's workable system. I never see the brain-dead Metro screen and I'm actually thinking about installing Win 8 on my ancient main machine, a Thinkpad T400. That would be a big step, not to be taken lightly, but I've got a couple of months to think about it.
Oh, I should mention the hardware. I needed a new motherboard with large drive support for the Win 8 box (well, new BIOS actually, the rest of it didn't matter) and thus a new CPU and replaced the modest little Athlon X2 245 with an even more modest Pentium G620 - the slowest, cheapest new CPU available to me. For the tasks this machine does, that's ample. It occurs to me that Merc's statement that Win 8 is no faster than Win 7 where I am seeing very, very significant improvements might have to do with this - perhaps Merc hasn't tried it on minimal hardware. Whatever: I work on Win 7 machines nearly every day (build new ones, upgrade, repair, all the usual stuff) and my underpowered little Win 8 box creams them. Maybe it's because I've stripped all the carp out of the UI? I dunno.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Actually, if you went back and read this whole thread, you would see a slightly different picture. I'm actually a really big fan of the faster boot times, file copies and folder display changes and I've said those things all along. Unfortunately, when it comes to programs actually executing more quickly, there does not seem to be a subjective difference. I have Win8 on, among other things, a five year old Thinkpad T60, which is a humble machine at this point. Excel, Firefox and the usual gang of suspects don't seem to get any faster compared to how they were on 7.
There's nothing wrong with Windows 8 that can't be fixed, which is quite unlike Vista. Once you figure out how best to ignore Metro, it's actually pretty great. I expect that I'm going to be upgrading all my Windows systems to the new version over the next few months.
That being said, Microsoft is talking about having Windows 9 ready for Q3 2013. So I expect we'll be having these arguments even more often, going forward.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
Having used Win8 for about a week, agree 100%. The Modern UI and integration with the rest of the system feels more like a Alpha-release technology mock-up/preview, and not a releasable product.
It doesn't take a genius to see why Win8 has a very slow adoption rate with general consumers.
I'm not sure that the 840 is really any faster, eoecuaooy small sizes. I have the 500GB 840 and at least one of each size of the 830. The 840 pro is the best, but a little pricey for my use as backup Patagonia storage.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
I read some months ago that Win 8 never really shuts down an application or program. Once started it stays started and just the GUI disappears. Is this true?
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
IIRC with Metro applications, it works similar to Android. (It only shutdowns the application when it's running out of resources to serve new applications). So in essence, yes that is true but only for Metro based applications.
Traditional desktop applications work as normal - when you exit, they really do exit.
Traditional desktop applications work as normal - when you exit, they really do exit.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Just for grins, I downloaded the Win8 compatibility checker and ran it on my new machine - built a month ago with new motherboard, / CPU / RAM. The checker says "Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver" not compatible, and does not offer any suggestions or workarounds. H-E-L-L-O! I'm not going to give USB3 for Win8.
How are those of you running Win 8 managing with USB3??
How are those of you running Win 8 managing with USB3??
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I promise that it's fine. It just means that the driver isn't part of the Windows 8 installation media.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Thanks. So, should I move to Win 8 (I just moved to Win 7 from XP) for the reasons Tannin and you mentioned? I would be very interested in the speed enhancements related to storage / windows explorer, but am leery of incompatibility with programs. The $40 upgrade is available here as well.
After all the discussion here I decided to give win 8 an install last night to see what it's like on physical hardware rather than a VM. I installed it on my Lenovo T500 and so far I can't stand the UI. I realize it's different and would take some getting used to but it is annoying. The boot times and reboot times seem significantly reduced from windows 7. I have to rely on the built-in Windows 8 video drivers because the Lenovo ATI drivers won't install. I haven't spent a lot of time playing with it but the confusion of the metro panels and the traditional desktop seems to negate whatever performance increases there may have been added into the base OS. I'm simply slowed down trying to find my applications. I also noticed that logging in to the Microsoft account causes an issue with the windows home group permissions. It won't allow me to see the shares on my win 7 desktop due to permissions. As soon as I log out of the windows account, everything works fine.
ddrueding
Fixture
I'm now running Windows8 on my main home machine, and with Start8 installed and configured correctly can use it just as a Windows7 machine.This isn't a big deal at all.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Pin stuff to the taskbar. Folders full of shortcuts, if it's that bad. You can still put shortcuts on the desktop as well.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Ahh, right. That makes sense to me - those faster things you mention are the things that I'm seeing. I haven't noticed any difference worth mentioning for the likes of of (say) Excel or Photoshop - but I wouldn't, as I don't normally use the Win 8 machine for any of those things, and in any case, I would not expect an OS upgrade to make a lot of difference. As it happens, on this machine, pretty much the only things I do other than serve files to the LAN (which itself is old and slow) are the things which Win 8 does faster.
As I use it more on this test machine, I'm slowly warming to the idea of putting Win 8 on my Thinkpad - but I'm wary of subtle usability gotchas yet unseen, and also would need to figure a way to run my truly excellent old DOS-based accounting program, which simply can't be matched by anything newer. Time to explore VMs, I guess.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Your DOS program will probably run just fine. The gotchas you'll run in to with legacy software have more to do with use of 16-bit drivers or libraries for Windows, or legacy code that checks for some god-awful reason checks OS version in some way that bombs on newer Windows releases.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Really? But it's 16-bit?
I just tried it quickly. Error: "This app can't run on your PC. To find a version .... etc. Tried clicking XPSP3 and Win95 compatibility modes, nuffin different. How can any 16-bit app run under Win64? I thought that was supposed to be against the rules?
Out of curiosity, I'll try it on Win 7 64 later on when I go to work.
I just tried it quickly. Error: "This app can't run on your PC. To find a version .... etc. Tried clicking XPSP3 and Win95 compatibility modes, nuffin different. How can any 16-bit app run under Win64? I thought that was supposed to be against the rules?
Out of curiosity, I'll try it on Win 7 64 later on when I go to work.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
DOS apps won't work on Win 7 64, either. I can however get them to work using either DOSBox or a DOS VM. DOSBox is actually better. DOS VMs under VMPlayer won't run full-screen, and won't run any higher than VGA.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Cheers, JTR. I'll try DOSbox out when I finish work tonight.
(Modern accounting packages, cost aside, simply are not as good as the last of the DOS-based ones. Speed of data entry in particular is a key. Some tools - a hammer to hit nails, a screwdriver to drive screws, a glass to drink from, Quicken for DOS - were perfected a long time ago and the only way you can change them is to make them worse. I'll stick with my old hammer.)
(Modern accounting packages, cost aside, simply are not as good as the last of the DOS-based ones. Speed of data entry in particular is a key. Some tools - a hammer to hit nails, a screwdriver to drive screws, a glass to drink from, Quicken for DOS - were perfected a long time ago and the only way you can change them is to make them worse. I'll stick with my old hammer.
)
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Whoops. Both my DOS programs are published via Virtual PC.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
^ Ahh. Makes sense.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
's why I still use a circa 1996 Win 3.1 calendar program. Tried many successive versions and versions from other vendors, they were all horrible. I use it in a Win XP VM running on Win7-64. Amazingly, it will run on XP, and when Y2K happened, I was terrified it would fail. The moon phases part of it stopped calculating & printing, but the rest of it chugs along cheerfully. Incredible piece of programming.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Do you have a screenshot?
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Not sure of what you want a shot. Calendaring program interface? It running in a VM?
I was wrong; it's older than 1996.
I print a two month calendar per page and it gets put on the fridge with magnets. It lists my and the wife's family members' birthdays, wedding anniversaries, birth and death anniversaries (of people who have passed on), US holidays, etc, with appropriate icons. The wife also makes notes on it of important upcoming events. More than me, she's the one that uses it (being the Social Director). It's very thoughtfully designed. Been using it for almost 20 years.
I was wrong; it's older than 1996.
I print a two month calendar per page and it gets put on the fridge with magnets. It lists my and the wife's family members' birthdays, wedding anniversaries, birth and death anniversaries (of people who have passed on), US holidays, etc, with appropriate icons. The wife also makes notes on it of important upcoming events. More than me, she's the one that uses it (being the Social Director). It's very thoughtfully designed. Been using it for almost 20 years.
I got around this issue for my mother who still loves a classic 16-bit solitaire suite of games from Hoyle. With Windows 7 64-bit, I setup the games to run using the built-in Windows 7 XP mode. The games installed and an icon showed on the desktop. Anytime she launches the game, it resumes the XP VM in the background and the game plays in the foreground as if it was part of Windows 7. It works rather seamless.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Just the calendar program's interface, I wanted to see what was so great about it.