Anybody upgrade to Windows 8 yet?

[Larry Browning]

I have been preparing my computer to upgrade to Windows 8 for about a week or 2. I was going to pull the trigger yesterday, and something told me not to do it. I really don't know what is was, I just couldn't do it. I think my biggest fear is that it is designed for a multitouch screen which I do not have. Plus, I really have no real reason to go to windows 8 other than curiosity, the desire to have the latest thing, and the attractive upgrade price. I also want to do a system refresh and reinstall only the stuff I actually use. I know I can do this by reinstalling Win7, but hey, why not go to the next version to do this at the same time?

If you have upgraded on a computer without a touchscreen, how do you like it so far?

[Matt Meiser]

I saw Office Max had the upgrade in their ad yesterday and was thinking about going for it for my shop PC which would be a good place to try it out.

[Scott Shepherd]

I installed the developer preview and I must say that it was one of the worst user experiences I've ever had on a computer in 30 years. When using it, I couldn't help but think "This is a joke, right?". There are countless videos on youtube showing people "trying" to use it and understand how it works.

I certainly hope it's significantly different than the developer preview, because that was horrible.

[Peter Kelly]

I installed the developer preview and I must say that it was one of the worst user experiences I've ever had on a computer in 30 years. When using it, I couldn't help but think "This is a joke, right?". There are countless videos on youtube showing people "trying" to use it and understand how it works.

I certainly hope it's significantly different than the developer preview, because that was horrible.I played around with it a bit at Microsoft's "Hands on Learning Lab" at a trade show in Orlando last week. The UI is basically the same as the developer version.

I'm wondering how people are going to get used to navigating it....

[Troy Turner]

I thought 8 was going to be for gadgets (tablets, netbooks, etc.) that didn't have a lot of memory or large processor. We finally upgraded from XP to 7 a few months ago. I'm very happy with it and it will be along time before I upgrade again.

[Myk Rian]

Is Windows 8 really an upgrade?
If you don't have a touch-screen monitor, it may be difficult to use, or even useless.

[Jerome Stanek]

I tried it and thought it was great for a tablet or touch screen not for anything with a mouse or touch pad. I hated it You have to go through 4 steps just to shut down

[Brian Elfert]

We played with it at work when the Consumer Preview was available. The only way I would upgrade to Windows 8 is if you have a touchscreen or buy a new computer and you have no choice on the version of Windows.

I sure as heck would never spend money to upgrade a working computer already running Windows 7. There is just nothing new for a regular computer not running touch.

[Steven Hsieh]

I dont hate it. I actually like it.

However it needs allot of work still.

[Larry Browning]

Is Windows 8 really an upgrade?
If you don't have a touch-screen monitor, it may be difficult to use, or even useless.

This is not what I have been hearing. It is meant for all computers. Even though the metro UI is there, it is easy to switch the traditional UI and back to Metro. I was thinking that given the short cold boot time and other non-metro enhancements such as improved file backup and performance improvements, it might be worthwhile. I have Windows Home Premium and have been wanting to upgrade to Pro, mostly for the ability to backup to a network drive, so for $40, seems like the thing to do.
But, then again, I was hoping to find someone who actually had already done the upgrade and get their impression.

[David G Baker]

I have worked on Windows 7 machines and found that I didn't really like it so I have stuck with Vista. I can't imagine switching to Windows 8 until Microsoft forces me to upgrade.

[Larry Browning]

I have worked on Windows 7 machines and found that I didn't really like it so I have stuck with Vista. I can't imagine switching to Windows 8 until Microsoft forces me to upgrade.

I don't think they will ever "force" you to upgrade, you can still run Windows 3 if you really wanted to. Heck, you could run DOS if you really wanted to!

Vista? Seriously? That's sorta like saying you like ME over XP.:eek::D

[Greg R Bradley]

It is a new OS or software from Microsoft!

You don't even look at it for a year.

Otherwise I would have ended up wasting time looking at ME, Vista, and the original versions of Server 2003 and 2008.

[Scott Shepherd]

Watch this video. This is the EXACT experience I had when using it. They could have been filming me.

Tell me if you think that looks better once you watch it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU&feature=fvwrel

[Art Mulder]

It is a new OS or software from Microsoft!

You don't even look at it for a year.

Otherwise I would have ended up wasting time looking at ME, Vista, and the original versions of Server 2003 and 2008.


+1 on most of this.

We still have XP in many places here at work. And this is why we never adopted Vista.
We're only now getting Win7 in most of our labs, and I now that the central labs here at the university are still XP.

I've read only a few reviews, and that is enough to make me very cautious.


But then again I don't understand the people lining up to buy an iPhone on release day either...
(seriously, I wait months before upgrading Mac's also. It's not just a windows thing. I always wait 4+ months for bugs to shake out.)

[Steve Meliza]

I'm a firm believer in the "every other" rule for Windows so I'll stick to Windows 7 for now.

3.1 95 98 Me XP Vista Win7 Win8

[glenn bradley]

As others have said, it took me 18 months to consider XP acceptable, and about a year for WIndows 7. We ran the beta at work for about a month. Like Scott, it took us 2 or 3 days to convince people who we installed it for that we weren't playing a joke on them. It does do a good job of turning your PC into a really poor i-Pad. :D

[Larry Browning]

Funny and sad at the same time! That is me trying to use a Mac, or my iPhone, or even Linux. However, with that said, am I so engraved into using windows the way I do now that I can't learn something new?

[Larry Browning]

This is not the reaction I had expected. I have several geeky friends who have had Windows 8 installed for several months now. Everyone of them absolutely LOVE it! One guy has it on his PC(not touch screen), tablet, and Phone. He says even though these are different devices, they seem like he is using the same one. All his stuff is available regardless of which one he is using and they all have the same basic interface. What he changes on one automatically shows up on the others.

After reading all this from "real" people, I now am wondering if Microsoft may have a "new Coke" situation on their hands. Maybe the next version of windows will be called "Windows Classic".
I also wonder how sales are going.

[Chuck Wintle]

As others have said, it took me 18 months to consider XP acceptable, and about a year for WIndows 7. We ran the beta at work for about a month. Like Scott, it took us 2 or 3 days to convince people who we installed it for that we weren't playing a joke on them. It does do a good job of turning your PC into a really poor i-Pad. :D

it also took me a long time to transition from xp to windows 7 and, as of now, i am quite happy with it. What I want to avoid is changing for the sake of change. I usually wait to hear how "regular people" fare with something new like this OS so no change for me yet at least.

[Chuck Wintle]

I'm a firm believer in the "every other" rule for Windows so I'll stick to Windows 7 for now.

3.1 95 98 Me XP Vista Win7 Win8

I agree with this statement...every other OS from MS.

[Chuck Wintle]

At work we have only moved to windows 7 recently because MS has discontinued support for sp otherwise we would still be suing it.

[Brian Elfert]

At work we have only moved to windows 7 recently because MS has discontinued support for sp otherwise we would still be suing it.

End of mainstream support for Windows XP was back in 2009. Microsoft has extended support available until 2014. If your company is large enough they probably have agreements with Microsoft to use extended support. My employer is in the process of getting everyone to Windows 7. Windows 7 has enough good things to make it worthwhile. Windows 8 not so much.

[Greg Portland]

Better security, Hyper-V (virtualization), windows-to-go (take your installed OS and apps anywhere on a thumb drive), and UEFI support (BIOS replacement; needed for instant-on / ultra-fast boots) are major features over Win7. The UI does have a steep (but short) learning curve. I think most power users will want to upgrade (I'm very excited about the virtualization options). Folks who use gmail and Skype will probably stick with whatever they currently own.

[Kevin Groenke]

A related question. Will all the applications that run on win7 also run on win8? More specifically: AutoCad, AdobeCS, Rhino, Aspire?

I and my employer will likely be skipping this "upgrade" for quite some time.

-kg

[Larry Browning]

A related question. Will all the applications that run on win7 also run on win8? More specifically: AutoCad, AdobeCS, Rhino, Aspire?

I and my employer will likely be skipping this "upgrade" for quite some time.

-kg

AFAIK everything that runs on Win7 will also run on Win8. I have read lots of bad stuff about Win8, but that is not one of them. I have also read lots of good stuff as well. I just talked to a guy in my office that has converted to Win8 without the touch screen and he loves it. He really likes the virtual machine features. It allows him to boot to XP when he needs to. It seems he has a COBOL compiler that requires XP (it won't run on Win7 or 8) He says it took about a day to get used to the UI changes. But he is young kid, so I would sort of expect it from him anyway.

I may just let this settle down a bit before I take the plunge. Maybe around Thanksgiving.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I think MS should have made it so that one can either enable metro, or disable it. I have 8 loaded on a spare drive and haven't booted it for sometime now. I loved XP when it first came out, Vista, eh, wasn't bad AFTER service pack 2, and Win7 was great from the start. Win 8 really needs the built it ability to disable metro and have the normal start menu in place. I'm just glad my Win 8 licenses are "free" (part of my Technet subscription) and I didn't have to pay extra for them.

[paul cottingham]

I still maintain that the only true upgrade for windows is to install Linux.:D That being said, I quite like (that is a relative term) Windows 7 and would be hard pressed to find a good reason to update it. I am also fearful that the BIOS upgrades that 8 can take advantage of may make it impossible to install any OS but windows.
BTW bevel up planes are better than bevel down (while we are touching on these kinds of very personal subjects.....):D

[Phil Thien]

I'm a firm believer in the "every other" rule for Windows so I'll stick to Windows 7 for now.

3.1 95 98 Me XP Vista Win7 Win8

You are missing NT and 2k, XP 64-bit, etc.

Some people don't get Win8. I don't understand why.

[Shawn Christ]

Larry, I bought a new HP Windows 7 PC a couple months ago which came with the ability to upgrade to W8 at a reduced rate. I gladly paid the 15 bucks, downloaded the 2 GB file, and it is waiting on my desktop to install.

[Brian Ashton]

I can't believe there hasn't been even 1 apple comment... I've heard it will have a bit of a learning curve getting used to the new look but I plan to give it a go after at least 6 months. 40 or 50 bucks to upgrade is nothing.

I am one of those that have been saying since the Compaq iPAQ came out 12 years ago they need to integrate all the operating systems so you can have it all in one. Just think of it... it won't be long now before you can take your phone, plug it into a slot in your tablet so you can be more functional... Then! you can that table/phone and plug them into your work station so you have all the external peripherals you need to get on with your job... And then when your done you simply unplug the phone from its slot and take all you've done with you... When you get home all you do is plug your phone into your home center where you can take calls, watch movies, have a video conference with your mother who's back in where ever...

[Larry Browning]

Brian,
I think the $40 upgrade deal only lasts through January.

[Kevin W Johnson]

In the past there have been work-arounds to install upgrade versions from scratch without having to install a previous version of Windows first. If such an option exists with Win 8, you could install it as a dual boot option. I put Win 8 on a separate drive, but have Win 7 and Linux set up as a dual boot.

[Chuck Wintle]

I still maintain that the only true upgrade for windows is to install Linux.:D That being said, I quite like (that is a relative term) Windows 7 and would be hard pressed to find a good reason to update it. I am also fearful that the BIOS upgrades that 8 can take advantage of may make it impossible to install any OS but windows.
BTW bevel up planes are better than bevel down (while we are touching on these kinds of very personal subjects.....):D

Paul,
I like Linux too and have used linux mint and ubuntu mostly without issue. Where i ran into trouble was when something would not work because of something I did or a limitation of the software. Getting problems fixed was nearly impossible and without a good knowledge of the command line for linux the issues usually necessitated a reinstall. That said linux has come a long way for a"free" product and those willing to hang with it can get the most out of it. One thing I especially like about Linux is its ability to recognize almost any file or file structure. I was able to help my friend recover a lot of important files using linux "live" after a virus caused his windows installation to become unbootable thus saving him almost $300.

[Matt Meiser]

In the past there have been work-arounds to install upgrade versions from scratch without having to install a previous version of Windows first. If such an option exists with Win 8, you could install it as a dual boot option. I put Win 8 on a separate drive, but have Win 7 and Linux set up as a dual boot.

Hard drives are so cheap these days I just buy a new drive and install to that. Reverting is as simple as changing the drives back.

[Curt Harms]

I'm a firm believer in the "every other" rule for Windows so I'll stick to Windows 7 for now. 3.1 95 98 Me XP Vista Win7 Win8 I think that's a pretty widely held opinion. There was a similar change in the Linux Gnome GUI world a few months ago. Talk about sturm und drang!! :D

[paul cottingham]

Paul,
I like Linux too and have used linux mint and ubuntu mostly without issue. Where i ran into trouble was when something would not work because of something I did or a limitation of the software. Getting problems fixed was nearly impossible and without a good knowledge of the command line for linux the issues usually necessitated a reinstall. That said linux has come a long way for a"free" product and those willing to hang with it can get the most out of it. One thing I especially like about Linux is its ability to recognize almost any file or file structure. I was able to help my friend recover a lot of important files using linux "live" after a virus caused his windows installation to become unbootable thus saving him almost $300.

I agree, but I've had just as much trouble with Windows products when it comes to these problems. In fact I used to make my living resolving Windows hardware and software incompatibilities. So I don't really buy that it is only a Linux issue.
But to get back to the OP, this is really a roundabout way of saying why upgrade if you don't need to. Particularly if the OS in question is in the position it is in in the windows quality rotation :-) I would at least wait until the first service pack comes out. Remember, XP was CRAP until SP2.

[paul cottingham]

Hard drives are so cheap these days I just buy a new drive and install to that. Reverting is as simple as changing the drives back.

A darn fine idea. And a good argument for having all your data on a separate drive from you OS.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Just think of it... it won't be long now before you can take your phone, plug it into a slot in your tablet so you can be more functional... I always thought the "transportable human device interface" would be the mouse.

[Greg Portland]

I am also fearful that the BIOS upgrades that 8 can take advantage of may make it impossible to install any OS but windows.
Paul, all of the Linux distros that I'm aware of have some form of UEFI support. HOWEVER, there are definitely bugs and different interpretations of the (huge) spec by various vendors. Linux "secure boot" is one area that's causing a lot of friction; M$ is demanding that all "Windows 8 compatible"-labeled systems require the secure boot feature (and various Linux distros don't have the security certificate). However, there is some good news: The Linux Foundation is providing a work-around for all Linux distros. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/linux-foundation-to-offer-signed-solution-for-uefi-secure-boot-conundrum/

This is a stop-gap measure until the larger distros get their own certificates (and real secure boot capability).

[Larry Browning]

Looks like it's selling pretty well:
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-four-million-windows-8-upgrades-sold-since-launch-7000006628/

And this does not include half the east cost because they can't download it due to Sandy. Either no power/internet or having more urgent matters to attend to.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Remember, XP was CRAP until SP2.

Um, no XP was great from the start. I ran it from the RC stage and never looked back. Vista was dodgy till SP2.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Hard drives are so cheap these days I just buy a new drive and install to that. Reverting is as simple as changing the drives back.

Yeah, I have 4 different drives in removeable trays. To change boot drives I simply turn the key off to one drive, and turn the key on to the drive I want to boot from, as well as a dual boot on one drive.

For some it is easier to simply suggest a dual boot option.

[Steve Meliza]

Um, no XP was great from the start. I ran it from the RC stage and never looked back. Vista was dodgy till SP2.

XP upgrades early on turned a lot of PC's into door stops. Vista never left the dodgy stage.

[Jerome Stanek]

XP upgrades early on turned a lot of PC's into door stops. Vista never left the dodgy stage.

Vista was so slow it couldn't even turn itself into an operating system

[Kevin W Johnson]

XP upgrades early on turned a lot of PC's into door stops. Vista never left the dodgy stage.

It certainly wasn't crap till SP2. I've never had an inplace upgrade that ran as well as a fresh install, no matter the OS version. Thus I always do a clean install. And door stop is the wrong word anyways. The upgrade may render the OS unbootable, but the system itself isn't a door stop. Load a clean install of the OS and go with it.

As for Vista, I beg to differ. Vista w/ SP2 is fine on a good system with enough memory. It simply had a high system overhead, and many of the systems it shipped on (especially laptops) weren't powerful enough to run it properly.

[Kent A Bathurst]

This is not the reaction I had expected. I have several geeky friends who have had Windows 8 installed for several months now. Everyone of them absolutely LOVE it!

Bingo.

The geeky types I know love it. The generic problem which I have is that we proles are not focused on the tech process, but on the business process..the keystrokes, as it were. Plus MS's long term track record on new OS releases clearly indicates to me that 18 months on the sidelines, eating popcorn and watching replays, as the first responders take the hits for the rest of us, is a smart strategy.

I have zero problems with those that grab and go. In fact, I enthusiastically encourage them, because otherwise the rest of us would be at risk when we are finally forced into it.

And, just for the record, I speak as a non techno.geek, I speak as a former CIO of a Fortune 1000 company. I did not want our transition to be early. I wanted it to be successful. Not for the techies, but for the thousands of non technical people trying their best to do their job at locations scattered from border to border and coast to coast.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Vista was so slow it couldn't even turn itself into an operating system

Installed on a proper system, w/SP2, it runs just fine. It just needs a good dual core, and plenty of ram.

[Jerome Stanek]

Installed on a proper system, w/SP2, it runs just fine. It just needs a good dual core, and plenty of ram.

I have a higher end laptop with 4 gig of ram and Vista still was a dog Windows 7 made a world of difference on it.

[paul cottingham]

When I still owned my tech company, we never upgraded to a new os for at least 6 mo to a year to avoid being beta testers for ms. Thats not what my clients paid me for. Hell, I still don't adopt the latest and greatest even in Linux, cause I don't need the headaches anymore. If I want to try something new, that is what virtual box is for.

[Kent A Bathurst]

When I still owned my tech company, we never upgraded to a new os for at least 6 mo to a year to avoid being beta testers for ms. Thats not what my clients paid me for. Hell, I still don't adopt the latest and greatest even in Linux, cause I don't need the headaches anymore. If I want to try something new, that is what virtual box is for.



Hear, hear.

God Bless the technogeeks that are the early adopters.....they are fronting the tsunami for the rest of us.

But....me??? No. Never

[Lori Kleinberg]

I just recieved my upgrade disc. I will load it onto my Windows Vista desktop and see how it goes before loading to my Windows 7 laptop. I am anxious to get this done so it will work seemlessly with my soon to purchase Windows 8 phone.

[Myk Rian]

In the past there have been work-arounds to install upgrade versions from scratch without having to install a previous version of Windows first.

You start the install, and have the older version CD/DVD with you. It will prompt you for that disc.

[Kevin W Johnson]

You start the install, and have the older version CD/DVD with you. It will prompt you for that disc.

There are others that don't require having the disc for an older version, which is what I was hinting at.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I have a higher end laptop with 4 gig of ram and Vista still was a dog Windows 7 made a world of difference on it.

Your experience was different than that of mine then.

[Mike Henderson]

Your experience was different than that of mine then.
+1 Vista worked fine on my computer with 4Gig of RAM and a dual processor. Win 7 on a newer computer was not a lot faster until I changed the disk to an SSD, which did speed up some things quite a bit.

But Vista was not bad. Used it for a number of years. Stable, reasonable speed.

Mike

[Greg Peterson]

Listening to Morning Edition this AM, they were talking about how Windows 8 really comes into its element when a user has multiple Windows devices (tablet, phone, lap top). Files are available across all devices simultaneously, with elements in the UI updating in real time (think Facebook, email, and other social media).

OS's are now entering into a unified support for hardware platforms. A user will see the same interface regardless the hardware device, and their data will be highly available, again regardless of hardware device. This is the way OS's are heading. For users with just a single device, Windows 8 may not be all that big of a deal.

MS has Windows 8
Google has Android
Apple has iOS

[Pat Barry]

I bought a new Lenovo with Windows 8 for my bride. It was $299 at Best Buy with 4GB RAM and 320 GB hard drive. Its a different look and feel but so far I like it. Her previous machine was a Toshiba with Vista that died and I am trying to troubleshoot without much success.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I bought a new Lenovo with Windows 8 for my bride. It was $299 at Best Buy with 4GB RAM and 320 GB hard drive. Its a different look and feel but so far I like it. Her previous machine was a Toshiba with Vista that died and I am trying to troubleshoot without much success.


What's the Toshiba doing?

[Brian Ashton]

I have a higher end laptop with 4 gig of ram and Vista still was a dog Windows 7 made a world of difference on it.


4 gig of ram was so last century ;)

[Curt Harms]

4 gig of ram was so last century ;)

So, what does that make this ThinkPad R31 PIII 1.1 ghz. running Lubuntu and using 200 MB of its 512 MB RAM? :D. Just for grins I had an Ubuntu host running a Win 7 32 bit guest in a VirtualBox Virtual Machine. The whole thing took just under 1 GB. RAM with Win7 running an office session.

[Rich Engelhardt]

So, what does that make this ThinkPad R31 PIII w/ 512 RAM running Lubuntu and using 200 MB of its 512 MB RAM
LOL!
Something MS can only dream of - efficient :D

[Brian Ashton]

So, what does that make this ThinkPad R31 PIII 1.1 ghz. running Lubuntu and using 200 MB of its 512 MB RAM? :D. Just for grins I had an Ubuntu host running a Win 7 32 bit guest in a VirtualBox Virtual Machine. The whole thing took just under 1 GB. RAM with Win7 running an office session.

Probably a pain in the arse for the average person. I can appreciate where you're coming from playing with the penguin... But the penguin is like apple 15 or more years ago - barely anyone knew there was a computer named after a fruit and less took it seriously. Maybe one day the penguin will have its day in the sun but I ain't waiting for it.

[Jerome Stanek]

The Penguin runs many company computers. My daughter and her boyfriend are both linux techs for different companies. Both are large being in the top 500

[paul cottingham]

Mac os runs on top of a form of the penguin as well. It is much more common than people think, and there are no longer valid reasons for not using it as a main OS.
except loving windows or Mac of course.

[Kevin W Johnson]

If Linux were truly ready for the average user, then the computer assemblers (Dell, HP, Acer, etc) would be selling computers with free Linux on them, rather than pay Microsoft for an OS.

[Steve Meliza]

If Linux were truly ready for the average user, then the computer assemblers (Dell, HP, Acer, etc) would be selling computers with free Linux on them, rather than pay Microsoft for an OS. http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&cs=ussoho1&l=en&s=soho&~ck=mn#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I am a "computing professional", and so obviously are the majority of my coworkers. I have not seen much of anything positive related to Windows 8, and I don't know anyone that has admitted to installing it. Usually, when there is a new release of Mac, Linux, Windows, or Android, it is talked about.

Usually, while trying to track a new Windows release, there was so much hype and all the journals were talking about it, and then the final release barely delivers on the promise (maybe 50% at best). I attended user groups when MS was in town. It was all about hype, working the crowd, throwing out free shirts and such; nothing technical.

I was trying to follow Windows 8, but most of what I read and heard was negative, and given that there is usually so much hype, it seemed implausible that it would be decent. In other words, I stopped follow it and nothing jumped out at me yet that said that I care for it at all (no overly positive comments, etc). I guess that to be honest, most of the people that I know still don't care for the latest versions of MS Office with the ribbon bar, and I know that some of them completely dropped MS Office and jumped to Apache OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead.

It was stated that you can continue to run your older MS products. Did you know that MS is moving towards a subscription based license? Only heard that relative to products such as MS Office, but no particular reason they won't do that with their OS.

So, should you jump to Windows 8?

I say absolute not unless you can try it first (report back if you do). If you have a bunch of friends that LOVE it, then they should be happy to let you give it a go and then you will know. Don't forget that the road back is not supported without a wipe. I think it was Matt that recommended you purchase a new hard drive and install it there. A GREAT idea because it is so easy to undo.

Also, validate that your hardware and software are supported.

Another possibility is to use a Virtual Machine and install Windows 8 there. Just be careful to NOT to lose your ability to activate it if you later install it onto hardware (MS is cracking down on that sort of thing).

I was once asked if someone should use Mac, Windows, or Linux. Well, I usually use Linux so they expected me to say Linux. What I told them was that they should either find the software that they want to run and buy the computer that runs it, or...... Buy exactly the same thing that your good friend the computer guru uses, because they will support you and fix all those problems you have that mere mortals fail to understand and fix on their own.

[paul cottingham]

http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&cs=ussoho1&l=en&s=soho&~ck=mn#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1
Beat me to it.
And the kernel for macs osx is FreeBSD, an open source Linux like os.

[Larry Browning]

http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&cs=ussoho1&l=en&s=soho&~ck=mn#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1

How many of those do you suppose they sell vs ones with Windows on them? My guess is probably less that 1%

I am afraid Linux has a long way to go before your average consumer can or will use it.

Plus, this is a thread about Windows 8, not Linux, Macs, or even Windows 7.

[paul cottingham]

How many of those do you suppose they sell vs ones with Windows on them? My guess is probably less that 1%

I am afraid Linux has a long way to go before your average consumer can or will use it.

Plus, this is a thread about Windows 8, not Linux, Macs, or even Windows 7.
Total, complete myth.
But,you are right this is not about Linux.
my apologies.

[Larry Browning]

Total, complete myth.
But,you are right this is not about Linux.
my apologies.

I think the Linux thing is all about perception and not about reality. But in the real world perception is everything. (This is true for most everything, not just Linux)

Anyway, back to Windows 8.

[Jason Roehl]

I was once asked if someone should use Mac, Windows, or Linux. Well, I usually use Linux so they expected me to say Linux. What I told them was that they should either find the software that they want to run and buy the computer that runs it, or...... Buy exactly the same thing that your good friend the computer guru uses, because they will support you and fix all those problems you have that mere mortals fail to understand and fix on their own.

Stellar advice right there.

[Kevin W Johnson]

http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&cs=ussoho1&l=en&s=soho&~ck=mn#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1


So, it doesn't prove it's ready for the mainstream, or ready for the (very large) segment of users that know just enough to turn on a computer, and maybe how to turn it off.

[paul cottingham]

Again, total myth. Why would learning the Linux GUI be any harder than any windows one? The truth is it isn't. If you have to Learn a new os, why not a stable, quite virus proof, free one? I put plenty of new users on Linux with no problems whatsoever.
Anyways....

[Jim Becker]

Niet. Windows 8 will be nice for folks with a touch screen, but it's going to be a bear for folks with a "regular" computer. I am about to provide a new computer for my dad and it's got Win7 on it. Win8 would completely confuse him...more than he already is. ;)

No way I have any interest whatsoever in this new version for my own use. Besides, I only use Windows when I have to...Win7 in a virtual machine on my Mac to run Quicken and Office and WinXP on my work machine because it's required to run certain applications.

[Kevin W Johnson]

Again, total myth. Why would learning the Linux GUI be any harder than any windows one? The truth is it isn't. If you have to Learn a new os, why not a stable, quite virus proof, free one? I put plenty of new users on Linux with no problems whatsoever.
Anyways....

Yeah, well, I've encountered many that can't function if so much as their desktop icons change.

Going from XP-Vista-Win 7 isn't even close to learning a new OS. There aren't any real changes between XP-Vista-Win 7 outside of eye candy, new looks to icons, some names changed in the control panel, and some new features which some people may or may not know about. All the basics whereas a user is concerned are the same.

Microsoft doesn't pay the assemblers to install Windows, the assemblers pay Microsoft so they can install it. They would choose free if they felt it were a viable option. It would be an instant revenue boost.

Anyways, lets get back to the OP's original intent.

[Brian Ashton]

Again, total myth. Why would learning the Linux GUI be any harder than any windows one? The truth is it isn't. If you have to Learn a new os, why not a stable, quite virus proof, free one? I put plenty of new users on Linux with no problems whatsoever.
Anyways....


Myth or not who cares as it's not something anyone pays attention to. Maybe I'm a sheep and prefer to run a system that runs most of what's available to mankind... just like everyone else. Maybe that's a myth also but as I stated earlier no one cares.

On topic... I'll buy the upgrade. Not because I need it but simply to stay current and knowledgeable on the tools that I have to use every working day... It's not much of a competitive advantage in an office but it's still something. It won't be the first time I've been promoted for being tech savvy and when 8 becomes mainstream I suspect there will be a few that will be grateful someone in the office knows how to work it - and that will be me.

Only knowing how to use XP will significantly reduce your employability sooner than later.

PS I'm downloading the upgrade as I write...

[Steve Meliza]

Where I work there are hundreds of people in the same building as me all using Linux systems and using software that isn't available for Windows because it just isn't up to the task of doing real work. I'm typing this on a laptop that I've had Linux on for 6.5 years and it's still going strong. A great deal of software is now available on Linux so I rarely find a reason to be forced to use Windows of any version, though I do use Win7 all the time. The irony here is that the main difference your average person sees is in the design of the GUI and as I understand it Win8 will present a unified GUI across vastly different platforms and operating systems. Did you know that Mac OSX is essentially Linux with a well designed GUI? If I handed you a computer running Linux with a GUI identical to Win8 you'd never know the difference till a year later when you suddenly realized you had never restarted the computer or had it sit there unresponsive while a virus scan was running. Pardon the rant, but I know a lot of people that do care and millions of people are unaware of how much technology they enjoy using is thanks to Linux, and that includes the computer you are downloading Win8 with.

To be a little more on topic (in an off-topic thread), my employer is hoping Win8 will cause PC sales to increase and our profits with them. So yes, by all means, everyone upgrade straight away.

[Brian Ashton]

Did you know that Mac OSX is essentially Linux with a well designed GUI? If I handed you a computer running Linux with a GUI identical to Win8 you'd never know the difference till a year later when you suddenly realized you had never restarted the computer or had it sit there unresponsive while a virus scan was running.

It comes back to what I said earlier. The 85% of the world that use windows don't care about OSX, Linux or anything else related... It's just the way things are.

[Curt Harms]

If Linux were truly ready for the average user, then the computer assemblers (Dell, HP, Acer, etc) would be selling computers with free Linux on them, rather than pay Microsoft for an OS.

I'm not sure about the gory details, but by the time Dell, HP Acer etc. cash the checks from all the crapware vendors that pay to put their crapware on new systems and the fact that they pay WAY less than you and I for a copy of Windows, Windows is probably free or close to it. Not to mention all the Windows 8 ads in various media that Microsoft pays for.

[Brian Ashton]

Well I just did an upgrade from XP to win 8 pro on a mac running a virtual partition so this wasn't what could be considered a run of the mill install but it was easy none the less. After the install it took about 20 mins to figure out how to navigate the new look and get productive i.e. installed Office10 and was back to doing home work. Overall the time to install and get it fully functional was probably less than 1 1/2 hours. Probably could have done it in much shorter time but I was also mucking with other stuff. Runs quite smoothly on only 2gb of ram - much better than win 7... YMMV

[Larry Browning]

Well I just did an upgrade from XP to win 8 pro on a mac running a virtual partition so this wasn't what could be considered a run of the mill install but it was easy none the less. After the install it took about 20 mins to figure out how to navigate the new look and get productive i.e. installed Office10 and was back to doing home work. Overall the time to install and get it fully functional was probably less than 1 1/2 hours. Probably could have done it in much shorter time but I was also mucking with other stuff. Runs quite smoothly on only 2gb of ram - much better than win 7... YMMV
Thanks Brian, that is good information.

I am still waffling on my decision. I have been trying to analyze why I may want to upgrade. I actually have no practical reason I want to do it. It is mostly a curiosity thing with me. It is also a desire to be on the latest release. I have always had that desire for most everything I own. From computers to cars, I suppose some would say it is a flaw in my character. So far I have resisted that desire with my wife.:eek:

[Larry Browning]

BTW: has anyone installed virtualbox and installed it that way? That looks like it might be fun to try.(I have no experience with this type of software) Then if I don't like it I can throw it away. ( At least that's how I think it works)

[Chuck Wintle]

If it was me I would wait a while to see how windows 8 is received by customers. Rather than jump into something that is fundamentally flawed and rue the decision I would want to see if this is another MS disaster.

Thanks Brian, that is good information.

I am still waffling on my decision. I have been trying to analyze why I may want to upgrade. I actually have no practical reason I want to do it. It is mostly a curiosity thing with me. It is also a desire to be on the latest release. I have always had that desire for most everything I own. From computers to cars, I suppose some would say it is a flaw in my character. So far I have resisted that desire with my wife.:eek:

[Brian Elfert]

Microsoft even put the Metro UI on Windows Server 2012. We installed Server 2012 on a test server at the office yesterday and even though we all have years of server experience it took a while to figure out how to do things in the new UI.

As a server administrator I have to deal with Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2, and now Windows Server 2012 all with different UIs. It would be nice if Microsoft left things alone for a while. At least Windows Server 2000 and Server 2003 have the same basic interface. A home user usually only deals with one version of Windows at a time and doesn't have to go back and forth all the time.

[Larry Browning]

If it was me I would wait a while to see how windows 8 is received by customers. Rather than jump into something that is fundamentally flawed and rue the decision I would want to see if this is another MS disaster.

The only problem I have with waiting is that the $40 price tag only lasts until the end of January.

[paul cottingham]

Get it and try virtualbox. That's how I run new os's ( is that a word?) before committing to them. Yyou can learn the new interface that way, and you can run it that way until the service packs come out.
Oh, and try Linux in virtualbox to boot! (sorry couldnt resist.) :D

[Chuck Wintle]

The only problem I have with waiting is that the $40 price tag only lasts until the end of January.

Got to admit $40 is not a lot to risk!

[Brian Elfert]

The only problem I have with waiting is that the $40 price tag only lasts until the end of January.

You can buy it now and hold off on installing it. A lot of folks, especially companies with IT departments, wait until the first service pack comes out before even considering a new Microsoft OS.

[Brian Ashton]

The only problem I have with waiting is that the $40 price tag only lasts until the end of January.


Larry it sounds like all you want to do is play - just like you would with any interest or hobby. So buy it and play. No need to justify or rationalise anything. If we all did that Lee Valley would be out of business.

Some people have come up with some excellent ways to play without risk - as you mentioned one earlier using virtual box (or something like that). And then there is cloning your present system over to a new HDD and then upgrading that.

I like that one myself. Might buy one of those HDD trays that replaces the DVD drive and muck around with it.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

Virtual box is definitely the way to g with new os installs. Even if it "eats" your activation, I've always been able o call Microsoft and explain I have new drives, e and get a reactivation. A pain in the keester, though, therearevlotnof ways they could make that work and not have to include a phone call.

As an aside, with all of the Linux discussion...consider
We have 3 laptops and one desktop machine that we use frequently but consider our OS inventory
Satellite modem: Unknown OS ( if any)
Netgear wireless router: Unix
Three cisco powerline Ethernet connectors: unix
cisco (linksys) wireless router: Unix
engenius wireless routerr: Unix
MacBook Air: Unix derivative
dell laptop: win XP
newer Dell laptop. Dual boot. : defaults to Ubuntu Linux, other boot to Win 7
Hp desktop machine: was win xp, died, installed Ubuntu ok and win Xp no longer running
ipad: Unix derivatives
two iPods : unix derivatives
two iPhones: unix derivative
and I have a strong suspicion that my two hp printers may be running a unix derivative

hmm, that's about fourteen unix systems in the house with only one system that I normally boot windows, despite the fact that I'm he sole support for about 20 windows machines a work!
hmmm

[paul cottingham]

Virtual box is definitely the way to g with new os installs. Even if it "eats" your activation, I've always been able o call Microsoft and explain I have new drives, e and get a reactivation. A pain in the keester, though, therearevlotnof ways they could make that work and not have to include a phone call.

As an aside, with all of the Linux discussion...consider
We have 3 laptops and one desktop machine that we use frequently but consider our OS inventory
Satellite modem: Unknown OS ( if any)
Netgear wireless router: Unix
Three cisco powerline Ethernet connectors: unix
cisco (linksys) wireless router: Unix
engenius wireless routerr: Unix
MacBook Air: Unix derivative
dell laptop: win XP
newer Dell laptop. Dual boot. : defaults to Ubuntu Linux, other boot to Win 7
Hp desktop machine: was win xp, died, installed Ubuntu ok and win Xp no longer running
ipad: Unix derivatives
two iPods : unix derivatives
two iPhones: unix derivative
and I have a strong suspicion that my two hp printers may be running a unix derivative

hmm, that's about fourteen unix systems in the house with only one system that I normally boot windows, despite the fact that I'm he sole support for about 20 windows machines a work!
hmmm

hmmmmm
what are you trying to say?

[Brian Ashton]

Probably the biggest annoyance to date is the native pdf reader only has a full screen option. Might have to find a third party reader that allows me to have access to multiple windows...

[Curt Harms]

BTW: has anyone installed virtualbox and installed it that way? That looks like it might be fun to try.(I have no experience with this type of software) Then if I don't like it I can throw it away. ( At least that's how I think it works)

I did a virtualbox install on an Ubuntu host and it was surprisingly easy. The main virtualbox install didn't support USB ports, I had to install guest extensions I think they were called. It's been some time since I did this and it was just an experiment, I deleted the entire partition. I've never tried running a Windows VM on a Windows host so don't know how that would go. You can check out virtualbox.org. I think VMware has a free player too though I haven't messed with VMware at all.

Edit: There's one other consideration. Check your Windows EULA. I believe some Windows licenses do not permit running in a VM.

[Curt Harms]

Larry it sounds like all you want to do is play - just like you would with any interest or hobby. So buy it and play. No need to justify or rationalise anything. If we all did that Lee Valley would be out of business.

Some people have come up with some excellent ways to play without risk - as you mentioned one earlier using virtual box (or something like that). And then there is cloning your present system over to a new HDD and then upgrading that.

I like that one myself. Might buy one of those HDD trays that replaces the DVD drive and muck around with it.

Brian, if you go that route don't get a cheap setup. I had one - still have it in a cabinet - but the connectors were fussy. I'd plug in a hard drive and it wouldn't be recognized. Power down, wiggle, jiggle, restart, hope. You can get racks where you can install two 2.5" drives in one bay. What I haven't seen lately (though I haven't looked for it) is a switch to select among several installed drives. I can see where those were fairly large and complex with IDE - 80 conductor cables - but with SATA (4 conductors excluding power)they should be pretty easy & cheap.

Edit: Such an animal does indeed exist. Not cheap though - $99 to swich 4 devices.
http://www.usbgear.com/JMB321-SW4.html

[George Gyulatyan]

Here's what I don't understand. Why do the developers think that making a desktop OS look and feel like a smartphone is a good idea?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Here's what I don't understand. Why do the developers think that making a desktop OS look and feel like a smartphone is a good idea?

My guess is that the developers did not make that decision....

[Chuck Wintle]

My guess is that the developers did not make that decision....

you are right..driven by the marketing people to make the product more appealing. Too bad they did not spend more time making it less vulnerable to hackers and the like.

[Brian Ashton]

Here's what I don't understand. Why do the developers think that making a desktop OS look and feel like a smartphone is a good idea?

So everything you have has an identical look, feel and usability... I suspect they've done their homework and the majority of people want familiarity. Apple I'd say can attest to that, iPad, iphone and ipod are all identical and osx is moving that way. And once you have them locked in they're much more reluctant to move from what becomes familiar with. Look at how many spit the soother every time microsoft changes the os look and feel. You have to change or go extinct. You think these are radical changes just wait and see what will be around in 10 years.

[George Gyulatyan]

So everything you have has an identical look, feel and usability... I suspect they've done their homework and the majority of people want familiarity. Apple I'd say can attest to that, iPad, iphone and ipod are all identical and osx is moving that way. And once you have them locked in they're much more reluctant to move from what becomes familiar with. Look at how many spit the soother every time microsoft changes the os look and feel. You have to change or go extinct. You think these are radical changes just wait and see what will be around in 10 years.

Brian, valid points and I've heard that before, and yes, the drive for unified look and feel across product ranges is what's driving it. I am just questioning whether that's the right way to go, simply because how the devices are used.

On smartphones and tablets the interface makes perfect sense, mainly because you're not concerned with content creation on those types of devices, at least not to any major extent. However, it does become clunky on computers where people typically generate content (documents, files, etc).

You can argue that the vast majority of home computer users don't generate content, but use their computers mainly for web browsing and gaming, but I'll argue that the better device for these types of users are smartphones and tablets.

While I love my iPhone and think it's got one of the best and intuitive UIs ever created, I don't necessarly want my computer to become an equivalent of a car dashboard.

[daniel lane]

WRT Windows 8 - my local Office Despot (not a typo, just what I call it) has a touch-screen model on display to play with. It may be a good opportunity to try before you buy, Larry (et al.).

I've been a mid-grade technoweenie since I supported the library network in college to pay food bills (back when I worked on Telex machines and upgraded one of the libraries to 80386 machines). I've used 3.1, then WFW, then 95 (incl. a pre-release copy of Win95 months before it was in stores - had a friend at MS), then XP, and only recently moved to Win7. I tried the Win8 machine mentioned above and didn't really like it, but a 2-3 minute trial isn't enough to really judge by. I'm building a new PC for my business soon, and will probably install 7. Don't like being a guinea pig, don't like free beta testing, and definitely don't want to get used to working with one OS on the desktop and another on the laptop. Toying with buying a surface pro when they come out, though...


A darn fine idea. And a good argument for having all your data on a separate drive from you OS.

Years ago I started doing all my builds with two drives - one OS and one docs. Problem with the OS? Clean install on the OS drive, then mount the docs drive - no restore needed. Once I'd done enough builds and I had spare drives sitting around, I'd often swap out and do a clean install on the OS drive, keeping the original as a drop-in "backup". If everything worked, I'd wipe it and use it for the next 'backup'. This system was also easier to do backups of docs and OS separately, leaving me smaller backup files to handle, and shorter restore times. My OS drive I used to split into two logical drives - one for OS and one for swap file. Been a while since I've done that, though - decided it wasn't really worth it. Now I'm running OS on SSD and docs on HDD, although my next build will be HDD for OS, SSD for OS HDD cache (via Intel Smart Response), and HDD for docs. Anyway, blah blah, babble babble, +1 on the separate drives thing. :)


daniel

[Steve Meliza]

If you had Linux you could have been keeping your OS and documents separate and safe while still on the same hard drive. Once I even pulled the hard drive out of a working Pentium-II computer and plugged it into a Pentium-III computer and the only change needed was to change which driver to load for the network card. Until I can get my hands on Win8 and be sure I can easily have some kind of separation with my data and documents I'll not be "upgrading".

[paul cottingham]

It was always considered a best practice to separate the data and os partitions in any work machine. I can't imagine a reasonable argument for not doing this.
It sure makes upgrading less painful, as you don't need to worry about your data if you exercise even a small amount of care.

[Chris Fite]

I stayed with XP because of the shortcomings of Vista. When 7 came out, I could not justify upgrading for $100+ when what I had did what I wanted on this old machine (2007). When the test version of I came out, I gave it a try. Not feeling that one, I went back to XP. When the release version of 8 was offered for $40, I thought I would give it a try.

All I read said that if it runs under Windows 7, it will run under Windows 8. I put Windows 8 on this old machine. I was pleased at the faster boot time.

It took a little clicking around and remembering the keyboard shortcuts, but I was up an running with 8 in a short time.

The tiles are strange, but you can click on one and go to the app, as they are now called, or just press the Windows key to get to a regular desktop.

My computer seems to run better with Windows 8. For $40, it seems like a good deal.

Overall the learning time for Windows 8 did not seem to be any more than for Windows 7 on my laptop.

Chris

[John Lifer]

Installed on a proper system, w/SP2, it runs just fine. It just needs a good dual core, and plenty of ram.

But that WAS the problem with Vista. It WAS a DOG on about 90% of the systems it was installed on.
Pure crap. Almost ruined MS reputation.

[John Lifer]

I've a Lenovo S10-3T that has a touchscreen that I don't use much. Really tempted to do an install and see if it really works better than Win 7 which is fairly decent on this low end laptop.

[daniel lane]

If you had Linux you could have been keeping your OS and documents separate and safe while still on the same hard drive.

Steve, logical drives on the same HDD are fairly simple in most OSs, in fact, that's actually how I started my builds decades ago. I migrated to separate physical drives in part because my docs drive storage requirements are so large (TB), and in part because it's easy to pull out the OS drive and do a clean install on a separate drive, saving the old one as a 'drop in fix' in case things go wrong.


daniel

[Peter Aeschliman]

I've noticed a trend over the last 5 years or so with Microsoft: They alienate their power users by moving toward "cartooney" user interfaces that are more click-centric. Switching to office 2007 was a nightmare. I'm a financial analyst and can use Excel without a mouse. I stare at spreadsheets all day for a living. When we switched to 2007, my models stopped working. The file sizes blew up. They wouldn't calculate. It was really tough to find things (not intuitive at all). You have to save your spreadsheets in a special .xlsb (binary) format just to get reasonably close to the performance of previous versions. The default is xlsx, which apparently is xml-based, making it easier to publish spreadsheets to the web. Who does that anyway? Really? If you take the same excel spreadsheet in xlsx format and simply do a save as .xlsb, the file size will drop in half and calculation times will drastically improve... with no loss of features. Totally ridiculous.

I used it for maybe 3 months. My productivity severely dropped. I convinced our IT department to trade me up to 2010, and it made a pretty big difference. Even then, I still doesn't perform like the old version (2005?).

I see the same thing going on here. They switched to the cartoony metro interface to make it look "sexy", and alienated their core users.

That said, everybody always freaks out with major changes in operating systems. Change is painful at first. It will take a few months for the smoke to clear, and I bet a lot of people will have more favorable views of it.

[paul cottingham]

Yes, and I say if you are going to learn a new interface why not try something open source? The argument against that is baffling coming from people who are clearly going to adopt windows 8.

[George Gyulatyan]

I've noticed a trend over the last 5 years or so with Microsoft: They alienate their power users by moving toward "cartooney" user interfaces that are more click-centric.
Don't blame Microsoft for it. When I recommended we should start moving to Windows 2008 Core installation on all our servers, at least Active Directory servers to my teammates (I am Systems Engineer/Admin), I got funny stares from everyone, like "you're not serious are you?" To me a GUI has no place on servers, especially when all the tools to administer whatever you need, can be installed on your desktop/laptop and administer servers remotely. While MS has made Core available, I doubt that many have adopted it. Too many of us have gotten accustomed to clicking.

[George Gyulatyan]

Yes, and I say if you are going to learn a new interface why not try something open source? The argument against that is baffling coming from people who are clearly going to adopt windows 8.
Agree 100%

[Charlie Ross]

AFAIK everything that runs on Win7 will also run on Win8. I have read lots of bad stuff about Win8, but that is not one of them. I have also read lots of good stuff as well. I just talked to a guy in my office that has converted to Win8 without the touch screen and he loves it. He really likes the virtual machine features. It allows him to boot to XP when he needs to. It seems he has a COBOL compiler that requires XP (it won't run on Win7 or 8) He says it took about a day to get used to the UI changes. But he is young kid, so I would sort of expect it from him anyway.

I may just let this settle down a bit before I take the plunge. Maybe around Thanksgiving.

Larry, When did AutoCad start supporting Win 8?

[Larry Browning]

Larry, When did AutoCad start supporting Win 8?
Charlie,
I don't recall saying it did. So you heard it did not run on Win8? Or just that Autocad did not support it's software on Win8? Big difference. I am sure there are lots a software companies that won't support their software running on a new OS. It doesn't mean they won't in the future. It would be a very poor decision for any software company to decide they just weren't going to support their software on a new Window OS. That would be suicide for sure.

I don't run AutoCad, nor will I ever, so it is a moot point for me.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

AFAIK everything that runs on Win7 will also run on Win8.

My company sent an email out this last week that essentially said...... If you purchase a new computer or pad, be aware that it will not connect to the company network (they actively filter for it and reject it, did not bother to ask why) and even connecting remotely, you will be limited to a limited version of webmail.

[coloradotrout]

The Windows 8 upgrade is Windows 7. I could leave it at that.

The only way I was able to tolerate 8 was to install something called 'classic shell'. It gets the start menu back on the desktop. You can still go to the tiles (metro ui), but I see no reasonable person finding that useful. Sure -- maybe on a small mobile device, where you don't have a keyboard nor mouse, you have to navigate in some other way. So touch is the modern choice. But I've been using a keyboard for nearly 40 years.. and figured out how to make the mouse work alongside the keyboard so I can take advantage of both. If the mouse caused carpal tunnel issues of the wrist, then touch screens are going to cause similar for fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulder, and necks (not to manage the occasional bloody fist). I don't use a computer because I enjoy navigating around the screen and apps -- I use to the end of something I need to get done -- quickly -- so I can go on to something else I need to do. Futzing around with the UI is no joy of mine. That said.. tools like sketchup are handy.. and a mouse (track ball in my case) are a nice accessory to the keyboard shortcuts.

Even though I now have my start menu back, I have to wonder how much resource the tile UI is sucking out of my machine. I may well call MS and demand Win 7 as my upgrade to Win 8. Thanks for listening to me vent.

[Curt Harms]

I find this entire UI debate a little amusing because it's a replay of what took place in the Linux/Gnome world a year or two ago. Gnome is one GUI for Linux, there are others. Gnome is used by Ubuntu and Fedora (Red Hat) so it's pretty widely used. When Gnome released Gnome 3 as a follow on to Gnome 2, it was as big a change as the change from Windows XP to Windows 8. But linux users, unlike Windows users are not prone to taking what they're given and liking it. A great many pixels were sacrificed and electrons inconvenienced in THAT discussion.:D

[John Coloccia]

I find this entire UI debate a little amusing because it's a replay of what took place in the Linux/Gnome world a year or two ago. Gnome is one GUI for Linux, there are others. Gnome is used by Ubuntu and Fedora (Red Hat) so it's pretty widely used. When Gnome released Gnome 3 as a follow on to Gnome 2, it was as big a change as the change from Windows XP to Windows 8. But linux users, unlike Windows users are not prone to taking what they're given and liking it. A great many pixels were sacrificed and electrons inconvenienced in THAT discussion.:D

re: Upgrading
I just downgraded from OSX to Windows 7 (ha ha....had to buy some new machines to run CAD/CAM software). Actually, I tried the OSX version of the CAD software and it was AWFUL....really terrible. The first things I did in Windows 7 was:

1) turn off indexing
2) turn off auto updates (just informs of an update)
3) install Firefox
4) switch to Windows "Classic" motif

It's not bad, actually. Very stable....very zippy.

re: Ubuntu
I've been following and trying various Linux distributions from the Slackware days in 1995 or so. I've seen window managers go from clean and simple copies of traditional Unix managers to ridiculous, off the wall garbage, then back to something usable. I'm taking an older machine I have here and I'm turning it into a backup/storage raid, and I'm looking for a decent distribution to install. In the end, this computer will likely just be a terminal based server but I thought I'd check out the new window managers while I was at it. I hadn't seen them in a while.

I tried Ubuntu first. WHAT THE HECK DID THEY DO??? Now understand that I really like my Mac's interface. Ubuntu's interface seemed like a whacky, hacked up, completely non-functional version of my Mac interface. I couldn't figure out how to run ANYTHING other than the handful of programs that were in the little bar at the left. I couldn't even get to a terminal to explore. It was easily the most hideous, non-functional, JOKE of an interface I'd ever seen. Ubuntu set a record for being the shortest lived virtual machine EVER. Buh bye.

I tried openSuse next. Not bad. I really dislike the cutesy, bouncing icons of KDE....always have. Maybe I'll switch to Gnome and see how that is nowadays. I remember Gnome being very cutesy too, though, and getting worse.

I do really wish that Linux would get serious about their leading window managers as I'm finding all of them to be completely unimpressive. Then again, I've ALWAYS found Unix window managers to be rather poor and clunky. edit: Actually, I'm rather fond of CDE! I think that desktop was built on dtwm, I think....which was built on mwm...I think.

Back to Windows 7...I haven't quite figured out Explorer yet. It's organizing information in a very strange way. It hides folders, but then shows them on the left...but not on the right. How strange. I think that's another hacked up feature that was copied from OSX, and then completely messed up beyond all recognition.

[paul cottingham]

Love Linux. Love Ubuntu. Hate ubiquity (their new interface.)
'nuff said.

[Steve Meliza]

One of the first things I do with a fresh Windows install is make it look and act as much like Win95/98 as possible. It's not that I don't mind innovation, but every new release of Windows reduces the usable screen area. One of the main uses of my Win7 work laptop is to display a large VNC window to a Linux server running Suse/fvwm2 and if you allow WinXP or Win7 to use their default schemes then the fat taskbar and fat widow borders reduce my VNC window height about 10% without giving me back anything in return. Nevertheless, switching from WinXP to Win7 about 8 months ago forced me to slightly reduce the height of my VNC window because Win7 was just a tad fatter somewhere so my VNC screen didn't fit any more. With my luck Win8 would make that worse and require me to shrink my window again! I just want to get my work done and go home.

Incidentally, I used to hate Gnome and like KDE then KDE started to do really crazy stuff that made the UI unstable and hard to use so I switched to Gnome for the past few years. Recently I updated to Ubuntu 12.04 and decided to try the default Ubiquity. After suffering months of unstable behavior and difficulty finding my apps I installed classic Gnome and switched back to a stable and easy to use UI.

I'm not even sure OSX is immune as they keep rolling in iOS features and without Jobs to keep them on the straight and narrow they might go off the deep end.

What is with all of the UI designers on this planet? Are they crazy, being forced to develop crap by false visionaries, or am I too old and set in my ways?

[Larry Browning]

Ok guys, can we please keep this thread about upgrading to Windows 8 versus staying with Windows 7? I know there are lots of Mac and Unix evangelists among us, but this thread is about the new version of Microsoft WINDOWS.

BTW: I have pretty much decided to stay with Win 7 even though I will lose out on the attractive upgrade price. In the end, I see nothing in the new version that will make my life better. I will probably not upgrade until it is time for a new computer. I am still curious about Windows 8, but not curious enough to install it as my main OS.

[Brian Elfert]

Nothing says you can't buy the Windows 8 upgrade now and install it later. I remember seeing the upgrade for $39 at Sam's Club or Costco, but last week the price was up to $60 or $70. I think you can still order directly from Microsoft for $39. I'm just going to wait until my next new computer to get Windows 8. I suspect Windows 9 might be out by the time I buy my next PC as mine is only a year old.

[Greg Portland]

My company sent an email out this last week that essentially said...... If you purchase a new computer or pad, be aware that it will not connect to the company network (they actively filter for it and reject it, did not bother to ask why) and even connecting remotely, you will be limited to a limited version of webmail.
Win8 is fully compatible with Win7. Your company is taking the (correctly) cautious approach to not allow new tech to connect until it has been fully vetted by the IT department (security reasons, etc.). My company has an external / vistors network and that's how we connect our phones and tablets.... the security holes in -ALL- mobile devices are too large to trust. Blackberry got around this by fully controlling the entire system / SW stack & was able to get buy-in from enterprise users.

[Brian Elfert]

Win8 is fully compatible with Win7. Your company is taking the (correctly) cautious approach to not allow new tech to connect until it has been fully vetted by the IT department (security reasons, etc.). My company has an external / vistors network and that's how we connect our phones and tablets.... the security holes in -ALL- mobile devices are too large to trust. Blackberry got around this by fully controlling the entire system / SW stack & was able to get buy-in from enterprise users.

Windows 8 may supposedly be backwards compatible with Windows 7, but we have found things like our VPN client that doesn't work 100%. Our vendor is supposed to have a Windows 8 client out this week or next.

[coloradotrout]

@Steve Meliza -- 100% agree. It all depends on what you want to do with your computer. If you want to run the apps that you need -- I'm not convinced anything past Windows NT has added much value. It's changed the UI experience. But boy do I agree -- the newer UI's keep chewing up screen realestate, at the OS level and w/i the apps. The "ribbon" -- the "toolbars" -- I see folks with a web browser that literally starts content below 1/3 the top of the screen and ends 1/3 above the bottom. Tool bars, add bars, status bars.

I don't need Win 8 -- I don't need Win 7 -- like I said, WinNT would do for me. I've been using Office 2003 until recently when I got Office 2010. I guess I'd ask what do you want to do with your computer? Learn Win 8? Then get it. Write a doc, run some calcs in a spreadsheet? Draw a picture? Then focus on the apps, and see where they lead you.

[coloradotrout]

I think getting the OS at the purchase of a new computer makes a lot of sense. Generally a computer lasts 3-7 years -- again depending your the apps you "must" run. You have to consider the buying strategy for hardware. Want the lastest and greatest and most costly -- then drop 2K and enjoy. Want a solid system, that runs most apps reasonably well, but that may have a useful life a year or two shorter? Shop around, spend 300-500 and enjoy. Is a big screen as important as a fast cpu?

I personally like to run 2, maybe 3 apps at most at a time --- browser, excel, maybe email client. Generally, when I'm done with it, I close it. Only when I need them side by side or to exchange data to I have all running concurrently. For work, I may run 2 or 3 additional apps, but it's rare when I have more than two rows of running apps on my taskbar.

[Larry Browning]

On a side note. When exactly did we start running apps and stop running programs? I suppose computer lingo is ever changing just like teenager slang. When I was a teenager everything was either groovy, or a bummer. We went steady and hung out. I'm not sure what they say now, but I am pretty sure it's really the same thing.

[Steve Meliza]

On a side note. When exactly did we start running apps and stop running programs? We've always had applications since the beginning of computers, but I would say it became slang when computers became common and used widely by people other than nerds that found "application" too clunky and needed to shorten it to "app" for ease of typing. Computers (PC and embedded) have many programs but only a few "apps". This PC reports 125 programs are running, but only 5 that I would call an application.

[John Coloccia]

On a side note. When exactly did we start running apps and stop running programs? I suppose computer lingo is ever changing just like teenager slang. When I was a teenager everything was either groovy, or a bummer. We went steady and hung out. I'm not sure what they say now, but I am pretty sure it's really the same thing.

Probably about the time I stopped compiling programs and started building solutions.

Seriously, though....

Generally, we tend to think of "programs" as an executable of some kind. We tend to think of applications as one or more executables that work together to perform a task...usually integrated somehow and including a user interface of some sort. For example, I'd never call the bit of code that manages the USB ports a "USB application". I'd call it a driver. I'd generally call something that is monitoring status or controlling something an "executive"...or I might refer to it as the "system software". Then the bit that interfaces with the person I might refer to as the GUI....or just UI, actually, because it's not necessarily graphical. There could be switches, wheels, etc involved. Each on of these might have one or more "programs" running....or in some cases NOTHING actually actively running, as in the case of executable code just sitting off in space waiting for an interrupt to go off, or maybe for the operating system to call it.

An application can contain ALL of these various elements.

That's not a hard a fast rule, but generally that's how we tend to use these various words. When engineers talk amongst themselves, we tend to divide the world far more simply and tend to call anything that runs an "executable", anything that waits passively (like interrupt handlers, callbacks, etc) "routines", and everything else is "documentation".

[Larry Browning]

We've always had applications since the beginning of computers.....
No we haven't. I have been a programmer for over 35 years. When I started I wrote programs that read punched cards and printed things out on pin fed green bar paper. We didn't have applications. Everything was a program. Then we started writing programs for those green screens in CICS. They had fields on screens. Then all of a sudden the same things were called controls on panels. I could go on and on. The first I remember the word application being used, was to refer to several related programs, such as a general ledger application or an manufacturing application. It sounds more important than a program I guess.
Its all just words, but then it has always perturbed me that the industry keeps coming up with new names for the same stuff. Marketing I guess.

What was the thread about?????

[John Coloccia]

No we haven't. I have been a programmer for over 35 years. When I started I wrote programs that read punched cards and printed things out on pin fed green bar paper. We didn't have applications. Everything was a program. Then we started writing programs for those green screens in CICS. They had fields on screens. Then all of a sudden the same things were called controls on panels. I could go on and on. The first I remember the word application being used, was to refer to several related programs, such as a general ledger application or an manufacturing application. It sounds more important than a program I guess.
Its all just words, but then it has always perturbed me that the industry keeps coming up with new names for the same stuff. Marketing I guess.

What was the thread about?????


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4BlmsN4q2I

Go to 16:50 and listen to what he says. Application has been in use since at least 1984.

[Larry Browning]

Application has been in use since at least 1984.

My point Exactly! It's a new term!
Maybe your definition of new and mine are different.:eek:

I have programs on my computer. Groovy, huh!

[John Coloccia]

My point Exactly! It's a new term!
Maybe your definition of new and mine are different.:eek:

I have programs on my computer. Groovy, huh!

Ha ha....touche'.

[Charlie Ross]

Charlie,
I don't recall saying it did. So you heard it did not run on Win8? Or just that Autocad did not support it's software on Win8? Big difference. I am sure there are lots a software companies that won't support their software running on a new OS. It doesn't mean they won't in the future. It would be a very poor decision for any software company to decide they just weren't going to support their software on a new Window OS. That would be suicide for sure.

I don't run AutoCad, nor will I ever, so it is a moot point for me.

I run AutoCad on Win 7 at work, but not a moot point for my Win 8 puter.
This is what AutoDesk has on their WEB site.
Autodesk intends to support many of our key products on Windows 8 and will add additional products to the list of products supported on Windows 8 as updates and future versions are released. Product Support will provide its best effort to assist customers who have issues with products that are not currently supported.

[Larry Browning]

I run AutoCad on Win 7 at work, but not a moot point for my Win 8 puter.
This is what AutoDesk has on their WEB site.
Autodesk intends to support many of our key products on Windows 8 and will add additional products to the list of products supported on Windows 8 as updates and future versions are released. Product Support will provide its best effort to assist customers who have issues with products that are not currently supported.

Well, there ya go. Sounds like AutoCad and Win8 will be getting along just fine in the near future.

[rogers kevin]

Same here, It is quite difficult to use, our windows 7 is far better than that of windows 8.

[Scott Shepherd]

I know the "news" is that it's been selling great, but in the tech world news, they fired the President of the Windows Division in charge W8 and all the tech news geeks insist he was fired because of the way it's being received. Who know what the truth is, but something can't be good when they let go the President of the Division at the time of the release of his star product.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I know the "news" is that it's been selling great, but in the tech world news, they fired the President of the Windows Division in charge W8 and all the tech news geeks insist he was fired because of the way it's being received. Who know what the truth is, but something can't be good when they let go the President of the Division at the time of the release of his star product.

I expect that most new computers are sold with Windows 8 on it, which means that Windows 8 will at least keep up with the hardware sold with it. So, it may not really indicate how people feel about the OS. I think that at least one person posted here and said that they liked it, but I don't remember for sure.

[Larry Browning]

I expect that most new computers are sold with Windows 8 on it, which means that Windows 8 will at least keep up with the hardware sold with it. So, it may not really indicate how people feel about the OS. I think that at least one person posted here and said that they liked it, but I don't remember for sure.

I work in an office full of programmers and techie types. I haven't found a single one who doesn't love it. Well, maybe one (me), and I don't hate it, I am kinda neutral.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I work in an office full of programmers and techie types. I haven't found a single one who doesn't love it. Well, maybe one (me), and I don't hate it, I am kinda neutral.

I am astonished, I work at a large company in the field and I am one of those techie programmers.

No client of which I am aware has expressed any interest in using Windows 8. Ipads, Android, Windows 7, and even Windows Vista yes, but not Windows 8. Note that this would be relative to government and corporations.

I was asking around a week ago, and found it strange that I do not personally interact with a single person that has admitted to having any interest in Windows 8. The closest I have found was a UI person that was evaluating the interface elements to determine if they should be integrated as a good UI design element in active software projects.

Normally, all of the geeks are all excited to talk about it, rip it apart, love it or hate, etc. The typical response I receive can be categorized as "total junk" or "Don't know anything about it". Most of the articles that I have seen are along the lines of a recent review by some professor at MIT that categorized it as "a Christmas gift for someone you hate".

Ironically, this guy (see link below) categorized it as a design disaster, but in this article, he seems to be refuting the MIT guy.

http://www.zdnet.com/mit-professor-windows-8-is-a-christmas-gift-for-someone-you-hate-7000008479/

So now I have actually heard of an office full of people that rave about it.

Have not had a chance to try it. Don't see any particular reason yet, primarily because my company claims that it will not fully connect to their network from outside (because the VPN stuff required fails on windows 8). You cannot connect your personal devices to their network directly, so an external VPN is the only method for your own device.

Ask your enamored coworkers how many things stopped working when they went to 8. I had many things fail when a move was made from XP to Windows 7; for example, the HP software for a smart scanner was totally unusable. Most software did function, but there were probably 10 major packages in use by my parents that they needed to update.

How long did it take you personally to figure out how to use it? I spent time studying how long it takes for people to migrate from say MS Office to OpenOffice. The answer was that a casual user would hardly know the difference and be fully productive in a week. A power user took a month. Ironically, the learning curve was longer to move from older versions of MS Office to the first version when they introduced the ribbon (I still dislike that version of office even though I use it often.... I spend too much time saying "now where did MS hide that special feature that used to be easily found just by poking around menus").

My developers license allows me to install any MS OS, perhaps I should fire up a VM and give it a try when I have a day to kill....

[Brian Elfert]

I've used the new interface just a little bit and I would just as soon do without it. For someone used to Windows 7 and/or Windows XP it is a major change in how things work. Sure, one can get used to it, but for the average user there is no advantage to the new GUI. For a new user who has never used Windows it might be better, but most folks who will buy Windows 8 are not new to Windows. Microsoft hid a lot of stuff that power users use all the time.

I work in IT and was surprised one of my co-workers paid the $40 to upgrade his PC to Windows 8. He did say the only real good thing about Windows 8 is the backup and restore.

It is kinda like if you went to buy a new car and it drove from the right seat instead of the left seat with a steering wheel that worked opposite of expected. This new car also has the ignition switch and gear shift hidden out of view. Sure, one could drive this new car after a little time, but it sure would be strange for a while. Now, a brand new driver probably would have no trouble driving the car because they have never driven a traditional car before.

[Curt Harms]

John, your opinion of Ubuntu's new UI is pretty common. Quite a few of people think highly of it once they learn how to use it, maybe like Windows 8, dunno. It's funny you mentioned CDE, I believe that was recently open sourced and is freely available. The graphics vibe from the screen shots I've seen is Windows 3.1, I haven't installed it. If someone wants something that feels very much like Windows XP, try a distro with Xfce desktop, very 'classic' feel about it. Another nice choice IMO is linux mint with Cinnamon. Mint is built on an Ubuntu foundation and uses Ubuntu software repositories but uses a different interface. Mint also includes many multimedia codecs by default so for instance you can watch Youtube videos from a liveDVD, something you can't do from many linux distros due to licensing concerns.

[Larry Browning]

Andrew,
Let me qualify my answer a bit. I work as a business analyst / software developer for a large electric motor manufacturer in a mainframe large system environment. The folks I was referring to also do what I do. In our business environment, Windows 8 is pretty much a non-issue in that we are not even considering it as a workable OS yet. The context I was referring to was more of a recreational use of Windows in a home environment, using it for streaming video, web browsing, gaming, etc... This is really the type of thing I was thinking about when I started the thread, and that is also the context my co-workers were thinking of when they expressed their opinion. I actually have no idea as to their opinion of Win8 in a business context. It was not discussed.
I tend to separate the two environments, thinking of them as completely different subjects. I suppose most people think of business applications first and then home applications as an after thought. My thought process is that Windows is something I use at home for entertainment that sometimes can be used for business purposes as well. (Probably not the norm)

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Win8 is fully compatible with Win7.

ActiveX apparently does NOT work on Windows 8 and IE 10, which sounds like some things that work on Win 7 will not work on Win 8.

I did not spend time pondering the corporate message of "blah blah blah will NOT function on Windows 8, so if you buy it, you can no longer do blah blah blah". I just assumed that since the usual connection was through a VPN portal inside a web browser, that it was likely related to ActiveX or some other component that they (my employer) uses to connect.

This was relative to home users, not office machines

I expect that a Windows 7 VM would work around the problem.... and since I usually use VMWare, and that apparently works on Windows 8 it would not be a real problem for me personally (if I decided to buy or build a computer and use Win 8 rather than Linux).

[John Coloccia]

But then again I don't understand the people lining up to buy an iPhone on release day either...
(seriously, I wait months before upgrading Mac's also. It's not just a windows thing. I always wait 4+ months for bugs to shake out.)

They're not in line to buy a new phone. They're just lost and stopped to ask for directions.