Who is using Windows 8?

bertie1989 wrote: »

One tap of the windows key and type the program i want and hit enter and its up.It really is up to the end user if they like it or not.

I just gave Ubuntu a go, and found that finding a program to run was the same as this. I found it deeply frustrating.. go to the package manager first to find out what was actually installed, and then having to go and type it in. But I've only been on it for an hour, I'm sure I'll find ways to get a good overview of all the programs I have (a la program menu on the start button for instance), rather than having to know what I want to search for.

I currently have three Windows 8 machines and will probably move another one from 7 to 8 over the holidays. I will admit when I started with the Windows 8 preview I didn't like it as initially it does feel quite different to Windows 7. When 8 came out properly I bought a Vaio Duo 11 (hybrid tablet/Ultrabook) as I need to be familiar with Windows 8 since I'm an IT person and people will want assistance with it.

I quickly began to like 8 on the Vaio particularly the performance and responsiveness which made my Win7 desktop machine seem sluggish despite the latter being a much more powerful PC. My initial Win8 test machine was an older XPS M1330 with a Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz, 2GB ram, 320GB hard drive and Nvidia 8400m and I'd been impressed at the performance on it as its hardware is not that quick, it felt like I'd put an SSD in. So I decided to upgrade the desktop PC as you can easily ignore all the touch parts and have much the same as Windows 7, so far I'm pleased with the upgrade as performance is good and there's a few other additions I like such as the new task manager and file transfer systems plus I prefer having the power user menu instead of a start button as it gives me quicker access to most of the items I used the start menu for. Being newer hardware, the install was a breeze as Win8 recognised all the parts whereas Win7 didn't recognise any of them and had problems with the sata controller on the initial setup.

Initially I ignored the start screen on the desktop machine as it doesn't have a touch screen but I'm actually starting to find it useful because it means I have one click access to most of my software when I press the start button rather than having to go up to programs and scroll through the list. I have got rid of the touch application tiles and set default file associations to not use the touch version of the software. What's also handy about the start screen is if you start typing the name of what you are looking for, it will automatically search and usually find it which saves hunting around. I also find 8's search system works very well whereas I found it didn't work particularly well in either Vista or 7.

I do think one of the big mistakes Microsoft made with Windows 8 was not giving a touch/non-touch option on startup, I'd prefer to have a machine set as non-touch which would then set up the file associations not to use the touch applications, not have touch applications on the start screen and start in the desktop mode. Microsoft obviously want people using the tile interface as that's the one they're using on phone, Xbox and WinRT but there is little point using the touch applications on a non-touch system particularly on larger high resolution displays.

John

prowla wrote: »

And the eye candy is gone - Windows 8 doesn't look as nice; the window borders have been reduced to something even simpler than Windows 7 Basic scheme.

My windows 8 looks anything but basic, there is a little thing called customization, check out deviant art and such:)

prowla wrote: »

Can you get Aqua style semi-transparent windows borders with rounded corners and 3-D shadows?

Can you change the size of the buttons on the windows borders?

So your saying i need to choose my OS on these things you listed? I always customized windows 7 and got rid of the aero theme! and my current windows boarder buttons are smaller then stock.see here http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4820/61000757.jpg

They have in fact renamed MSE as Windows Defender and bundled it with W8, bet the EU will go after them for that one.

...........and it still a dogs dinner.