Windows 8 for people who hate the Metro UI

buglawton

prowla wrote: »

:)I meant stretching out your arm pointing at a screen on a desktop.

You are supposed to have the screen at a distance from your eyes and sit in a proper posture, but having a touch screen means you have to lean forward and hold your arm pointing at it.

The ergonomics don't match up unless you are a chimpanzee.

(Maybe the idea is if you stick enough monkeys in front of a Windows 8 computer they will come up with something useful?)

I hold a tablet like a book. Agree it does not replace a laptop/desktop for any serious work.

prowla

buglawton wrote: »

I hold a tablet like a book. Agree it does not replace a laptop/desktop for any serious work.

My desktop screen is more than an arms length away - a touch screen would be a hindrance.

buglawton

If you tried to use it like a desktop.

prowla

buglawton wrote: »

If you tried to use it like a desktop.

Yes - that's what I was saying when i wrote "I meant stretching out your arm pointing at a screen on a desktop.".

Hence the assertion that the Windows 8 touch screen features are not appropriate for desktops, and the OS is aimed at phones and tablets.

(There are companies making desktop PCs with touch screens.)

ChiefGrasscutter

People seem to be forgetting that in the real world computers are used to DO things.

So if they are running top end stuff like photoshop CS series, CAD systems, publishing and the more specialist corporate stuff companies do not want their staff to have to spend their time learning changed things which hinder their work flow.
Spending time having to learn new ways of managing the operating system may be 'fun' for the home user but it is very annoying for the business user.

Mind you, the same applies to some of these high end specialist programs. You have got several workstations running them and the vendor announces that they are withdrawing support for the earlier version before date X: the typical corporate user response is one of total fury.

Dave_C_2

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

... companies do not want their staff to have to spend their time learning changed things which hinder their work flow.

Not only that but in very big companies the IT department has to approve the OS so that it is guaranteed to run the corporate approved software. Then the company has to strike a deal with Microsoft for a corporate licence for windows and Office.
There will still be instances of Windows XP running Office 2003, Why change, it does the job, cheap to maintain and is proved to work in the corporate environment.

Dave

buglawton

Most large companies plan to completely axe remaining Windows XP workstations within a year due to not meeting security standards.

Lum

buglawton wrote: »

Most large companies should plan to completely axe remaining Windows XP workstations within a year due to not meeting security standards.

Fixed that for you

I wish your statement was true, I truly do, some of my customers only just finished moving TO Windows XP last year!

buglawton

Tis true for my employer.
Ironic then that Win8 is rather corporate-unfriendly.

Anyways I'm wondering now, would Win8 install nicely on an elderly but perfectly adequate old laptop circa 2008 with 1 GB of RAM only - are the rumours true that Win8 performs much better than Win7 in limited hardware?

Jivesinger

Dave_C wrote: »

There will still be instances of Windows XP running Office 2003

You've just described my work computer.

buglawton wrote: »

Anyways I'm wondering now, would Win8 install nicely on an elderly but perfectly adequate old laptop circa 2008 with 1 GB of RAM only - are the rumours true that Win8 performs much better than Win7 in limited hardware?

My circa 2007 laptop had 1GB, but crucially some of that was shared memory used for the video display, so even less available to Windows 8.

At times it felt faster, but at other times the disk light was on solidly and I suspected it was doing a lot of swapping memory to/from disk.

So I upgraded the memory (not too expensive for my laptop) and it's much happier.

For an old laptop you might struggle to find the right drivers and potential BIOS updates; I'd strongly recommend taking a full backup / image before you start, so you can go back if it fails!

But buy Windows 8 this week (even if you don't install it) before the prices go up at the end of January.