Pros/cons upgrading to Windows 8 from 7

grumpycrab

locky123 wrote: »

First impressions of 8 is it will take some time to get used to finding my way round.

A couple of hints for you. The modern start screen has a Desktop tile. Use this to get to the "traditional" desktop.

The traditional desktop has a "start button" - bottom-left-hand corner Windows icon. Right clicking this will give some traditional options like Shut down.

If you decide that you wish to always boot to the traditional desktop do this:-
- Right-click the taskbar and choose 'Properties' then the 'Navigation' tab
- choose to boot or sign-in directly to the desktop instead of the Start screen

If you would like the start button to provide more options see my signature.

Johnmcl7

Uxb wrote: »

What seems to be missing in all these discussions is that an OS is not meant to be an end itself. It is meant to facilitate people running programs etc - users shouldn't have to spend time learning the OS again before they can do things.
To an extent this might be all right in a home environment where indeed users may get interest and enjoyment out of learning how a new OS functions, but in a corporate environment where this is just creating lost time and lost productivity the reaction is likely to be one of total fury.

The changes aren't as big as people make them out to be, there have been much bigger changes in software in the corporate environment which aside from some vocal protest have managed fine. Such as the introduction of the ribbon interface to Office 2007 which was a far more significant change than Windows 7 to 8 leading to people claiming it was going to be the death of Microsoft Office as there was no way any business would use the new software. Several iterations on and Office's position in business hasn't changed at all and now other software (from Winzip to Autocad) has now adopted the ribbon interface.

In practice I'm finding Windows 8 makes most sense to business, it's difficult integrating Android and IOS into existing MS based systems whereas a Windows 8 system can slot straight in and use all existing tools plus it's available in a usable tablet form factor. It's actually easier and less time to teach employees to use Windows 8 rather than IOS or Android (some are familiar with one or the other but rarely both for non-technical roles) as Windows 8 is mostly the same as 7.

Your car analogy is completely incorrect as there is no standard position for items in operating systems, each one has a different implementation whereas in cars regardless of the manufacturer most of the standard controls are in the same place.

John

AlecEiffel

Uxb wrote: »

I suppose you also though Windows Vista was "great OS" as well.
Oh, actually come to think about it - you said as much as.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63507980#Comment_63507980
Post No 62.

I'd like to see the car manufacturers bring out a model with the positions of the clutch, accelerator and brake all swapped round.
Then when people end up killing themselves and others at a huge rate just say that all the criticism is misplaced and the whiners 'just don't like something new'......

There are endless accident reports on aircraft resulting exactly from these sort of "changes" by the manufacturer between models, or where the pilot very familiar with one aircraft type swapped to another with a different layout and at a moment of stress reverted back in their mind to the controls of the previous aircraft...and so crashed.

What seems to be missing in all these discussions is that an OS is not meant to be an end itself. It is meant to facilitate people running programs etc - users shouldn't have to spend time learning the OS again before they can do things.
To an extent this might be all right in a home environment where indeed users may get interest and enjoyment out of learning how a new OS functions, but in a corporate environment where this is just creating lost time and lost productivity the reaction is likely to be one of total fury.

I don't see me saying that Vista was great, I see me saying that I had never had any issues with it - which is true!

At the end of the day, W8 is fast and it is stable. Beyond that it is opinion, and I stated mine. Yes it's different, yes a lot of it is more suited to touch screens and doesn't make sense on a traditional computer. The vast majority of complaints are based on the fact that it is different, not on actual tech issues with the OS.

In a corporate environment I would like to think that if W8 was going to be bad solution then the IT department wouldn't blindly make the transition to it - there was plenty of news about W8's changes before it was released.

I am happy for us to disagree though, like I said, it is opinion. Your analogies do suck however! :-) But then that is opinion again!

mart44

locky123 wrote: »

Any recommended online user guides?

Not an online guide but a useful tip maybe. This menu is available in Windows 8 when right-clicking the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Quickly gets you to quite few places in Windows. The option to shut down etc is available with the 8.1 upgrade.

locky123

I,m having problems trying to copy my music over from another PC on my ethernet network. It's a large folder, about 80GB and copy/paste just quits during preparation.

Is there a better way?

peachyprice

Uxb wrote: »

What seems to be missing in all these discussions is that an OS is not meant to be an end itself. It is meant to facilitate people running programs etc - users shouldn't have to spend time learning the OS again before they can do things.
To an extent this might be all right in a home environment where indeed users may get interest and enjoyment out of learning how a new OS functions, but in a corporate environment where this is just creating lost time and lost productivity the reaction is likely to be one of total fury.

I wish I could thank you more than once for this post.

ukcarper

I really don't see the big problem a few small niggles but the fast boot up and shut down time easily compensates for that.

locky123

Teracopy solved my copying problems for large folder/files.

I've installed classic shell and turned off corner navigation and boots to desktop.

At least I can use the features i've learnt.

From the little playing with the tiles, I am not a Metro fan yet. The few Apps I looked at in the store dont seem that good based on reviews. You have to sign into a MS Mail program to use multiple accounts and its functions are limited.

And I turned off multi fingure scrolling on the Touchpad.

Jivesinger

locky123 wrote: »

Any recommended online user guides?

Oblivion wrote: »

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/how-to

Microsoft also produced this 'end-user training' document for Windows 8 (I haven't managed to find if there's one for 8.1).

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=39055

There's a lot of stuff which is only relevant to Touchscreen users, but some of it is relevant to keyboard users as well - eg. the handy list of keyboard shortcuts near the end.

However it doesn't include my favourite shortcut which is Alt-F4 - this closes the current program/app/whatever - handy if you're stuck in a full-screen 'Metro' app and don't know how to escape.

Or if you go to the Desktop screen (you may need to click in some empty space), Alt-F4 is another way to shutdown or log out of Windows itself.

wary

Two things I don't like about Win8 compared to Win7:
- Windows 7 Mail was exactly what I wanted but the Windows 8 Mail app version is crap in comparison
- Windows DVD Maker (for burning DVDs) is not available in Win8

One may feel that Win8 is a step forward in many ways and maybe they're right. But I don't understand the rationale of also taking steps backwards.