Windows 8.1

N9eav

My neighbour just bought a new laptop (not touch screen) and asked me to help him get it running. After the million's of updates since it was put into the box, things vanished like Internet explorer, until several minutes later I found you had to re-pin it on the task bar.
My first impressions was; this is terrible. My neighbour will never cope with it...
What is classic shell?

JJ_Egan

Classic Shell gives you the old style interface start menu .
http://www.classicshell.net/

RumRat

N9eav wrote: »

My neighbour just bought a new laptop (not touch screen) and asked me to help him get it running. After the million's of updates since it was put into the box, things vanished like Internet explorer, until several minutes later I found you had to re-pin it on the task bar.
My first impressions was; this is terrible. My neighbour will never cope with it...
What is classic shell?

Your impression is that you can't cope with it...;) It's not rocket science, just different and takes about 15 - 20 minutes to get the basics sorted. There are plenty of resources online to assist.
As you have found, it's easier to give in. Maybe your neighbour would enjoy learning something new.
If you've really caved in, Classic shell is an app that will help make it look like the old fashioned W7...:)

jbainbridge

N9eav wrote: »

After the million's of updates since it was put into the box, things vanished like Internet explorer, until several minutes later I found you had to re-pin it on the task bar.
My first impressions was; this is terrible. My neighbour will never cope with it...

Exactly the same happens on W7 ... The unpinning of IE is part of the 'browser choice' process.

I've just got a new laptop with 8.1 on. After spending a little time pinning things I want to the taskbar and tidying up the 'start menu' it's fine. Perhaps if you do the same for your neighbour they will be fine??

patman99

I was not happy to find that the 2nd-hand PC I'd just bought would not run Windows 7 due to the secure boot thing and NO drivers available for the hardware (machine is a HP Pavilion 500 which had only 10 hours use before I got it).

Due to the CPU having a built-in GPU, any attempt to upgrade the video driver ends in failure as the AMD driver fails to correctly identify the separate graphics card.

Apart from that (and the hassle I have had getting games that ran fine on '7' to work on '8.1' without lots of tweaking and hacks), I am getting used to 8.1 and find the boot-up speed almost as quick as '7'.

Btw, why are MS going from '8.1' to '10' ?. Surely the logical step would be Windows 9 ?.

N9eav

RumRat wrote: »

Your impression is that you can't cope with it...;) It's not rocket science, just different and takes about 15 - 20 minutes to get the basics sorted. There are plenty of resources online to assist.
As you have found, it's easier to give in. Maybe your neighbour would enjoy learning something new.
If you've really caved in, Classic shell is an app that will help make it look like the old fashioned W7...:)

I am sure he can play with it. I got used to Win 98, XP, Vista and 7. 8 seemed unrelated and it reminded me of when I bought a MAC and had to learn how to use it... I am not convinced it is the best program they have invented.

RumRat

patman99 wrote: »

I was not happy to find that the 2nd-hand PC I'd just bought would not run Windows 7 due to the secure boot thing and NO drivers available for the hardware (machine is a HP Pavilion 500 which had only 10 hours use before I got it).

Due to the CPU having a built-in GPU, any attempt to upgrade the video driver ends in failure as the AMD driver fails to correctly identify the separate graphics card.

Apart from that (and the hassle I have had getting games that ran fine on '7' to work on '8.1' without lots of tweaking and hacks), I am getting used to 8.1 and find the boot-up speed almost as quick as '7'.

Btw, why are MS going from '8.1' to '10' ?. Surely the logical step would be Windows 9 ?.

It should boot quicker than 7, unless you have disabled 'Fast Startup'.
The only logical explanation that has come forward is, many developers used short code to enable third party software to work with both Windows95 and 98. (Something like if(version.StartsWith("Windows 9")) { /* 95 and 98 */ } else {)
If they had called it W9 then it would have caused problems.
I'm not sure why there is so much fuss globally about what it's called. IMO it is totally irrelevant.

prowla

Windows 8.x is one to avoid; it's an object lesson in how not to build a user interface.

Windows 10 is Windows 8 with the Start menu back. Who knows, they might reinstate some other things they removed too...

There's no reason to get Windows 8.x for an older machine; Windows 7 would be a better upgrade from Vista.

NiftyDigits

patman99 wrote: »

I was not happy to find that the 2nd-hand PC I'd just bought would not run Windows 7 due to the secure boot thing and NO drivers available for the hardware (machine is a HP Pavilion 500 which had only 10 hours use before I got it).

Due to the CPU having a built-in GPU, any attempt to upgrade the video driver ends in failure as the AMD driver fails to correctly identify the separate graphics card.

Apart from that (and the hassle I have had getting games that ran fine on '7' to work on '8.1' without lots of tweaking and hacks), I am getting used to 8.1 and find the boot-up speed almost as quick as '7'.

Btw, why are MS going from '8.1' to '10' ?. Surely the logical step would be Windows 9 ?.

Did you switch off Secure Boot and enable Legacy Mode?

Look here

RumRat

prowla wrote: »

Windows 8.x is one to avoid; it's an object lesson in how not to build a user interface.

Windows 10 is Windows 8 with the Start menu back. Who knows, they might reinstate some other things they removed too...

There's no reason to get Windows 8.x for an older machine; Windows 7 would be a better upgrade from Vista.

Your opinion and you are entitled to it. Agreed it's Marmite, but it's not a bad OS. I think everyone should try it (Properly) before they just blindly stick Classic shell on it.
After reading some of the negative feedback on the net people have often been surprised how quickly they get used to it.
On a PC/Laptop, once on the desktop, you rarely need to go off it, should you not want to.