Windows 8.1

RumRat

Some of the problems that people are having are not necessarily purely a W8.1 problem, if they were everyone would be experiencing them.
I've never had an update fail, yet, for instance. Anyway, it's not as if W7 didn't have the same complaints there.
When I first installed W8 I used StartMenuX which I found better than Classic Shell (personal preference), but, found that as I went on I was using it less and less. Now I don't have it start up automatically and rarely start it up manually in W8.1.
I can understand some power users who have problems, but, not the average home user.
It's not perfect, but no OS has been, or will be and there will always be personal preferences that muddy the waters
I guess it'll rage on until the XP generation die out.;) By then the kids will all have grown up using Android and Windows 8/10/11and not be thinking anything different.
In the meantime, W10 seems to be getting a good reception, generally and by the time it's finished development, most users should be in a far happier place with it.

prowla

For me, the loss of transparency (Aero Glass) and the general lack of coherence of use and style is more of an issue than the Start menu.

I'm happy pinning frequently used items to the taskbar (which incidentally still has transparency - why just that and not everywhere?), and wandering off to find less frequently used items elsewhere, like I do on the Mac and Ubuntu.

RumRat

The flat colours used are just a modern trend, I believe IOS8 has gone that way. Personally I don't miss Aero, I hardly noticed it being there or not.
They removed it to conserve battery power/ memory in low end systems etc.
If you miss it, you can activate 'Aero lite' in Windows8.1(hidden) or download Aero Glass for W8/8.1 from HERE.

Jivesinger

N9eav wrote: »

If you have Win 8, can you get 10 for free?

Microsoft haven't announced anything either way yet.

All there is so far is a test version of Windows 10. It's freely available for techie types to play with, but it will stop working next year sometime (April 2015 from memory?). However it's certainly not a finished product at this stage.

My guess is that Microsoft will announce pricing when it's about to be released.

Jivesinger

prowla wrote: »

the taskbar (which incidentally still has transparency - why just that and not everywhere?

I don't understand why they've done this - this makes no sense to me either.

prowla wrote: »

For me, the loss of transparency (Aero Glass) and the general lack of coherence of use and style is more of an issue than the Start menu.

I went straight from Windows XP to Windows 8, and therefore I don't miss the Aero stuff.

In fact when I later had to use Windows 7, I found the transparency quite distracting - it certainly isn't required to get work done.

prowla

RumRat wrote: »

The flat colours used are just a modern trend, I believe IOS8 has gone that way. Personally I don't miss Aero, I hardly noticed it being there or not.
They removed it to conserve battery power/ memory in low end systems etc.
If you miss it, you can activate 'Aero lite' in Windows8.1(hidden) or download Aero Glass for W8/8.1 from HERE.

You reinforce my point - they removed features to support the lowest common denominator. And the end result is a flat mush, where you have to put effort into figuring out which window or which part of a window your are in (try dragging an email into a folder in Outlook as an example).

Actually, IOS 8, OS X and Ubuntu have 3D and transparency effects which are quite subtle and complement the interface.

Aero Lite does not give the Aero glass effects. Aero Glass is not quite a polished product, and it only supports Windows 8.1 64-bit. Further, it seems strange to have to resort to 3rd party software to reinstate something Microsoft cut out. Actually I tried WindowBlinds, which is commercial software, but I didn't want to spend additional money for each computer I own.

I previously tried Aero Glass and it didn't work, but I might take another run at it.

Jivesinger wrote: »

In fact when I later had to use Windows 7, I found the transparency quite distracting - it certainly isn't required to get work done.

The issue is that they took away the choice.

I find that the transparency helps separate the window manager from the content, and so supports the desktop metaphor.

You might see my note above regarding the flat colours in Outlook making it difficult or even impossible to do a simple task like drag an email into a folder. You can change the colour theme, but evidently the default one did not undergo any usability tests.