Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

[Ian]

[Guest]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

Are you suggesting Ian that if you do not have the use of a touch screen then there is not much advantage over Windows 7. ?

[John Perriment]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I've received a message from BT, my ISP, warning me that their broadband is not yet compatable with Windows 8, should I be thinking of upgrading.

[Jane Doe]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

There seems to be lots of rumours and counter rumours about Windows 8... the one that I heard that bothered me the most is that I'd heard that you would only be able to buy/install programs(or apps as they seem to be calling them now) from the windows store... how would that affect software developers for software that is essentially freeware?
In fact is this rumour true or is it that I have misunderstood something?

As it is, we are hoping to get another laptop BEFORE we are forced to go the Win 8 route

[Pops]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I had enough trouble with compatability issues when I went to win 7 ...... I'll be giving win 8 a miss

[patmoore]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I had enough trouble with compatability issues when I went to win 7 ...... I'll be giving win 8 a miss

I tend to be an early adopter but I'm with Pops on this one. My laptop and the PC at my Vermont condo are Windows 7 and neither works well with Frontpage. I'm very hesitant to adopt a platform that could render even more of my programs obsolete.

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I saw a report on it on BBC Click today. It didn't really give me confidence (as no Windows has since XP).

It looked like Microsoft are more concerned with the tablet market of touchscreens and content consumption, and less bothered with their traditional market of content creation.

If we're being asked to abandon all of our previous software and hardware then I honestly don't see the point in sticking with Windows at all. A change *that* big will require a really good think, and my initial thought is that both iOS and Android are much better catered for than Microsoft's offering. They are, after all, tried and tested content consumption platforms already. The only area in which Microsoft trumped them all was in content creation. If upgrading to Windows 8 means throwing out the baby with the bathwater, then I just don't understand their intentions.

Unless I hear that I can continue to run my old software and hardware (that works fine on Windows XP) on Windows 8, then they're going to have to count me out.

[iainmacd]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I upgraded at the weekend and things seemed to have settled down now, here are some comments:
It takes a long time for the upgrade process to complete - well over 2 hours for mine
Wireless Internet kept dropping out or slowing to a crawl for roughly 24hrs but seemed fine late last night.
Right mouse click seems to take an age to bring up the menu
Favouring touchscreen products has made it less user friendly to mouse operatives! The start screen takes some getting used to
It took me 10 mins to figure out how to turn the damn thing off.
Some of the start screen gizmos are quite good, but so far nothing has made me feel that I have benefitted by moving from 7 to 8.
I'll maybe have more to feedback in a week or 2?

[devilgas]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

definitely giving it a miss until the dust has settled. i don't want to upgrade to then find that stuff that 'works' in win 7 no longer works in 8.

microsoft is in a different situation to appldroid. with appldroid, if you want the latest version of xyz app, then you generally have little choice about upgrading the os. appldroid & developers don't care about this as "upgrading enhances the user experience". that's fine until you come to a device that cannot be upgraded (ipod touch gen 2) at which point the device becomes more and more useless. to clarify, my pc & laptops are older than the oldest apple product i have.

with windows, there is a wealth of software, all with different versions, that users use. it is not the same philosophy as appldroid where previous versions are mostly considered obsolete as soon as a new version is available, usually as a FREE upgrade.
i for one, do not upgrade my pc software as soon as a new version comes out. if the existing version does what i need it to do, then i stick with it. this means i run a lot of legacy software, simply because it does the job.

upgrading to win 8 will most likely cause me problems as i mostly use the older grubby versions of the software, not the showroom sparkly versions.

i say "most likely", as any time i've upgraded an OS, something stops working and needs a patch to get it firing up again. i don't know if this is the case with going to 8, but past experience tells me to expect a problem or 2.

[rogleale]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I have it - I HATE it - and my advice would be, if you are happy with Windows 7 don't upgrade!

Fortunately I have 7 on my main computer because I installed 8 on my Acer laptop to see if it was usable but if I can't find a way to simulate the 7 desktop layout, it won't be staying. It has rendered my laptop unusable for any photographic work because it only recognises the screen as a generic device and will only allow a resolution of something like 1090 x 769 (not sure about the exact figures) and as the native resolution is 1044 x 990 everything is distorted. nVidia haven't got a useable driver, not even in beta, and MS says that the best driver is installed.
In 7 nearly every programme or tool is only two mouse clicks away but in 8 one has often to resort to Search to find them.

And anyway - who wants greasy finger smudges all over the screen?

Roger

[Ian]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

Are you suggesting Ian that if you do not have the use of a touch screen then there is not much advantage over Windows 7. ?

Well, yes and no - the main benefit of Windows 8 is the new tile-based touch-screen interface, but there are other improvements that are more general, if not critical.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I've received a message from BT, my ISP, warning me that their broadband is not yet compatable with Windows 8, should I be thinking of upgrading.

I don't really understand how Windows 8 needs to be compatible with broadband. It may simply be BT referring to 'free' security and management software that they supply to their customers.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

There seems to be lots of rumours and counter rumours about Windows 8... the one that I heard that bothered me the most is that I'd heard that you would only be able to buy/install programs(or apps as they seem to be calling them now) from the windows store... how would that affect software developers for software that is essentially freeware?
In fact is this rumour true or is it that I have misunderstood something?

As it is, we are hoping to get another laptop BEFORE we are forced to go the Win 8 route

In terms of traditional Windows software compatibility, free or otherwise, I don't believe there is any difference to Windows 7. Windows 8 'apps' are different - usually much smaller programs with a very focused designed functionality. Apple very tightly controls the validation of apps for its system, much more so than Google does for Android apps. For example, you can actually configure your Android device to work with apps not downloaded from the app store. This is good and bad - it means freedom of choice but it also introduces an element of risk concerning security. I don't think Microsoft want to go down the Android route, but at the same time they know that they need to build a large and rich portfolio of apps so they will have to work with developers to encourage their participation.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I had enough trouble with compatability issues when I went to win 7 ...... I'll be giving win 8 a miss

Did you go from XP to Win7? That was a big change, but Win7 to Win8 is less so at the technical level. My 4 and a half year old laptop that my daughter now uses, and which originally came with Vista installed, will run Win8.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I saw a report on it on BBC Click today. It didn't really give me confidence (as no Windows has since XP).

It looked like Microsoft are more concerned with the tablet market of touchscreens and content consumption, and less bothered with their traditional market of content creation.

If we're being asked to abandon all of our previous software and hardware then I honestly don't see the point in sticking with Windows at all. A change *that* big will require a really good think, and my initial thought is that both iOS and Android are much better catered for than Microsoft's offering. They are, after all, tried and tested content consumption platforms already. The only area in which Microsoft trumped them all was in content creation. If upgrading to Windows 8 means throwing out the baby with the bathwater, then I just don't understand their intentions.

Unless I hear that I can continue to run my old software and hardware (that works fine on Windows XP) on Windows 8, then they're going to have to count me out.

The basic fact is that traditional desktop and laptop PC sales are in decline, while sales of touch screen tablets and phones are growing strongly. Microsoft is only responding, some would say rather late, to the trend. I have not read much in the way of incompatibility issues with older hardware or traditional applications.

Ian