Windows 8 - Impressions

Today I finally decided to give Windows 8 a go. I am not really keen on moving from Windows 7, but in my line of work, I am positive that in 5-6 months I will have to deal with this OS daily.

My first impressions are mixed.
The new Metro UI is interesting and can be useful, but I am not sure yet in what way.
The lack of a start button, which now has been replaced with a small portion of the task-bar, which upon click opens the Metro UI... is not really well thought of.
The IE icon was next to this "Star button" and I found myself in many situations accidentally clicking the Start button instead of opening IE.
I would have also appreciated if the Metro interface was not full screen -> I sometimes want to see what's happening in the background. At least give me the option to have it opened in a window or occupy a smaller portion of the screen.
My last dislike is in regard to how the Email and Calendar client work. As in, they only work if I log in with a Windows Live Id. I don't really want to log in all the time with windows live.
Also, other apps, like Pictures for instance don't allow me to exclude or include certain categories (like Facebook pictures). News for instance gives me news from bing, but I want them from google and I want only science news... I can't find any way to customise them.


Other issues:
- Driver support is terrible
- 3dMarkVantage score is lower, from 6250 in Win 7 to 6000 in Win 8
- doing a run command with administrator privileges requires the use of hotkeys, in fact almost everything more intelligent needs to be done using hotkeys.


I also installed Start8, to see if returning to the classic start button improves things. To my surprise it does make all things more manageable, but still a lot of other options are missing.

Will I change to Windows 8?

Very likely, but only after Driver support will get better, right now it's the biggest issue with this OS.

Update (after a few days of usage):
Ok, I think I can sum up Win 8 now (after a few days of using it and also sharing the experience with some of my friends).

The bad:
- Poor Driver support
- Lack of a native start button
- Metro has terrible mouse support
- Metro apps are hardly customisable

But... driver support shouldn't be a problem for new machines and for the start button there is Classic Shell. I also read about a project to resurrect the start button based on the beta version of Win8 and what is still left of it in Win8. All in all, these issues will get fixed in the next 6 months. With Metro there is another story, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done there, thankfully, we don't need to deal with Metro on our laptops and desktops if we use classic shell.

The good:
- The Metro UI is very nice if you are not doing professional work. Reading news, email, IM, etc. all can be done much faster and in a more enjoyable manner through metro. Unfortunately, Metro still lacks customisation options to make it fully usable. For now, it remains a gimmick.
- The Apps Store - a very nice implementation which should have happened long ago. I think this will truly change the way home users enjoy their Windows machines.
- Faster boot and shut down times
- Faster file management - copy/delete etc.
- Seems more stable than Win 7.

 

Im definetely NOT going with Win8 anytime soon.
I hate to get bombarded with features I dont like (I dont use Facebook, I hate ads from Microsoft or any other corp., I dont read news and have feeds disabled, I want my old icons on desktop + run command and all that).
And of course driver support is terrible.
And I dont like how they "force" the new features on their clients.

The way things are heading right now is definetely not in the customer's favor.
Some corp. decides how things should look like (and they force it on us) what features we would need (and making admin features harder to access), its almost like they DONT want the user to be able to administrate anything on their machine. Only a select few "soft-settings" are available on the front page, making other people think thats all they can ever set-up.
Thats like telling people "Dont touch any of the administrator settings, you are too stupid to understand them anyway, so we have hidden them from you, and if you are THAT smart, you need to use key shortcuts to access them".


And I hate facebook. And bing.

Win7 remains for me and it will last me a good while (because I wont be playing newer games at all). Thats because new games suck anyways.

 

I don't use Win8, but I think Classic Shell is worth checking: Classic Shell: Features

 

i think it's time to declare that windows 7 is the new xp and windows 8 is the new vista

 

Very likely.

 

Bummer. Wonder how long I can hold out with 7 until new games start requiring 8.

 

that will be the day i stop gaming on pc. :/

 

i think its funny to see how most people who adamantly despise win8 never actually have used it themselves and only go by reports of others / of media. admittedly,the lack of a start button sucks (using start8 myself) and the metroUI just doesnt make sense on a machine without touch interface. but i cant follow the "terrible driver support"?as far as ive seen it supports way more devices than win7,actually ive never needed this little an amount of additional drivers to install! im especially happy with the native win8 drivers for the renesas usb3. they and the win8 built-in copy process have speeded up copy/move operations quite considerably in my case and even previously "highend" copy programs such as teracopy are like 40% slower than microsoft's own solution in that regard. add to that the insane speeds with which win8 boots up/shuts down/reacts pertaining to everyday use and system snappiness.
all in all,i can surely understand if some people wanna stay with win7 for a while first,but win8 is nowhere near the desaster that win vista used to be! just give it a try urself before joining the overall flaming war here and make up ur own personal and hopefully previously unbiased opinion

cheers

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

I jumped win8 a few weeks ago. Hated it at first but I've grown to like it. The way multi monitors work is fantastic. I prefer it to my work desktop with a bar app (ultramon) I think. Made the switch not necessarily for work as win8 won't be touching our corp stuff. Although server 2012 is literally win8 in feel.

For admin cmd, right click button left corner screen and click cmd run as admin. Or right click a open cmd line in the task bar hit cmd or properties. There's two ways without hotkeys or run lining it

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

Aye, very good driver support: http://imageshack.us/a/img502/29/captureit.png /s
Not to mention that half of the drivers are from 2006. However, the rest are new, August 2012.

No, driver support is really bad, but it will get better in time, of that I am sure.
I will try Classic Shell and see how that works out. Will get back to you guys.

Yes, that does work well for most programs, but I wanted to run "RUN" as administrator and couldn't find the option, had to use Win+X.
Also, think about it this way:
Win 7 - you right click program -> run as admin
Win 8 - click program -> scroll down with the mouse -> run as admin


I don't hate Win8, I actually kinda like it. The metro UI pisses me the most, moving my mouse all the time to the sides of the screen on a high resolution screen is... annoying.

Will Win8 be like Vista? I think yes for the first year but it depends on MS.
But unlike Vista, its basic functionality, speed and so on, seem better than Win7. I am sure driver support will get much better after one year, not to mention that those who will buy new laptops will get driver support out-of-the-box.

So I expect Win8 to start becoming rather popular by the second half of next year.

 

I have mine set to use the "windows 7 Look"and all so no metro crap here. so far i didnt have any problems. even used it at my dj gig last night with traktor pro 2.5.1 and worked great. Installation and driver stuff wasnt a problem either used quite a few win 7 drivers from clevo for my w150er so all is working like it should now. only the activation is for 180 days i believe but perhaps in that time new activation methods methods will appear

 

Oh well another impression, I might skip this one.. likewise with Vista

 

i used windows 8 for 15 min, cannot figure how to use it, just kept on cursing. windows 7 will have support until 2020, so there is no need to switch to windows 8. when sales tank, maybe microsoft will come to its right mind

 

Oh, I thought you meant to run cmd as admin. My bad! And yah some of the 'basic' things its like there's 2-3 extra steps now.

I do agree parts of metro is annoying when I find I have to move my cursor to one of the far corners occasionally. I'm still in the trial period but my initial hate and how do I do xyz is steadily wearing off.

I like this thread to see what other opinions are.

 

Why we "hate" Windows 8: it is in no way necessary. Windows 7 offers DX11 and is more optimized for newer software, performing better than Windows XP. Windows 8 does not perform better than Windows 7 in games. Windows 8 forces us to use the Metro start screen to search for applications. We cannot boot directly to the desktop without registry modifications or 3rd party software. There are some improvements in organization here and there, but other than that, Windows 8 is barely an upgrade. Ask yourself: is Windows 8 necessary in any way? Hell, even Windows 7 is barely necessary compared to Windows XP if you are ok with limiting yourself to DX10 with worse performance in some applications.

 

For touch screen machines, Win 8 is great. Otherwise no way in heck am I using it for a regular laptop. Only way we will get it changed is if users refuse to use Windows 8 and if their machine comes with Windows 8 that they demand Windows 7. Considering how mystical it is to even get to the "start menu" in Windows 8 I can see a lot of angry users who buy a laptop with Windows 8 who can't figure out how to use anything. 99% of people don't want to take the time to learn a bunch of new things in a laptop, especially the basics. It's ok if they expand on an OS, but basic things like the Start menu that change drastically, something that's been part of the Windows OS since Windows 95, for the last 17 years and then not even allow for a "classic" mode is ridiculous.

 

Win 8 is a mess, I'm definitely skipping it.

I even had to search how to shut down the computer.

 

Windows 8 is easy to use with a bit of learning. It is just the fact that Microsoft is forcing some things, or in other words not including a mode that preserves the Windows experience we know and love. It is kind of like a classic mode as HTWingNut mentioned that we won't be able to have.

If you want to make sure that support for Windows 7 stays the strongest, whether from Microsoft, software developers or game developers, then do not upgrade or buy computers with Windows 8. Eventually, Windows 8 will be the normal OS, but the faster Windows 8 gains market share, the more focus software developers will have to dedicate to optimizing for Windows 8 rather than 7.

 

Is that a plug in/app/mod?

 

With it's current state I'm not a fan at all. They've completely removed (apparently) the shell in the consumer preview(it was there in the dev preview however) which basically causes you to fall back upon some 3rd party apps to make it Windows 7.5. According to benchmarks the only improvement you get is in startup, shutdown, sleep, etc times but, however, in 3d applications(be it video games or 3ds max) it performs subpar compared to W7. Granted, that is due to drive incompatibility issues with it being new and all but that's also part of the reason why I would personally advise anyone to stay away from it, at least for now. If they bring back the classic shell in the future I would have no reservations with switching to it but until the driver issues are at least somewhat sorted out I will stick with my Windows 7. Besides, I get 15 second start up times on a non-ssd drive as is which is plenty quick for me.

 

There are several Options to do that yes

have a browse here, tons of info there about win8 and how to make it work and look as you want

Windows 8

this is how mine looks: even with startup i dont see the metro screen

 

Right, the Stardock application adds in a start button with a menu that almost replicates the Windows 7 start menu. It is still missing some functionality, though.

To match the new Windows 8 style, it would be cool to have the option to change the start button photo to the updated Windows logo. I want the start button, but I actually like the new contemporary direction in design.

 

start8 would be ur choice then,including full start button functionality and updated win8 button look

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

When is Win 9 coming out?

Well I guess I'll live with no start menu, but I'll wait until it some of the bugs get flushed out and better drivers come out.

 

Classic Shell is so far the best way to get back the start button (forget about Start8).

Unfortunately it's limited in functionality. For instance, I want to add other libraries to the start menu besides the default ones... not possible.

I've read there are some people who have started work on resurrecting the Start button (which still in Windows 8 back in February) and some of the coding is still there.
Who knows.

I will update my impressions after I am done with it. BTW, can any of your using Windows 8 with IE 10, open the first page of the Clevo BIOS thread? My IE crashes when I do that. LoL

 

Win 8 is like another Vista. A poor implementation of what should otherwise be an improved OS. Microsoft just doesn't learn from previous mistakes at all. Vista was a complete abortion from the beginning. However Windows 7 was built off Vista, but implemented properly. I have a feeling Microsoft will have a similar case with Windows 8 with the next version of Windows. I seriously think they should have just offered a "tablet" version of the OS, and a "PC" version with the classic interface. Most apps (like 99.99%) aren't designed to run in "Metro" and have to switch to desktop anyhow, so it's just like OS/2 Warp from ages ago. A pretty GUI on an already existing much more functional GUI. Or anyone remember Microsoft BOB?

Sorry Microsoft... FAIL!

 

while i dont completely agree with the content of the above post...

tactical facepalm! epic!!!

 

95 -> 98 -> 2000 -> ME -> XP -> Vista -> 7 -> 8

Notice a trend? Lol.

 

98, XP and 7 were the most widely adopted.

 

XP for me is still the best (best theme, best start menu, lot more simple in design and good icons).

I hate 7'ns start menu, folder icons, files displacement (can't ever arrange icons the way I want like in XP).

Windows8? (Is that something to eat?:SLEEP

ps: Maybe I will use Windows 8.......... in...... my..... PHONE.... (maybe some day, millions of years from this point:thumbsup .
Keep Cool

 

Ok, I think I can sum up Win 8 now (after a few days of using it and also sharing the experience with some of my friends).

The bad:
- Poor Driver support
- Lack of a native start button
- Metro has terrible mouse support
- Metro apps are hardly customisable

But... driver support shouldn't be a problem for new machines and for the start button there is Classic Shell. I also read about a project to resurrect the start button based on the beta version of Win8 and what is still left of it in Win8. All in all, these issues will get fixed in the next 6 months. With Metro there is another story, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done there, thankfully, we don't need to deal with Metro on our laptops and desktops if we use classic shell.

The good:
- The Metro UI is very nice if you are not doing professional work. Reading news, email, IM, etc. all can be done much faster and in a more enjoyable manner through metro. Unfortunately, Metro still lacks customisation options to make it fully usable. For now, it remains a gimmick.
- The Apps Store - a very nice implementation which should have happened long ago. I think this will truly change the way home users enjoy their Windows machines.
- Faster boot and shut down times
- Faster file management - copy/delete etc.
- Seems more stable than Win 7.

 

Well... All those Bullcraps they put in the systems, I would cut like half of the crap.

Like the Metro... There are tons of crap apps like that, you can even use programs that make you have lot's of different desktops which you can change from one to other...

What does all those apps do? NOTHING, they are pretty much USELESS, and are there, just to use a lot more power of the PC, than what it could have used if it was made with SIMPLICITY + Performance in mind.


That Metro would even look bad in a mobile phone, now using that in a true computer is kinda..... KIDDY (Okay, maybe it's good for the little tablets).

I like a Clean and simple system, but also powerful and full of things to do for the more experienced users (not like macs systems that have nothing we can do in them and aren't so powerful at coding, and also have not much things to do for the most experienced guys who like to use commands.... A LOT).

Linux is still fine, but I also never liked any of the visuals of all the distributions I saw, and it hasn't got much support for anything at all.

WindXP and 7 performance editions + a few more tweaks and I'm happy (more with the XP).
Keep Cool

 

ten minutes with windows 8 on my 9150 and i'm impressed. it's extremely intuitive with keyboard/mouse and i was just as skeptical as the next guy (and HTwingnut ). extended dual monitor defaults to desktop on the external (with taskbar where i'll inevitably end up placing pokki, thank you mitlov). right-click is even more important now, one of my favorite and most underrated PC controls. when it was first booting i was thinking, "hmm, i wonder if microsoft will imitate/implement apple's multitouch 'trackpad' controls" (you know, with the new mouse-in-corner shortcuts), but i don't think it would add much. the only thing that makes operation faster is, of course, keyboard shortcuts. as i'm typing this, autocorrect in IE10 is beat--that's getting turned off. speaking of which i wonder how long i'll end up going without chrome. microsoft account synced right up, exchange server synced right up (without requiring certificate installation even though it's signed by an untrusted authority). integrated music player (is this the new WMP?) is sweet. similar controls/interface as windows phone. a lot is similar to windows phone (read: metro). video app lets you launch webcam to take pictures/videos. very simple. simple is good. now to get into driver setup, monitoring, seeing what programs work and which don't. definitely pleased with the upgrade. i wonder how it'll run on my xps. i've been thinking about upgrading the HD and RAM on that old dog anyway. oh and the auto-installed microsoft audio driver is definitely louder than the realtek one i think. still crappy sounding though.

/impressions

 

Well, that's for you... Because everything you said it was good, I hate it.

If you want to kill ur main OS and want a propper media center, you have "XBMC" (World's best Media Center), but I see no sense for it in a PC, unless u want to make a media center only pc.

There are better 3rd party apps than that metro, which I still don't see why would I use it...

About IE10... it's just a external app, never liked IE, and never will. Firefox here, and I have correction since.... I can remember and in all languages I want (though only have\need 3. US, UK English and PT).
Keep Cool

 

There are definitely some added benefits to Windows 8, however, Microsoft is trying to do "revolutionary" when they really just need to go "evolutionary". Microsoft is not good with revolutionary, other than their initial release of Windows. They need to keep tried and true to their billions of users, and offer something new to those that want to use it.

I ran it off a separate SSD for a little bit and was about ready to put my fist through the screen any time I wanted to do anything productive. For multimedia stuff, sure it's pretty decent. But even then navigating the Metro UI with a mouse is another source of frustration. I also don't like how it leaves apps running with no user way to close them. Not all apps play nicely with others even if suspended.

And as far as Blake's comment that it seems more stable than Windows 7, not sure what issues you've had with Windows 7, but I haven't had any stability issues with the OS itself. I do think Win8 is a bit more streamlined and responds a little more quickly, but it's minor IMHO.

To each their own. I have TechNet so I'll likely run it for a while again and see how it fares, but so far I hate it.

 

I said it "seems". In Win 7 I used to get some random freezes once in a while and at times it felt like it was "chocking", all these issues are gone in Win 8. But yes, I was referring mostly to how streamlined everything feels.
Also, my laptop on Win8 draws a little less power from the socket than under Win7. I would say about 10% less, but I haven't done any conclusive tests to prove this, just everyday observations of the power measuring socket.
I will soon revert to Win 7, but I will definitely move to Win 8 when my machine will get better driver support and once they fix that damn Start button.

 

sure there is. if you mouseover the top edge of an app/program (including the desktop), the cursor changes to an open palm and you can drag the app/program to the bottom of the screen thereby executing a functional equivalent of the 'X.' i was pretty put off by the developer preview and haven't run it in months, but i really was surprised at how natural mouse/keyboard control felt last night.

i had one driver issue with my usb soundcard. i got a compatibility error directly from the installer. that triggered a windows takeover which then installed the driver successfully in a compatibility mode. windows also picked an old driver for my intel 6300 wi-nic which prevented it from running in n-mode (fixed by manually updating the driver). i have two missing pci drivers which i plan to tackle tonight. one might be the fingerprint reader (which reminds me that disabling hardware through device manager is new and a little funky) and i have a feeling that the other is some unnecessary intel BS.

 

Well if ur Wind7 is freezing... all I can say is it's already full of crap in it.

If you install Wind7 today, it will probably be 5x or more faster than ur current wind7 install...

After a year of use the startup takes double the time and it start freezing a lot... So you would have to have Windows8 full of crap to then compare performance, or better have both Wind7 and Wind8 installed today on separated formatted HDD with same specs.
Keep Cool

 

I think I have been around computers long enough to know that guily.
I've reinstalled Win 7 3 times in an attempt to solve my problem, it never went away, but it seems Win 8 has solved it.
It might have also been a driver incompatibility issue.

I am now reverting to Win7. Hopefully in the future Win 8 will provide me with proper Memory Controller Drivers ) so I can give it another go.

 

How much of the complaints are "I don't like change" complaints?

 

It has nothing to do with change. I'm ok with change. I like change. But change does not always mean good or better. In this case Microsoft seems to think so despite all the complaints/arguments. Same type of complaints flew rampant with Vista yet Microsoft totally ignored it and we see how that fell flat on its face. I feel like it's still a beta OS.

 

Well...

My complaints are mostly about change...

They said Wind Vista\7 will increase productivity, however I still get confused with it's confusing icons... Start Menu doesn't work like it used to on XP where I could be looking at one app in a hundred apps and still be searching for other at same type.

They made everything so much confusing and changed it's places, so on Wind7 I have to lose hours and hours trying to see where we make the things we used to make on a "WINDOWS OS".

This is what I call a Perfect System:


(This is how it looks like when I open my USB pen drive in windows XP only, as in vista and 7 they removed those commands from the shell).

And then how does not being possible to also arrange icons the way you want increase productivity?

Wind Vista\7 icon arrangement pisses me off a lot, since I cant put the folders\icons the way I want. They can only be organized the way Mr. M$ (Microsoft) wants.


This is how my current system looks like, and my folder organization:

(On Wind 7 I can't ever organize the way I want, and that pisses me off). Oh and forget about the icons on desktop, they are temporary, I always remove them all, and let only like 3 folders max.
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