Do you prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7 and earlier?

One year after each Windows release since Vista, I've started a poll on NBR asking whether NBR users prefer the latest release to previous ones. For Vista, I did the same thing two years after release. Now that Windows 8 has been out a year, it's time for the same poll for Windows 8!

As Windows 8.1 just came out and is a free update, I'm leaving it lumped together with Windows 8. Feel free to consider it when deciding which you prefer, particularly if you're actually using it.

Previous results are:

- 57% of NBR users preferred Vista to XP one year after Vista's release.
- 74% of NBR users preferred Vista to XP two years after Vista's release
- 87% of NBR users preferred 7 to Vista and XP one year after 7's release (with XP taking most of the rest at 10%, and Vista only 3%)

Will 8 prove to be more popular than 7, less popular than Vista, or somewhere in between? We'll find out.

And since there was a demand for it in the Windows 7 poll, I've added a Windows 2000 option. OSX/Linux are intentionally omitted as this poll is focused on current Windows users.

Poll open for 10 days from today.

 

Good luck with yer poll.

 

I get only one vote but there are 4 computers here on Windows 7 and 3 users, including myself..........................

 

I've voted for Windows 8.1 as the new tweaks and refinements outweigh the idiosyncrasies, in my usage. I sure don't mind Windows 7 at all (I use it on my T500), but I'm growing to take some things in Windows 8.1 for granted (ie: much better file transfer statistics, better multi-monitor management).

 

Pretty much this, tried tera copy type of stuff on 7 and those just cant match 8's default.

For power users, Just spend a hour or 2 to make 8 look like 7 if desire.

For non-power user w/o touchscreen , probably stick with 7. Every single machine in my household (about 6 of them) except mine are on 7.

 

Gonna have to go with 8.1 overall, but 7 is very close second.

 

Windows 7 with two notes...

a) If W2K were still supported, with some of the sorely-missing features added, I'd still be on it. The only M$ OS ever to work properly out of the box when applied to top-tier hardware

b) Having played with W8 a bit, I see absolutely zero reasons to move away from W7 in my set of circumstances, so I guess I'm waiting for W9...

 

Seven

 

Agreed. My preference is Windows 8.1 > Windows 7 > Windows 8.0 on a traditional desktop/laptop, and Windows 8.1 > Windows 8.0 > Windows 7 on a convertible tablet. Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 are both great OSes in my opinion. I have no love for XP in either scenario.

 

no windows 7 or xp in my house everything 8.1
windows future going to be modern apps and touch screens if you can't deal with it stick to the past

 

I'm going to go with Windows 8/8.1

 

I take W7 as my current needs see no use for Touch screen or having the spend more to just get a feature that would dirty the screen or cost more to replace then a LED screen. I will wait for WindowsX instead if W9 turns out to be like 8.1. And it's funny how one talks about web becoming Metro apps really I don't see Apple O/S showing that anytime soon so if one thinks Apple is behind in forethoughts one might one to rethink that. Your comparing iPad to Windows two very different O/S.

 

... Doesn't Apple have the Apple Store for OSX Maverick?

 

Every time I have to use one of the two lab computers still running XP, I find myself missing... well, pretty much everything about W7 and W8.

Purely out of curiosity, if W2k plus a few features would be your preferred OS, what could W9 bring to the table that would get you interested in it? It's hard to imagine that you'd find W9 worth upgrading to if you haven't found many significant improvements to your workflow in the MS OSes in the years between 2k and now.

 

If you're looking at what Apple is doing, you should remember that Apple abandoned a menu-based program launcher in 2001, and recently, has made more and more changes to make OSX more like iOS, including the Apple App store, LaunchPad (the iPad-style program launcher), mobile-style notifications, etc.

 

I first put this in the Dell thread but then realized its much better suited here:

Alright I have just about had it with W8.1. Based on all the accolades I've been reading I felt it was safe to go ahead and upgrade, but ever since I did I haven't be able to install anything.

Not only that, I haven't been able to launch any of my maintenance software: Perfect Disc, Revo Uninstaller, MiniTool Partition Wizard, etc. None of these will launch? This is the first time installing a new OS has resulted in something like this.

Before I do something drastic like purging everything and reverting back to W7, can anyone suggest a less drastic solution? I have a report due by tomorrow and I really need the software to complete it.

 

You thought it would be much better to post in a thread that really has nothing to do with your issue?

 

Preferences are based on pros and cons, likes and dislikes, issues and none issue. Nevertheless, had you included a better related thread, I could have learned something, instead of nothing.

 

There's a lot of nostalgia and quite a bit of tongue-in-cheek there... ...anyways...

XP - when compared to W2K, both at the initial release stage - was a buggy mess. Sure, a lot if it got fixed along the way, but I never felt as confident in any M$ OS as much as I did in W2K until W7 came along.

Vista did offer some interesting features, but by the time its quirks got ironed out, W7 was already available, so implementing it instead of Vista was really a no-brainer in my book.

As for W8, for people who like and use the touchscreen environment a lot, I could see the attraction. I don't fall into that category, and strictly utilize a stylus on my touchscreen-enabled units. In that realm, W7 works exceptionally well for my needs.

I'm perfectly fine with running W7 till its EOL point. The prospect of W9 offering a proper (as in "I don't have to waste hours of my customer's time to introduce them to it") desktop environment while utilizing some of the inner improvements that W8 brought to the table is something I'd be interested in nevertheless.

Users like myself are a non-entity, really. I'm set to retire not long after the W7 reaches EOL - we're talking about months, not years - so I couldn't care less what M$'s next OS will look like on that level. I'm back to RHEL on some of my machines, just as a precaution. My daughter already prefers *nix environment to the Windows one, and I'll be introducing Linux to my twin boys as well sometime soon. Their school uses Macs exclusively, so all of them are extremely familiar with OSX - probably more than I am in certain respects - I'm sure you're getting the picture by now...

 

Pigs will fly before i ever buy myself a Mac. I'm one of the few who hates (Cr)Apple more than Micro($)oft.

Right now, i've been considering deploying my production setup to (GNU)Linux, doing some intensive WINE testing on my desktop + fiddling with drivers. Not to mention picking the right distro.

Hopefully Haswell support will be out with Slackware 14.1. Now all i need is to do some patching to get my Adobe Software and Legacy games to work and i'm all set.

 

@ajkula66: No tongue-in-cheek intended, despite our differences in opinion and experiences. Although I'm expecting a more refined experience in W9, I wouldn't hold my breath that it will bring major changes in MS's philosophy, however (but I'm sure you're of the same mind there). In any case, thanks for the elaboration.

 

Oh no, my good man, my original W2K post was what I was referring to as a "tongue-in-cheek", not yours...

While we might not agree on everything, I do value your opinion since you've proven yourself capable of thinking outside of the box on more than one occasion, so all is well on The FlexView Farm...:hi2:

 

Am I the only one here who had bad experiences with W2K? Seriously, back in the day it was sluggish as hell, made my brand new P3 box lag like it was a 386 running Windows 95. And with great lag comes great crashes.

I found W98 to be a lot more responsive at the time, and had much better hardware and software support.

Ah, the good ole' days. I will miss them.

 

I don't think you're the only one, but my experiences with W2k were very positive, and I do agree with ajkula66, tongue-in-cheek and all. I still miss the utility of the file information pane that the W2k Explorer had, and I did find the OS quite responsive. I think the first machine I ran it on was a Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop, which I still have in my basement, and I can still boot this thing. I have done this a few months ago, and I was in fact surprised at how responsive the more than ten-year-old OS was on hardware of the same age. In fact, it felt every bit as snappy as Windows 7 on current hardware. There's progress for you...

 

Agreed 10.000%...just replace your Inspiron 7500 with my work-issued ThinkPad T20 and we're in sync...

BTW, that T20 is still alive as well, the battery holds less than 10 minutes charge and the hard drive has been replaced a couple of times BUT it still kicks...

Let's see the oh-so-wonderful T440s in 13.5 years from now...but I digress...

 

You're pining over a simpler era, not a better one.

With better than 82% of the industry, you can run but you cannot hide.

I hate it more.

 

No hiding involved.

I just refuse to allow my kids to think that there's nothing else apart from Windows.

While I'm not keen on their school's "Mac only" approach, it did help my own agenda.

Knowing more than just one language - or skill of any kind for that fact - helps a lot in my experience.

 

Just because i miss the old days does not mean they were better. Internet was slow, BSOD's everywhere and Microsoft had more of a monopoly than it currently has (and was a lot more invasive, remember IE6).

But i do rev up the W98 virtual machine every once in a while for a quick old school game

 

I appoligize to the OP for taking this thread further off track. I will not respond to further posts along this line.

Krane,

common courtesy is to talk and post about the topic the orginal poster started the thread with. Imagine two people are talking about something in a room. Now you barge in and start talking about something else. It is rude and selfish. If you want to talk about something else, just create a new thread. For your question, the Windows section would have been a good place to create a new thread. I hope this makes sense. I could have responded to your post with try information to help, but I would be derailing this thread further, which would be rude. Also I would be rewarding rude behaviour. I hope this helps.

 

I had a Compaq Armada M700 back in the day with a P3 650MHz processor and a whopping 64MB of RAM, it ran like a pig with Windows 2000 Professional preloaded. Plus I was gutted to find out my old DOS games no longer work properly on Windows 2000, DOSBox wasn't invented back then so I was a Sad Panda for a couple of years!

I still have a soft spot for Windows 98 even though it was crash prone, I still run it on my Virtual Machine from time to time.

 

Win 7 without a doubt. However I have been using 8.1 on my current laptop and with StartisBack it is manageable, but it's really just Windows 7. A better poll imho would be to ask for non-touch OS preference. For a purely touch screen interface, Win 8/8.1 hands down over Win 7. But otherwise, Seven.

 

I see the Windows 2000 option was still in demand! Good thing I added it!

It's funny how that can be. I noticed that with Office. Word 2000 starts quicker on my family's ancient Pentium II 450 MHz with 128 MB of RAM and Windows 98 than Word 2010 does on my 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with 4 GB of RAM, and a faster hard drive. Word 2010 might be pretty much equal with Word 2000 on my desktop where it's installed on an SSD, but the Pentium II's Word 2000 is at worst equal in startup time.

I still use XP at home, and overall like it most, so I'm voting for it. But 7 is actually pretty close as a runner-up by now, especially since I've run it without UAC at work for many months now. Largely because I've found 3rd-party utilities that let me restore many of the things I missed about XP when using 7 (some of which were tweaks even in XP, not native). I think I could use it pretty comfortably on my desktop. But weighed against the $90-ish upgrade cost, the re-install, the chance - however slim - that I'd run into some of the same headaches I did with Vista, and the fact that XP is doing everything I need now... I have things I'd rather do than spend the time and money to switch to Win7 at this point.

I'm using the 8.1 Preview in a VM, and like 7, with tweaks it's not bad. But for a non-touchscreen device, I don't see why I'd want it over 7.

Fair point for the touch/non-touch distinction in the poll. I hadn't thought of that. But the poll was designed to align closely with the previous ones. And while you could argue that those were inherently non-touch-screen focused, there still was the chance of someone using XP Tablet PC Edition or Windows 7 on a tablet voting there.

 

The biggest change that annoys me from xp to 7 is the activation crap and UAC. I have a key and you still want internet access? Ok, i give you both -> still fails and I have to call..?
Search in start menu is the only improvement for me comparing xp and 7 ~~.

And it is not like it is less prone to being cracked.

I also don't get why people refuse to make win8 to look like 7, don't people make 7 to look like XP? I personally don't think a big icon with "jump list"+ preview windows yield that much productivity. Right, and then there is the grouping control panel crap, grr.

 

I do not understand why people keep bashing Windows 8 or 8.1 (okay 8.1 is still not mature, so there are things like drivers and SW support).

Personally I thing if you got the Hardware, meaning Laptop with swipe ready touchpad and/or touch screen, Windows 8 is the way to go! Also for working, when U just use a bunch of applications its a matter of personalizing the tiles and with on "Hardware Start Button" click you have everything launch ready.

For Desktop PC which just have a classic mouse and keyboard, Windows 8 can work, BUT it ain't handy to control, especially since Desktop Users tend to "tweak and test" more than notebook Users.

Just my 2 cents

I think so too, but setting the Taskbar to small Icons and no grouping gets your productivity back

 

One of the complaints of loosing the start menu is that when you have to pull the program list all of the current windows are hidden. When taking to a customer and multitasking, I think this was one of the biggest touting's of Windows, it is nice to still have your data in front of you while searching for a program you need. In this case, as in some others, the new start button will not do..............

 

I've used worse and there have been better OS's. For me Windows 8 is an above average OS when you factor the total package. Windows 8 is fine as a consumer based, content driven OS like their Encarta dictionary back in the 90's. I really enjoy that part of the OS and that is where MS wanted to take the OS to compete with iOS and how they should have marketed the product. If they had made a Pro version similar to Windows 7 for businesses then they would not be incurring the well deserved blowback they have brought on themselves.

 

Personally, I don't see myself getting Windows 8 or 8.1 anytime soon, as I'm perfectly happy with Windows 7 (and Ubuntu). Furthermore, to beat the dead horse with a stick, the Modern UI is just not for me in the traditional desktop or clamshell laptop (seriously, it makes no sense imo). It would certainly make for a great tablet or smartphone OS, however (though I already have 7.8 on my phone...). The under-the-hood improvements of 8/8.1 over 7, while nice, certainly don't outweigh the negatives of the user interface imo. Yes, there's a "Desktop" UI in 8/8.1 as an alternative to Modern, though imo it feels more like a tack-on than a true, usable UI (since it still relies on Modern way too much for my liking).

Maybe I'll wait for Windows 9 and a proper desktop/laptop OS. Or perhaps I'll just stick to Linux, despite being a Windows fan for the past few years (before college, at least). Or, if for some reason it will be difficult to install Linux on Wintels by the time I'm in the market for a new laptop (Secure Boot 2.0?), then I guess I'll go with OSX and Apple if I'm forced to if Microsoft sticks to Modern and such...

 

While I still prefer Windows 7 as a whole, Windows 8 really isn't all that bad. I managed to acquire a legit full version of W8 OEM with DVD, product key and packaging for an absurdly low price. I'll say it wasn't easy getting it set up on my MacBook Pro, though I attribute it to 1) OS X Mavericks (I ended up reverting back to Mountain Lion for this and other reasons), 2) Apple's terrible Boot Camp drivers that forced me to perform some odd tweaks in order to get Windows 8 set up properly and 3) My own stupidity during the entire ordeal. Now that I've played with it for a few days, W8 has grown on me to the point where I'm comfortable selling my copy of W7 (available in the marketplace FYI).

One thing I won't be doing, though, is installing 8.1. Like Mavericks, there are too many issues right now to have me even considering an update.

 

You just hit the nail on the head and highlighted the most irksome thing about W8: the unmitigated intrusiveness of this feature is off the scale. This was one of the main reasons I'd always preferred Windows OS over Macs operating system. It always had the the upper hand on virtual unlimited ability to arrange and display "windows". Now you're locked into this one screen where you can't do anything else until you're out of it. Every time it occurs I feel the cold hand of a corporate dictatorship taking control of my screen.

 

Even as a free OS (I can get all of Microsoft's warez for free via the university), I still wouldn't want to use 8/8.1 as my main OS. While I don't have a MBP to compare install stories, installing 8 on a virtual machine wasn't too bad. Of course, it's not as fast as running on bare metal, but that's obvious.

Speaking of which, I should probably stock up on Windows 7 discs..

I'm pretty sure that this is a feature of most Linux distros as well. Never had a problem doing the equivalent in Ubutnu (Unity) or Mint (MATE) or Debian (GNOME), at least. I'm sure that KDE is the same way.

 

I'll say this again, despite my liking (well lack of dislike) of Windows 8, I will never get why MS didn't simply include a "bring back mah start menu" tick box. Yeah, there are alternatives, 8.1 somewhat bridges the gap, but why oh why didn't they include that option from the get go.

Oh and where is my Manage Wireless Networks control panel window in 8 & 8.1 MS, sheesh.

Yeah, I do have some gripes with Windows 8 that are different from the ones I have with Windows 7. Overall, I do like both, 8.1 over 7 by a hair, 7 over 8 and I can't stand XP anymore.

Oh and Xbox Music in 8.1 is awesome.

 

Right-click the start button in 8.1 (or the Start hot-corner in 8.0) and select "Network Connections" from the menu that appears.

Agreed.

 

Windows 7 is just the better solution for the most desktops cause you dont need that tablet interface in any way. W8 isnt faster and not more stable. Never change a running system

 

While I agree with your opinion on Modern UI, saying that you should *never* change your operating system doesn't make any sense. Eventually you'll have to upgrade from MS-DOS, for example...

 

That's the problem they are forcing a tablet interface onto Desktop users a real no brainer to start with and least not giving users ability to install a Windows 7 mode with full start menu or a Window 8 metro interface. This would've been so easy they couldn't get their in-the-box-thinking to go out-side-box thinking that they torpedoed themselves and blame ignorant users and testers for failing when they got the feedback stating otherwise. If they listened to that more then likely users would've changed their O/S without any kinda of hiccups.

Unfortunately 8.1 upgrade didn't nothing that improves much that most users will never see. That is the problem going from MS-DOS to Windows 7 that is a major upgrade and productivity increase that one can see and notice - not much with W8.

 

I don't have that in 8 and no 8.1 machines close to test. Just so we're clear, I'm not talking about the network and sharing center. From there in Windows 7, you could click manage wireless networks and choose network priority, forget networks, etc. I so far haven't found that in Windows 8. I haven't thoroughly looked in 8.1 yet and I'm at the office with only my M6700 right now which didn't get the 8 -> 8.1 treatment yet.

 

I'm sure I could get used to it as an everyday OS, but luckily I don't have to because I'm in OS X a good 80% of the time. W8 is there for primarily for playing games with what little time I have to do so.

 

I actually think OSX users have a shorter learning curve to Windows 8.x than Win7 users do. While the aesthetic design is very different between Win8 and OSX, the workflows are very similar. (My wife's 2008 MBP is running Mavericks, so I have daily exposure to OSX as well; I'm not just speculating).

 

Still gotta be 7 for me, but I don't mind much having to use/move to 8. Haven't actually tried 8.1 yet, though I'm not sure that could change my mind.

 

Hey, there's one positive note for Win8.x in that poll as it stand now: Turns out it is infinitely more popular than Vista! Congratulations!