I thought about making this an insane rant threatening the lives, health, and sanity of everyone in Redmond, Washington, but I left my Khuzdul dictionary at home and thus do not have access to sufficient Dwarvish curse words. As everyone knows, if you really want to libel a work of technology, you have to do it in the Cirth.
Poll in a second.
ETA: Oh, and per the new RhymerRules, Sunday’s dessert.
I haven’t done anything with it yet, but it is clearly a headache looming on the horizon.
Running server and workstation flavors at work. Not crazy about either.
I got my daughter a gaming computer for Xmas which came with Windows 8 installed. It doesn’t seem that radically different from Windows 7. Mainly the names of stuff on menus aren’t necessarily the same or where you expect them to be. But, for example, device manager is still device manager once you get to it.
I already have the headache. Chief among the irritating things about it is the fact that it has become more difficult, not less, to access programs (now called *apps
*, since they’re trying to appeal to the tablet market. In Vista I could simply press the Start button and the relatively unobtrusive Start Menu & Search field would come up; then I could type in a few letters of the program I wanted and go straight to it. Now whole goddamn screen gets taken over by Start, and the buttons are all HUGE. Yes, I can put the most frequently used programs to the left (or place shortcuts on the desktop) but it still an addition of needless steps with no increased benefit.
I don’t like the way that all the help files seem to have migrated online, either. There are times I don’t want to be connected to the internet while I was working. Take yesterday; I took the day off from work so I could work on a freelance ghostwriting gig, and when I’m composing I don’t want any net access at all; too distracting. I don’t appreciate that I had to be online to figure out how to do anything.
The Search feature’s functionality has also been reduced. Media Player is (marginally) harder to use). And so on.
I have it on my PC. I spend most of my time on the desktop so it’s not really different than Windows 7 as far as my usage patterns are.
One thing I do like very much is the ability to snap/dock a Metro app along one edge of the screen, yet have the desktop take up the remainder.
you can still do this in 8. Hit the Start key, and start typing the name of the program.
Thanks. I still don’t like the way it takes over the entire screen, though.
shrug
I don’t see the big deal; when you have the Start Menu open your attention is focused on the Start Menu anyway. whether it takes up the whole screen or 1/6th of the screen is immaterial IMO.
It’s an aesthetic preference, not a technical one.
It’s really no different from Windows 7 overall. Just a few technical bells and whistles. The only major difference is that there is no start button, but you just move the mouse to the lower left corner instead of clicking on the button.
Just search for and install Start8… it will restore the start menu and boot to desktop.
I’ll even link to it. It’s the first thing I did after installing, and I honestly don’t even realize I have 8 installed anymore. It’s basically the same as 7.
I found it from Namkcalb’s post, but thanks anyway.
I have in on a desktop and a tablet/laptop convertible. I love it on both. I don’t understand the fuss about no start menu. So now it’s a start screen. big deal. Not only that but all I have to do is start typing and I get a quick list of menu items that match my query. It’s so simple.
Hey, knock it off! I have to keep shooting down these stupid winged monkeys, and they’re making a mess of my yard.
(Yes, I work for Microsoft. No, I’m not on the Windows team. Your monkeys have lousy directions. And they keep babbling in some old dwarven tounge.)
I said I WASN’T going to threaten the lives & health of everyone in Redmond. Why would I lie about it?
Besides, the monkeys are for war. For simple persecution, bees are better.
Skald…you nimrod…you forgot the “You can’t make a chocolate soufflé, you’re a man!” option in your poll.
[general zod]
Why do you say these things, when you know I will kill you for it?
[/general zod]
And did I see a tangential remark, in a nearby related thread, that in Win8 Microsoft has finally done away with the Command Prompt? (I’ve been hearing rumors since Win98 days that this was going to happen Real Soon Now.)
How does one do all the things now, that used to be doable with a Command Prompt? Is that style of user interface gone for good? Is there no place left for simple plain-text programs that interact with the user this way?