I’m currently playing with my brand new Dell laptop with Windows 7, and I gotta say this O/S kicks ass. It feels like WinXP on steroids, with smart functions that are actually pretty smart. There’s a few annoyances here and there, but not nearly as many as your typical Microsoft operating system.
Which makes me wonder – why did Microsoft decide to ditch Win7 so early? It was a MAJOR pain in the butt to find a computer with Win7 pre-loaded; in fact, this particular machine was a return item, and practically the only one in my price range that wasn’t a floor model. EVERY OTHER LAPTOP had Windows 8 only, and Best Buy didn’t even sell Windows 7 in a box anymore.
Somebody’s got to make the first transition operating system between mouse and tablet. They decided it had to be them. Steve Jobs rises from the dead to laugh his ass off.
Ethilrist has it right; Win7, for all its many strengths (and I am a fan of it like just about no MS OS since maybe Win 2000) is not very mobile/tablet adaptable. That said, I think MS has committed a huge blunder by trying to force the tablet model up onto desktops. The interface should have been more adaptable for the immense desktop/standard laptop user base.
Look for the Start button to reappear; there are already many very popular “apps” that restore it to Win8.
I had the same problem you did; I wanted a laptop for the missus, who does not appreciate New Things on her computers, and I had a limited selection of models with Win7. (Asus Zenbook with the 128GB SSD - I would have liked the next model with the 500GB HDD and the 25GB SSD instead, but it was Win8 only.)
See, here’s the problem. You’ve been locked in a room for the last two+ years. Win7 has been the default system for at least that period of time. You just got to the dance late.
And, yeah, Win7 is a 9 on a 10 scale compared to Win XP(a 4).
It is not obsolete. Windows 7 is awesome, hang onto it for as long as you can.
I got a computer with Windows 8 from Santa. After wondering if I was on the naughty list, I downloaded Classic Shell and used it to restore the Start menu, which makes me happier at least.
Yes, Windows 8 removes the Start menu. Fuck that.
(It was a refurb, and there was a problem with the advanced features of the video card not being set up correctly. While on the phone with tech support, the techie was using a remote desktop-type program to fix it. I saw the pointer twitch a bit, then the guy complemented me on how I’d set up my computer, and quickly zipped over to use the restored Start menu. )
I have not used 8 but I thought I heard somewhere that it’s basically 7 with tablet capability added and that you could turn most of that off if you wanted to - is that not correct?
Two years?? Try 10 years. My old computer was purchased ~2003, when WinXP was nearly new (I think Service Pack 2 had just been released) and while it still works for my purposes, it was way behind the gaming curve. It could barely run Oblivion (whereas this laptop could play Skyrim like gangbusters, if only Skyrim didn’t suck so much) and even struggled with the latest version of Minecraft. I did miss out on Vista entirely, but heck, I’ll learn to live with that.
But like others, I don’t understand why Microsoft can’t support two systems independently, one for desktops and one for mobiles? The markets are so intertwined that they could easily sell TWO operating systems to each customer who owns both a smartphone and a PC, and some of my friends say that Win8 really sucks balls no matter what you run it on. So what’s the deal?
Where “turn off” often means “install third-party freeware programs to fix,” yeah. They have a link to Classic Shell in that article, and that’s how I found it in the first place.
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