Thing is, Win8 just isn’t very different from Win7 in terms of basic use - Essentially:
[ul]
[li]No Start Menu (I don’t miss it - Searching for applications is instant, and I have placed my five most common applications on the taskbar - the slightly less common ones are icons in groups on the Start screen - it wasn’t even annoying when the machine booted to the Start screen this way - it’s at least one less click vs the old Start menu)[/li][li]Metro/Modern UI applications - I hardly use them. There’s no obligation.[/li][li]Hot corners aren’t annoying at all once configured (turned off edge swiping on the trackpad, turned off the top right hot corner)[/li][li]All the power menu items (control panel, etc) and more are in a right-click menu bottom left[/li][li]Boot times are faster (I’ve tested W7 vs W8 on the same hardware at work)[/li][li]File copying dialog is amazing (especially when dealing with filename collisions, especially with images)[/li][li]In all other respects, it does everything I asked of XP[/li][li]8.11 upgrade might have actually made me want to use some Modern UI apps - because they now have a title bar with red X, and they appear on the taskbar when running.[/li][/ul]
The only reason I initially disliked it was because it seemed quite a lot more different than it really was.
By comparison, I hated the Office Ribbon menu for more than a year.
Incorrect. It searches instantaneously as you type - Windows, N, O has already found Notepad; Windows, W has already found Word.
Or, if I want to, I can click to the Start screen and click the icon for Word, or click-navigate to the shortcut for Notepad and click it to launch it - exactly like I did with the XP Start menu.
I don’t do that, because it’s slower, just like it used to be slower with the Start menu.
It’s not really very much like that, but so what? I like being able to find things with a few keypresses. It works quite well, which is all that matters.
Well, it is a little like that, especially with tab completion in the more modern unix shells.
Command-line interfaces are the fastest way to issue commands to a computer if you know what you want (problems only show up if you don’t know what you want, because nothing about the interface is discoverable). Search is just a limited CLI that lets you cut the GUI crap.
It’s a tiny bit like that, but vastly better and more effective for a number of reasons.
And this is how it’s better. The search function in Win8 doesn’t expect you to know exactly what you want - only part of its name or description - and along the way, you are presented with a dynamic list of matches - so typing ‘Co’ offers me Control Panel, but also in the list there’s Remote Desktop Connection, for example.
Not actually as limited as all that, but whatever its actual limitations, the plain fact is that I find it very convenient (and the GUI hasn’t gone away - I can still use that if and when I want).
I sort of feel like people are trying to convince me that I don’t actually find Windows 8 simple and convenient to use.
Hey, I’m with you on this. I don’t love Windows 8.1, but I don’t see why people can’t just get used to it. Its quirks are no worse than Windows 7’s quirks.
If you have something that works for you great, everyone does things differently.
But the impression I get when I read your posts on this topic is that you think this method is superior in a general sense (and therefore it’s ok that MS dropped the previous method of navigation which was inferior).
Honestly, for me, Windows 8 is quicker and easier to use than XP ever was - particularly in the cases of a)navigation and launching of applications and b)finding stuff in general.
I do believe it’s measurably superior (in metrics such as number of clicks/keypresses to achieve a given function), but that only holds true for people who can adapt to the minor changes of workflow - which I appreciate, isn’t everybody.
And for anyone that still wants to do things the old way, it’s really very simple to make a few one-off tweaks and changes that will make Win8 look, feel and behave almost exactly the same as Win7.
The burden of that configuration is certainly no more onerous in nature than the other configuration tasks with which one is always faced when setting up a new computer - such as configuring the theme, transferring files and emails, installing favourite applications, etc.
Wait–you stopped hating the ribbon bar? I still hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. I had hoped that time would dull the pain, but every day Office does something to renew my infinite loathing.
Also, who shuts down their computers this decade? Sure, XP kinda sucked when it came to sleep mode. It’s been fixed since Win7, and probably Vista. I continue to be shocked that anyone pays the slightest attention to boot time. My computer comes out of sleep in <3 sec, and furthermore all my programs are exactly as I left them. Hell, even if booting took 3 sec and waking from sleep 3 min, I’d still prefer the latter due to not having to relaunch all my stuff.
Yeah - partly, I just got used to it, but it has also improved a bit since its first appearance in Office 2007 - chiefly, the reappearance of the ‘File’ menu, but also, it seems a bit less visually intrusive in later versions (I’m on Office 2013 now).
Office would actually really benefit from a menu function search option - I mean, instead of using the help to locate the menu navigation path for, say, changing the background colour, just hit search and start typing bac… and a list of menu option matches is whittled down hopefully to a short list containing the one you want.
I guess it’s a trust and tradition thing. I still haven’t started trusting the thing to be properly hibernating - at work, we’ve had quite a few Win7 laptops wrecked by overheating because they were put in the bag while still running, and for one reason or another, hadn’t gone into hibernation.
My Win8 laptop boots to the login screen in <5 seconds - recovery from hibernation is quicker, but I’m never in that much of a hurry that a couple of seconds makes the difference.
At home, I’m not a person who leaves things open anyway, so I quite like starting from a fresh, empty desktop. At work, many of my colleagues use hibernation a lot if they work exclusively on laptops and have to take them from one meeting to another - I guess it’s useful in that sort of context.
I use Windows 7 and I never type in the start menu to find apps. My commonly used stuff is on the taskbar, and what I use my start menu for is to find apps I use very rarely.
Like I might need the hex editor that I haven’t used in 9 months, and I don’t remember the name of. Or I need to access an app that I don’t use myself, but have on my computer so I can tech support the people who do use it. Etc.
I have no idea how you’d quickly gain access to stuff like that in Windows 8. Rolling it out to our employees right now would be a nightmare. The office ribbon certainly was. We had so many people very familiar with the old Excel who struggled for a long time with Excel 2007.
For the less commonly used stuff, you could just put a shortcut to it in the Windows Start screen and use that in almost exactly the same way as the Start menu. It’s not difficult, just different.
Thanks for all of the info. I’ll probably be buying a new machine this summer, to replace my Windows 7 Vaio, and have been a bit worried about whether to downgrade immediately. I think I’ll give 8.1 a try and see how it goes first. Now, which machine to buy…
I don’t mind which brand (aren’t they all built from components made in China?), but it has to have a good, 15-16" screen, some decent power - for photo processing - and large hard drive, and be portable although it’s usually just sat on my desk.
There’s no point in paying a large sum of money - so no to Alienware, unfortunately - as I live/work overseas and often it gets to live in hot, dusty, sandy, damp, bumpy or very cold conditions. I managed four countries, last year and need my laptop for work. Also no touch screen, no need for gaming graphics cards, and battery life can be average.
Ok, let’s check some examples, here’s the first one:
One thing I use the start menu for which is pretty efficient is remote desktop, click start, click remote desktop arrow, click one of many servers it has in the “recent” list.
3 clicks and I’m off to the server I want to go to.
No special configuration on my part, the system automatically tracked recent servers and automatically presented a list (although for each server I did have to key in the server name once in the past).
How would you handle that efficient process in Win8?
But Alienware does have quite good build quality.