I’m glad I bought a Gateway as they solved that problem for me and put a power button right on the task bar. I didn’t even know it was any other way.
It seems like lots of people aren’t aware, but as of just a few days ago, on the Dell website selling new laptops, you could choose to have Vista or Windows 8 installed on your purchase. It’s the first time I’ve seen such an option, but it seems like Dell has heard and responded to all the 8 hate.
Vista? Why not Windows 7?
What, am I the Dell sales manager?
I mis-wrote. It is Windows 7 as a choice. If you go to this page which allows you to filter out some of their computers by various features, you can choose between 3 operating systems. Windows 8 as a choice gives you 85 laptops to choose among, Windows 7 gives 45. I don’t know how they chose which computers would be 7 or 8, or have the option of either.
Is it Windows 8 that is faster on boot, or is it just that people are going SSD at the same time they go to 8. I know I am around 10 seconds on Windows 7 with a SSD.
Also, the problem is not just operating systems. Microsoft seems to be redesigning all their Office software from the ground up and screwing things up all over. Hot keys no longer work, it is damn hard to locate the right option you want in all the hidden menus, and due to the labyrinthine nature of the OS, you will never stumble upon the right answer or discover the new hot keys (if they exist) without looking them up.
Just yesterday I had a quick sketch in a Word document and I was trying to drag-select all the parts so I could group them. Didn’t work. Beat my head against it for 20 minutes before a search online showed that they have now made this impossible; there is no more drag-select, you have to shift or ctrl-select each item. They are actively removing useful, time saving features.
Any OS requires that, as everyone is different and has different requirements and preferences.
Sure, Windows 8’s default setup is… problematic, but that’s easily remedied, and the OS as a whole is the best version of Windows to date - with the one notable exception already mentioned about remote access. It’s not a vast improvement over Win7, but it is a significant one.
As for people who can’t figure out how to change the settings on their computer, learn. It’s (almost) all in the control panel, and it’s easily searchable - a vast improvement from older versions, frankly. If you want something that “just works”, why are you buying a PC in the first place? Get a Mac or a Chromebook. That’s not snark, it’s about buying the right tool for the job.
It’s faster - we’ve built Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines to identical hardware specs at work (no SSD in either) and Windows 8 boots in about 6 or 7 seconds against maybe 15 for Win7 on the same platform.
Not sure how much of that is trickery though, because there has always been a bit of that with Windows bootup - getting someone to the login screen or showing them the desktop, then continuing to load drivers, etc.
How does one get to the control panel?
There are a few different ways, but the easiest is to go down to the lower left corner and right click to bring up the task list (? I forget what it’s called).
Thanks.
Windows key, then start typing “control panel”. Same as in every version of Windows for over a decade.
How did you find it on previous versions?
START, control panel. I spent about five minutes looking at Windows 8 looking for it. 
This used to drive me nuts, until I realised that I could just push the power button on the front on the box and it would turn itself off.
Of course we want them to change things. But we want improvements not change just for the sake of change or, worse yet, deterioration.
As I wrote above, Microsoft is devoted to the principle of there being only one product on the market. Not just Microsoft products but a Microsoft product. And that’s foolish - customers have different hardware and therefore want different operating systems. It was foolish to design a touch screen based system and install it in computers that don’t have touch screens.
Microsoft should have given their customers a choice between Windows 8T for touch screen devices and Windows 8PC for keyboard PC’s. And they should have kept Windows 7 on the market for those people who preferred it. And if Windows 7 outsold Windows 8 they should listen to the marketplace and acknowledge Windows 8 was a mistake.
Some can argue that the problems of Windows 8 can be fixed. I’d respond that Microsoft has been in business long enough that they should be making products that don’t need to be fixed.
Others will argue that we’re just cranky luddites who don’t like change. That’s a weak argument. There was no backlash like this when Windows 7 replaced Vista or when XP replaced Me or when 98 replaced 95. People have been happy to switch to a new version when it was a better version. When people have complained about a product it was because it was a bad product.
Welcome to the 70’s!
That’s how we used to navigate, by typing the name of the program or function or menu, then there was this invention called the GUI. There is a reason it became popular.
“Windows” with “X” brings up a list that includes the control panel.
Again, there is a reason we’ve moved on to GUI’s.
Key combinations are fine for people that want to memorize and use them, but a good UI would have a simple and discoverable way to get to the function without a key combination.
Fine, but irrelevant. I wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing as to how much Windows 8 sux or not. I was responding to a factual question with a factual answer.
Am I invisible or something?