Well, it’s going to help convince you to buy a Windows Phone (or not) :).
Having a unified experience is a nice pie-in-the-sky idea. It just breaks down when you look at the details. For now, a mouse and keyboard are the fastest and most accurate input devices to a computer. We only use touch because it’s better to dedicate the limited physical real estate of a phone or tablet to a screen. And the two classes of input methods are so different that unifying them is an exercise in futility.
All the reviews I’ve read indicate Win 8 is a bigger turd than Win Vista.
I just ordered two copies of Win 7 64 bit for a pc I’m building next year. I need a new laptop too and worry Dell will force me to buy it with Win 8. I’ll remove the win 8 crap and install Win 7.
I got a nice chuckle out of the Heisenfeatures page. Then I got sad, because it’s entirely accurate. Like I said a few posts above, the main failing of Win 8 is trying to be two things simultaneously - the classic desktop PC OS and a new tablet/smartphone OS. And it doesn’t, at least in this incarnation, work.
I bought a new computer a month ago so that I could avoid Windows 8. My advice is to never install an MS OS until SP1.
Rule of thumb: Never upgrade Windows unless you absolutely have to.
I upgraded 3 days ago, and almost immediately paid the $5 for Start8. As was said upthread, Start8 adds the start menu back in, and sets Windows up to automatically boot to the desktop. Aside from a few minor things, my computer is now basically like Windows 7 with different colors and square corners. It feels slightly faster in certain areas, too. All of my programs still work, and none of the settings were too hard to figure out. It really feels like a minor upgrade at this point.
That said, I have no idea why Microsoft didn’t have Windows 8 act more like Windows 7 out of the box. The Metro interface is disorienting, and it adds nothing. And the fix was $5 from 3rd party company. Why risk all the bad press?
Be not the first by whom the new is tried
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Sound advice from Alexander Pope a few centuries back.
New computers bought after June 1, 2012 can upgrade to Windows 8 for $14.99 (link to MS upgrade page.)
I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks on a 22" touch screen at home. I agree that switching between Metro and desktop is unattractive, but after a few days it’s become fairly routine. It’s faster all around, and IE 10 is actually good (I was shocked too.) I still spend most of my time on the desktop, but I have not found many reasons to dislike Windows 8 (yet.) I would not bother a non-touchscreen device though.
Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? 8 is one more than 7.
I don’t know that I’d pay money for it, but Windows 8 is fine. I’ve been running the RTM version on 3 of my 4 Desktops for up to 6 weeks now. (I have an MSDN subscription). I basically never use metro except when I hit “windows key” and start typing to search for a program. Other than metro Windows 8 is pretty much Windows 7 that boots slightly faster.
Of course, Windows Vista wasn’t the bad OS it got the reputation for either - you just had to run it on beefy enough hardware, and have devices that the manufacturers actually would make drivers for. But in comparison Windows 8 is a tiny, tiny upgrade - Vista vs XP was a huge upgrade, and most of the differences people see between windows 7 and XP were already there in Vista and just got a new coat of paint, a speed up, or a better reputation in Windows 7.
Honestly, I think the biggest issue with Windows 8 Metro is that there are no real apps for it right now. You open the windows store, and the first thing I look for ? Facebook - not there. And most of the other apps in there are useless or are crappy third party unofficial versions of apps that are first party apps on Android & IOS (ie Flickr, etc).
It’s also worth nothing the version numbers:
2000 - 5.0
XP - 5.1
Vista - 6.0
7 - 6.1
8 - 6.2
Windows 8 really is a minor upgrade to Windows 7, but with a somewhat drastic change to the UI. Vista was a major version upgrade, which is why there were driver issues and some teething pains.
What are you talking about? I just tried it and it works perfectly.
I upgraded a few days ago, I don’t regret it but I don’t see it as a big deal either, it does boot faster, but it was fast enough before. As Steronz said, minor upgrade with a big change in UI, so it comes down to personal preference.
Wired article: The 10 Best Features in Windows 8.
I’m very happy with Win7 and suffering from upgrade burnout right now, so I am going to stay put until MS drops support for 7. I need more than superlative reasons to change something that serves me perfectly well at the moment.
if you have Windows 7, I don’t see any reason to explicitly upgrade. 7 will be supported for quite some time.
Vista’s biggest problems (initially) nvidia and the PC OEMs building shitty systems with it. I bought a retail copy of Vista and I never had a single problem with it. If you had a crappy $400 POS system with too little RAM and a bunch of shovelware on it, then yeah, it could be miserable.
it’s anecdotal, but based on the people I’ve worked with in all my past jobs, you would be shocked to see how many people run most of their programs maximized.
What is the point of not running most apps maximized ? I have two monitors to multitask, and frankly windows doesn’t do anything for you if you don’t want to run maximized (outside of windows 8) - you have to carefully drag and position your windows exactly where you want them only to have it go to shit if a game changes your screen resolution or whatnot.
I appreciate the advice given in this thread–I’ve also got a two month old laptop, so Windows 8 would only cost me $15, which might seem worth it. But if Windows 8 is horrible, I’ll save my pennies.
Actually, the way getting the promo code works, pretty much anybodycan upgrade for $15 (as I understand it; I would not personally take the liberty to fake a purchase date).
There’s no big need to, but I’m using it at work and it looks very much line Win7. The differences is that instead of a start button, you have the tiles. Everything else is technical.
It works just as well as Win7, so upgrading is up to you.
I hate to be the guys that says “This,” but… This.
I too have an MSDN, and have had it installed for a few months. I love it. The search feature is awesome. From the Metro screen you just start typing, search term, program name, whatever… I look at the metro screen as the start button. My most used items get pinned to the start menu; I can look for anything else.
Count me down as a fan. One thing I really like is how much less I have to use my mouse it seems like.
Do you know how ridiculous it is to have a web page tuned for 1024x768 running maximized on a 2560x1600 screen? It’s either wasteful because it doesn’t cover most of the space, or it’s difficult to read because you end up with lines of text that you can’t follow from one side of the screen to the other.
Anyway, I have three monitors at work and still find that I need more real estate. It’s not about multitasking, per-se–it’s that I often have several data sources (web pages, PDFs, etc.) that I need quick visual access to when working on my main task. It’s the functional equivalent to having a couple of books open on a real desk.
Dragging windows around isn’t hard, but nevertheless Win7 does provide tools for window management–specifically the Win-left and Win-right shortcuts that allow placing a window on the left or right halves of the screen.