Windows 8

[oscillik]

good read on MS strategy of including ads in their OS now. Most can probly be turned off by power users, but most users of Windows are sheep and will leave the default options on. Fuck this mess.

 

http://hothardware.c...ng/Default.aspx

 

Good thing I never use Modern UI based apps then.

[mcbpete]

What model of VAIO do you have? I'd be curious if they cribbed the design like Samsung did with their Ultrabooks...

It's kind of like this one -

 

 

But the bottom half of the case is Mac-esque silver (though still with back-lit black keys)

 

I mainly got it for the Firewire and Blu-Ray writer though as yet I've used neither !

[awepittance]

just tried one of the Asus Q200 with touchscreen notebooks running Windows 8 on a bunch of music apps. I posted the results here - http://forum.watmm.com/topic/76636-windows-8-touch-screen-tabletslaptops-music-possibilities/

i have no intention of keeping it and if anybody has ideas of what else to try out multi touch on i'd be happy to test it out

I'm also confused as to why anybody was so drastically put off by the new win8 tile desktop, there is a button that says desktop as one of the tiles that takes you to what looks identical to windows 7

[oscillik]

I'm also confused as to why anybody was so drastically put off by the new win8 tile desktop, there is a button that says desktop as one of the tiles that takes you to what looks identical to windows 7

 

basically people didn't know what the hell they were talking about, myself included.

[GORDO]

I still hate it. Because I want the desktop to be the default and not having to do an extra click whenever i want to do things normally and one is forced to pop out that menu every once in a while. workflow and all that..

 

I use the old menu mainly for the recently used applications so i miss that feature, if it's somehow possibly within windows settings to set the new menu to do that it would be cool. There's also silly stuff like shutting down the computer that takes too many clicks to do. If your computer has many users on it that aren't password protected when the computer boot ups it will log in to the last user that logged in, no matter if that user logged out before shutting down.

 

I think there are a lot of issues to be addressed with the user interface, if those don't get handled in a future service pack or whatever I don't think the upgrade is worth it from windows 7.

[eugene]

I still hate it. Because I want the desktop to be the default and not having to do an extra click whenever i want to do things normally and one is forced to pop out that menu every once in a while. workflow and all that..

 

 

try putting the desktop shortcut (http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4999-shortcuts-assign-keyboard-shortcut-windows-8-a.html) into the startup folder, i don't have win 8 myself but it's worth a shot. though im pretty sure there are less ghetto ways of doing it by now explained on the internets.

[GORDO]

 

I still hate it. Because I want the desktop to be the default and not having to do an extra click whenever i want to do things normally and one is forced to pop out that menu every once in a while. workflow and all that..

 

 

try putting the desktop shortcut (http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4999-shortcuts-assign-keyboard-shortcut-windows-8-a.html) into the startup folder, i don't have win 8 myself but it's worth a shot. though im pretty sure there are less ghetto ways of doing it by now explained on the internets.

 

 

well that would only make it so that you don't have to go to desktop on boot up, but as i said, you kinda have to go back to the start menu every once in a while.

[awepittance]

i pretty much agree it's not worth upgrading, unless you have a touchscreen or tablet computer capable of running it the 'new' features seem blatantly pointless, they are designed to cater to the hyper unfocused digital internet age people who were born after 1995 so they can see like they're newest e-mails, news articles and xbox live scores as the first screen that they login into

[oscillik]

those saying that it's not worth upgrading, clearly either don't understand the changes to the kernel that are of benefit to every computer, or just don't care.

[awepittance]

i don't care and don't understand, i'm just going by 24 hours of using it. I care much more about compatibility, and it's not worth the risk to me to switch to 8 knowing that some of the stuff i use on Windows 7 (including drivers) might not work on it. Cool if they redid the kernal but the actual user experience is pretty much all i give a shit about it

[oscillik]

i don't care and don't understand, i'm just going by 24 hours of using it. I care much more about compatibility, and it's not worth the risk to me to switch to 8 knowing that some of the stuff i use on Windows 7 (including drivers) might not work on it. Cool if they redid the kernal but the actual user experience is pretty much all i give a shit about it

I've had zero driver issues, and zero compatibility issues with software. Granted, I'm not running the same as you, but you probably figured out that I'm a computer geek and I would be pretty vocal about it if I had encountered any hiccups.

 

Windows 8 has been beneficial to my aging machine, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my new build performs while running it (when I actually get enough money saved to buy the remaining parts).

 

your mileage may vary. I totally agree that the new Start screen, and the 'Modern UI' apps are completely fucking useless to a 'normal computer' user. And they don't matter to me because I just don't use them. You don't need to use the Modern UI apps at all. And the way that I use the Start Menu, even in Windows 7 is to just hit start key on my keyboard and start typing what app I want, then hit return. Windows 8 does the same, only faster. win win.

[Rubin Farr]

seeing a lot of articles lately describing the perfect storm that could unravel Microsoft. between weak early sales of Win 8, Surface, and Win Phone 8, next year could be brutal for MS. Even the mighty Xbox division doesn't pull in enough income to offset their losses. Services like Bing are also underperformers.

 

I could see sometime by the end of the decade, if Sony and MS both continue a downward spiral, maybe the two giants would merge to survive against the competition of Apple and Samsung? Strange bedfellows.

[awepittance]

i hope Apple continues to have competition, I'm really not happy with the direction their company is going.

Just FInal Cut X alone is enough to make me have a severe WTF moment about their whole philosophy.

they no longer have the best touch screen devices, they would redeem themselves in my eyes if they made a full OSX laptop or tablet at some point but they seem increasingly Ios focused

[GORDO]

 

i don't care and don't understand, i'm just going by 24 hours of using it. I care much more about compatibility, and it's not worth the risk to me to switch to 8 knowing that some of the stuff i use on Windows 7 (including drivers) might not work on it. Cool if they redid the kernal but the actual user experience is pretty much all i give a shit about it

I've had zero driver issues, and zero compatibility issues with software. Granted, I'm not running the same as you, but you probably figured out that I'm a computer geek and I would be pretty vocal about it if I had encountered any hiccups.

 

Windows 8 has been beneficial to my aging machine, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my new build performs while running it (when I actually get enough money saved to buy the remaining parts).

 

your mileage may vary. I totally agree that the new Start screen, and the 'Modern UI' apps are completely fucking useless to a 'normal computer' user. And they don't matter to me because I just don't use them. You don't need to use the Modern UI apps at all. And the way that I use the Start Menu, even in Windows 7 is to just hit start key on my keyboard and start typing what app I want, then hit return. Windows 8 does the same, only faster. win win.

 

 

I only use the search function for the win7 start menu rarely, I do however use the recently used applications a lot. windows 8 forces me to use the search, search function is good, but it's not better than clicking twice. i guess i could pin a lot of shit to the taskbar, but i don't really want to clutter it.

 

I upgraded a win vista machine to windows 8, I don't notice much of a performance boost- some, yes- but i actually noticed more of an improvement when I upgraded an old celeron laptop from windows xp to windows 7.

 

it did have compatibility issues with a webcam. not windows's fault tho, the brand simply didn't make drivers for it past windows xp, but vista could use compatibility modes to make it work, win8 can't.

 

So for my personal machine- which has win7- I just don't see the point of upgrading, ever for the low price. I'd wait for some issues to be adressed or maybe even for windows 9.

[Joyrex]

Microsoft seems to be taking a Apple-like strategy of releasing yearly OS updates, so you may not have long to wait for Windows 9...

[Rubin Farr]

sounds like a big FU to Microsoft so far, worse adoption rate than Vista? Thud!

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/144584-two-months-in-windows-8-pc-and-tablet-sales-remain-weak-slower-adoption-than-vista

[Joyrex]

sounds like a big FU to Microsoft so far, worse adoption rate than Vista? Thud!

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/144584-two-months-in-windows-8-pc-and-tablet-sales-remain-weak-slower-adoption-than-vista

 

I wouldn't read too much into that; it's adoption rate is lower than Vista's in the same time period - doesn't mean that Windows 8 hasn't outsold Vista, which I am sure it probably had at that point (if not by now).

 

The biggest stumbling block for Microsoft is getting corporations to adopt it - I would be curious to know how many Fortune 500 companies are skipping over Windows 8 and keeping Windows 7 until something better or different comes along...

[eugene]

so, surface pro is looking good from the first hands on previews (as expected), there was a blurb about it having a rather crappy battery life (around 4-5 hours) but if it manages something around 6 it would be an absolutely perfect device imo, and microsft can definitely get those ~1200$ from me after 15 years of shameless piracy of every bit of software they released.

 

the new 7w intel cpus plus microsoft and it's windows 8 on the mobile market will render android and ios useless very quick i suspect.

[oscillik]

so, surface pro is looking good from the first hands on previews (as expected), there was a blurb about it having a rather crappy battery life (around 4-5 hours) but if it manages something around 6 it would be an absolutely perfect device imo, and microsft can definitely get those ~1200$ from me after 15 years of shameless piracy of every bit of software they released.

 

the new 7w intel cpus plus microsoft and it's windows 8 on the mobile market will render android and ios useless very quick i suspect.

not really, because the 7w figure is just hype

[eugene]

wow, that's a major facepalm.

but still, there's a lot of movement on the front of low power consumption non-fucktraded (ie x86) cpus

[oscillik]

wow, that's a major facepalm.

but still, there's a lot of movement on the front of low power consumption non-fucktraded (ie x86) cpus

not really, the TDP hasn't really changed that much since Sandy Bridge.

[Joyrex]

Another bit of irony - in order to connect to an Exchange mail server on mobile devices and enforce policy restrictions, etc. you need to use a Microsoft ActiveSync connector - we use it to provide iOS users here at my Firm access to their corporate email.

 

Today, someone brought in a Surface tablet, asking if they could get the AS connector added so they could get their email. Now, at this point, you're thinking, "Microsoft Exchange connector + Microsoft device = pure win", right?

 

It's incompatible with Surface.

 

And, does not work on Windows Phones either

 

Microsoft

[eugene]

wow, that's a major facepalm.

but still, there's a lot of movement on the front of low power consumption non-fucktraded (ie x86) cpus

not really, the TDP hasn't really changed that much since Sandy Bridge.

i had the yet to be released haswell in mind.

 

Another bit of irony - in order to connect to an Exchange mail server on mobile devices and enforce policy restrictions, etc. you need to use a Microsoft ActiveSync connector - we use it to provide iOS users here at my Firm access to their corporate email.

 

Today, someone brought in a Surface tablet, asking if they could get the AS connector added so they could get their email. Now, at this point, you're thinking, "Microsoft Exchange connector + Microsoft device = pure win", right?

 

It's incompatible with Surface.

 

And, does not work on Windows Phones either

 

Microsoft

yeah, it's the first surface (rt), it's useless for this kind of stuff.

the new one that's coming out this month will have no such facepalms.

[sneaksta303]

I like win 8 so far

 

I haven't installed any of my music progs yet tho so I dunno if they're all compatible.

[Guest Ron Manager]

I got a new laptop for Christmas and I'm happy with 8. But then again I have staunchly used XP up to now, so I thought it was time to upgrade. After a couple weeks' use, I can't say there's anything I miss about XP. I can see where confusion arises for the average user, with apps running separately from programmes and all. I found pretty much all the apps to be garbage, but it's easy to get rid of them or just not use them.

 

My favourite thing about the new start screen is how I just press the Windows key and start typing for whatever I'm looking for - bam. Very quick.

 

Haven't tried music programmes, but everything I've tried to install that I used for XP and wasn't sure would be compatible has worked like a charm on 8.