Win 8: yay or nay?

[renhoelder]

So, Win 8 is officially out now. How many of you have upgraded? The price seems pretty reasonable for a new OP system, whether you dig the new UI (which one can turn off) that seems to be very much tablet orientated is another question.

I'm on a desktop, with an LCD as monitor, so to me navigating the tiles on mouse and keyboard seems awkward, granted I have only tinkered with in on Virtualbox so the experience may be a little laggy, seemed so at-least. Maybe getting one of those logitech touchpads would improve the experience...who knows.

So, what are your thoughts on this?

Also, if anyone has a promocode to drop the price from 29.99€ to 14.99€ I'd be very appreciative.

[squirrel]

To me it really depends on driver support and software compatibility, so I really cannot decide at the moment. Maybe I would follow the tradition wisdom: wait for SP1.

As I know, the drastic change of interface is Windows 8 no longer has the infamous "Start Up" button. For this, I guess I should have no problem since I am very comfortable with my antique Power PC iMac 5 run by Mac OS X 10.3

[bad guy]

I like the new UI (not the metro part though).
Now after they got rid of stupid aero, it has a nice zen look to it.
For example the task manager:

I haven't looked too much into win8 yet though, and I will be waiting till it matures a bit.

[renhoelder]

Damn, I must admit that I wasn't that impressed with the Metro or whatever the UI is called, for a desktop at-least. I do think this would work well for a touchscreen device. But 14.99€ or even 29.99€ is still a pretty good deal for a new OP system.

My Win 7 experience has been pretty good, if i disregard my blue period where I had about a dozen or so BSODs in about two days, which, granted might have been caused by hardware, but still. I had far fewer crashes/BSODs on XP and Vista combined so I'm not too bothered about bugs.

[squirrel]

I believe that All-in-One PC will see light of greater sales. All-in-One may not be ideal for those demanding for high specs since they are generally not good at hardware cooling. But one selling point is that more and more of them have touch screens, and they perfectly fit in this new UI.

And touchscreen for PC tower on the other hand is way too expensive for me.

[renhoelder]

Anyway, I caved and got me Win 8 Pro for ~15€, so I'll see how that goes. And if I can't deal with the "innovation" there's always the option to downgrade.

[soldant]

I've been running it since August when it was released to Technet subscribers. I don't like Metro on a desktop, but I barely ever see it. 90% of the time I'm on the Desktop, which functions just like it did in Windows 7. On the plus side, Windows 8 is faster. Compatibility is much the same as Windows 7... and now tjp will come in here complaining about how his P4 and AC97 audio chip isn't supported. Win8 did drop some legacy support, it's true, but in terms of getting your apps and games to run you're unlikely to run into any issues. So far the only big issue for me is that some apps can't launch a web browser when you click a link - for example trying to access the forum for a game from Steam results in absolutely nothing happening. I don't know why. Game performance should be close to Win7 - maybe slightly less in benchmarks but nothing you'd realistically notice. That's probably due to slightly immature GPU drivers.

Metro is basically a giant Start menu. You could unpin all the Metro apps and just populate it like a big Start menu if you want. Alternatively, just do what you probably do with the current Start menu: open it up, type in what you want, and smash Enter. Functionally it's the same thing. The most frustrating thing is the Charms gesture, but you can use WinKey+C to display them instead.

No doubt some people won't be able to tolerate Metro, but MS will keep Metro. It won't go away. Better get used to it, or move to OS X/Linux. Also to head off any arguments - WinRT might be Microsoft's walled garden, but the desktop is not. There are no arbitrary restrictions on x86 apps and there never will be. There is no threat to Gabe's Walled Garden-Empire of Gaming. Please don't listen to FUD.

To me it really depends on driver support and software compatibility, so I really cannot decide at the moment. Maybe I would follow the tradition wisdom: wait for SP1.

Yeah, that idea was valid for XP and Vista, but you were missing out if you waited for Win7 SP1. The bugs are largely with WinRT, not the desktop. Waiting for SP1 is unlikely to mean much, just as it didn't mean much for Win7. With the more rapid release cycle it's unlikely that service packs will be the same as they have been since XP, so the XP/Vista wisdom of "wait till SP1" is less applicable here.

[mashakos]

Have absolutely no interest in a new Windows iteration that offers nothing new for the home theater crowd. Where the hell is the 10 foot interface, practical DPI scaling and remote control integration we were teased with? Tablet controls clusterfuck in a desktop OS? Nothankyou.jpg

[renhoelder]

Actually, the Metro thing isn't all that bad. It's ok for quick overview of mail, news and feeds. You can add your gmail accounts to the mail program and calendar and the tiles give a pretty good glimpse of what is going on. Switching between the desktop and Metro is quick and smooth.

Can't say if I'm going to use it a month from now though, maybe the novelty will fade.

[Mohorovicic]

So let me get this straight. I pay $60 and get something that is just like the OS I already have, except more cumbersome to navigate?

[mashakos]

So let me get this straight. I pay $60 and get something that is just like the OS I already have, except more cumbersome to navigate?

yup. You might get a thank you note for your donation to Microsoft Corp. of $60.

[renhoelder]

Why would you pay 60$? Don't talk out of your ass.You can get the upgrade if you rock Win 7 right now for 29€ or 39$, plus, you can easily get a promo coupon that'll knock the price down to 14.99$. You pay 60$ if you want the packaged DVD version, but you can just as easily burn the downloadable version yourself, the goddamn Upgrade Assistant will give you the option to make to burn a dvd or install with a USB drive.

[mashakos]

Why would you pay 60$? Don't talk out of your ass.You can get the upgrade if you rock Win 7 right now for 29€ or 39$, plus, you can easily get a promo coupon that'll knock the price down to 14.99$. You pay 60$ if you want the packaged DVD version, but you can just as easily burn the downloadable version yourself, the goddamn Upgrade Assistant will give you the option to make to burn a dvd or install with a USB drive.

great! A $39 donation to Microsoft then.

EDIT: On a more serious note, why are you all excited about Windows 8? Aside from some clever standby modes there is nothing new in the OS and several things that could have been improved upon or introduced since Vista have not been touched:
DPI scaling which was basically left in a half finished state for the past 6 years has not changed.
No control panel features for SSD meaning you still need to install a third party application for things like manual trim and general SSD related optimisation.
No native support for current open source media formats like mkv, FLAC etc. which is puzzling since divx, xvid and mp4 have been supported since Vista.
Microsoft's Bluetooth stack has not been updated to add support for HID Proxy mode (if the bluetooth hardware supports it). Translation: you can't use a bluetooth keyboard in bios after restarting windows, or even logging into windows! This stuff was sorted on Linux and OSX in the early 2000's.
No native multi-seat capabilities. What a missed opportunity!
For some reason, Microsoft did not copy some of the innovative features found in Linux and OSX this time around such as transitioning from the registry system to the Home directory structure, Time Machine, integrated (and free) cloud support or new desktop composition capabilities like Compiz Fusion.
No new audio architecture updates that for example could add support for dolby digital live or dts connect. To get either of these on a PC you either have to be lucky enough to have a motherboard with the capability built into the driver (licensed) or purchase a $250+ soundcard.
Adding bilinear filtering to the Magnifier. I mean, seriously, pixellated Magnifier utility in 2012?
No built-in video desktop backgrounds. This is important if your PC is hooked up to an HDTV and is left on for long periods.
A huge one: no native support for Xbox live or XBLA! Why miss this opportunity?

There are literally 1000's of ways they could have made this an amazing OS release for desktop users and especially hardcore power users / gamers, yet they went with tablet UI and "social media" integration. Gah!

I'm also curious to see how you guys manage using W8 when every corner and edge of the screen seems to trigger something. Good luck and godspeed multi-monitor users!

[soldant]

Have absolutely no interest in a new Windows iteration that offers nothing new for the home theater crowd.

Because Microsoft are in the business of building a multipurpose OS and not a media PC maybe?

DPI scaling which was basically left in a half finished state for the past 6 years has not changed.

This, on the other hand, is true. Scaling is now properly enforced on Metro but it's in an arbitrary "make things bigger" setting. The desktop scaling is still horribly broken. But I think part of that is that developers basically ignore Microsoft's standards whenever it suits them, so not all apps properly support scaling. Apple's scaling on their retina Macbook Pro line is a different kettle of fish, but Apple uses some fairly GPU-heavy trickery or demands developer support. Still MS needs to do something about this.

No control panel features for SSD meaning you still need to install a third party application for things like trim and general SSD related optimisation.

Win8 detects SSDs and handles this automatically. It can also natively TRIM SSD raid0 arrays too. The old Defrag tool is now "Optimise Drives" which handles this for you. Or you can use the command prompt like before.

No native support for current open source media formats like mkv, FLAC etc. which is puzzling since divx, xvid and mp4 have been supported since Vista.

Fair point, but MS have never been good at supporting codecs out of the box.

No native multi-seat capabilities. What a missed opportunity!

Really, so what? It's not their job to cater for everything.

For some reason, Microsoft did not copy some of the innovative features found in Linux and OSX this time around such as transitioning from the registry system to the Home directory structure, Time Machine, integrated (and free) cloud support or new desktop composition capabilities like Compiz Fusion.

File History is functionally identical to Time Machine... which is essentially the old shadow copy service dressed up in a new interface. It's been renamed as File Hx in Win8 and actually works properly for a change, replacing the old backup service. The issue with trying to move to a Home directory is that the Registry has been in place since Forever, and I can't imagine it'd be easy to transition all that legacy software across. And any time that MS break legacy support people go apeshit about it. Also plenty of devs just ignore Microsoft's standards or screw them up - like how the My Documents folder is practically useless these days because devs just shove everything into there without rhyme or reason.

As for cloud support - Metro supports SkyDrive out of the box, which is free. They probably didn't include it on the desktop for fear of anti-trust lawsuits from Dropbox or Google.

No built-in video desktop backgrounds. This is important if your PC is hooked up to an HDTV and is left on for long periods.

So basically because this isn't a HTPC OS you're dismissing it? I don't think you understand the point of Windows 8... or really Windows in general.

I'm also curious to see how you guys manage using W8 when every corner and edge of the screen seems to trigger something. Good luck and godspeed multi-monitor users!

I use multiple monitors with it and the hot corners aren't an issue. The extreme corners are 'sticky' to allow you to activate the gestures on the primary monitor. Also Win8 natively supports having the taskbar duplicated across two monitors.



Really, do you even know much about Win8 besides "It's got a new UI therefore I don't like it"? Metro isn't good on desktops, but the majority of your complaints are either outright incorrect or boil down to "It's not a media-PC OS" which shouldn't be a criticism.

[mashakos]

Win8 detects SSDs and handles this automatically. It can also natively TRIM SSD raid0 arrays too. The old Defrag tool is now "Optimise Drives" which handles this for you. Or you can use the command prompt like before.

Edited to clarify: I meant manual trim. Indexing, defragmentation and "turbo cache" were designed for HDDs and negatively impact SSD performance. No added value in W8 for the end user to make their lives easier in this regard.

Really, so what? It's not their job to cater for everything.

So there's nothing new with the operating system. I mentioned this more as a potential feature and not a must have. Really, ANY new compelling feature would have been nice.

File History is functionally identical to Time Machine...

There's more to time machine in the latest iteration of OSX than delta file backups. Check out a keynote or two.

The issue with trying to move to a Home directory is that the Registry has been in place since Forever, and I can't imagine it'd be easy to transition all that legacy software across. And any time that MS break legacy support people go apeshit about it.

Devs can't break away from a Home folder structure if implemented properly, in the same way that devs can't create their own independent registry sytem in windows right now.
Microsoft did a clean break when they introduced the Windows Desktop Manager in Vista. Everyone went ape shit and it broke a lot of apps, some people are still on XP because of it - but WDM was sorely needed to turn Windows into a modern OS. Just having a double buffered desktop environment was a huge feature that designers and media editors have been clamouring for since 2001. Some changes, as difficult as they are, need to be made to move the platform forward. Instead of doing a major change that would in thre long run benefit all Windows users, Microsoft went with a tablet UI.

So basically because this isn't a HTPC OS you're dismissing it? I don't think you understand the point of Windows 8... or really Windows in general.

This feature existed in Vista, you can bring it back in Windows 7 wit ha utility. Having a moving background reduces burn-in on monitors and TVs, not sure why you term this an HTPC feature.

Really, do you even know much about Win8 besides "It's got a new UI therefore I don't like it"? Metro isn't good on desktops, but the majority of your complaints are either outright incorrect or boil down to "It's not a media-PC OS" which shouldn't be a criticism.

I was curious to know why you are excited about Windows 8. You haven't enlightened me so far.

I use multiple monitors with it and the hot corners aren't an issue. The extreme corners are 'sticky' to allow you to activate the gestures on the primary monitor. Also Win8 natively supports having the taskbar duplicated across two monitors.

So the annoying pop-ups don't happen when you transition from one screen to the next. At least that's a plus.

[soldant]

Edited to clarify: I meant manual trim. Indexing, defragmentation and "turbo cache" were designed for HDDs and negatively impact SSD performance. No added value in W8 for the end user to make their lives easier in this regard.

Win8 sends TRIM messages to the SSD. It doesn't simply disable defrag for a detected SSD like Win7 did. It's up to the firmware from there to decide what to do with it.

So there's nothing new with the operating system.

There is. WinRT is brand new. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant. The majority of desktop changes are under the hood. You can find out about them just by reading any article that doesn't simply go "Win8 is different and therefore I don't like it."

There's more to time machine in the latest iteration of OSX than delta file backups. Check out a keynote or two.

No, pretty sure that in terms of general file backup functionality there's not a big difference. Time Machine may be a more complete backup system in terms of a full recovery, but Windows has been able to write WMI files for complete drive imaging since Vista. And nobody ever uses it, because generally if we format we don't want to restore from an image, we only want our files back. The fact that Apple called it Time Machine doesn't suddenly make it that much more interesting.

Microsoft did a clean break when they introduced the Windows Desktop Manager in Vista. Everyone went ape shit and it broke a lot of apps, some people are still on XP because of it...

DWM, WDDM, pretty much everything that was a major overhaul in Vista was needed and made the transition exceptionally painful... but that's still a lot different than changing the Registry.

This feature existed in Vista, you can bring it back in Windows 7 wit ha utility. Having a moving background reduces burn-in on monitors and TVs, not sure why you term this an HTPC feature.

Because I can only really see it being used on a HTPC, I don't know how many people hook their PC up to a TV without intending to use it for anything but a HTPC. As for preventing burn in - we do have screensavers, but I'd argue it'd probably be better to turn the display off if it's going to be on for such a long time.

I was curious to know why you are excited about Windows 8. You haven't enlightened me so far.

I'm not necessarily excited about Win8. I'm excited about the possibility of Windows becoming a force in the tablet and phone sectors, which is an exciting part of what Win8 is trying to accomplish. But in saying that, Win8 is not entirely devoid of new features or improvements as you continually suggest. Really, it seems like you've never even sat down with it or read an article about it. Except maybe the ones that go "OH NO NEW WINDOWS NO IT'S BAD DON'T USE IT."

[Mohorovicic]

Why would you pay 60$?

Because I gotta pay the You're Not Living In A First World Country Tax.

[renhoelder]

Because I gotta pay the You're Not Living In A First World Country Tax.

I'm curious what country do you live in?

If you have any windows, XP/Vista/7 on your machine, you go here :

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...opHP_FPP_Light

Click on Download Pro for 39.99$ then proceed to run the Upgrade Assistant, it will tell you what programs you can migrate and if you're eligible for an update, which, if you run XP/Vist/7(even if september the 19th is a day when people talk like you) or even the Consumer Preview of Win 8, you are.

The promo code to knock the price to 14.99$/€/£ go here:

https://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com/

The information you provide doesn't even have to be true, just the date has to been within the last two months. It usually doesn't even ask you for a windows key, but if it does and you don't have to happen to have one. Here is a forum where you can get a promocode very easily:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...ailable/page25

[ianjones]

my hate is no start button, i hope windows will see enough negative feedback to announce things in service pack 1, i think im dubious about getting a new game spec beforehand

[Herzog]

my hate is no start button, i hope windows will see enough negative feedback to announce things in service pack 1, i think im dubious about getting a new game spec beforehand

Download Classic Shell. Was one of the first things I did when I upgraded to Win8.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/