Is Win8 really better than 7?

It's not for me, as a PC and laptop only user. I have tried it twice and can see no benefits, only disadvantages.

I have used Windows 3.1, through 95, 98 and XP. Win7 is just so good, as a 'big box' user, 8 does nothing to improve upon 7 for me. I think that Ms are just trying to play "catch-up" again. It did not work with Zune, Vista and all the other ways they tried to emulate the success of others. Microsoft has, over the years, bought up companies that it saw as present or future competition. As a result, the only competition left is too big to swallow, so all it can do is emulate or copy.

The only way Ms will survive, never mind grow, is to free some of the immense talent amongst its engineers and imaginative thinkers, perhaps set up a "Think Tank" to scan the near future and come up with some original ideas that will stand a chance of working.

It is difficult to answer any vague question, especially when there are no facts to back up either side. Which is better: hot dogs or hamburgers?

You also aren't comparing apples to oranges. You are comparing a tried and true, extremely stable OS to one that hasn't really even hit final beta stages, and may not even be feature-complete.

Frank1 said:

After reading a lot of the discussion about Windows 8, if someone asked me a simple question like, “Why is Windows 8 better than Windows 7?” I couldn’t come up with an answer. Does anyone else have an answer to that question???

I guess you already have an answer for what you're asking.
The truth of the matter is, this is a subjective thing. I for one will always think of Windows 7 as better than XP because I simply haven't tried XP and I'm already satisfied with 7. If there's a new feature that Windows 8 offers or has improved then I'll think of it as superior. If I prefer the Ribbonized Explorer and the Metro, then I'll quickly ditch Windows 7. But as I said, I am satisfied with Windows 7, and if there's a feature I'm missing be it eye-candy or extra function I'm sure a third-party software will happily supply me with those. So I don't think Windows 8 is better than Windows 7 because I don't see any drastic change between the two. When I tried Windows 8 just for the sake of experiencing it, I don't feel rewarded. Others feel that Windows 8 is the future, but if it's the future it's a decade too late. With my tech usage and consumption plus computing lifestyle, I'm content with Windows 7.

fseal said:

Actually, there is one thing that is better about Windows 8...

That pinball game they included with the CP is pretty Freakin' Sweet

And er.. Bertison: The Metro UI is /exactly/ the result of Microsoft doing what you suggest they should at the bottom of your post!

AS a tablet/phone UI it pretty much rocks over everything else out there (Though the limitations on organisation of the start screen are disappointing). As a Desktop UI it's a square peg in a round hole. It just don't fit

MAYBE for you, fseal, but as has been so well put, it's a subjective argument, comparing apples and oranges. Doesn't work for me, but I have different computing wants and needs to yourself.

And I was referring to the fact that MS has a long history of copying what others have done, then often improving upon it before unleashing their version upon the computing world. I am not denigrating that - Microsoft has brought computing to the masses as far as I am concerned - but the company showed relatively greater imagination and innovation, in earlier days.

Computing is a broad church. If everyone used computers in the same way, this would be a very boring world.

fseal said:

The unfortuante part is the way they are trying to weld it into the desktop experience.

This is really an irony. Phones are trying to be like computers and desktops in the case of the Metro wants to pretend that it is a phone.

I personally like Windows 8. Once we have a RC build, I will probably try it again on my laptop if there is better driver support for the ProBook 4430s. If HP doesn't update their drivers, I will leave my current laptop as is with Windows 7 and look into purchasing new hardware - probably a convertible so that I can take advantage of Metro as a touch interface.

As someone who is fond of hot keys, the hot corners and the extended hot key functionality, as well as the ability to search directly from the Metro start screen are things I've enjoyed quite a bit. I actually think I work a bit faster in Win8 than I do in Win7. Since I use MS cloud services (Live mail, Office on SkyDrive, etc), Metro is very nice for me. It's a light-weight, easy way to single task when interfacing with those services. I don't use or need a full-featured office suite outside of work, so the Metro apps work well for my personal use. There are some applications I use outside of work, such as Hyper-V, that take me to the desktop, so I tend to view the Metro/Desktop dichotomy as a "casual/serious" division of my work.

My favourite feature, by far, is the inclusion of Hyper-V 3.0 on the client version of Win8. This is going to be a big plus to a lot of people over the long run, IMHO, just as Windows-to-Go could be something that the enterprise can leverage to its benefit. The former allows for developers to have test labs on their machines without the need for remote access to a server or for extra license fees. Furthermore, Hyper-V 3.0 on the client allows for sleep and hibernate, and will even sleep the child OS. On top of that, since Hyper-V is a full-fledged hypervisor, you don't have the sofware overhead you would if using VMWare Workstation. The latter, Windows-to-Go, along with the new direction of server management that's being pushed with Win Server 8 can easily reduce IT cost by providing employees with a go anywhere operating environment.

Having said all that, I personally don't see major adoption in the enterprise world because of legacy apps and devices. Where I work, we generally deploy Win7, but we still have some machines on WinXP because of the need to run software and operate peripherals provided by vendors which still don't support Win7.