24 hours with Windows 8

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
what Metro MUST have is the ability to display multiple CONCURRENT WINDOWS.
Without that -- as a workplace OS FORGET IT --Dead in the water.

For home users just surfing the Internet / reading emails / loggong on to places like facebook or watching movies / dvd's --fine but try to do any serious work like translating documents, comparing spreadsheets etc ONLY USING METRO --then it's all over.

This won't fly in a workplace --100% given.

Cheers
jimbo

Metro apps in the workplace won't be common at all. Apps in the workplace will run on the desktop, just like always.

Windows 8 is a combo of Metro (for that tablet feel) as well as the desktop (where all of your existing stuff will work like always).

Yes. but will it really work like always? I already cringe at the thought of being forced with using IE in Metro mode and switching to the desktop IE every couple of minutes whenever I need a plugin.

Or perhaps I'm just trippin'...

If you spend most of your time on the desktop, you won't have to worry about Metro IE.

Hope there will be improvements in Metro after SP1

You know, I have tried... And I really, REALLY tried. I installed the Release Preview this morning, and saw that nothing much changed.

I installed the Release Preview this morning in hopes of "controlling" the new dual UI experience in such a way that, all the apps that I used to use on the desktop would be kept that way, while I'd use Metro for more social and "fancy" apps such as Messages, People, SkyDrive and Weather (Xbox not being available in my region right now).

But the problem with this is still big, much too big to describe it all because... well, I don't have the patience. The Metro UI is still clunky, it still looks too primitive and ugly to me, navigation is clumsy and the options are pretty bare and poor; in most cases, for what I wished to do with those apps, even nonexistant.

What I did like in Win8 is the new Aero look; I'm not drooling over it, but getting used to the (IMHO) disaster of the Win7 Aero look prepared me for it pretty good, and I got used to it pretty quick. Also, much of the desktop UI options from Win7 are just missing or completely (dis)placed deep inside the Explorer's Ribbon nightmare. I also immediately fell in love with IE10, and didn't even for a second bother to consider a secondary browser; but that's pretty much it for Win8.

Congrats on MS for their efforts, but I'm going back to Vista until such a time IE10 comes out, at which point I will probably just go back to Win7 (seeing as how stories tell that IE10 won't be available for Vista )

Quote from this otherwise very good article -

" ... while most of the Windows 7 drivers on my laptop worked, the bits and pieces of Samsung software that helped with quick booting and system updates were not working."

I am a bit puzzled by this, as it appears to be written by a very knowleadgeable and IT-experienced professional. I have been asked to investigate several macines, mostly laptops in the last couple of years since I seemed to have become the resident "Computer Assistant" in my small community of Seniors. I am a long, long way from being a Pro, but I can carry out most PC tasks with varying degrees of ease and confidence. (If I have doubts, I don't do it)

What puzzles me is that this chap still has the Samsung kludge on his own machine, and believes that it 'helped with quick booting ... and updating.' I have always found that the opposite is true, which is why I have speeded up so many systems and lappy's, simply by backing up the stuff to be retained and carrying out a freshh Windows install, to remove the krap that manufacturers put on their machines. One lady I know had a Samsung lappy and i did this after she complained about the very slow boot times and generally slow operation of the lappy. After I gave it the treatment and reinstalled everything, she said it ran like new.

Apart from this minor carp, which is nothing to do with the interesting review, I really enjoyed reading it.

But Win8 will definitely not suit me. I came into computing late in my fifties and it took me a long time to gather my current knowledge. I am still learning (have to give some appearance of understanding my grandchildren) but this is an O/S too far for me. By calling programmes "Apps" Microsoft have betrayed their intention to imitate, and attempt to overtake, Apple, IMHO.

Touch Screen? With THESE arthritic bananas? I have been an aircraft technician and a Motor Engineer, too much of a Grease Monkey to learn such radical new steps at 67. The brain begins to ossify and one sets out on the road to becoming a MOG (Moaning Old GIT) I love keyboards and mice, anything else is HERESY!

Gornot said:

You know, I have tried... And I really, REALLY tried. I installed the Release Preview this morning, and saw that nothing much changed.

I think that many of the changes in Windows 8 can be quite subtle. I've been against Win8 for a while, but just started really kicking the tires in the past couple of weeks and I've actually found quite a few things to like. I started a thread on the 8 forums to track these new features as I stumble upon them.
General feature list of Windows 8

Bertison said:

By calling programmes "Apps" Microsoft have betrayed their intention to imitate, and attempt to overtake, Apple, IMHO.

There are many of us who have been referring to "programs" as "applications" for quite a number of years. In fact, I'd say in the last 5 years, I have said the word application when referring to PC software and cloud based software at least 85% of the time or more.

Indeed there are improvements in some options and features when it comes to 8 over 7, but the price for new features is messing up or leaving out old features due to Metro and the Ribbon.

I am now back on my Vista... like a baws!

Gornot said:

Though I like giving second chances (first being the Developer Preview).

IMO, W8DP was the best version:

• It installed all of my drivers correctly (the new versions can't or won't).
• You could easily restore the Start Menu.

You basically got a version of W7, which used less RAM and was probably faster.

You still had to put up with the Ribbon in Windows Explorer though.

Dave76 said:

Hope there will be improvements in Metro after SP1

Speaking of services packs, has anyone heard anything about W7 SP2?

Windows 8 would make a hellofa cell phone app.

By the way, one could get rid of the ribbon in DP, but those tweaks often went with removing Metro or something, so if you do it, you don't get the redesigned Task Manager either. But who cares now, DP was buggy for my taste and I didn't stay on it for long (and I didn't stay on this RP for reasons already mentioned).

I'd rather have the SP2 for Win7, possibly a platform update like in Vista to bring more features, perhaps.