More Than 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8

Does Windows 98 still require a purchased product key?

Wenda said:

@NightHawk: Sorry if I came across as 'teaching grandmother to suck eggs' re the Quick-launch, that was not my intention, and that part of my comment was aimed at readers in general, not you in particular. Again, my apologies. My comments here are also mainly for general consumption, except the points of yours I specifically address.

I couldn't agree more with your comment regarding those who 'rush in where angels fear to tread' by installing betas etc without taking a working system image first. Especially since there are warnings literally everywhere advising against doing so, including here and on MS' own site.

All my OSes from XP on have current images, and a new image is taken whenever I make major changes or once a month/six weeks, whichever happens first. Although I'm currently running 8.1 on this machine, both its Win 8 image and its Win 7 image are sitting there ready to go if required. Having a working system image also means I need never fear attempting upgrade installs, if the install fails or isn't satisfactory, I just bring an image over. Easy!

And yes, if 'you' don't want to do that, a VM is a perfectly acceptable alternative. As some of you may know, I collect operating systems, so a program like Virtual-Box is essential to me. Mine currently has 14 (yes, you read that right, 14) different OSes in it, and runs to nearly 45GB in size. I had intended to toss 8.1 in there as well, but I believe that the best way to test an OS (rather than just playing with it) is to use it under real-world, real-workload conditions. So, it's a standalone setup.

I'm also in agreement with you regarding the 'gimmicky' nature of much of Metro. Fortunately much of it can easily be disabled or ignored by experienced users, but, like you, I fear that the inexperienced, or those who simply 'don't care as long as it works and I can get Angry Birds' mob will be suckered.

Once again, I'm not trying to convert anyone, or behave like a fanboi, because a fanboi I'm most certainly not. There are aspects of both W8 and W8.1 that I dislike intensely (mainly related to their trying to drag me into 'cloud computing' in which I have less than no interest whatsoever), and indeed I have copped several blasts from real fanbois on EF, ZDnet and other places for voicing my concerns.

What I am trying to do is offer a balanced view of 8.1 without the FUD or the 'my mate says it suxors, so I won't be installing it' or the 'I tried it for ten minutes, it suxored, I've gone back to XP' attitude, but also without the 'Windows 8.1 is the duck's guts, it's flawless, and anyone who doesn't like it 110% is a dinosaur' rubbish either.

No, it's not perfect, and it will not satisfy the 'h8-ers'. But nor is it an unusable pile of poo that's no use to 'desktop' users either. I've found it to have no impact on my productivity, and if you've used W8 it's easy to learn. All the bogus net-centricity can be turned off, once this is done and the start menu of your choice is installed (if desired) 8.1 is certainly as good as either Win 7 or Win 8 in desktop mode (IMO, better than 8, almost on par with 7), and is way ahead of Win 8 when it comes to Metro. Which you never have to see unless you actually want to.

Cheers, all!


Wenda.

Wenda, There's a lot of helpful info here. I like your "imaging' practice too. I'm mainly a "cloner", always having a couple of cloned HDD's on the shelf in the event of intrusions (malware, etc, that's too time-consuming to clean up) or in the event of a "user" error... me . I haven't gotten into the imaging part much but I want to get proficient with that soon.

I've only had a little time with 8 at a demo setup in a store. As mainly a Desktop/Laptop guy, I may not have the need for 8 in the foreseeable future since I don't own any of the modern mobile devices but that may change down the road.

I've picked up a lot of useful info in this thread, in the event that I feel compelled to switch to 8(.1). It's good to know that a 3rd-party install may not be necessary (Classic Shell, etc) to get 8.1 to be useable on a Desktop but my plan is to stick with 7 as long as possible, since it's by far the best Windows OS that I've seen for my home Desktop/Laptop use.

That's probably a skewed pov though, since I went from XP to 7 without a Vista experience to compare that with 7.

lehnerus2000 said:

I always image my operating systems and important data partitions, before installing any Windows updates.
That means I only have to go back a month in the worst case scenario.

I often create an image when I install software that I'm not sure of, or that has proven to be troublesome in the past (e.g. graphics drivers ).

I have backup copies of my VMs on external HDDs.

That's a good practice. I'm doing it with cloning but it's not as flexible as imaging. I always have a cloned HDD that's 6 weeks old, cloning to that HDD every 6 weeks. I have another cloned HDD that I keep for emergency use.

mjf said:

It's difficult for me to sound unbiased when I admit I am :). I think cloning may lull people into the false belief that they have some better copy of their drive than what imaging can provide. It simply isn't true. To create a standby OS drive using imaging is really straightforward. With all due respect cloning every 6 weeks is not the way I would approach backups.
I have an image no older than 2 weeks old and will create a new one sooner if I install some new software or updates. I keep images spanning a number of months and use two 1TB ext USB3 HDDs and two imaging programs (Windows 7 native imaging and Macrium Reflect). Any one of these can be restoring to the existing drive or a brand new one in ~ 12minutes.

Thanks for the input. I'm wanting to learn more about the imaging scene but haven't gotten into it much yet.

I started the cloning action back in October '11 as a way to have a plug-play HDD in the event of an intrusion. It's paid off for me a couple of times since then when I had a couple of annoying intrusions that didn't clean up with safe-mode scans from my previous AV, so I plugged in my clone HDD and was running in a few minutes.

I also run a twice-daily Acronis backup for some specific "must-have" folders & files. That's also copied over to my Laptop.

I tried using Acronis (2011 ver) Backup/Restore, which I believe is their imaging function to another HDD. The "backup" portion of the operation ran for about 5 hrs. I'm not sure if that's typical for a 1 Tb HDD that has about 40-45% used space.

I just haven't yet spent the time with imaging but I want to get up to speed with it as I can see the advantages of that approach.

Imo, there are pros & cons to both pov's, cloning, imaging. I guess it depends on what the user's goal is, with one or the other choice.

I'd like to do both as I have a couple of spare 500Gb HDD's that aren't currently in use.

I have heard of Macrium and have read some about that product at their site. I like what I'm reading there and may try that one as an alternative to Acronis.

The Acronis cloning is simple and fast for me and provides a fast replacement in the event of a Source HDD failure or intrusion. I've also used Clonezilla a couple of times.

I was running Raid 1 for a while on my Desktop but disabled that for a couple of reasons. One was that I had an intermittent RAM issue that was causing Raid array glitches. The other reason is that Raid 1 won't offer a fast recovery in the event of intrusions as both HDD's are mirrored and will get hit with the same bug.

All good info here, as I'm a compared to 99% of the posters here in Windows/PC knowledge. I can hold up better in an "Astronomy" thread vs a Windows/PC thread :)

You might find it easier to use one of the modern automated backup and sync methods such as this one to Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums.

I've been using it for over a year without lifting a finger, or any problems. My files are all sync'd across all PC's with the same file master set available on the web.