Anything good to say about Windows 8?

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative. I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what? Does
anybody have anything nice to say? Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?

--
Crash

Today is the first day of the rest of your life,
and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:04:23 -0400, Dave \"Crash\" Dummy wrote:

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all
the feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative. I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what? Does
anybody have anything nice to say? Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?

When I got a new machine in December I selected windows 7 professional.
The professional version is faster to boot and shutdown than the home
version, plus it supports virtual mode that will run winxp and earlier
programs. My experience with a friend running windows 8 left me very
unimpressed. On his setup hovering on RHS of screen to pull up the menu
was flaky and who needs it. I certainly wouldn't upgrade an existing
machine. I suppose eventually windows 8 will be installed on all new
machines.

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:04:23 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
wrote:

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative. I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what? Does
anybody have anything nice to say? Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?

I ran Vista 64 Home Premium for 5 years and then got a new system with
Win 8 Pro/Media Center. I am disappointed with Microsoft screwing up
the desktop interface and essentially eliminating the easy use of a
mouse to perform simple tasks--which is necessary with a desktop
computer. There is no simple way to create a new shortcut from the
desktop unless they specifically allowed it, for example. I can't just
"right click" on an *existing* button and pin it to the desktop
taskbar so it is there for me to use, for example. There are other
areas needing improvement, but the work-arounds will be created (they
always are).

Overall, Win 8 needs an interface rework to be really usable for a
desktop, but it works for a touchscreen--which was the primary market
for the interface.

You already have Wn 7 Ultimate, so there is little incentive to
change. Stick with it, I would say. I had to change my OS because my
old Vista PC needed to be replaced. For me, it was cheaper to buy a
new PC with everything I wanted/needed (Win 8 was the default OS--so I
upgraded to Win 8 Pro/Media Center because I needed the Media Center)
than to upgrade the old computer. The Media Center works fine and it
performs as I expected.

There were a few problems getting a couple programs to work, but that
was mostly due to lack of knowledge by the support people at the
various software companies. The solutions were mostly already
contained in Win 8--you just had to know they existed (the support
people did NOT know). I found most of those free solutions in the
Applications area and the problems "went away" when those applications
were installed. My smartphone could now "talk" to the PC and exchange
data via the USB cable, for example--which I had been doing for years
with the Vista system. One USB device needed a replacement driver,
which I found at an external web site. I had experienced the identical
problem with the same device with Vista in early 2008, and a "driver
hunt" eventually turned up a functional driver.

"Dave "Crash" Dummy" wrote on Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:04:23 -0400:

So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative.

Read more. Start he http://winsupersite.com/

There are a lot of curmudgeons who don't like anything new. There are
also a lot of valid criticisms of Windows 8. But on balance I like it
and consider it a worthwhile upgrade; I have been using it on my
primary desktop and on a Slate since it went RTM.

--
Brandon Staggs
http://www.brandonstaggs.com

Per :
The Media Center works fine

Do you have devices connected to TVs around the house that enable
consumption of Media Center content by the TV?

If so, what do you use?
--
Pete Cresswell

On 3/20/2013 8:04 AM, Dave "Crash" Dummy wrote:
I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative. I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what? Does
anybody have anything nice to say? Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?


See
http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/wi...efresh-your-pc
for new features in Windows 8 named
PC Reset (“Remove everything and reinstall Windows”)
PC Refresh (“Refresh your PC without affecting your files”)

"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then
burned it to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing
it. So far, all the feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been
negative. I am running a desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any
desire for one. I know I can get rid of the "metro" interface with
Classic Shell, but so what? Does anybody have anything nice to
say? Is there any reason I would want to "upgrade" my Windows 7
Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?

That's a decision you can make for yourself. The negative feedback is
mostly from those who don't like new things (such as ME!) and those who
won't RTFM. In other words, the same bunch who didn't like Windows 95,
Windows Vista, Windows 7, etc. Ignore them, make your own decision.

There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so. The other
way is to do a clean install of Win8 on a separate partition of your
harddrive and dual boot while you see if Win8 is for you (that's what
I've done.)


--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:


There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.

I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:04:23 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
wrote:

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative. I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what? Does
anybody have anything nice to say? Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?


I bought my WIn8 for even less after discounts on Amazon and installed
it over my Win7 (did an upgrade). I also got Start8 to add the "Start"
button and Win7 look back. Win8 has some nice refinements in the file
explorer but that was pretty much the only thing about it that I now
miss... because I replaced teh computer and I went back to Win7 on the
replacement. I didn't like all the "metro" nonsense that came with
Win8 and didn't like having to "add" the media center to it when it
was just part of Win7 out of the box. Also, Win8 media center seemed
to have a lot more trouble getting itself set up with my tuner than
Win7 did.

So my advice..... stick with Win7 unless you KNOW you want/need
something that's in Win8.

Mellowed wrote:
On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:


There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.

I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

That's what I heard, too. See the thread "dual boot" started 12/20/2012.
--
Crash

"Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness."
~ Leroy Jethro Gibbs ~

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:30:59 -0700, Mellowed wrote:

On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:


There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.

I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

I installed W8 as a dual boot with 7 on a media computer (after
partitioning the drive appropriately).

No problems.


After a while, I decided to keep 8 and I went to a single-boot
single-partition setup without 7.

Again no problems.

Other than nervousness, of course :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Mellowed wrote:
On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:


There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.

I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

I installed my $39.95 Win8 Upgrade using the "double install method",
to a single blank hard drive, with no other Windows disk present.
So no key got squashed here.

(See "PC Refresh" method, Step 5, here)

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...8-upgrade.html

It's a license term certainly. Just not applied with any rigor.
Now Microsoft doesn't know which of my keys to squash :-) And it's
because no qualifying OS was present.

Paul

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:04:23 -0400, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
wrote:

I bought Windows 8 Pro back when I could get it for $40, then burned it
to disk to wait for the dust to settle before installing it. So far, all the
feedback I've read about Windows 8 has been negative.


Whenever a new version of *anything* comes out, you always read
negative things about it. But realize two things:

1. If you're reading about problems *here*, in the newsgroups and
forums, this where people come with their problems, not with their
successes. You get a very distorted view of what's going on in the
real world here; as someone once said, "hang around a transmission
shop and you will think that all cars have transmission problems."

2. Most problems, by far, that people report here--whether or not they
are IE7-related--have nothing to do with defects in the software. They
result from people's ignorance, from bad or inadequate hardware, from
old drivers, from viruses, from spyware, and so on. And except for
very rare situations, they always get a fix for their problems, and in
most cases, that fix is a very simple one to implement.


I am running a
desktop PC with no touchscreen nor any desire for one. I know I can get
rid of the "metro" interface with Classic Shell, but so what?


That's not correct. Classic Shell does not "get rid of" the Metro
interface. Let me point out something that you perhaps don't realize:
Windows 8 comes with two interfaces; the Modern/Metro Interface
(which may be all you've looked at) and the traditional Desktop
Interface. That traditional Desktop Interface is almost identical to
Windows 7's interface; the biggest difference is that there is no
Start Orb to click to bring up the Start menu. And without Classic
Shell or any such software, that desktop interface is always there.

Note that you can get the Start Orb back by using one of several
third-party programs, either free or very inexpensive. Classic Shell
at http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ is only one of them, and not
even the best one. Start8 at http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
is my personal preference; it's not free, but it's only $4.99 US.

And going from one interface to the other is very easy; there are
several ways, but simply pressing the Windows key is perhaps the
easiest. Simply installing one of those two and using the traditional
desktop interface may be a better choice for you than going to
Windows 7. I use Windows 8, almost exclusively with the traditional
desktop interface, and with Start 8 installed. If you were to look at
and use my computer, you would have a hard time realizing that it's
not Windows 7.


Does anybody have anything nice to say?


Yes. I think it's just fine, although like many people who don't use a
tablet, I don't use the Modern/Metro interface.


Is there any reason I would want to
"upgrade" my Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro?


It's the future. It's what later versions will be built upon. And it's
what future hardware and software will be designed to use. You won't
find many examples yet, but down the road a little bit, you will run
into hardware or software you want, but can't use on Windows 7.


--
Ken Blake

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:30:59 -0700, Mellowed wrote:

On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:

There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.
I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

I installed W8 as a dual boot with 7 on a media computer (after
partitioning the drive appropriately).

No problems.


After a while, I decided to keep 8 and I went to a single-boot
single-partition setup without 7.

Again no problems.

Other than nervousness, of course :-)

Did you use an upgrade version of Windows 8?
--
Crash

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
~ Napoleon Bonaparte ~

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:29:58 -0400, Dave "Crash" Dummy wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:30:59 -0700, Mellowed wrote:

On 3/20/2013 9:53 AM, XS11E wrote:
"Dave \"Crash\" Dummy" wrote:

There are two ways, one is to make an image of your Win7, then do an
upgrade. You can restore the image if you decide to do so.
I thought that I read that MS kills your Win7 key when you upgrade to
Win8. i.e. It's a one way street.

I installed W8 as a dual boot with 7 on a media computer (after
partitioning the drive appropriately).

No problems.

After a while, I decided to keep 8 and I went to a single-boot
single-partition setup without 7.

Again no problems.

Other than nervousness, of course :-)

Did you use an upgrade version of Windows 8?

Yes. It was the cheap version from the maker of the computer (a cheap
Dell), which was bought with W7 during the upgrade window.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)