Who has given up on WIn 8?

[hairlessupportmonkey]

As an IT professional its important for me to keep abreast of what's new and get up to speed with it.

Windows 8 has been no exception. I grabbed various beta copies and then my full copy off my Technet account. I tried it on various platforms and first impressions as with many users was WTF?

I persevered, growing to like its speed of boot up and interface. I purchased Start8 because the modern UI just didnt agree with me or anyone else at home who used it. People like new, but they dont like change, and especially when its radical and also told that you CAN NOT boot to a desktop. Again, WTF?

I continued, and tried the media centre add-on on my media centre. What a piss take. Reverted to Win 7 within 10 mins of finishing Win 8 configuration.

My PC at home is no slouch and fairly recent hardware, Asus P8P67 Pro Mobo, Core i7-2600K, 16GB Ram, 250GB OCX Vertex 4 SSD, ATI HD7870 Gfx etc, etc..... Win 8 was singing along, until odd things started occuring.

Firstly, the condescending pale blue screen of death, system file corruptions, constantly rebooting to repair and recovery which had NO affect and could NEVER repair start up errors, lost boot loaders, explorer crashing all the time, and so on.

I rebuilt Win 8 three times. with the same issues over and over. All the time, I still had my Win 7 installed on a conventional HDD on the same hardware working without a hitch.

I gave up, backed my stuff up and rebuild Win 7 onto my SSD, and it sits so much better than windows 8. Its not flaky at all.

Now, I have no real evidence that Windows 8 is truly at fault. perhaps some driver related? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, Windows 8 IS the Windows ME of the 21st Century

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[1DMF]

Windows 8 IS the Windows ME of the 21st Century smile [/quote] 

What about Vista?

Two of my users who have Windows 8 laptops only like it because it has the Pokki menu installed and it boot straight to desktop, they don't see the metro and they only use internet, PDF, outlook, excel and word!

So far, touch wood, no one has complained about instability or BSoD, and I was very pleased that my MS Access 2010 runtime apps work including with office 2013!

However, there are many I know who have gone out of their way to get Windows 7 on and new machines they purchase having used Windows 8.

I was going to upgrade my PC as it is now a 7+ years old Q6600, but since Win 8 , I'm going to continue with my Win 7, I got burned getting Vista when it came out, and from comments like these, I think I'm making the right the choice!



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[hairlessupportmonkey]

OK, Win 8 is the NEW Windows ME

There is a "service pack" called Windows Blue being released to address various issues, but there isnt a lot of info on it.

http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-blue-continues-microsofts-tradition-of-confusing-names-7000013148/

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[busster]

I did not upgrade to windows 8 but did a clean installation. Have to say that other some quirky ip address problems, I have had no issues.

I can't say that I like it "better" than windows 7, but all in all, no problems.

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Quirky IP Address problems? Madness. IP Addressing has been rock solid in windows since the windows came to life......

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[busster]

If I go to a customer site and have to statically assign an ip address to my laptop, the ip address persists. If I change to dhcp, get an ip address, do a ipconfig from command line, my dhcp acquired ip is there, plus any static ip addresses from the past.

The only way to remove them, is to remove the device and reboot.

 

[vacunita]

Well I've been using Windows 8 since the beta with varying degrees of success. I know with one of the release candidates, forget which one, I had quite a few crashes, but it ended up being my HD that had started to develop bad sectors. My only other issue was when I installed my retail copy of Windows 8 upgrading an existing Windows XP installation. It had issues I detailed in that post in this forum, but after restoring frm scratch everything has functioned smoothly.

My full copy of Windows 8 from which I'm typing this has been pretty stable for that last couple of months. I have no extra addon's installed and boot the Metro UI, but I hardly think a click on the Desktop tile is an "unforgivable pain" required to get to Desktop mode.

I like this Windows more than I ever did Vista, and Vista never ran correctly in on my other rig back then, and I had terrible issues with it at work maintaining machines, and configurations to work with a Windows 2000 server at the time. And saying its the next Windows Me is just over blowing the situation and just trying to trash a perfectly stable and functional OS simply because its different.

Yes it doesn't have a standard start menu. But what people don't seem to get yet, is that Metro UI is the start menu. Everything you install, all Apps, Metro and Desktop alike sit there, you click them and they launch in whichever environment they belong to.

Personally I can agree its not the most convenient thing, but I can understand its use from a touch screen perspective.
There are of course many alternatives to bring back a standard start menu, even the simplest one of pinning a new toolbar to the quick launch bar that points to the Start menu folder (Yes it still exists), which is what I did.

Further more, Windows 8 is built on the foundation of Windows 7. So if you like how Windows 7 works. Desktop Mode in Windows 8 is essentially Windows 7 with a few tweaks and improvements.

So saying that Windows 8 is the next Me implies windows 7 was every bit as bad minus that Metro UI.

All in all Windows 8 has been a very pleasant experience considering past OSes Microsoft as put out. And trust me I've been working with Windows since it was 3.1 and 3.11 for workgroups. I've seen my fair share of failures. Windows 8 simply isn't one of them. Its just a little rough around the edges still. But by the time we reach Service pack 2 it should be all ironed out, and thne we'll start setting up for te move to Windows 9.


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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[linney]

I have been running Windows 8 since the fist early releases, and continue to use it, even though I triple boot with Windows 7, and XP. I mainly use it in Desktop mode, and in that configuration find little differences between Windows 8 and Windows 7, except for the missing Start Menu, which I hardly notice.

 

[xwb]

I think Vista was basically a stop gap to get everyone to upgrade their machines. There was a lot that went on in Vista underneath the hood. The strategy was probably to get everyone to upgrade their hardware first then give them something that runs faster on the same hardware. After all, Vista is 6.0, W7 is 6.1 and W8 is 6.2!

 

[dilettante]

A lot of Vista's "problems" were because vendors of hardware took their sweet time about getting new drivers that worked properly out there. Then you had the software vendors who took their sweet time about fixing things they shouldn't have been doing.

Programming forums are jam packed with latecomers who only recently started to get off XP and can't get their software working on Windows 6.x.

Of course if you crowdsource your opinions then "Vista baaaad, Win7 guuuuud."

The Win8 UI changes are a far different thing. Even Microsoft admitted that.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I think Windows 8 is a stepping stone to a better operating system for sure. There are a lot of things I liked about Windows 8, it is WAY faster than 7, for one. I had been running 8 since Christmas on my work laptop and could boot in less than 6 seconds every time. Just yesterday I went back to Windows 7, my only decision to go back to 7 was because of a few apps I use on a regular basis for work didn't work on 8. For business I am not seeing Windows 8 as being ready yet. My users are still barely figuring out Windows 7 (which we JUST upgraded to in the last month) and Windows 8 is just WAY too confusing for the average user yet. There were a few things I loathed about it, things like Picture Viewer opened up an app that I couldn't close easily and why is Shutdown and Restart a Setting? I didn't think the Windows App Store is user friendly at all like the Apple Store or even the Android store. Really, overall I didn't hate Windows 8 in fact once I got used to it quite enjoyed it.

People knock Vista but Vista was revolutionary in the realm of Windows since it (finally) blocked access to the kernel where every other version of Windows allowed anyone access to it. So from a security point Vista rocked. It was the manufactures that didn't believe Microsoft would block access to the kernel and didn't update their drivers that caused a ton of problems which is why a lot of things didn't work. Vista had its share of problems to be sure (UAC SUCKED!) but from behind the scenes Vista rocked.

I have Windows 8 Blue (the new version coming out in a month or two as SP1 I think) has some major improvements from what I have been reading so maybe later this summer when we've upgraded our apps to work with Windows 8, Shoretel being one of them, and when Blue comes out I might give it another shot.

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[flapeyre]

I had to buy a new laptop out of necessity, so it came with Windows 8. I, too use Start8 (you can even set that up to show the classic XP-style Start button).

The only thing I use the new UI for is watching Netflix at home. I find the modern UI applications to clunky and non-intuitive.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.

 

[dilettante]

The story I've heard is that Win8 will not get Service Packs at all, but frequent majjor updates like Blue every 6 to 18 months.

I can only wonder what immpact this may have as each update makes some existing applications stop working. I can see ISVs abandoning Windows in droves after the second time one of their applications gets broken.

 

[flapeyre]

I don't think Micro$oft has figured out that ticking off a large segment of your user base in order to go with something trendy is not a wise path to follow.

And worse yet, they rushed development (in other words, they repeated the same mistakes they made with Vista and ME).

Someone I know would say that MS's idea for having a baby would be to hire nine women to get it done in one month.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.

 

[dilettante]

I'm not sure you can say Win8 was "rushed" since they've been fiddling with this since they dropped Windows Mobile for Phone 7.

Vista was not rushed either, well not intentionally. There was a big Longhorn Fiasco that involved trying to make .Net work as part of the OS. When it failed for the second time then yes, there was a rush to rip it out and get a finished Windows together.

If anything, Win8 is probably revenge of the .Net weenies though because the WinRT crap stems from the .Net/Longhorn Failure. It was an attempt to salvage a lot of Longhorn stuff by reimplmenting the non-performant parts of .Net in native code.

Maybe we should be thankful, at least we got Vista and Win7 in the interregnum.

 

[flapeyre]

Maybe we should be thankful, at least we got Vista and Win7 in the interregnum.

Win7 - yes. Vista - no way.

When I bought a Sony Vaio laptop with Vista, it was a rarity if it could go more than a few hours without a BSOD. Even SP1 didn't make much difference.

When Win7 came, I downloaded and installed it the same day. That fixed the problem.

I don't have any particular beef with Win8 other than Microsoft trying to push a touch interface when most serious users don't want one. Speaking for myself, I'd rather point and click - not swipe. I think they tried to fit a square peg in a round hole - and failed.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.

 

[Mike Lewis]

I have just added myself to the list of people who have given up Windows 8.

I did my best to make it work. I struggled for two months with it. I wanted to like it.

But, in the end, it got the better of me. I have just given my Windows 8 system to a family member. I don't regret it.

I expect Windows 8 is a an excellent system on a smart phone. I have no experience of that. But on a desktop system in an office environment, it is a failure.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy

 

[vacunita]

... But on a desktop system in an office environment, it is a failure.

Why? Desktop Mode is Windows 7 minus the start menu? You don't need to bother with the Start Screen if you don't want to.

Everything else functions exactly like Win 7 did. So if it works in win 7 in an Office environment it works in Windows 8.

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Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

switching between Modern UI to get to apps that launch in the desktop only .... hmmmmm.... its not nice and it feels clumsy.




ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[Mike Lewis]

... But on a desktop system in an office environment, it is a failure.

Why? Desktop Mode is Windows 7 minus the start menu? You don't need to bother with the Start Screen if you don't want to.
Everything else functions exactly like Win 7 did. So if it works in win 7 in an Office environment it works in Windows 8.

Unfortunately, that's not the way a typical office worker sees it. When they switch on the computer in the morning, they see a screen full of tiles which have got nothing to do with their daily work. They have to go through an extra step of clicking through to the desktop.

They then have to find their applications and utilities without the familiar Start button. True, you can place shortcuts to your frequent apps on the desktop, but many people don't know how to do that (or even that it's possible). And, in any case, there's only room for so many icons on the screen. With the Start menu, the shortcuts are organised hierarchically, which makes it easy to find what you need, even items that you don't use very often.

But none of this is the reason that I personally gave up Windows 8. I'm merely responding to Vacunita's question. I doubt anyone would have time to read the list of my own complaints against the system. (To be fair, these are as much to do with the particular device I was using - basically a tablet with a keyboard attached - as with the OS.)

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy