What's new
  • Please do not post any links until you have 3 posts as they will automatically be rejected to prevent SPAM. Many words are also blocked due to being used in SPAM Messages. Thanks!

Take away the Metro UI, Win 8 is a winner.

BeaverBender

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 19, 2012
Messages
257
Location
Montreal
It depends on your definition of "optimize". If you mean, does it it do similar things to Windows 7, then yes, I.e, it doesn't leave it in the same state as an OS like XP.
 

sswilson

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
24,652
Location
Moncton NB
There is now speculation that the Start Menu will return:
Will Microsoft restore Start Menu to Windows 8?

While it'd be nice to think that they'd pull their heads out of their nether regions, this is just speculation based on what could happen now that wazzizface was pushed out the door. Probably has just as much chance of being true as the pre-turf speculation that they'd see the light due to constant complaints, and zero desktop adoption by business.

On another note.... Costco is now completely win8 on their displayed laptops (haven't checked their website yet) and staples has all of their win7 laptops relegated way down the end of the line at the back of the bus. As I stated earlier, FS didn't have any lower end offerings in win7 flavour.

I suspect all of my laptop purchases from here on in will end up online at dell where I can pick and chose the OS.
 

Raviolissimo

Active member
Joined
Sep 7, 2012
Messages
37
This totally disproves ANY thing you said.

While XP was a good OS Vista was not.. it was a turd.. just like ME.. ask anyone in the industry they will tell you the same exact thing.

Windows XP and Windows 7 are good versions of Windows and 8 could be good but it has to get rid of the damn Metro UI.

Well, personally, i wasn't a big Vista fan, but there are some Vista fans out there.

My brother was hired by Microsoft as part of their Vista roll-out crew - marketing & stuff. Said all they ever did was go to meetings & basically, do nothing. He left after a year.

The one feature that Vista had was the built-in speech recognition. after calibration (for the user's voice), it had features comparable to Dragon Naturally Speaking Pro - which went for $700 if you wanted to use it with Windows XP. Vista didn't exactly put the Dragon folks out of business, but it had to have put a dent in their business.

Both Dragon Pro & Vista had good inter-operability with application software, so you could say "File, Open", for example, instead of doing mouse operations to achieve the same end.


I say this typing on a Windows 7 desktop which has been modified to "Classic" which looks like - Windows 2000.

Speaking of which, i've been thinking about trying to install Win2K on some systems. I know Solidworks works fine on it, I would have to test 3D Max 9 etc.


As far as M$' threat to discontinue activation of XP, here is one user's solution -

"But xp requires activation or it'll wipe its self in 30 days. Never done a blank win2k install so I wouldn't know if it did.

I have an xp disc, but I can't read the key.

I just reinstall it every 30 days in a VM.

Takes about 20 mins while I'm doing something else."

from
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1760154.html


Thank God & Linus T. for Linux.

Who do we thank for XP - Bill Gates ?


Just out of curiosity - what was the last Windows OS that Bill G. had significant input on ?
 

sswilson

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
24,652
Location
Moncton NB
Looks like my acer iconia tablet finally has win8 drivers so I'll be taking the plunge (downloading drivers now, will probably backup and install tomorrow). It'll be interesting to see how much of an improvement I see as the cheepo SSD and low end AMD proc made this tablet a bit of a dog.

edit... good thing I requested the free media center when it was available..... ;)
 

sswilson

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
24,652
Location
Moncton NB
Just a quick revisit of the "why do you need a Start button, just use the search function" argument.....

I just installed a program called Ashampoo to burn ISOs with (for whatever reason, windows ISO burning has been broken in win7 for ages). I will only use it every now and then, and certainly don't want to have it in my face all of the time, but when the time comes that I want to use it, the chances of me being able to remember that my freeware ISO burning program is called Ashampoo are pretty close to zero.

This highlights exactly why I want/need a standard start button for launching applications on a desktop PC.
 

ccm001

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
196
Location
Halifax
Just a quick revisit of the "why do you need a Start button, just use the search function" argument.....

I just installed a program called Ashampoo to burn ISOs with (for whatever reason, windows ISO burning has been broken in win7 for ages). I will only use it every now and then, and certainly don't want to have it in my face all of the time, but when the time comes that I want to use it, the chances of me being able to remember that my freeware ISO burning program is called Ashampoo are pretty close to zero.

This highlights exactly why I want/need a standard start button for launching applications on a desktop PC.

Something similar happenned to me today. I wanted to watch a (downloaded) movie on my TV, couldn't find any usb sticks and couldn't be bothered unhooking any of my hdmi cables. So I remembered that I had a program on my laptop that would stream to my Samsung TV. COuldn't remember the name of it, but looked under my start bar - prgrams, and lo and behold I remembered it when I saw "Allshare". I haven't used it in probably over a year because I usually just use usb sticks. How would I even know to search for allshare when I couldn't remember the name?
 

sswilson

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
24,652
Location
Moncton NB
Heh.... I'm only 25 minutes into a fresh win8 install on my acer iconia W500 and I'm already just about ready to toss it out of the window attempting to get the metro music app to recognise the music I've got installed on an SSD drive (sees it as an external so won't let me call it a library). Honestly, I probably would have taken it back to the store by now.... ;)
 

MacJunky

Well-known member
Joined
May 14, 2007
Messages
1,849
Location
Grande Cache, AB
When I tossed an Intel 330 240GB into my HP DV4 a few days ago I also installed Windows 8... but I set it up and use it as if it were the previous windows 7 install. :p
Start8, custom theme, etc.

Though to be fair I also had a custom theme installed in windows 7 to remove some of the crud in aero glass(the diagonal white stripes for one example) And in windows 7 I also used StartKiller. I like the start /menu/ in Win7 but not so much the start button.
 

sswilson

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
24,652
Location
Moncton NB
When I tossed an Intel 330 240GB into my HP DV4 a few days ago I also installed Windows 8... but I set it up and use it as if it were the previous windows 7 install. :p
Start8, custom theme, etc.

Though to be fair I also had a custom theme installed in windows 7 to remove some of the crud in aero glass(the diagonal white stripes for one example) And in windows 7 I also used StartKiller. I like the start /menu/ in Win7 but not so much the start button.

I refuse to install a third party start button for basic functionality so if it really ends up being that much of a pain I'll just revert back to the original win7 install. It's both touch screen and I've got a keyboard/mouse so it'll give me a chance to see if it shines one way or the other.

I have to say though... it's not amazing me yet with it's ease of use. I've already hit several screens which wouldn't go away unless I used the windows button on the keyboard which kinda defeats the purpose of having a touch screen.

Oh... and the suggestion to use the windows button in place of the start button is bogus... all that does is switch between the desktop and metro views.
 

Latest posts

Top