Windows 7 ?

[AlexThePalex]

From the moment windows comes to life on a computer it says "starting windows" instead of "opening windows" ... if that fundamentally simple and lost opportunity to align the product name with a simple human related operation doesn't tell the full story of Microsoft's incompetence I really don't know what will !!!

Incompetence? I think it's deliberate, a test to weed those who understand Windows is a program and not a means to get fresh air from those of "other" persuasions.

Anyway, Seth asked about the difference between Win 8 and Win 7. Why all the fruity talk?

 

[GaryLaroff]

Addressing Alex’s commonsense comment, here are some differences between Windows 7 and Windows 8.  It needs to be restated that you don’t have to buy new applications as all Windows 7 applications seem to run on Windows 8 and they launch faster.  Even my OCR (optical character recognition) software from the Windows XP days ran well.

To reach its goal of running on a lot more platforms (product types) and not being the bloatware Microsoft is infamous for, Windows 8 is slimmer and lighter than Windows 7.  It launches very fast and shut down is almost immediate.  On the solid state drive (SSD) Ultrabook that I had, Windows powered up in 4 seconds and shut down in 1 second or less.

Windows 8 supports touch displays and was designed around them.  If you are in an environment now or might be in the future with a desktop PC, an Apple Macbook Pro, an iPad, an Android phone and the 82-inch wall touch panel, you won’t have to learn to use five radically different products because Windows 8 runs the same way on all of them.

Unlike the familiar Start Menu and Start button that has been around since 1995 and was difficult to transition to back then, Windows 8 has a Start Screen that fills the display.  Many people like this Tablet approach to getting around the computer.  Some of us don’t.  It is new and is unfortunately the wave of the future.  Just please keep it off my power tools.  We don’t need a Festool Carvex 520 with a Windows 8 interface, Thank you.

On the downside, the computer snaps back and forth between the old-fashioned familiar Desktop and the Tablet mode as needed.

With the Start Screen/Tablet mode, which scrolls indefinitely to the sides as needed, there is a Windows Store, new Windows Apps, News windows you didn’t know you needed, Advertising you didn’t want and can shut down and other Tablet-like goodies.

There are happy improvements that work the way you expect them to: Internet Explorer 10, a new (better) File Explorer, a new Task Manager, you can switch languages on the fly, and there is improved File History and backups.

If you are so inclined, you can modify everything, especially the display ribbon in File Explorer.

Overall, from a Windows 7 follow-on perspective, this is a solid upgrade package to Windows 7 with a healthy change to the Startup screen to support complete Tablet and phone interfaces.  Think of it as a Rotex that works with smaller round pads but now also supports triangular pads.

Gary

 

[semenza]

I tried Windows 8 Professional for a while and what drove me bonkers was the "seamless" jumping back and forth between Metro-apps (the ipad-like ones) and the normal Desktop apps. You click a picture in your email and **wham** your thrown into the Metro picture viewer app. It takes pointing at the corner, waiting for the menu to appear, navigate to the main screen by a click and another click to get back to the desktop view from that darn picture viewer.

I found this jumping from one UI consept to another very disorienting even though I use iOS devices daily for my mobile computing needs and Windows 7 computers both at work and home for all other need.

Another issue that really put me off was that virtually every application that I own would have needed another upgrade to a newer version just to 'support' Windows 8 i.e. with a fully licensed computer with the likes of Adobe CS Suite in it adds really quickly to more money in license upgrades than the whole computer.

Ergo I ended up hunting down one of the last Windows 7 Home Premium to Ultimate Anytime upgrade kits from Amazon (not available as an online purchase in my region) to be able to utilize my new computers 32GB of RAM and have a known good computing environment with my currently just fine and licensed apps in Windows 7.

It is becoming really hard to get a Win7 computer or package anymore since M$ is pushing 8 with all its marketing might. Also of note is that only the Windows 8 PROFESSIONAL version is elegible for a version downgrade - the basic one isn't.

If Mac Pro's weren't so exorbitantly expensive I would have moved to a one for my photo & video editing needs but as it stands I still have to fool around with Windows and a self built machine. It is the last Windows computer in the house - all others have been replaced with Macs.

So it jumps back and forth between "regular" and tablet mode without me telling it to?   

If I open my picture program and start using it, Win 8 will decide to change it to tablet mode???  At random????

Seth

 

[GaryLaroff]

So it jumps back and forth between "regular" and tablet mode without me telling it to? 

If I open my picture program and start using it, Win 8 will decide to change it to tablet mode???  At random?Huh?

Seth

No.  If you are in Tablet mode and click the square picture icon for your picture program, it will jump to the Desktop mode and open the picture program in a window and stay there.

If you are in Desktop mode and call up Settings or some other O/S items that have been rewritten to run only in Tablet Mode, it will go to the Tablet Mode.  You can get to the display settings this way via the  Settings Charm and I think it will take you to the display settings in Tablet Mode.  But, if you are old fashioned like me and right click on the background in Display Mode, it will bring up the display settings on the Desktop.  Microsoft Office and CorelDraw never brought me back to Tablet mode.

I can think of no time when there was a reason for the computer to change to Tablet Mode while in any application.  It is more likely that you will be in Tablet Mode and will click on a button to launch an application and that the application will launch on the Desktop.  If you are doing work on the Desktop, you seem to need to intentionally go back to the Tablet mode.  Similarly in Windows 7, I have to intentionally click the Start button but most of what I choose in that mode will close the Start window, go back to the regular screen and open the application.

For a corporate or application user, Windows 8 is more expansive and does some things in a new and therefore strange way, but it does not work stupidly.

Gary

 

[rrmccabe]

Windows 8 is working great for me once I installed "Classic Start menu"

Before that I hated it !

 

[Kev]

From the moment windows comes to life on a computer it says "starting windows" instead of "opening windows" ... if that fundamentally simple and lost opportunity to align the product name with a simple human related operation doesn't tell the full story of Microsoft's incompetence I really don't know what will !!!

Incompetence? I think it's deliberate, a test to weed those who understand Windows is a program and not a means to get fresh air from those of "other" persuasions.

Anyway, Seth asked about the difference between Win 8 and Win 7. Why all the fruity talk?

Fruit? - or a way of expressing my feelings on how the user experience doesn't seem to be a Microsoft prime directive??

Anyway, Windows 8 as a desktop/laptop OS is less friendly and more confusing out of the box than 7 ... I'll go with "deliberate incompetence" then.

 

[semenza]

So little update. Got a new computer with Win 8.  Yeah it has some quirks but it is basically Win 7 with added stuff. A little internet searching reveals some "fixes" for the annoying things. Haven't implemented them yet.  Funny though some of the look and layout things that I don't really like as much are actually a change in 7 not 8.  All in all I don't find it to be horrible.  For me it will just take a little customizing  and getting used to.

Thanks for the input.

Seth

 

[Kev]

So little update. Got a new computer with Win 8.  Yeah it has some quirks but it is basically Win 7 with added stuff. A little internet searching reveals some "fixes" for the annoying things. Haven't implemented them yet.  Funny though some of the look and layout things that I don't really like as much are actually a change in 7 not 8.   All in all I don't find it to be horrible.  For me it will just take a little customizing  and getting used to.

Thanks for the input.

Seth

I'm using 7 at the office ... OSX everywhere else. I did stop short of installing an OSX theme  [smile]

Seems China have just endorsed Ubuntu ... the way things are going, we should probably be learning both Ubuntu and Mandarin [blink]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/23/china-chooses-ubuntu-for-a-national-reference-os-coming-in-april/

 

[delpi767]

If you decide on Windows 7 (which I highly recommend) don't go to a retail channel and pay out the nose.  Go to somewhere like Newegg and buy an OEM version, for example,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992.

NewEgg;s price for Windows 7 professional is $265 the OEM version is $139.00

While you are at it, save yourself some headache and buy a second HDD for windows 7.  In the long run you will be far better off.

 

[semenza]

If you decide on Windows 7 (which I highly recommend) don't go to a retail channel and pay out the nose.  Go to somewhere like Newegg and buy an OEM version, for example,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992.

NewEgg;s price for Windows 7 professional is $265 the OEM version is $139.00

While you are at it, save yourself some headache and buy a second HDD for windows 7.  In the long run you will be far better off.

Hi,

Welcome to the FOG!  [smile]

Currently using the Win 8 that came on the computer. There are annoying things I don't like , most of the work arounds seem involved or not permanent and not worth the trouble. The annoyances are just that ....  annoyances, not huge problems so I decided to just live with it. The other thing I discovered is that Win 7 has things I don't like  too which carried over to Win 8.

Seth