My first win8 experience

[Mem]

snip

The key word is personally...

What is a molehill for you is in fact a mountain for some other users... maybe a lot actually considering the amount of tech hobbyists who seem to know about the startmenu replacements for windows 8.

It works for you and that's great but some other people prefer the way they're used to working with an MS OS they way it worked in general for 10+ years.

We all have personal opinions and I can respect that,bottom line nobody is force to upgrade,if you want to stay on XP,Vista/Win7 or whatever that's fine,if you refuse to adapt to any new OS or changes you don't like that's fine,operating systems change and stop for no-one(regardless of opinions).

I'm old timer and nothing phases me with operating systems regardless of Linux or Windows,end of the day it's just an OS to me like all the previous ones and also new ones due down the road.

 

[blankslate]

if you want to stay on XP,Vista/Win7 or whatever that's fine,if you refuse to adapt to any new OS or changes you don't like that's fine,operating systems change and stop for no-one(regardless of opinions).

I'm waiting for 8.1 it's my preference to wait for the first service pack (8.1 as a SP is just an imperfect analogy here of course) of an OS before upgrading. I'd experimented with 8.0 and the interface did not seem as refined as the 7 interface was after being built on the experience gleaned from previous versions of the start menu ui. Switching back and forth between the desktop just felt kinda clunky

if you refuse to adapt to any new OS or changes you don't like that's fine

nice dig btw. However...

I hear good things about 8.1 and I believe from what I've seen and read that the 8.1 UI refinements make it a better representation of what they were aiming for. Something I'm more willing to work with although I'm sure I'll still use a start menu replacement for 8.1 at least some of the time.

 

[Mem]

I'm waiting for 8.1 it's my preference to wait for the first service pack of an OS before upgrading. I'd experimented with 8.0 and the interface did not seem as refined as the 7 interface was after being built on the experience gleaned from previous versions of the start menu ui. Switching back and forth between the desktop just felt kinda clunky



nice dig btw. However...

I hear good things about 8.1 and I believe from what I've seen and read that the 8.1 UI is a better representation of what they were aiming for.

It was not a dig actually,but as usual some people take things the wrong way,I did see an interesting post in a different forum,this is the quote,

Never really understood why win8 got so much hate. If it were because of something like missing shadow copy i might be able to understand it but its always the same things over and over which is simply not true if you sit down and learn the OS. Its just as easy and fast if not faster to multitask in Win 8, drivers are not an issue cause if its missing a specific win 8 driver you can always install a win 7 driver instead which will work 99% of the time and the start menu while taking up the entire screen(i can understand why this might be annoying for some) lets you access the apps you want faster than the old start menu simply because it is easier to customize what programs you want it to show instead of the old river of folders to sort through.

The lesson to be learned would be: Learn everything about the OS before you complain about its so called flaws, cause in most cases its a "PEBCAK" situation.

I agree with most of it,it's important to learn the OS before you point out its faults,this goes for any OS,not saying anybody here has not bothered to learn the OS in question.

As to Win8.1 I'll be one of the first to upgrade just like Win9 ,10 etc...

Btw it'll give some people something new to moan about .

 

[blankslate]

I agree with most of it,it's important to learn the OS before you point out its faults,this goes for any OS,not saying anybody here has not bothered to learn the OS in question.

I spent a couple of evenings with Win8 and it didn't seem to have any advantage over previous versions. I made an effort to find things with just the mouse and resorted to windows key and typing the name of what I was looking for if I didn't find it in under a minute.

Maybe I didn't spend enough time with it but picking up win7 after XP then vista was just faster (for me) and more satisfying.
However, the refinements to the ui in 8.1 might make it as satisfying for me to move from win 7 SP1 to Win8.1 as moving from Vista to win7 SP 1 was.

It was not a dig actually

Like you said...

We all have personal opinions

Perception is reality and all that.

As for the river of folders mentioned in that quote.... a little thought about the program when you install it can help with that.

My start menu beyond the recently used programs has them categorized. Internet Programs, Utilities, Security etc.

Even if I totally blank on the name of the program I'm looking fact that I put a little though into the organization of my start menu means that find what I'm looking for very quickly because I took the time to organize the start menu in a way lets me find things without much effort.

 

[Mem]

I spent a couple of evenings with Win8 and it didn't seem to have any advantage over previous versions. I made an effort to find things with just the mouse and resorted to windows key and typing the name of what I was looking for if I didn't find it in under a minute.

Maybe I didn't spend enough time with it but picking up win7 after XP then vista was just faster (for me) and more satisfying.
However, the refinements to the ui in 8.1 might make it as satisfying for me to move from win 7 SP1 to Win8.1 as moving from Vista to win7 SP 1 was.

Like you said...

Perception is reality and all that.

It took me two weeks to learn Win8 and find it natural(without the old start button,I did add shutdown etc to Win+X menu),learning curve is higher then previous operating systems but like any OS pays off if you stick with it,Win8.1 has some nice new features and I look forward to customising Metro even further(never thought I would say that).

Metro I just made my own columns(one for games,my software etc) and added programs I use,old desktop UI I stick important stuff either on Win+x or taskbar,simple and no need for the old start menu plus my old desktop is still clean.

Old start button menu was limited in pinning,now I can make different columns etc and tiles.
I'm actually bit bored with Win8 now so Win8.1 will be something new for awhile.

Anyway I really more interested in what Microsoft will do with Win9,can't wait to see.

 

[blankslate]

That's the thing.

why make a person familiar with OSes take two weeks to learn a new paradigm that hasn't seemed to increase the usage of Win8 phone that much? (so far at least)

Now think about the person who isn't a computer enthusiast learning the new ui.

For example people who just use computers to browse the internet or as a work tool and doesn't even give a thought to customizing or tweaking their PC (and therefore could be reasonably expected to take longer to learn a new ui)... their productivity would go down at work until they learned the new OS...

At least MS listened and are making an effort to refine Metro.

Rightly or wrongly there isn't a question of why a lot of people complained about the UI change... it's not as if the ui changes were required for the under the hood improvements in the OS.

Metro I just made my own columns(one for games,my software etc) and added programs I use,old desktop UI I stick important stuff either on Win+x or taskbar,simple and no need for the old start menu plus my old desktop is still clean.

That just doesn't seem to be radically different than organizing folders in the Win7 start menu for easy access to what the user needs.
Maybe 8.1 will be better than win8 and win7...

 

[Mem]

That's the thing.

why make a person familiar with OSes take two weeks to learn a new paradigm that hasn't seemed to increase the usage of Win8 phone that much? (so far at least)

Now think about the person who isn't a computer enthusiast learning the new ui.

For example people who just use computers to browse the internet or as a work tool and doesn't even give a thought to customizing or tweaking their PC (and therefore could be reasonably expected to take longer to learn a new ui)... their productivity would go down at work until they learned the new OS...

At least MS listened and are making an effort to refine Metro.

Rightly or wrongly there isn't a question of why a lot of people complained about the UI change... it's not as if the ui changes were required for the under the hood improvements in the OS.

Operating systems do change,you only have to look at Microsoft from DOS days,Win3.1,Win95,Win8 etc not to mention Linux distros.

The home user has a choice they decide what they want,office worker gets paid and has to adapt within the office environment and use the tools their company uses etc...


I said two weeks and most of that was getting use without the old start button menu,18 years of doing something same way takes awhile to change even if you are willing.
Anyway as I stated we all have a choice,but operating systems do change sooner or later just like hardware changes.

Win8 is their first hybrid OS that covers all hardware so in a way bound to have some flaws,something they can work on just like from Win95 to Win7,Win95 UI has had 18 years of fine tuning for desktop PCs,Win8 is a new direction for them.

 

[blankslate]

Win8 is their first hybrid OS that covers all hardware so in a way bound to have some flaws

Yeah they do and these flaws are the pretty much the first in a long time in which most of the complaints seem to be the ui flaws rather than piss poor performance and/or crashes. Vista and ME being the prime examples.

As I've stated I don't believe that the UI changes improve the efficiency of the user over the last iteration of the start menu ui scheme found in Win7 especially given the clunkyness of 8.0

The home user has a choice they decide what they want,office worker gets paid and has to adapt within the office environment and use the tools their company uses etc...

While this is true home users who needed a new pc because the old one failed and was not cost effective to repair this might leave them stuck using 8 and if they know someone who they turn to for the "hey buddy" tech support then the ui changes affect home users to some extent.

operating systems do change sooner or later

While this is true, to me no solid evidence has been shown that Metro is a definite improvement over the previous startmenu ui. More likely it was an attempt to leverage the desktop market share to improve mobile OS share...

They're free to do that, of course, but to me the complaints about the OS indicate they should have refined the metro ui until it was at the stage 8.1 seems to be before release. Even if there was a delay. That might've made the adoption rate much better than the almost as bad as Vista rates they've had for the first 6 months or so after release.

It's why I do the wait a year or until the first service pack... which if the number system continues will become wait until the x.1.0 release of an MS new release. Win 8.1 might just convince me to adopt the new OS sooner than later.

 

[balloonshark]

~snip~
I agree on the tile size and the corner stuff. Since 8.1 is introducing a quarter size (1/4 of current smallest size), that shouldn't be an issue now haha. I changed default photo-viewer to Irfan first chance I got - but I already did that on 7/XP too, so nothing new there. Having to swipe down to close full-apps is a bit weird, but hey - people learned to use Office pre and post-Ribbon. *Oops, WinX menu also adds Shutdown and restart in 8.1. TBH, I had no idea you could 'right-click' in the bottom left corner, as this is already in the current Win8 - guess I'm still learning
~snip~

That is good that there will be one size smaller tile but it is a drop in a bucket compared to what any launcher app can do on Android. If they were going to rob us of our start menu they should have put more effort into making the replacement more useful/customizable.

I just don't get this fascination with a touch screen for a PC. I figured we would talking to our computers by now instead of raising our arms up and away from our precision laser mouse pointing device. It would be so much easier to say "PC Start Firefox" or whatever. I would call mine Hal 9000 :biggrin:.

I just priced 23" and 24" touchscreens . I think a mic would be cheaper...

 

[Mem]

Yeah they do and these flaws are the pretty much the first in a long time in which most of the complaints seem to be the ui flaws rather than piss poor performance and/or crashes. Vista and ME being the prime examples.

As I've stated I don't believe that the UI changes improve the efficiency of the user over the last iteration of the start menu ui scheme found in Win7 especially given the clunkyness of 8.0

While this is true home users who needed a new pc because the old one failed and was not cost effective to repair this might leave them stuck using 8 and if they know someone who they turn to for the "hey buddy" tech support then the ui changes affect home users to some extent.


While this is true, to me no solid evidence has been shown that Metro is a definite improvement over the previous startmenu ui. More likely it was an attempt to leverage the desktop market share to improve mobile OS share...

They're free to do that, of course, but to me the complaints about the OS indicate they should have refined the metro ui until it was at the stage 8.1 seems to be before release. Even if there was a delay. That might've made the adoption rate much better than the almost as bad as Vista rates they've had for the first 6 months or so after release.

It's why I do the wait a year or until the first service pack... which if the number system continues will become wait until the x.1.0 release of an MS new release. Win 8.1 might just convince me to adopt the new OS sooner than later.

Every OS has flaws even Win7 and that's with 18 years of refinement over Win95,Metro works very well for touch/tablets etc and obviously a lot easier to use then the old start button menu on those devices due to being easy to use and nice large icons etc it's not bad with mouse and keyboard on a desktop PC IMHO,it's also fair to say both Metro and old start button menu have flaws.

I think Win9 will see refinements in Metro and some refinements for the desktop user as well,problem is desktop users are no longer the main focus like in the old days,hardware has expanded ,desktop users in some ways being less important over time.

The issue or problem for Microsoft is to balance their next OS for desktop/tablet,phone,touch users etc,you can guess not an easy thing to do,making just a desktop OS is easy,problem is desktop is only fraction of modern hardware and Microsoft want a peice of the whole cake if you like so hybrid OS seems to be their focus, a hybrid OS will change and evolve over time.

We could argue all day on efficiency and that's really down to the user in question and how they use their OS.


We live in modern times so it's reasonable to assume most things will change and we either can adapt to those changes or stay in the past,regardless of what we think etc...

Anyway the ball is in Win9 court so we will have to see what that brings.

It's why I do the wait a year or until the first service pack... which if the number system continues will become wait until the x.1.0 release of an MS new release. Win 8.1 might just convince me to adopt the new OS sooner than later.

I never wait,normally playing with beta version etc ,jumped on Win95,98,XP,Vista,7,8 soon as they were released(9 will be the same),I have a few spare PCs that I use for beta testing too,this post is being typed on my Linux Mint PC,so it's fair to say I'm quite versatile and adaptable with regards to operating systems even in my old age of 50+ .

blankslate it's nice to have a friendly debate without personal attacks like from some other members, I should thank ViRGE for keeping this thread clean and on track as well.

 

[Mem]

So why are the ratings so high for Windows 7, if happy users don't write reviews?

I don't bother with OS review ratings(preference thing),about the only reviews/ratings I do are PC games.

Win8 is quite positive with some sites,OcUK forums for example,

Yes I paid £25 and havent looked back. i really cant see why people have an issue with it. In less than a week you'll know your way around it perfectly fine.

Got Windows 8 running in a couple of htpc's and they are perfectly fine although I still prefer Windows 7 on my main machine.

I bought the Win 8 pro upgrade after I was told that I could use it across multiple machines (i.e. I upgrade). £25 + free media pack, brilliant. I still prefer Win 7 tbh, but Win 8 is alright, nothing really bad about it once you get your around some changes.

Win 8 is an awesome OS, I really dont get the hate train - especially from people that have never tried it on their home machines.

Pointless thread. If you had pre-ordered it you could have got it dirt cheap. Also you can still buy it at a fraction of the price you are quoting.

Windows 8 is actually a good OS, i've grown to like it.

Plenty like that,I guess its fair to say you'll find good and bad comments for any OS,sure I could post a lot of negative ones as well but end of the day plenty of users on both sides of the fence,even mac users,

I like Windows 7 but I like OSX better so I got a mac and used bootcamp with Windows 7 so it duel boots.

 

[orthancstone]

While this is true, to me no solid evidence has been shown that Metro is a definite improvement over the previous startmenu ui. More likely it was an attempt to leverage the desktop market share to improve mobile OS share...

They're free to do that, of course, but to me the complaints about the OS indicate they should have refined the metro ui until it was at the stage 8.1 seems to be before release. Even if there was a delay. That might've made the adoption rate much better than the almost as bad as Vista rates they've had for the first 6 months or so after release.

In response to the first part, the evidence isn't in Metro itself but rather in OSX/iOS. Microsoft is attempting to replicate the folder/applications structure of Apple's operating systems and they did a fairly good job of it. Eliminate the crap (each application in its own folder with uninstall and help documents and other garbage taking up visual space by default) and let the application itself take precedence. Some people like their big index card list of programs instead, but I fail to see why.

As for the second half of the quote, you are being too generous to the consumer half of this argument. Fact is, no amount of delays or tweaking was going to change the prevailing opinion that Windows 8 was too much change at once. Windows 8 was doomed to poor sales performance by consumer opinion long before release. It got slapped with the "Vista-like" failure badge and delays were not going to solve the problem.

 

[blankslate]

In response to the first part, the evidence isn't in Metro itself but rather in OSX/iOS. Microsoft is attempting to replicate the folder/applications structure of Apple's operating systems and they did a fairly good job of it. Eliminate the crap (each application in its own folder with uninstall and help documents and other garbage taking up visual space by default) and let the application itself take precedence. Some people like their big index card list of programs instead, but I fail to see why.

As for the second half of the quote, you are being too generous to the consumer half of this argument. Fact is, no amount of delays or tweaking was going to change the prevailing opinion that Windows 8 was too much change at once. Windows 8 was doomed to poor sales performance by consumer opinion long before release. It got slapped with the "Vista-like" failure badge and delays were not going to solve the problem.

You're probably right that MS was aping Apple but it doesn't change the fact that the sales of MS phone win8 or other mobile Win Machines have sold all that well so far. As for Win8 it's just passing the market share of Vista.

As for the index cards of programs, as stated before a little thought to organization makes the list very manageable if I have to go into there.

The recent programs menu is 98% of the time the farthest I have to go to start up anything as most of the stuff I use is either on the taskbar or in recent programs.


As for being too generous to the consumer? Well, it has for a long time been a rule of thumb for a decent thunk of MS users to wait until some time has passed since the initial release of a new operating system to move to it.

As for no amount of delay would have kept consumers from being upset with the ui change. I agree however I do think the uproar would've been a quieter from what I have seen of the 8.1 preview.

It got slapped with the Vista like failure because the ui put off enough people that it sold miserably in the first few months... compared with its predecessor.

It did get slapped with failure because of slow or buggy performance like Vista did.

 

[blankslate]

I have a few spare PCs that I use for beta testing too,this post is being typed on my Linux Mint PC,so it's fair to say I'm quite versatile and adaptable with regards to operating systems even in my old age of 50+

I think your experience is why you're more likely than a casual user to adapt better and like to adopt beta versions of OSes. Right now I'm guessing that you have a good amount of experience with the command line interface. Most casual users probably don't.

I don't use Beta OSes I have a couple of spare systems and the one that isn't being used at the moment will get Win8.1 put on it after it is released to the public. Just to see how well it works on rather old hardware.