I purchased a new laptop with Win8 in late December, to replace my ancient thing that ran Win2000 (!). Of course, I was fully familiar with later operating systems (XP, Win7) through other computers that I had regular access to.
The difference between Win 7 and Win 8 is profound. If you want a program that will drive you bonkers, Win8 is it! It is VERY different from Win7 and many of the features you expect are absent or located somewhere else. There is no Start button (though due to common complaint Microsoft is thinking of reintroducing that) - there is a Start screen (like a Desktop) which is littered with Tiles (which are the apps). There sometimes don't seem quick ways to access data or other programs. There is no "Find File" aspect (part of the Start button in Win7) or if there is I haven't found it yet. Other familiar features are missing or hard to find.
The Tiles on the Start screen give access to various other programs and come pre-loaded to Wikipedia, Bing, Skype, Skydrive, Google, IE, Messenger, etc and a load of games, photo software and such like. However, these Tiles don't always take you to where you really want to be. I had loads of trouble with the Skype program as (would you believe it!) there is no way to answer an incoming call! (After some months of failures I rummaged around on the Skype website and found this is a common problem and a huge complaint - the solution is to uninstall the app and download the latest desktop version of Skype).
Win8 reads your (Hotmail) address book and tells you lots of things about the people in your address book and has added my Hotmail contacts as contacts in Skype (yeah, I really wanted them to do that...not). It's added stuff in my Facebook account too. You might wonder what info about yourself it is passing to other users. Disgracefully (but secretly in the background) intrusive - though Microsoft would say it's doing everyone a favor.
If you have other older devices you may find they do not work with Win 8. My HP printer does not work and HP does not make a patch for it. Some other manufacturers of printers have made patches. My brand new camera purchased less than 2 weeks ago is set up to download to Win 7 and the viewer program does not work with Win 8, found that out two days ago. The patch/recommended solution doesn't work either. Fortunately I have some other software (pre-installed) that can view the photos. I find viewing photos is hard work just getting round the viewer and making it do what I want. There is a quick link to the Pictures Library but not in a useful way like letting you move easily from one photo to another; you have to go to some other location and set up Picture viewing another way.
I use this computer every day, probably totalling several hours a day. I only have simple requirements and very often wish I'd got a computer loaded with Win 7 instead of Win 8. I don't want or need the extra toys it provides and don't find them helpful - rather, they're intrusive.
There are probably lots of things that Win 8 is good at, does better; however, given what I use my computer for and given the annoyance factor in such longwinded ways of getting to do simple tasks, I'd go for Win 7 if I were buying again. I find if I'm not very careful how I use this computer, I inadvertently bring up the Start screen again and again. There is a Windows button to get out of it. Visitors who have attempted to use my computer often give up.
You might want to arrange a tutorial if you do buy a Win 8 computer. Vendors are keen to promote this new program so may throw a tutorial in for free.
Win 8 will probably be okay once they get all the bugs out of it. You can upgrade to Win 8 from Win 7 (on payment of a fee) but you should be good with Win 7 for some years yet.
I don't think I'll ever be into Win8 as long as the following is true.
Win8 reads your (Hotmail) address book and tells you lots of things about the people in your address book and has added my Hotmail contacts as contacts in Skype (yeah, I really wanted them to do that...not). It's added stuff in my Facebook account too. You might wonder what info about yourself it is passing to other users. Disgracefully (but secretly in the background) intrusive - though Microsoft would say it's doing everyone a favor.
There is a reason I don't put all my business "out there"....I don't think I'll let Win8 do it for me.
I was just drafting something up and used a word not in the standard MS dictionary though not an unusual one. As it's something I might use again, I added it to the dictionary.
I finished the document and have gone to Save it - and up popped a new screen inviting me to send to MS all the words and phrases that Word doesn't recognize.
"Help us to improve our proofing tools. The information listed below is from your use of the spelling checker, grammar checker, thesaurus and hyphenation tool. We want your permission to send these words and phrases to Microsoft. ...the information...is only used to improve our software and services."
The program has been through ALL my documents (inc my old CVs/resumes) and has pulled out British place names (cities, streets etc), names of previous employers, phrases from my CVs - that's just what it's telling me about. While of course the place names can easily be picked up from any street atlas - or even Google maps! - I have to say I am NOT thrilled at a program that nosily pokes around in my documents and then wants to send info to MS or anybody else. Makes you wonder what else is poking around - without saying so - and what info is being extracted and sent who knows where.
Today I sent an email to a friend with a link to a website. I used these words: "Here is a link."
Win 8 does not want to send this without checking with me - looks like I want to send an attachment but there isn't one, should Win 8 send anyway or do I want to add an attachment?
S'pose it might be a good idea, it's all too easy to forget to attach something. I don't know if it's a good thing or not, though. Win 8 is obviously double-checking what I do. And lets me know about it, too.
Will Win 9 or some other later version...actually prevent emails being sent, if it isn't satisfied the sender knows what s/he is doing? :confused:/>
Just curious what you ended up getting. I have Win 8.1 now and totally love it. Of course I avoid everything to do with it's stupid apps, which I have no need for on a PC with a non touchable monitor. There's no way I'm giving up my 28" monitor and losing it's wonderful size just so I can touch a tiny monitor and spend half my day cleaning up fingerprints from it. Heh, *not* my idea of fun. That said .. I LOVE the other stuff win 8 has given me. The graphics of Direct X 11 are so totally cool for the games that are now being made and I'm loving it. Win 8 is also so much faster of an OS than any of the other Windows versions that I've had, but keep in mind I went from Vista to 8 and skipped 7 totally. I have used 7 when working on other peoples' computers, but never did have it myself. I'm rebuilding my computer, as it's been a few years and it's needed to be done for awhile now. LOL, I'm still running an old dual core, 3.0 CPU system here. I think the only part of it I'll end up not replacing will be my power supply and even that may go as it's only a 700 watt and it's being pressed to it's limits in order to push enough power to run just 3 of my 4 hard drives. I will need a new one if I decide to add in the 4th drive full time and not just use it on an occasional basis (when I can turn off one of my huge fans that's extra, thus gaining enough power to run the drive for a short amount of time without doing any damage to anything).
If you are a person who likes apps, then you'll love Win 8. I can't afford them, being on SSI, so I knew from the git go I'd never have use of them and I turned all of them off that I could on day one. LOL. You can also configure your system to boot straight into the desktop, something it doesn't do by default if you aren't aware of that. I found the instructions on the web and they were very easy to follow and do. That was one of the best things I found to help me out and thus I now avoid the app window totally unless I choose to go to it, which I never do.
Other than the Win 8, I've gotten a new video card. I found a good deal on an ATI Radeon 7850. Next I will get a new motherboard, CPU and RAM, then made the decision about the power supply. That will set me up for another few years of gaming fun. Hah, at least I'm honest about what I do most. Anyone who has 4 hard drives 2 small ones each around 250 gig in size, one that's 500 gig and my new one that is 3 T in size. I have one partition I use for programs and one for misc. stuff like pics and videos I see and want to save. The rest is all games that I've gotten thru the years and saved. I never delete games unless they are really that bad and instead have just added more hard drive space as it's been needed. A few of my old games I do have on disc, so they aren't always installed, but the majority I've gotten off the web or via downloading from Steam. Over the years it's added up to where I probably have around 200 games on my system right now and up to 50 more not installed. I need to burn them to a DVD I guess one day, but I'm always afraid the minute I delete anything off the hard drive, the DVD would get destroyed and after losing one hard drive full of games in the past, it's an experience I never want to go thru again. To this day I still haven't been able to find all the games I lost copies of and replaced them.
Last that reminds me, Win 8 doesn't work with all programs. If you have older programs you use daily/often, research it first to make sure that win 8 or now you'd want to check win 8.1 to be exact, can in fact run the program correctly. I've had quite a few of my older games that just totally refuse to work on Win 8. I am thinking of putting win XP back on one of my smaller drives and doing a dual boot once I get totally rebuilt here and then I'll be able to play the other games again when I want to. Just sucks that I have to do that. It's not really win 8, it's Direct X that changed I think I read and if the game/program makers haven't put out a patch, then once you upgrade from Direct X 9 to 10 or 11, some programs no longer work. I've heard that is true with XP, Vista, 7 and 8. So anyone reading this that suddenly finds a program that isn't working, think about upgrades you've done and if one of them was Direct X, then that is probably the problem. You could downgrade and old programs will work again or go to a dual boot system and run two separate Direct X versions that way as I will do and then be able to run everything old and new.
I eventually settled on a Win7. I have plenty of new programs to learn and I thought that that was enough for now. I just bought the box as I want to keep my large monitor too. I don't think it's quite as large as yours, but it suits me fine.
I got a "discount" to spend on any other Dell product at the time of purchase and I now have a 1 terabyte external hard drive so I can keep good backups. A friend got something similar so we'll shoot backup packages to each other. Having backups in the same place as the computer that holds it. As long as the file(s) have nice secure passwords, it's okay that she had them.
I'm glad I started moving, migrating etc when I did as XP won't be supported after April 8. That's what I was running.
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Twinky
I purchased a new laptop with Win8 in late December, to replace my ancient thing that ran Win2000 (!). Of course, I was fully familiar with later operating systems (XP, Win7) through other computers that I had regular access to.
The difference between Win 7 and Win 8 is profound. If you want a program that will drive you bonkers, Win8 is it! It is VERY different from Win7 and many of the features you expect are absent or located somewhere else. There is no Start button (though due to common complaint Microsoft is thinking of reintroducing that) - there is a Start screen (like a Desktop) which is littered with Tiles (which are the apps). There sometimes don't seem quick ways to access data or other programs. There is no "Find File" aspect (part of the Start button in Win7) or if there is I haven't found it yet. Other familiar features are missing or hard to find.
The Tiles on the Start screen give access to various other programs and come pre-loaded to Wikipedia, Bing, Skype, Skydrive, Google, IE, Messenger, etc and a load of games, photo software and such like. However, these Tiles don't always take you to where you really want to be. I had loads of trouble with the Skype program as (would you believe it!) there is no way to answer an incoming call! (After some months of failures I rummaged around on the Skype website and found this is a common problem and a huge complaint - the solution is to uninstall the app and download the latest desktop version of Skype).
Win8 reads your (Hotmail) address book and tells you lots of things about the people in your address book and has added my Hotmail contacts as contacts in Skype (yeah, I really wanted them to do that...not). It's added stuff in my Facebook account too. You might wonder what info about yourself it is passing to other users. Disgracefully (but secretly in the background) intrusive - though Microsoft would say it's doing everyone a favor.
If you have other older devices you may find they do not work with Win 8. My HP printer does not work and HP does not make a patch for it. Some other manufacturers of printers have made patches. My brand new camera purchased less than 2 weeks ago is set up to download to Win 7 and the viewer program does not work with Win 8, found that out two days ago. The patch/recommended solution doesn't work either. Fortunately I have some other software (pre-installed) that can view the photos. I find viewing photos is hard work just getting round the viewer and making it do what I want. There is a quick link to the Pictures Library but not in a useful way like letting you move easily from one photo to another; you have to go to some other location and set up Picture viewing another way.
I use this computer every day, probably totalling several hours a day. I only have simple requirements and very often wish I'd got a computer loaded with Win 7 instead of Win 8. I don't want or need the extra toys it provides and don't find them helpful - rather, they're intrusive.
There are probably lots of things that Win 8 is good at, does better; however, given what I use my computer for and given the annoyance factor in such longwinded ways of getting to do simple tasks, I'd go for Win 7 if I were buying again. I find if I'm not very careful how I use this computer, I inadvertently bring up the Start screen again and again. There is a Windows button to get out of it. Visitors who have attempted to use my computer often give up.
You might want to arrange a tutorial if you do buy a Win 8 computer. Vendors are keen to promote this new program so may throw a tutorial in for free.
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krys
Wow! Thanks Twinky...I really appreciate all that. I'm not ready for that. I appreciate the detailed response.
I'll get a Win7 equipped machine with as much memory as I can pack into it to give me as much of a buffer between me and Win8 as possible.
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Twinky
Krys, I do think you'll be happier with Win 7.
Win 8 will probably be okay once they get all the bugs out of it. You can upgrade to Win 8 from Win 7 (on payment of a fee) but you should be good with Win 7 for some years yet.
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krys
I don't think I'll ever be into Win8 as long as the following is true.
Win8 reads your (Hotmail) address book and tells you lots of things about the people in your address book and has added my Hotmail contacts as contacts in Skype (yeah, I really wanted them to do that...not). It's added stuff in my Facebook account too. You might wonder what info about yourself it is passing to other users. Disgracefully (but secretly in the background) intrusive - though Microsoft would say it's doing everyone a favor.
There is a reason I don't put all my business "out there"....I don't think I'll let Win8 do it for me.
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Twinky
Hey, get this!!
I was just drafting something up and used a word not in the standard MS dictionary though not an unusual one. As it's something I might use again, I added it to the dictionary.
I finished the document and have gone to Save it - and up popped a new screen inviting me to send to MS all the words and phrases that Word doesn't recognize.
"Help us to improve our proofing tools. The information listed below is from your use of the spelling checker, grammar checker, thesaurus and hyphenation tool. We want your permission to send these words and phrases to Microsoft. ...the information...is only used to improve our software and services."
The program has been through ALL my documents (inc my old CVs/resumes) and has pulled out British place names (cities, streets etc), names of previous employers, phrases from my CVs - that's just what it's telling me about. While of course the place names can easily be picked up from any street atlas - or even Google maps! - I have to say I am NOT thrilled at a program that nosily pokes around in my documents and then wants to send info to MS or anybody else. Makes you wonder what else is poking around - without saying so - and what info is being extracted and sent who knows where.
Win 8 ... spyware.
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krys
'll save it the trouble.......my shoe size = 7 1/2.
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WordWolf
I remember when XP was the standard and Vista was released.
There were specific complaints about it, and they usually (IIRC) all centered around
the same thing-the multiple steps to freaking do ANYTHING.
You'd tell it to open a program. It would ask you to confirm you wanted to open the
program, etc.
Microsoft responded to complaints by saying "Well, you'll adjust to it eventually.
After all, you don't have any other alternatives. We're cutting off sales of XP
and you'll be forced to buy Vista.
The public responded to that. Some bought up all the XP computers around to delay
before any conversion. Sales of MACs and Linux computers shot up-IIRC, the sales
overall of both types DOUBLED.
Microsoft responded to that by saying "Don't be so hasty. We meant we're working on
the things you complained about, and we'll have them fixed very soon in Updates."
So, Vista Service Pack 1, basically, was Vista minus the obnoxious things people
complained about. However, since the name "Vista" was tainted by the entire
experience, MS rushed out "Windows 7"-which basically is Vista Service Pack 2.
This solved the tainted name.
Now, MS has come out with a new product which has 2 3 especially obnoxious features:
A) no Start button/menu
B) a mangled Desktop covered with annoying buttons rather than optional icons and folders
C) intrusive programs that "helpfully" spy on each other to make things
"more convenient" for you.
As to the last, you can UN-SELECT that option for your PC anytime you want.
They already promised the return of the Start button, and the option to switch
the new iPad desktop to something a PC could actually use.
Meanwhile, there's perfectly good reasons to not use Microsoft's word processor
program, hotmail, their instant messenger, Internet Explorer, etc.
Even if I let their progams spy on each other, all they'd find is IE used to get
updates, and MS already knows I get their updates.
If I want an IM, there's plenty of options. If I want a browser, there's plenty of
options-other than IE and Chrome, both of which spy on users.
If I want an email account, there's plenty of options. If I want an email client,
I can use Thunderbird rather than Outlook Express.
Generally, I prefer to work around Microsoft, Google, and Facebook- the 3 most
obvious spy networks online.
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Ham
Can you still pull up a DOS prompt on win8?
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WordWolf
According to a quick online search for that which I just did,
there are at least 2 different ways to pull that up without installing anything new,
and at least 1 way to do it after installing some 3rd party program.
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Twinky
Another cuty trick of Win 8.
Today I sent an email to a friend with a link to a website. I used these words: "Here is a link."
Win 8 does not want to send this without checking with me - looks like I want to send an attachment but there isn't one, should Win 8 send anyway or do I want to add an attachment?
S'pose it might be a good idea, it's all too easy to forget to attach something. I don't know if it's a good thing or not, though. Win 8 is obviously double-checking what I do. And lets me know about it, too.
Will Win 9 or some other later version...actually prevent emails being sent, if it isn't satisfied the sender knows what s/he is doing? :confused:/>
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BikerBabe
Just curious what you ended up getting. I have Win 8.1 now and totally love it. Of course I avoid everything to do with it's stupid apps, which I have no need for on a PC with a non touchable monitor. There's no way I'm giving up my 28" monitor and losing it's wonderful size just so I can touch a tiny monitor and spend half my day cleaning up fingerprints from it. Heh, *not* my idea of fun. That said .. I LOVE the other stuff win 8 has given me. The graphics of Direct X 11 are so totally cool for the games that are now being made and I'm loving it. Win 8 is also so much faster of an OS than any of the other Windows versions that I've had, but keep in mind I went from Vista to 8 and skipped 7 totally. I have used 7 when working on other peoples' computers, but never did have it myself. I'm rebuilding my computer, as it's been a few years and it's needed to be done for awhile now. LOL, I'm still running an old dual core, 3.0 CPU system here. I think the only part of it I'll end up not replacing will be my power supply and even that may go as it's only a 700 watt and it's being pressed to it's limits in order to push enough power to run just 3 of my 4 hard drives. I will need a new one if I decide to add in the 4th drive full time and not just use it on an occasional basis (when I can turn off one of my huge fans that's extra, thus gaining enough power to run the drive for a short amount of time without doing any damage to anything).
If you are a person who likes apps, then you'll love Win 8. I can't afford them, being on SSI, so I knew from the git go I'd never have use of them and I turned all of them off that I could on day one. LOL. You can also configure your system to boot straight into the desktop, something it doesn't do by default if you aren't aware of that. I found the instructions on the web and they were very easy to follow and do. That was one of the best things I found to help me out and thus I now avoid the app window totally unless I choose to go to it, which I never do.
Other than the Win 8, I've gotten a new video card. I found a good deal on an ATI Radeon 7850. Next I will get a new motherboard, CPU and RAM, then made the decision about the power supply. That will set me up for another few years of gaming fun.
Hah, at least I'm honest about what I do most. Anyone who has 4 hard drives 2 small ones each around 250 gig in size, one that's 500 gig and my new one that is 3 T in size. I have one partition I use for programs and one for misc. stuff like pics and videos I see and want to save. The rest is all games that I've gotten thru the years and saved. I never delete games unless they are really that bad and instead have just added more hard drive space as it's been needed. A few of my old games I do have on disc, so they aren't always installed, but the majority I've gotten off the web or via downloading from Steam. Over the years it's added up to where I probably have around 200 games on my system right now and up to 50 more not installed. I need to burn them to a DVD I guess one day, but I'm always afraid the minute I delete anything off the hard drive, the DVD would get destroyed and after losing one hard drive full of games in the past, it's an experience I never want to go thru again. To this day I still haven't been able to find all the games I lost copies of and replaced them.
Last that reminds me, Win 8 doesn't work with all programs. If you have older programs you use daily/often, research it first to make sure that win 8 or now you'd want to check win 8.1 to be exact, can in fact run the program correctly. I've had quite a few of my older games that just totally refuse to work on Win 8. I am thinking of putting win XP back on one of my smaller drives and doing a dual boot once I get totally rebuilt here and then I'll be able to play the other games again when I want to. Just sucks that I have to do that. It's not really win 8, it's Direct X that changed I think I read and if the game/program makers haven't put out a patch, then once you upgrade from Direct X 9 to 10 or 11, some programs no longer work. I've heard that is true with XP, Vista, 7 and 8. So anyone reading this that suddenly finds a program that isn't working, think about upgrades you've done and if one of them was Direct X, then that is probably the problem. You could downgrade and old programs will work again or go to a dual boot system and run two separate Direct X versions that way as I will do and then be able to run everything old and new.
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krys
I eventually settled on a Win7. I have plenty of new programs to learn and I thought that that was enough for now. I just bought the box as I want to keep my large monitor too. I don't think it's quite as large as yours, but it suits me fine.
I got a "discount" to spend on any other Dell product at the time of purchase and I now have a 1 terabyte external hard drive so I can keep good backups. A friend got something similar so we'll shoot backup packages to each other. Having backups in the same place as the computer that holds it. As long as the file(s) have nice secure passwords, it's okay that she had them.
I'm glad I started moving, migrating etc when I did as XP won't be supported after April 8. That's what I was running.
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