Moving on or staying with Windows ?

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by BlackOmega

I think I'm going to give 8 a shot. I'll "upgrade" an XP machine I have. I'm still keeping 7 on my main machine. And just for shits and giggles, I'll give Linux a shot too.

Use Virtual Box or something unless you have extra hard drives.

Originally Posted by lyndonguitar

sticking to 7 but may use windows 8 for "testing purposes",

hopefully 9 will come and will be good like 7/XP.

Yeah, fine...though I have a feeling your "testing" may change your mind about what "good" means exactly.

[Am*]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

Sticking to Windows 7 till MS finally wises up.

LOL good luck with that. In 2 years time, you're going to be singing a different tune, when Microsoft will unveil their next OS codenamed "Fisher-Price" with a user interface consisting of nothing but a giant Xbox button, and you will swear by using nothing but Windows 8.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

Sticking to Windows 7 till MS finally wises up.

What does this even mean exactly? Wise up how? People really need to get over the UI changes, man. As if you can't customize it (surely more and more as time goes on), to boot.

Besides, as much as it sucks for us, you and I are not at all their target market anymore going forward. Much better this than no Windows at all because everybody else has an iPad or Android and MS dropped the ball again and could not keep up with the times (like what happened with the Web explosion).

Fact is, they have wised up. Enjoy living in the 2000s.

[Naito]

Microsoft has invested too much into this new vision for Windows, so it's here to stay for the foreseeable future. You may as well jump on Windows 8 now and get accustomed to it. That, or stick with Win7 until it's as stale as XP is now. Only other alternative is to use a different OS altogether.

[Naito]

Originally Posted by [H]@RD5TUFF

Personally if I have to re-learn Windows in Windows 8, I'd just as soon learn a new OS all together.

The learning curve is really only dependent on how you want to actually use the OS. If you want to use all the new 'Metro' apps, there is a few gestures you have to learn, that's about it. Personally, I just use the new 'Start Screen' as a giant 'Quick Launch' Panel; I unpin most of the 'metro' apps (but leave calender, weather, etc for live tile info), and then pin all my most used programs, i.e. firefox, steam, etc. As for the annoyance of the Start screen popping up full screen, usually you are in and out quickly anyway; just like Win7, press Start key, start typing, press enter, get program. This, however, is less annoying for dual-monitor setups, as you can dedicate a screen for it to open on, and other various options.

The other main thing that bugs me, is the amount of presses it takes to power off the system (without using Alt+F4); bring mouse to bottom right corner, click Settings, click Power, then click Shut down.

Apart from the above mention (from my experience) it's pretty much Windows 7. Of course, this may raise the question; why bother upgrading? Well, SSD support has been improved, even better resource management than Win7 (mostly RAM usage), and is generally faster and snappier all-round.

Oh, and I also miss the sidebar, but I guess I will eventually create my own Rainmeter suite, so not a big loss.

EDIT: Would also like to mention, Windows 8 is quite enjoyable to use on my Ultrabook with a capacitive touchpad. Asus have done well with Smart Gesture, so you can slide your finger from right edge for Charms bar, left edge to switch open apps/program, three-finger drag downwards for Desktop, plus more.

I have attached a [possibly?] helpful wallpaper below. Only thing not really mentioned was that you can right-click on Start screen for 'All apps' view.

[BlackOmega]

Originally Posted by Wrigleyvillain

Use Virtual Box or something unless you have extra hard drives.
.

I have like 4 machines and hard drives coming out the wazoo.

[Random Murderer]

Considering W8 has that shitty metro theme and no new DirectX, I'll keep my W7 Ultimate, thank you. Also, Money$oft has said they will continue support of W7 through 2020, and at the rate we're going now we'll have at least two new versions of Windows(not including 8) by then.
Hell, I have a PC that still runs 98. There's nothing wrong with running an older OS if it still suits the needs of that PC.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Originally Posted by Random Murderer

Hell, I have a PC that still runs 98. There's nothing wrong with running an older OS if it still suits the needs of that PC.

Of course not though turning up your nose at this entire release mainly due to the UI is silly and shortsighted. And that's what the majority of the detractors seem to be doing...

[AlienIsGOD]

for $40 for Pro upgrade, i'll use my old XP sp3 copy and upgrade from that for my kids PC :P

[Random Murderer]

Originally Posted by Wrigleyvillain

Of course not though turning up your nose at this entire release mainly due to the UI is silly and shortsighted. And that's what the majority of the detractors seem to be doing...

It's not just the UI. There isn't really anything that appeals to me about 8 other than it being newer. I'm sure the UI can be customized and maybe even look like Aero, but there's no new DirectX, no major performance enhancements over 7, AFAIK the great built-in virtual machine from 7 is still the same... There is absolutely nothing about 8 that even entices me slightly into upgrading. Frankly, the drivers for the HD7k series have just hit maturity for 7 in the past two or so months, so what's to make me think the 8 drivers for anything, not just GPUs, won't take at least a few months to mature? And again, 7 will be officially supported through 2020, long after we see at least Windows 9(or whatever they decide to call it.)
I foresee this being another Vista, nothing but a facelift and a few cool gadgets(although Vista did bring about DX10.)
For tablets and the like, it could be a great success, but in the PC sector I look at it as more of a novelty. A novelty that I will not be taking part of.

Of course, I cannot speak for others. Some may love it, and others may downright hate it for the UI. I do agree that hating it simply for the UI is shortsighted.

[Wrigleyvillain]

This is *so* not another Vista. That shit was literally not ready for release due to poor driver and overall third-party and vendor support/readiness, for starters...

[phanbuey]

i like the minimalist ui... i kind of wish OSX was a bit more mininal to be honest...

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Random Murderer

AFAIK the great built-in virtual machine from 7 is still the same...

Windows 8 has Hyper-V doesn't it?

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by Am*

LOL good luck with that. In 2 years time, you're going to be singing a different tune, when Microsoft will unveil their next OS codenamed "Fisher-Price" with a user interface consisting of nothing but a giant Xbox button, and you will swear by using nothing but Windows 8.

Originally Posted by Wrigleyvillain

What does this even mean exactly? Wise up how? People really need to get over the UI changes, man. As if you can't customize it (surely more and more as time goes on), to boot.

Besides, as much as it sucks for us, you and I are not at all their target market anymore going forward. Much better this than no Windows at all because everybody else has an iPad or Android and MS dropped the ball again and could not keep up with the times (like what happened with the Web explosion).

Fact is, they have wised up. Enjoy living in the 2000s.

Thats the only thing, UI is very clunky, and yes ive used it before it seems to be very task impeding. Put the "Classic UI", perhaps after SP1 ill give it another try, but not currently. I might just skip 8 to 9.

Im fine with Windows 7 as it works, it was a major improvement overall over 2000, xp, vista. It to me seems to be faster than 98 SE even in boot and application start.

[Crap Daddy]

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

I might just skip 8 to 9.

Unfortunately they are not going back. Unless mobile becomes obsolete overnight, touch will not be trendy anymore and people are getting back to their desktops this ain't gonna happen.

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Crap Daddy

Unfortunately they are not going back. Unless mobile becomes obsolete overnight, touch will not be trendy anymore and people are getting back to their desktops this ain't gonna happen.

If Windows 8 bombs they probably will go "back"

[Wrigleyvillain]

I just don't see that happening. Even if it technically bombed with people "like us". And more and more desktop enthusiasts seem to be coming around...

[Delta6326]

Well looks like I was wrong I'm D/L'ing W8 right now($15) and just got done installing Mint 13 Cinnamon lol its a day of OS trying.

[Aquinus]

I'm not sure if I want to plunge my rig into Windows 8 yet. I want to see what the masses have to say about usability, performance, and stability. So far AFAICT performance is no more or less impressive than 7. I may consider switching if it is more stable, but that is the only thing is is going to make or break it for me. I'm sure I'll eventually upgrade to 8, but the real question is will I bet doing it now or waiting for the first service pack.

All of my linux "machines" are VMs utilizing the best VT-x and VT-d have to offer. They're all Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS x64 VMs and the majority of them run a PHP PostgreSQL Apache2 stack. I have a host-only network I use for SSH and if I need a GUI on the VM, I will start up xming and tunnel the X window through the SSH connection.

[WarEagleAU]

You can configure, mod, change or what have you the Metro (or Windows UI or whatever they call it now as they got rid of the metro name) and have a start button and a bar like on 7. I am keeping 7 on one of my drives and on the other, since I get the software for free (MSDNAA FTW!) putting 8 on it. I love 8 overall. The improvements in file copying, AMD FX processor changes, overall look and feel and snappiness of it is really neat. I do miss my Windows 7 feel though as well. I like 8's type and find function without having to use the mouse to search in the drive folders
Been messing with Ubuntu a bit and now will try another flavor of Linux.

[WarEagleAU]

Originally Posted by Delta6326

Well looks like I was wrong I'm D/L'ing W8 right now($15) and just got done installing Mint 13 Cinnamon lol its a day of OS trying.

How do you like the Mint OS?

[WarEagleAU]

Repman it does and the Charms Bar is actually pretty bad ass. It is even more usable when you have a touchscreen monitor Makes it a bit simpler and gesures/pinchtozoom like on the phones are pretty cool as well. Really this works better for AIOs but I actually do like it a lot.

[Jstn7477]

I personally like Windows 8 and feel that is something "fresh" to use. My parents would use it as well if Quickbooks Pro 2012 worked on it, but all the updates fail. Intuit is still "certifying Quickbooks 2013 for Windows 8" so 2012 user are probably SOL. I use Windows 8 on my desktop and laptop* and it does things well.

The FX-8150, ASRock 990FX Extreme4 and GeForce GT 440 setup I sold to my parents also seemed to crash a few times at stock clocks (bad driver maybe?), but Windows 7 worked fine all day today. My verdict is that it's probably good for home users at the moment (like myself), but if you are using any exotic peripheral devices or are bound to "corporateware" like Quickbooks then you'll probably have problems.

*My Toshiba A665D-S6091 uses an HD 4250 and HD 5650 hybrid graphics setup, and thanks to AMD's driver support decisions this year, the HD 4250 is "unsupported" and I am stuck using 12.3 drivers on both cards or 12.6 on the IGP and 12.3 on the 5650. Any newer driver on the 5650 insta-BSODs the laptop and Windows does the automatic repair crap which really means forced system restore and when trying enough bad drivers you will actually restore your laptop a number of times and have half your programs uninstalled if you don't make restore points. No safe mode is one of the only things I hate about 8, but I suppose if the drivers were better you wouldn't really need it besides malware removal.

In other news, I think Windows 8 is the first Microsoft OS where you can move your existing hard drive to different systems and not have it bitch about hardware changes, as I moved my dying SSD to my laptop for testing and when it accidentally booted up once it said "Preparing Device Software." I think that's neat if it actually works since Linux has already done this forever.

[drdeathx]

I am staying with win98.

[Delta6326]

Originally Posted by WarEagleAU

How do you like the Mint OS?

It works well, haven't really had any problems. Right now I'm mainly using W8