Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

[Paul Cook Photography]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

One thing that I am unsure of is how to close some of the screens down; for example there is a screen/window that gives access to changing computer settings, it fills the screen and has no minimize, re-size or close buttons. I am able to open the start screen but on looking at the task manager the computer settings screen was still running in the background.
Maybe I should look for some guides on the Microsoft website!?

If you move your cursor over towards the left/top left you will see a tab appear that will display any running apps. You can then right click and close them if you need to

[caimi]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I'm in the "happy with what I have" camp. I have no problems with Windows 7 and wasn't sitting around thinking, "Why can't this or that be improved?" So, I'll wait until all the results are in before switching to Windows 8.

[skids]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I may consider Windows 8 once Service Pack 2 comes out. Win 7 works (most of the time) so I'll stay with that for now.

[David Rayden]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I may consider Windows 8 once Service Pack 2 comes out. Win 7 works (most of the time) so I'll stay with that for now.

I agree on not being an early adopter.

Win7 pulled me back from Linux as the first truly stable OS from MS with good inbuilt security. Will be hard to let it go.

David.

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I had my first experience of Windows 8 today when my friend's new laptop arrived sooner than expected.

And "experience" is the word. I don't know what else I would describe spending half a day just to get something simple done on it.

I'm reasonably computer literate - by that I mean, I can typically find my way around anything given enough time, so long as common sense is involved. After a few hours, I did start to pick up on how Microsoft want us to do things these days, but my friend would not have managed on her own.

She's in her late 60s and is, in her way, competent with computers. She's worked her way through from Windows 3.1, through 95, 98, and onto XP - deciding not to upgrade one of her previous machines to Vista because the Vista bloat crippled the thing. She's the kind of person that, once she knows how to do something, she's as happy as can be but she's not the kind of person that can understand how the computer expects her to do something.

If she'd unboxed that Windows 8 machine on her own I can guarantee to you that she would have turned it in as a bad job and sent it back.

I get that Microsoft are trying to appeal to the younger audience that's into mobile phones, icons, and "apps", but they're doing this by abandoning their traditional user base.

With Windows 8, the gap between "if you're thick, these are your colourful icons" and "if you're intelligent, we've made it more difficult to actually do anything" has widened to a chasm.

Yes, it was great that Windows 8 picked up my two Brother printers without even being asked but it was an absolute nightmare to get it to connect to our HP printer. The HP website pretty much just said "use Windows device manager", while Windows didn't have a driver for it. Much clicking, internet searching, fiddling, guesswork, trial and error, and general "try anything" later did eventually mean I had the printer installed, but what a nightmare! What happened to the days of just visiting the manufacturer's website, download the driver, and install? What, too simple was it?

I'm sure Windows 8 works fine with touchscreens, but on a non-touchscreen laptop it just doesn't. The side bars and horizontal bars seem to jump in willy-nilly and the "icon" screen jumps over the desktop for no reason. That's probably all something to do with the touchpad and "multi-touch gestures" or whatever, but using previous versions of Windows didn't require hidden cryptic gestures and then trying to figure out just what the heck Windows is trying to do.

The laptop also came with no audio driver, so the speakers didn't work. Oddly, the microphone did. Windows "device manager" was of no help. I did find some drivers on the manufacturer's website but, not knowing what sound chip was present meant downloading all that was available in the hope that one would work.

While this new laptop isn't the fastest in the world and it is closer to entry-level than to anything else, it still has hardware specifications that dwarf anything else we have here. How is it that Windows 8 feels so slow all the time? To open anything always results in that swirling little animation. Often I'd click an app which would switch me to the desktop and then nothing would happen for several seconds before whatever I clicked opened up. Why is Windows 8 so slow? Is it that bloated, or is it this extra layer-upon-layer of "metro" design interface?

It seemed like every time I wanted to so something or click an app icon, I was thrown into the "log-in to Microsoft Live ID". And that was fraught with troubles. I tried to sign my friend up with a Microsoft ID only to find out that her email address had been used before for something like this (possibly messenger). I try to use the "forgotten password" feature, only to be told that the account with that email address doesn't exist. Windows tells me I must log-in, Microsoft tells me the password is wrong for that account, and the password-reset tells me there's no account for that email address. I had to set her up with a brand new email address just to get out of this endless loop.

The whole "experience" comes across like Microsoft has seen mobile operating systems such as iOS and thought "kids must think this is cool, quick let's make Windows behave the same" without any consideration to usability. Sure, if all you want to do is what Microsoft thinks you should be doing, then you'll find Windows 8 to be a breeze. But if you actually want to do something for yourself, then you may as well string the noose up over a tree branch before you start.

From the perspective of someone coming from the ease of use of Windows XP, Windows 8 and the Microsoft "infrastructure" of how it's to be used is an absolute shambles.

After spending the afternoon just trying to get the basics sorted, I put her Firefox and Thunderbird on the machine with suitable icons on the "metro" interface. I removed the majority of the irrelevant and unwanted icons off that interface, and she's now having a go with the laptop herself. Having seen all the hurdles and stumbling blocks of the afternoon, though, she has gone from having almost total confidence on her previous Windows XP machine to having zero confidence on her new Windows 8 laptop.

Maybe Microsoft don't care about their established userbase anymore. They certainly seem to be focussing on the "mobile OS" audience and that's for sure.

Beelzebub will be ice-skating to work before I let Windows 8 anywhere near any of my computers.

[David Rayden]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

With Windows 8, the gap between "if you're thick, these are your colourful icons" and "if you're intelligent, we've made it more difficult to actually do anything" has widened to a chasm.

Therein lies the problem, I believe. They are catering to a mobile, fast-paced, "App" market with limited attention span and 'end users' of media served to them. They will only create text-speak 'Twitter' and 'Facebook' soundbites and repost/share/like ad nauseam other peoples quotes; usually with no attribution to the author. They are not creators. Saving the world and making a difference doesn't mean getting off your **** and doing something - you can feel good from your virtual keyboard by 'liking' a cause or, for the more active, sending an email. (It reminds me of Red Dwarf when Rimmer, faced with a monster about to eat them all, suggests "...and if that doesn't work, we'll do a T-shirt campaign!").

Beelzebub will be ice-skating to work before I let Windows 8 anywhere near any of my computers.

This made me smile. I share your frustrations.

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

(It reminds me of Red Dwarf when Rimmer, faced with a monster about to eat them all, suggests "...and if that doesn't work, we'll do a T-shirt campaign!").

"The time for talking is over. Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign."

" Erm, I think we're losing sight of the real issue here, which is: what are we gonna call ourselves?"

[patmoore]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

C'mon JSR. Tell us how you really feel.

Thanks for an insightful review of Windows 8. You've sure convinced me to hold off. I run a website offering tech tips to seniors and I'm sure in no hurry to encourage anyone to migrate to 8.

[Bob Ross]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

Thanks to all for thier insights on W8. I have had my encounter with a new PC for the year and don't need anymore for the time being.
I went from a 9.5 year old Dell with a CRT monitor and Win XP to a new Dell XPS one 27 with W7. It drove me nuts trying to get my favorite printer to work. All is fine now, fast, but not as friendly as advertised. One of the come ons was that we could get "WOW!" Windows 8 for a song in a few months.......
Bob

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

The more they try to make things dumbed-down with the "simple" front-end of metro, the worse they make the experience for the long-time user.

For example, when trying to figure out how to install our HP printer, I went to the HP website which directed me to an "easy" piece of software that was supposed to remove the difficult bits. Trouble is, it stumbles at the first question - asking for your Operating System. Now, my friend and any user would quite easily know that they're using Windows 8, but there's the choice of "32-bit" and "64-bit". They may as well talk in Chinese for all that means to anyone. That just leaves the user with a blank stare and the question "bits of what?"

I didn't even know which the laptop had. I had a good guess but I still had to dig around in the Windows specs before I could find something that confirmed that it was 64-bit.

I have no doubt that, as with any new OS, time will cure all ills and we'll become as familiar with the "Windows 8 way" as we did with previous versions of Windows. It just seems nonsensical to force this big change on such a large userbase. If I prepare myself for having to learn the ins and outs of a new OS, I'm going to be spending that time on my favourite version of Linux (one that behaves more like Windows than Windows 8 does). This is because I perceive this marginalisation of the "traditional desktop mode" as the thin-end of the wedge. In the way that previous versions of Windows ultimately eschewed MS-DOS, so future versions of Windows will drop the "desktop mode" entirely and we'll be left with the mobile "app" metro style for everything. Windows biggest strength was always that it put everything at your fingertips. Now it's biggest weakness is that it hides as much as it can.

I guess my biggest frustration is the one I've always had with Windows. It's supposed to be an Operating System - a system that enables your chosen software and hardware to operate together. It shouldn't be 16GB+ of bloat filled with applications that you don't want, forcing you to do things a certain way, and then changing that way of doing things on a whim.

An Operating System should be a slim and sleek almost-invisible layer that enables software and hardware to work together. That's it. It shouldn't be there to obfuscate the simple tasks or to prevent you from continuing to use perfectly sound software and hardware that worked just fine on previous versions of that OS.

[David Rayden]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

"The time for talking is over. Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign."

That's it! and followed by ", and while it's reeling from that we'd follow up with a whist drive, a car boot sale, some street theatre and possibly even some benefit concerts."

Also, your later post - spot on and well said.

I may try Linux again if Win7 goes this way. I want an OS with me in control.

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

That's it! and followed by ", and while it's reeling from that we'd follow up with a whist drive, a car boot sale, some street theatre and possibly even some benefit concerts."

Fantastic episode. I hope you're watching the current (new) episodes on Dave.

Also, your later post - spot on and well said.

I may try Linux again if Win7 goes this way. I want an OS with me in control.

I've not used Windows 7 and it's possible that the change isn't that huge to Win7 users (well, except the metro interface of course), but there are a lot of people who'll be changing from XP (on its last legs, ready to be abandoned in 2014) and it's those that'll be most affected.

I'll probably take another look at Puppy Linux. It was quite handy when I tried it out a few years back (no more than 100MB and would boot off a USB stick), largely because it tooks its design cues from Windows 95 - so it looks very familiar.

It's a bit meatier today I think (150MB) but I had a dabble again a few months back and now there's much better support for printers and scanners - that was the one big hurdle preventing me from switching to it before - so now, with the likelihood of Windows 8 being the only option from Microsoft, I think I'll look into it in more depth over the coming weeks.

I get that Microsoft want to make it easier for the social crowd to access their Facebooks, Twitter, WebMail, Internet, and all of that but I think they're chasing the wrong market. I now do most of my "social" interaction on my phone. Android 4 is quick enough, sleek enough, and accessible enough to do 95% of that on a device I carry on my belt case. Why would I want to do it on a desktop or a laptop? Desktops and laptops are the best environment for "creating", but it's this that Microsoft appear to be abandoning. Seems daft.

[Bob Ross]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

One of the more annoying things for me in going from XP tp W7 was that they set the default security levels to a point that I couldn't access some upgraded software from sites that I know are safe. It took me a while to get most of it turned off. It wouldn't allow me to log into some of our favorite forums either.
I presume that going to W8 will reset the levels to the "safe for 8 year olds"
Bob

[Paul Cook Photography]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

I have found Windows 8 really simple to pick up. Yes, its different form previous versions, but change doesnt have to be a bad thing.

As far as it being designed to suit us 'young 'uns' with our smart phones and tablets, well, you may be surprised by how many 'mature' people use ipads, kindles, iphones and the like. In modern technology, this type of interface is becoming the norm, so should Microsoft keep on producing a GUI that as so different to everything else we use? Of course not.

With regards to the issues you had installing an HP printer, well, thats not really Microsoft's problem. If HP have not updated their drivers for the new operating system, then the blame lies at their feet. Similarly, the laptop not being supplied with an audio driver is the responsibility of the manufacturer and not the software developer

[JSR]

Re: Windows 8 - anyone here tried it, or thinking about it?

As far as it being designed to suit us 'young 'uns' with our smart phones and tablets, well, you may be surprised by how many 'mature' people use ipads, kindles, iphones and the like.

I can only speak from this direct experience. While having a fair knowledge in the use of Windows since 3.1 and up to XP, my friend did not get on well at all with her touchscreen phone. She was much more comfortable when she switched to a Blackberry - which she did because, and I quote, it has a "proper" keyboard (by that she means a hardware one). The rest of us have tablets and touchscreen phones - from Android tablets to iPads to mobile phones to iPhones to iPod Touches to Kindle ebook readers. She's seen them all but is adamant that she doesn't want any. She knows what she can do, she's being doing it for 15+ years, and she's comfortable with that. It gives her the internet access that she needs, allows her to do the word processing documents and spreadsheets that she wants, allows her the social access that she's happy with, and allows her to play the games that amuse her. With Windows 8 she's lost in a way that she's never been lost with Windows before. Without someone here to guide her, she would have rejected Windows 8, returned the laptop, and struggled on with her older Windows XP netbook.

As a slight contrast, my mum is a few years younger and she does have a Kindle, an iPad, an iPod Touch and, just recently she's upgraded to an Android phone. These things have, for her, replaced her computer because she can do her social contact through these mobile devices, as well as play a few games, listen to her audiobooks, and read her ebooks. She doesn't use her traditional laptop any more because her mobile devices cover most of what she needs to do, so she's not going to be using Windows 8 for those things anyway.

I don't claim that this is a wide spectrum of the "older generation", just that there are two people here who use modern computing technology in different ways and neither of them are being served by Windows 8.

In modern technology, this type of interface is becoming the norm, so should Microsoft keep on producing a GUI that as so different to everything else we use? Of course not.

If Microsoft is producing a tablet or a phone then, of course, they should see what the market prefers, but this is an OS for a laptop/desktop. It's not even as though this version of the OS will appear on their tablet, because that'll be a completely incompatible "RT" version of Windows - it'll be called the same thing and look the same but it won't run the same software or hardware, thus further confusing Windows 8 users who don't understand the significance of "RT".

With regards to the issues you had installing an HP printer, well, thats not really Microsoft's problem. If HP have not updated their drivers for the new operating system, then the blame lies at their feet.

Not really because Windows 8 found and installed two of the network printers without even mentioning it, yet it did nothing to assist with the printer it couldn't find. Only by digging into the settings could I get it to find the printer (so it could find it just fine when I told it to, it just refused to bother before) and then it couldn't find the driver anyway.

Traditionally, when there's no driver, I would go to the manufacturer's website to download one. In this case, I go to the HP website and the first question is the Operating System - offering a choice between "32-bit" and "64-bit", something the average user is unlikely to know (my friend certainly had no clue). Once I found out which version it was, by ferreting around in hidden Windows settings, HP pretty much just said that Windows will install its driver. But Windows didn't.

There is a driver, I found one eventually, but neither Windows nor HP were of much help. But that isn't the real point I'm making. The point I'm making is that Windows 8 is either "easy" (i.e., it found and installed the Brother printers) or it's "difficult" (not bothering to find the HP printer and then the nightmare of locating the driver). There is no "middle ground". Previous versions of Windows always were "the middle ground" - neither too easy nor too difficult.

Similarly, the laptop not being supplied with an audio driver is the responsibility of the manufacturer and not the software developer

Possibly but, again, a missing driver in a previous version of Windows would have shown up in the Device Manager with an exclamation mark on it. Not Windows 8. It just said "no audio". That was all the help it gave - nothing in the device manager gave any clue that audio hardware was even present. In the past, I'd just right-click the device with the exclamation mark in the Device Manager and get it to go looking for a driver. Not Windows 8, because there was no entry for it at all. Again, for all Windows 8 tries to make itself look "easy" this is yet another situation that would have completely baffled my friend, where it wouldn't have done so before.

Desktops/laptops are not mobile phones. I don't know why Microsoft thinks that they are.