Home General Chat
If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.

Windows 8

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Well earlier today I saw a shop stand in tesco of all places advising me that I could buy windows 8 pro edition for £49.99 up until the end of January. Normally the RRP is stated to be £189. Except if you do it all online through Microsoft, you can get it for £24.99, with media centre costing an additional £6.

The laptop I have decided to use it on was first purchased with windows vista pre installed, and this was in march 2009. By January 2010 I had put windows 7 on it and noticed an immediate speed up. I have come to put windows 8 onto this machine and found it to be rather interesting. It isn't super duper lightning fast, but it's still pretty nippy. Remembering that a few machines used to struggle with vista when it came out, the fact that my machine is more than able to run windows 8 at its age is quite impressive. The only time consuming issue I had was doing the upgrade, which seemed to take forever, though this might well be down to the specs of my machine.

I did an in lace install over the top of windows 7 and have as yet to discover any problems caused by not doing a fresh install. All of my program's and settings seemed to come across just fine. The one or two program's that didn't were those that I was already aware of having issues. One was a bit of software for a 3G dongle that I no longer use, the other was solved with a visit to the software homepage.

Some people have stated that this new stay screen is a little confusing to them, I can understand where they are coming from, but it seems to me anyway, to be very easy to get used to. You still have the desktop tab that makes things look like the age old windows that we are used to. Although a pedantic thing, the new start screen is the main show and the old fashioned desktop view is effectively an app option, although you could easily be led to believe that the new stat view is almost like an app in itself, with live tiles and the sorts.

As with all new major software updates in windows, there is an immediate amount of windows update things to do, which my machine is installing now. However, I have yet to come across any big issues apart from one to do with photos. There is a minor error in the way that some landscape photos are displayed, but it is something that will be sorted with an update shortly. I'm not making this post as some sort of windows fanboy or anything like that. I simply wanted to post my initial impressions of the new windows OS. Like I have said above, my mind seems to think that this new interface is just like an app, with good old desktop windows being the main powerhouse. It will take some getting used to, but I do adhere to the mantra that change is good, as long as its not just change for changes sake. Thankfully Microsoft don't seem to have spent their efforts reinventing the wheel, and I'm quite enjoying my laptop having this new version of windows on.

The way I have it all set up now, as you are able to move tiles around, switch "live" tiles on and off, or remove them from view, really suits me in that my laptop is quite big and cumbersome and generally stays in one place. iTunes still works which makes me happy, as does the remote app on my ipad which allows me to control the iTunes on the laptop. I'm yet to have any wider tinkering on the network front in terms of home networks etc but if I find any major issues I will let you know.

Whilst privacy hating folk might not like this next bit, I'm the contacts area I can integrate all my Facebook, twitter, linkedin and email contacts and really is quite helpful for me especially, having a fair few twitter and email contacts that I do try and stay in touch with. It really does make searching for people more easy. As for the built in mail client, I have yet to input account details for my email and this is mainly due to the fact I still have outlook installed as part of my office 2010 package, so for the included bog standard client I have no experience of it.

I'm going to get away now, but will be sure to pop back and update this thread as and when I discover new things or points I think might be relevant. If anyone else has any experience or use of windows 8, join in and offer your thoughts and experiences. This is a new bit of software, so whether people are using computers for the first time or just need a bit of advice with getting used to it, post in here. This is literally an anything goes discussion for windows 8, there are previous on here I think, but more so pure final release (I think). This section of thesite is rather quiet as of late, so I thought I would try and generate some interest.


Sent from my whyayePad using Tapatalk

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Upgraded, really highly rate the windows explorer. Also did the £24.99 jobby. I cheated though and formatted c: (my data is on a different hard disk) and 'upgraded' onto a blank disk - worked fine however.

    I think it's actually an improvement for power users - once they get used to it. The start screen is the way it is because that's how people use the start screen - not to actually start their most active programs (which are typically pinned to the desktop taskbar) but to find programs you use less frequently. I have mine clustered in groups of apps: Metroshite (I haven't got rid of them yet, but never use them), daily-use (chrome, skype, winamp, xonar sound control), entertainment (games+media+torrent), office, and image editing (unfortunately required for my job).
Sign In or Register to comment.