Windows 8.1 not quite as sucky

What a fun night. Friend bought a new computer with 8.0, which sucks donkey balls. Upgraded her to the preview 8.1, which still sucked, but not as badly (pony balls maybe). Put Classic Shell on it, and it was usable, finally.

Windows comes out with 8.1 final version. OK. Her machine keeps on running the preview version, saying it was fully up to date. Didn't seem right, but ok. I accept this and just watch.

Last night, her machine starts crashing, so I get the call. And while teasing through the mess, I discover that her preview 8.1 will lock down her machine come January. Oh goody! And that reports of the same faux hardware problems she's having are splashing all over the web. Oh goody! And to sweeten the deal, Microsoft wrote the final 8.1 upgrade to be incompatible with the preview, you have to remove the preview manually. Oh goody!

So several hours later, after stripping her machine back down, installing the 8.1 final version upgrade, and reinstalling all her programs and apps, it works.

Aaaand...I have to say the final 8.1 is substantially different and much better than the preview 8.1. It's cleaner, better organized, and runs a lot faster. Trying to run it with a non-touch screen monitor is still quite a pain (that's the next upgrade I'm going to push for my friend, replace that old monitor). But it's doable.

All in all, 8.1 final version...ain't that shabby. Found no reason to install Classic Shell. She's off and running successfully (if not particularly happily) with the real 8.1.

Still not having any issues at all with 8 and will not be installing 8.1

I'm a pretty big fan of Classic Shell, even on Windows 7, just to get the start menu and some other little touches to Explorer. I've started looking at building a desktop computer for home use and figure I'll be running Windows 7 on it again; I hear 8.1 is better than 8 but it seems doubtful that it's as nice to use as 7.

Or there's always Hackintosh, but the video card I want to use has questionable support there...

I stopped using XP when MS finally stopped supporting it.. I will do the same with 7

I have been wondering with Win8, if you get a windows phone, will it integrate multimedia and such between computer and mobile device more smoothly (i.e. Apple) or just the same as integrating Android with Windows 7?

My windows phone works very will with my computer. This is the first smart phone I've ever had and I'm sure most people do way more stuff with theirs than I do but everything works perfectly for me.

foxtrapper wrote: Trying to run it with a non-touch screen monitor is still quite a pain (that's the next upgrade I'm going to push for my friend, replace that old monitor).

No.

Just... no.

My arms are long but they're not 5 feet long and I'm not going to sit a foot away from a 24" monitor.

Touchscreens for desktop computers is a silly, stupid idea.

Heck, my laptop is one of the first available with a touchscreen (it uses a stylus) and I never use that feature except for drawing, because it's just too uncomfortable to look at the screen close enough to use that feature. And this is "only" a 15" screen.

(Only. I remember when 15" was HUGE.)

There used to be several touch screen overlays available for retrofitting non-touch screen computers to touch screen. On friend of mine put an overlay on a piece of glass in a picture frame as an experiment and it is pretty cool. Works like a touch pad but bigger and with pinching and such.

Thought about the overlay, but the price of them vs the touch screen monitors isn't terribly far apart.

Knurled, I know what you're saying, but the operating system is so keyed to a touch monitor, and works so poorly without it, that you just may as well dive in. You don't have to have the monitor far aware up scrunched up close, and large is rather nice.

Having used 8 / 8.1 for over a year now, I'm fascinated by both how stubborn people are about the start menu, and the sentiment that you need a touchscreen.

Most people don't even use the start menu in Windows 7*, and the desktop in 8 offers basically the same experience for a mouse + keyboard user.

Working in tech support, i basically never remote into a XP/7 system and see a desktop devoid of icons or shortcuts. So help me out here GRM, what are you using your start menu for?

*MS collected metrics from millions of users.

Hopefully MS see this: Windows 8 sucks the sweat of a dead pope's ass.

When people get used to interfacing with their information a certain way, they expect it to continue to do so.

Like a car. Unless its broken, you expect it to drive the same.

and mcarp, being in a middle corporate world, one that is a tpa to lots of firms, you'd probably be surprised how many people still operate from a start menu, even in 7. So, considering the MS source that has an interest in making themselves not look like a fool, i'll take whatever statistic they arrive at with a grain of salt.

I've got a guy that works for me that still thinks anything more than MS Dos is a waste of time. "CtrlP. F9bazinga. Etc"

I'll be taking the jump from 7 to 8.1 very soon as tea has ruined my 7 lappie. I'll let you know. I actually quite liked 7, even over XP.

I don't have any icons on my 7 machines.

My kids still whack at the screens on 7 machines since they use the Kindle so often. So maybe there's something to that.

MCarp22 wrote: Most people don't even use the start menu in Windows 7*, and the desktop in 8 offers basically the same experience for a mouse + keyboard user. Working in tech support, i basically never remote into a XP/7 system and see a desktop devoid of icons or shortcuts. So help me out here GRM, what are you using your start menu for?

My new computer came with W8. Only took me about an hour to make my desktop look just like the one on my old XP machine. I do use the start screen that I customized occasionally. It is not hard to use with a mouse but most of the time I use the 27" touchscreen since it is a little faster that way.

mad_machine wrote: I stopped using XP when MS finally stopped supporting it.. I will do the same with 7

I'm still receiving updates from the Borg, er Microsoft for my XP.

I updated from 8 to 8.1 a couple of days ago. They both seem to be pretty user friendly to me. 8 had some stability problems on my Asus otherwise I'd have probably left it alone. I don't quite understand all the hate.

I think the following is a perfect example of why I didn't like Windows 8 for the few hours I had a laptop running it;

http://www.informationweek.com/software/operating-systems/8-reasons-to-hate-windows-81/d/d-id/898905?image_number=9

when i need to use 8.1 i will stop using 7, in the meantime 7 runs everything. Only starting using it when i had to start using directx 11.

Does 8.1 then work like 7? Because I've hated using 8 since it came out.

Staying with 7 here as long as I can. Hell we still have XP machines in the office that are working just fine. 8 seems to be a case of it is not broken so lets fix it anyway.

Saw the article about 8 and I concure windows attempt to meld the OS of moble devices and desktop / business computers in to a single OS just does not work.

I think the biggest reason is that many business people over 50 are fine with XP and 7 and find "smart" phones / tablets more irritating than useful. In short we are old geezers that are set in our ways with XP and win7.

Win8 I think will work with the new generation of computer users. My son can navigate a tablet with out thinking twice as does my daughter. For me it is just not intuitive. This is the root of the problem.

a month ago we had a MS convention at the Borgata. I was within earshot, but out of sight when two of the execs were laughing how some of our machines still use XP.

And there is a reason for that.

I think the new stuff is more intuitive for the kind of person who keeps everything they use in a shortcut on their desktop. Going from that to windows live tiles is hardly any change at all.

Of course having all that junk cluttering up the desktop drives me nuts, which is the issue.