Windows 8 user interface = Hurricane Sandy

[Franglais]

I just did the upgrade to Windows 8 on my powerhouse Photo + Computer simulation system. I wanted to have a dual boot Windows 7 + Windows 8 system but apparently the installation DVD doesn't like that idea. Never mind.

WOW. I really hate the Windows 8 user interface. All these dumb tiles with things that I never use and no way to go back to Start - Programs and find my useful programs.

Anybody else try Windows 8 yet?

[Liz]

Anybody else try Windows 8 yet?

Not yet. When I (recently) purchased my new HP laptop with Windows 7, it included a coupon to purchase Windows 8 for $14.99. I'm going to get it, but will wait until I read more personal reviews before I install it. I've learned the hard way that for me personally, it's better to wait before installing a brand new windows upgrade - then discover that I can't get it uninstalled! Been there done that!

Thanks for posting this. So far, it doesn't sound like something I would want to work around. Besides I'm doing quite well with Windows 7 on my new laptop. Don't want to spoil a good thing! :idea:

Liz

[Skyman]

not having used it I am curios. I think it is an interface designed for a touch world, so putting it on a computer that doesn't have a touch screen may be doing it a disservice, and I wonder how much dislike is bred by a lack of familiarity. I can see us deploying it in our next hardware upgrade if that includes some sort of hybrid tablet with a docking station. Also I am pretty sure that you can banish those tiles if you don't like them and then it is essentially win7 with a slightly different interface. Our license will let me download it now but I am waiting till I have my hands on some hardware that will do it justice.

[wfooshee]

I loaded the consumer preview on a virtual machine on one of our office servers, and was unimpressed. The tile interface is for tablets, touch screens, and such, and is in the way with "real" computers. You can make it give you a conventional desktop.

I was also dumbfounded by the difference Internet Explorer presented if started from the tile vs started from the desktop. The tile version was nearly useless!

I have no word or experience on driver compatibility, which was a real issue with 7 and printers. Are we gonna find ourselves in printer limbo again already?

[Franglais]

I have to give a demo of it next week. I thought I could do a dual boot Windows 7 + Windows 8 but no it didn't give me the choice so I went the whole hog and upgraded to Windows 8. I was reassured by the initial report of incompatible programs that it wanted to deinstall. They were all hardware related (DELL monitoring software, Displayport..)

The installation froze halfway through. I figure it had forgotten the Wifi key and couldn't connect to the network so I connected by network cable and was able to finish. After startup Kaspersky anti-virus said it had to install something but couldn't find the installation file. Exit Kaspersky.

The good news:

- All my programs seem to work.
- Lots of things work better, particularly diagnostics (I had my graphics card disabled without knowing it on Windows 7)

The bad news:

- Lots of things that used to be easy are now more complex (looking at a list of programs, looking at what disks I have mounted to check the space available)
- When looking for a familiar feature it is not intuitively obvious where it is
- The point-in-top-right-corner thing is infuriatingly slow
- I haven't yet discovered how to shut down the computer

[GB1]

Charles, I went to the MS store here and played with their new Surface tablet last weekend. I was pretty impressed with both the Surface and with Windows 8 running on it, but I didn't play with 8 on a PC that didn't have touch screen. Maybe it's like you say .. just no advantage of the tiles w/o touch.

But I thought it was easy to go back to the old UI from the tiles? You just click or touch one icon and - bam - you are there?

btw if you really want to ditch 8, if you have the 7 DVD you can always remove your data from your PC, format the drive, and reinstall 7 to the clean hard drive. Expect to spend several days reloading software, drivers and everything else. Oh and make sure you first 'deactivate' (or whatever they call it) any software that limits you to a certain number of installs, like PS, so that you can reinstall and reactivate it on the clean install machine.

[Franglais]

...But I thought it was easy to go back to the old UI from the tiles? You just click or touch one icon and - bam - you are there?
...

It's even easier than that. If you have a second screen with the desktop extended onto it then the tiles are only covering the first screen, the second screen has the desktop. If you press the Desktop tile then the desktop appears on the main screen too.

What's missing is the Start button and menu. All the useful things that used to be concentrated in this one place are now strewn around the user interface and you just have to find them again.

Can't go back to 7 anyway. At the moment I sometimes accompany a Microsoft MVP (most valued professional) to client sites and standard MVP kit is a 15 inch Corei7 laptop running Windows 8. I already had a suitable laptop (for my D800) but Windows 7 Home Premium just doesn't cut it.

[GB1]

...

What's missing is the Start button and menu. All the useful things that used to be concentrated in this one place are now strewn around the user interface and you just have to find them again.
....

So how does one find the program they want if they have, say, 100 programs? where does 8 put them for selection?