But you can operate W8 with your fist, at least Metro apps, that IS more than you can do with W7. Value for money it is.
I voted: I'm using it and I love it But actually just really Like it atm, still waiting for one of my apps to upgrade so It'll work w/ W8, not MS's fault though.
Must agree with Yen - poorly contrived one-fits-all solution... For fones and tablets OK.. but mainstream OS .. I dunno - surely they know their bread and butter comes from corporates.. why then mess with their main source of income... makes no sense
How do I feel about Windows 8, That's easy! They ripped off OSX Lion, it is a lot like it as far as the user interface goes. MS has Start Screen, Mac has the Launch Pad same damn thing, just looks a little different. Same basic theme, both have transparent "Taskbar", and solid Window borders. App Store, Windows Store, what more can I say?
Why did you edit your original statement, which was soooo right? OS/2 really was outstanding at that time ... Only the oldtimers know about
I tried it and don't like it. I want to go back to Windows 7 but I bought the laptop that has Windows 8 on it so I think I'm stuck with it.
I'm still using it in VMware only. Will *try* and learn to like it...but why? Fast boot (NO), Wake fast (NO), discover something about it that is better than 7? (Trying and getting more tired of it on Desktop and have no intentions of touch screen). Just thought it would possibly be interesting and different and am still trying to find 'differences' that make logical sense.
OS/2 had potential, which IBM roundly ignored. Worse, they were warned about Windows 95, which came along and ate whatever desktop lunch OS/2 had grabbed. Apologies to Yen, but Windows 8 is an OS born out of necessity - if Microsoft had not developed it or something similar, Android and iOS would have a far tighter grip on the tablet/slate market than they do now (Windows 8/RT is all the competition either has today). Ultra-low-power devices caught Microsoft (along with both Intel and AMD) flat-footed - look at the hardware players in that space. (The majority players in the space are primarily in the smartphone space except Apple; however, even Apple plays in that space, and moved iOS from that space. Microsoft could NOT afford to sit back and let Apple and company eat their lunch from underneath - especially since that is exactly what they did to OS/2 and IBM.) You may indeed bemoan the necessity of Windows 8; however, that doesn't mean that it isn't a necessity none the less.
i love windows 8 n office 2013 bcoz its fast n easy to find n click many features on win explorer n office tab toolbars...moreover, i get each of them free from microsoft using upgrade key to WMC n phone activation for office 2013 which make my copies Permanently Activated
Windows 8/7Vista I had the same appeal as you folks. I have been looking for a couple of years for something quite amazing. I did install Windows 8 way back in Preview stage on a test machine with a 4 drive raid-10 config for OS and a 2 drive mirror backup on data. This OS really performed in most catagories but found it was difficult to navigate. I had to make at least 1-3 extra motions of the hand to access the typical features as a technician normally would and found run, shell, and cmd more pleasing to get where I needed to go (felt like back to the future in 1994) and well its just not all that. Although as mentioned in the original thread, I installed the "ClassicShell" from "classicshell.sourceforge.net" and WOW now I have the best of both worlds. Metro and Areo and simply all switching with just the press of the windows key. This might be the game changer for me.... I still have yet to move to a production machine due to backwards incompatibility with a lot of programs and drivers, but whats new with a new release of MS Windows there. Since the release of the Developer Preview I have had fairly good luck with utilizing the SXS to dotnet35 install for many legacy applications that where dependent upon .net 1.0, 2.0, and 3.5 as to mention Windows 8 skipped this build during install-- and again thanks MS for that little hickup. So in closing I would have to say ---I will need more time to convince myself that I cannot live without this...HA!, HA!
The real question is, in the poll, for what reasons people say they use it and really like it! I think a lot of people are actually just citing the performance, memory management, stability improvements etc, and not actually commenting on the new start screen or how it is visually (removal of aero glass etc). Of those that say the new UI is fine, how many of those actually use Start8/Classicshell etc! Of those that find the new start menu okay to use, how many of them actually find the representation of standard program app icons good? (the Windows 95-esque representation of them with the solid green colour behind the application name). How many of those people who selected the like it would like it regardless of what they do (within reason), because they think it's new so it must be better! If people responded truly to a poll, and were objective in their response, I think the responses would be a bit different. Unfortunately being objective is something a lot of people can't do, it's much easier to 'be the sheep than be the shepherd'. I'm using the social inference of that expression, not the religious one.
Well, so far, I like it. I don't care about the Metro crap, not a single bit, really. The UI is a joke, the apps are abysmal, especially the e-mail app. Outlook Express of the late 90's was a masterpiece compared to this sorry excuse for an email client. Alternatives like WLM or Thunderbird are available, so who really cares? I continue to use Win8 like I'd been using all previous versions of Windows. I work on the desktop and I generally do not use things like Media Player, WMC, IE or other "built - in" tools that come with Windows. I never did, instead I have my Firefox/Chrome, Foobar, VLC and many similar useful tools, all installed as portable versions backed up on my dropbox. Getting them all back into my freshly installed copy of Windows 8 was a matter of half an hour and everything was back up working as before. The missing start button issue was solved with classic shell, so I don't see the Metro screen except when starting up. I *do* like the new UI and I know I'm probably part of a minority here. Everybody whines about Aero being gone, but I don't really miss it. I'm glad that this transparent/glowing/blurry hello kitty crap with its tons of usability issues was replaced by simple and clean UI elements, putting the focus on the content of a window instead of its decoration. I also like the speed improvements. Waking up or putting the system to hibernation is just so much faster. When I open my notebook, the system is ready to use in a couple of seconds - that's how it should be. Overall, the system feels slightly more responsive and runs a bit smoother - that might just be an illusion though, because most of the benchmarks I've run did show very little differences between Windows 8 and 7. I don't regret spending the €60,- for my 2 upgrades, but still believe that most of the cited usability issues with the Metro UI hold true. It just doesn't matter when you're not using it.
So it all boils down to speed? I timed my dual boot W7/W8 laptop with SSD. After hibernation (NOT STANDBY!), from power on button to desktop, with autologin: W8 : 10 secs W7 : 12 secs That's not really impressive (a few secs are eaten up by the Bios screen). I guess that W8 just delays loading some stuff. If you get much less than that you may have to attribute the acceleration to your Bios maker, but not to W8, I fear.
Thing I've noticed is NO one has mentioned the touch screen on a Laptop or a Desktop - only concrete thing is the majority in this forum do some tinkering to get this system to work in a backward fashion to resemble the old systems - by resorting to mods to the start menu, etc. Only a very few are impressed with the apps and the start screen. Seems like all are trying to force this new OS to *work*. And not as it should be. This thing called Windows 8 is not impressing anyone for it's build. The *only* thing I can see is MS is trying to make it for tablets and to be hard to crack. They are behind the 8 ball on both. Game over.
What you should test is actually Hybrid Shutdown. "Click Shutdown" on both machines, and boot backup. (not Restart) W8 will boot a lot faster. There isnt really much of a difference in hibernation or standby mode.