I wish that was possible. The laptops are connected to the schools domain and we aren’t allowed to mess with it. Unfortunately...
Get 2 large pizzas and several pints of ice cream. Set them in front of the kids with their computers and leave them alone. By the time the pizzas and ice cream are gone, the kids will be up to speed on Win8.
I didn't start this thread to toss people against each other’s throats. I started it to help me and others with not enough experience with w8 to dare try it. Now, if you and even more so your antagonists have more good information to share be welcome to do so, but please don’t turn this thread into a flaming war against each other. Spew gall over the OS of choice. Not over each other. Please!
If I got this right, it's a general question and not a question about 2 OSes.... The own kids want the father to help them with school related stuff and he's not the knowledge to do. You cannot change the school's OS which is unfortunately windows 8.... It is the decision to learn yourself something new (you have issues with and no fun, because it's 'crap') to be able to help your kids or not. You need to think about if it's worth the efforts. This decision you have to make by yourself. IMHO it is not the job of parents to help their kids all the time by learning the stuff on the own..sooner or later they come up with subjects you'll really struggle and you have absolutely no interest in the subject.....maths? History? Chemistry? Would you learn anything only to be of help all the time? So why should you use w8 yourself when you absolutely don't like it? The other's opinion about w8 actually doesn't matter, you need to think about if you are willing to learn the use of 'w8'... If yes then you surely get all the infos needed here @ MDL.
I assumed (apparently correct) that Win8 can't be changed on those laptops and I wanted to make Rab's life easier in Win8 environment. I know that you can't get rid completely of metro, but at least, classic shell/startisback+ can "kill" startscreen. I know, I know that in Win8.1 you can boot straight to desktop.
Win8.x is not as bad as people make it out to be. They take minor annoyances like the metro screen and make it into a wrist-cutting ordeal. In 8.1 you can even set it to boot directly to desktop if you don't like looking at the metro screen. There are many keyboard shortcuts you can use to find things if you don't know your way around. Winkey+D tabs between desktop and your current program (same as win7) Winkey+S (8.1) will search indexed folders for certain filenames. This is a handy way of running certain programs with admin privileges if you press ctrl+shift+enter after typing out the program you want to run. Winkey+R (7+) will run a specific program (in 7 will auto-elevate if possible) As far as the usefulness of 8.x, it depends on the system. On a lot of systems that are specifically designed for win8, they run much faster in Win8.x If they are only designed for win7, they will probably not run as well, depending on how new the hardware is. Win8.x will run very fast if you have fast ram, many cores, newer cpu features. It also runs your system a lot hotter since it's doing more at once. Just because it's doing more doesn't mean that the extra stuff it's doing is important. A lot of that stuff is just pointless store/app maintenance and background processes. So, although Win8.x is much faster in general, your programs won't actually be much faster. They simply won't be delayed as much by background processes since the OS is more multi-threaded.
Windows 8 is basically the same as Windows 7. it just has the added features for touch screen use. the Start Menu is kind of annoying for desktop users but tbh I hardly ever use it and I don't use any apps. I just pin stuff I need to my taskbar or create a desktop link. you can also get to a lot of stuff by right clicking the start button instead of left clicking. also remember when you click the start button or push the start key you can start typing to search for example in my other post I was talking about indexing options. just hit start and type indexi... and it shows up. when you are in an app to close it grab the top of the screen and sweep down, it closes the app. at first it was frustrating for me to quickly close apps and get back to the desktop until i figured that out.
pretty sure it is there. why? just don't use it. didn't even notice. who cares? rename it. not really. it just has ADDED features on top of what Windows 7 is. Windows 7 is just less of an OS. that's all. I admit it's a little weird at first for keyboard/mouse but I think in the end they did a good job of creating an OS that can be used on any device.
who cares? are you really that hard up for disk space? sheesh just leave them there and don't use them. not really any need. everything is accessible wrong. it asks if you want to join a homegroup when you connect to a network. why? you push the power button the computer goes off, you push it again it comes back on the same as you left it. it's awesome and faster than it was in Windows 7. why? just set it to a second drive or a SSD. Windows does better with it even if you have gobs of RAM. 1. why would you disable UAC? 2. I thought you didn't want to run metro apps again, why do you need to uninstall it? JUST DON'T USE IT. what is it a few megs? do you go around deleting Windows files like Solitaire just because you don't feel like playing it?
hell why don't you just go back to Windows 98 SE? I remember people used to bitch about XP and actually downgrade to the pile of garbage that is Windows 98. you sound like one of them.
the thing is they want the kids to have a functioning tool for schoolwork (which Windows 8 is whether you like it or not) instead of having to spend a whole semester learning Linux or whatever you would prefer they be doing.
post a screen shot if you're pretty sure. Pretty Sure it's there just doesn't cut it as I went looking for it and it wasn't there buddy SkyDrive just don't use it? no I HAVE to disable it, otherwise it keeps integrating itself with My Documents folder randomly, and I don't want its bloody icon in the navigation left pane so thus, the registry disable is MANDATORY and how can you NOT notice the folders of Docs, Pics, etc? they're right there so huge infront of you everytime you open ThisPC Please stop defending Windows 8.1 as if a member of your family created it and be fair. I would use it in a heartbeat if they get rid of all these quircks as its hardware support is better but what the heck, it sucks
Maybe because programmers are still not well-educated enough to store program data in user folders, and UAC is trying to be forgiving for the sake of compatibility, therefore defeats its own purpose. They tried to copy a linux featre but failed to do so. The real question is, why is it still not removed from the OS altogether. It's an abomination.
I have Windows 8.1 and I used it and installed it for others. I'll stick with Windows 7. Windows 8 is an abomination.