I picked other as i had not installed RTM at the time I voted.I installed the eval x64 on my desktop in virtualbox.I gave it 4gb of memory of my 8gb. I played around with it about an hour and I didnt like it.It seemed to react diffrent than my laptop which is running as its main o/s RP of windows 8.I know my laptop is a diffrent computer but I didnt like the square look of the folders that were open.I will use the RP on my laptop tell the retail version comes out,Install my win7 backup use it for a few days then do a clean install of win 8 retail.Then I will make the decision win 7 or win 8.
Windows 8 just feels like taking a step backwards rather than forward they actually made the whole OS harder to use overall
Unfortunately I have to install it as main OS to learn it as I maintain friend's and family's computers. I really hate it for the desktop. It just seems a step backwards. I think I even hate it more than Vista if that's possible. At least Vista was forward thinking, as 8 is way too over bearing. I mean two desktops? Why not just make metro a theme like Aero that you can switch on if you want. Put the start button back in. It is painful as can be without it. I need to make several extra keystrokes to accomplish a lot of tasks now. This may be fine for tablets and phones, but on the desktop is just plain silly. what was MS thinking. Hopefully by release they'll add it as some sort of theme or an alternate install, like for desktop or mobile. Why can't Portal 2 run? It is a windows game after all, you'd think it would run without issue. My steam games have issues as well. I think MS is trying to lock gamers out that aren't on the MS store. also, AMD have released win8 drivers a few days ago in 12.8. Don't see any 4xxx support though. only 5xxx and newer. -=Mark=-
For me, jury is still out on Win8 is some areas, but what I do wonder about is the supposed optimizations and performance increases that people keep talking about in Win8 over Win7. For example, how long it actually takes to get to desktop in Win8, rather than it just seeming to boot faster but then taking longer after initial boot stage to get to that desktop. Many people say Win8 is 'snappier', but is that just because Win8 is running a Basic VS (not Aero), and its performance therefore is on par with Win7 running in Basic VS mode? Without significant optimizations present in the newer incarnation of the OS strain (Vista/7/8), and general increases in performance that would/should come along with that, Win8 won't be appealing over Win7 at all on PC's and laptops. So if Win8 is getting the same numbers (and same feel as Win7 in basic GUI mode) it will not have an edge. At this moment I view Win8 as the push into the touch device market, more or less despite of the PC/laptop experience. I think only Win9 may see the proper consolidation of the OS over the different platforms on which it will be used; or else MS will decide to split the OS into two versions, one for touch devices and one for traditional desktop usage (like Apple has it). I think that the move toward the "one OS to rule them all" (both touch and desktop) hints a bit at a desperation, if not a rush, to claim what should have been MS' playground all along, as it had significant advantage both in foreseeing where the market could go and having the capital and developer power to achieve it. Gates had long been a fan of the tablet form, but MS have until now not been capable of conquering anything in the tablet market. All that points to severe problems in management and company structure if you ask me. Same with the eReader concept, MS was far ahead with its conception of such devices, but instead other companies ran with it and made it happen. It's not that when MS finally comes out with something that the product is not solid (well, a lot of the time anyway), it's that the market has already shifted irrevocably to competitors by the time they do. I do think Win8 touch devices like Win8 Phone and Surface will be very nice to use, and I think MS can gain ground in the tablet market if they indeed offer the entry level Surface for $199,- as rumored last week (I hope so but doubt it). Win8 Phones will run great I'm sure; Win7 Phones ran very smoothly even on older hardware such as in the Nokia Lumias, so that will only get better. But MS should really have appeased hardcore desktop users by retaining the option for start button/menu and ability to disable Metro and other irritating and unproductive elements. Instead, they angered and frustrated scores of people that were on their side already, whilst not yet having convinced those who aren't. There is nothing wrong with having the option for Metro. Who can complain about options? It's when options are removed and tried and true methods are discarded at the expense of users who have invested a lot of time in training themselves to operate things a certain way, that you are effectively are limiting them and forcing their hand. Win8 is a gamble for MS, and as such they should have made sure not to alienate existing users and power users. When a company gets to have too much of a top-down approach, it results in arrogance and non-communication with the user base. True, every company that makes it big will get to deal with that, but MS has not been dealing with that issue very well. Sure, they have departments or company segments that are very much in touch with trends and user preference, but when these are overruled by other interests and power struggles inside the company, it will not work well. MS has proven to be too much on the 'chain of command' side and the developers and creative people have been stifled and kept around as pets, instead of them leading and letting top executives handle the business side of things.
I took the plunge and installed win 8 on physical system (as opposed to VM ware). Although it is superior naturally in terms of driver support, I really could not keep it long (4 hours) because of the fact that many things I could do from win 95 can no longer be done in win 8 except in a round about manner. I will definitely go with it but not in perhaps the next few months till there are more software compatibility. I find win 7 to be the easiest OS to use. Win 8 is primarily win 7 for usage but more difficult to configure. So I installed win 8 rtm at 9 AM, used it till 2 PM, backed it up, and then went back to win 7. For MS, a fail at win 8 should hardly make a difference in desktops. New systems need new OS and that is 9.5/10 going to be MS. We shall know in a few months the win 8 adoption rate. I think that it may not touch win 7 adoption rates (t+time period) because win 7 was a breath of fresh air for many with XP. I know and have used start 8 and classic shell, but in my opinion they are only average and do not really solve the fundamental problems I see. In many cases, the time/clicks to execute commands is the same. I would rather use restart/shut down buttons from eightforums, put them in a user files folder, and click on these buttons.
For my old laptop windows 8 release preview was faster compared to windows 7 or xp. But now i did a clean install and used the RTM msdn iso and now the speeds are even worse compared to windows 7. So no i won't use this crap at all and stick with windows 7. The release preview was fast but the rtm is terrible.
Since I had legitimate access to the RTM, I decided to go ahead and install it as a main OS for my desktop at home. I've been using it since the developer preview as a test OS and since the consumer preview as a primary OS on my workstation at the office (Was only allowed to do this because I work for the IT department...). I have to say, I'm fairly impressed. I've run into only a few minor things that do not work but I'm sure will be fixed fairly soon as developers spend some more hands-on time with Windows 8. Overall though, I've had the least amount of initial issues with Windows 8 than any other RTM version of Windows.
Sooner Or Later . . . Sooner or later Microsoft will stop updating Windows 7 just as they did with XP. New computers will come with Windows 8. Yes, I recall that some OEM vendors got Microsoft to allow them to continue to load XP for a period of time due to customer demand. But sooner or later most of us will move to Windows 8. so we may as well start now to learn how to get the best use out of it. Just my two penny's worth.
I see it more from a technical standpoint. I have to be one of the people supporting end users on this stuff, and I'll be the one having to configure the backend as well (server2012).... So I might as well get ahead of the game and know it now rather than dance through hoops come time all the staff at my work and my clients from my business start asking for upgrades or are forced into upgrading. It'll still be quite awhile before the enterprise side is forced to upgrade though and before Windows 7 support is completely gone. Microsoft spent the last few years hounding the enterprise to get off XP and get up to 7 ASAP. There's no way they're going to put them through all that, then make themselves look bad and turn around forcing their enterprise clients to spend that much more money again to upgrade.
I thought Win7 will be supported until 2020. Either way, we may see 2 more OS's (Win9 and 10) come out before the end date of Win7 support. And I'd be a bit surprised if MS is not going to change some things back for their Win9 release. With Win7 being supported and running well for many people, I don't see 'most of us' moving to Win8 at all (only a certain percentage of current Win7 users will, and of course people buying new computers) as Win9 will be out before Win7 support ends. What I do foresee is many people moving to Win8 tablets, even people who will keep Win7 on their desktops/laptops.