The unofficial Windows 8 thread

Quantum computing. Sweet.

Upgraded last night. Liking it so far - the giant Metro Modern start menu isn't as annoying as I thought it'd be, I love the new flat aesthetic in Normal Windows. I'm sort of baffled that MS don't let you treat any resizeable window as though it were a Metro app (I'm guessing there's a technical WinRT vs. Win32 API thing going on here, but still). I'm also lost as to how I change the Weather app so that it gives temperatures in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. (Seriously: 41 degrees fahrenheit means *nothing* to me).

And, in typical style, I've figured that last one out almost immediately after giving out about it: just right-click in the app. I'm finding it hard to disagree with the criticisms about discoverability upthread.

Maxell, unless you are a dog staring into a gramophone :)

Nice rig. I want a bigger SSD...

Must admit I am tempted to jump in before 31 jan for the $40 (in Australia) copy of Pro, and maybe snag a spare copy/licence for later in the year for when I upgrade the kids computer from the current 6 year old wheezing, PLEASE DON'T BREAK JUST YET xp running box of wrong.

(I assume you can snag a licence and keep it up your sleeve by just running upgrade assistant on the box?)

I certainly hope that's the case, otherwise I've wasted those €30 for my upgrade copy (still uninstalled).

Maxell

[/pedant]

Pedant.


(Doh, how did I miss that!)

So I just switched my legacy laptop over from Ubuntu 12.10 to Win8, due to being so curious about Win8.

So far, I'm hating it, but for reasons that are in common with Win7 -- fonts are rendered weirdly compared to Ubuntu, the TrackPoint is absurdly poorly supported (I had to install third-party drivers from Lenovo's site to get it to work at all, and now I can middle-button scroll, but can't middle-click to open links in a new tab; this all works out of the box on Ubuntu), I had to install third-party software to map Caps Lock to Ctrl (I realize this is idiosyncratic).

Other than that, it's not different enough from Win7 to even be interesting. I like the flat look, but it's otherwise kind of boringly like Win7. About the only change that I can work up a good head of annoyance at so far is that when I hit Win and start typing, it doesn't give me control panel stuff, I have to click on "Settings" for that. Hopefully more comes up eventually.

Trackpoint and capslock as control? Is that being able to use capslock as a ctrl key? Both seem a bit out of the standard demographic=)

Caps Lock as Ctrl is weird, I know. (Also not that hard to do -- SharpKeys lets you remap it in the registry easily enough.)

But using a TrackPoint isn't that weird; not every laptop has one, no, but business HPs, business Dells, and ThinkPads all do.

Did you ever confirm if you can do this?

Yes.

Thanks. Just bought a key even though the $15 upgrade offer doesn't expire until late Feb.

I bought two keys before the deal ran out after running the upgrade assistant twice on the same PC, so I sure hope so :-)

Upgrade assistant wouldn't work on the second older PC. It's running Windows XP SP3 (32 bit), but is actually a 64 bit CPU so I think that sent it slightly bonkers.

I've got two qualifying keys for the "upgrade" - an ages old Windows XP licence and a Windows 7 OEM licence, so should all be good come upgrade time

I think my sleep issues are actually caused by uTorrent. I've had no issues with waking my PC as I'd expect (three seconds from button press to usable) right up until I slept it with uTorrent running again and then it would resume from disk instead of memory.

Allow me also to recommend the free Metro app "Bing my lockscreen" which makes the Bing image of the day your lockscreen background.

The upgrade assistant had no problem allowing me to upgrade a laptop running the Consumer Preview using the offer... unfortunately the Consumer Preview had ended, so it would shut down every 2 hours making the actual download and upgrade rather difficult. But I managed.

So, as someone about to build a new PC for gaming/general use, is it worth it to get Win8? I hear all the positives and negatives, but how is it for you using it daily?

I'm stuck on Vista now, so I'm going to upgrade one way or the other.

I think that it is fine for daily use. I was hesitant about using it, but you can marginalize metro pretty well enough that you won't see it that much. Once you do that it's a better Windows 7 than 7. I myself chose Win8 over Win7 because it handled installing \Users on a different drive in a cleaner fashion than Windows 7 (as I wanted \windows on my SSD and \Users on the slower HD).

I agree with CheesyPoof. For a knowledgeable user who can set it up to suit them, Windows 8 is an improvement.

Thanks guys. That's about what I expected.

Yeah, most of the problems with Windows 8 have to do with the Metro portion of the UI, and Metro apps. If you just use the Desktop and relegate Metro to Start Menu duties, then it's pretty much just Windows 7 with some improvements (better Task Manager, faster boot times, etc.).

You can even install something like StartIsBack and the Metro bit blends into the background.

Those are two things that don't bother me at all right now. What other improvements are there?

Primarily it's under the hood stuff, unless you like Metro, in which case: Metro.

Having used Windows 8 since launch I can say there isn't really a compelling case to upgrade from Windows 7.

Built in windows defender?
They ditched aero glass or some theme crap?
Multiple file copy?

When I was getting my video card to work it seemed much better at loading drivers on its own and sorting that out better than Windows 7. I must have switched video card a half dozen times getting that nonsense sorted out.
Faster boot time is legit good.
And my aforementioned handling of separating \users onto a different drive other than C:\

But, yes, pretty much under the hood crap.

I miss Aero Glass (primarily the Windows Vista version), it's the only Windows theme I've ever really liked.

Yeah. I like the new flat coloured rectangle aesthetic of Windows 8 but I really like Aero Glass. It's really superficial, but being able to see through the window borders really floats my boat. Then again, I used to love the wobbly windows effect that you can activate in Compiz on Linux.

I'd agree with that, but also say that there's no compelling reason to freak out about buying a new computer that comes with Win8 and insist on a Win7 downgrade.

I do wonder how much Metro usage there is, though. Obviously people here aren't using it that much, but we're not a representative sample, either. I'm curious about whether all the randoms who bought new laptops are using it just like legacy Windows, or if they're doing the new stuff.

I ran both the consumer preview and GM versions of Win8 for a time and ultimately didn't find the OS compelling enough to want to pay for a license, even at the reduced price (€29.99 here). I treated Metro the way I do the Start Menu in Vista/7 - i.e., I tap the Windows key, start typing and then hit return once whatever I'm after turns up in the results list. In that respect, Metro isn't that much of an inconvenience and in some ways it's sort of cool.

Windows 8 felt to me like the earliest iteration of something that has potential to be really - I don't know if 'great' is the word, but 'interesting' definitely applies. As it stands, it's this weird mash-up of touch-based and traditional mouse/keyboard GUIs

I agree, but Grenadier 7 was asking if there was a reason to avoid it in a new build, and I'd say that there isn't.

I'm thinking Metro will be good for confusing my wife and kids, thereby keeping them away from my shiny new gaming god machine.

Well, I don't like its choice of default tab.

Actually I forgot you could turn off grouping, so it's better in every way, especially as you can now identify easily identify disk usage.

Yeah, I should have added this, as well. While there's nothing about Win8 that makes me super-pleased to have made the switch, there's no reason to run around with arms flailing if you get a new PC with it pre-installed, either.

It seems to be making touchscreen-enabled laptops prevalent, too, which is a good thing, I think.

I babbled a bit in a small review on my blog in which I awarded Windows 8 7 out of 10 tiny Bill Gates.

Good review. I can confirm that the update center's "inform me" setting is broken, I never get notified even of critical updates.