So the final verdict: to windows 8 or not to windows 8, that is the question

DUBLIN_person

Well I am back after a few weeks of using it, I have to say I quite like it, easy to get the hang of, fast and no problems so far... All is well

One thing I've noticed is that updates for Windows 8 are absolutely massive. Even though it's only been out a few months there's already over 500MB of updates for it.

Overheal

thats neat: if you 2-finger scroll on a laptop toward the top or bottom edge of the trackpad, it will perpetually scroll up/down. try it now!

Dean_Mc

Point to note. You can set Chrome up as a search target and then search the web via that. Super lazy mode ACTIVATE!

Uh oh. Just got one of those nvlddmkm stopped responding errors in Windows 8. Never got it before on this machine with Windows 7.

Overheal

I got some stop code on my tablet earlier in the week, but that tablet is a strange thing altogether, so I gave it a pass. Yoga and Desktop haven't had any problems. Tablet is tempermental as **** sometimes though, mostly happens when the screen rotation goes nuts from holding it diagonally.

Artful_Badger

Can any one of you more knowledgeable folks tell me if I'd fcuk my shít up trying to upgrade to windows 8 from windows 7 on a dual boot with Ubuntu ?

Fysh

Artful_Badger wrote: »

Can any one of you more knowledgeable folks tell me if I'd fcuk my shít up trying to upgrade to windows 8 from windows 7 on a dual boot with Ubuntu ?

You shouldnt have any serious trouble, but you'll want to look up how to fix the Ubuntu bootloader (cant remember if its GRUB2 or something else these days) as the Win8 install will most likely scribble all over it. ISTR you can do this by booting from the live disc.

alternatively you could install EasyBCD and enable the Extended Linux support, it works for me on a desktop dualbooting Win8 and VMWare ESXi so can't imagine it would struggle with Ubuntu...

Here we go again.



Seems like any time I try to use Windows 8, some problem comes up and bites me in the ass.

kearneybobs

Karsini wrote: »

Here we go again.



Seems like any time I try to use Windows 8, some problem comes up and bites me in the ass.

Were you playing a game at the time that happened? That used to happen to me with some newer display drivers from Nvidia. Maybe revert back to older oner/more stable ones and it might solve your problem. I used to get them in Vista as well as in Windows 7(a lot less common). I've gotten a couple in Win 8 too. It's the risk you run by using new drivers.

kearneybobs

kearneybobs wrote: »

Were you playing a game at the time that happened? That used to happen to me with some newer display drivers from Nvidia. Maybe revert back to older oner/more stable ones and it might solve your problem. I used to get them in Vista as well as in Windows 7(a lot less common). I've gotten a couple in Win 8 too. It's the risk you run by using new drivers.

No, I was just at the desktop with a couple of programs running, nothing GPU intensive. I know that 301.42 was stable in Windows 7 so I might try going back to that.

Lemon_grass

Lemon_grass wrote: »

Just reading through the thread, is the general consensus that you don't need a touchscreen for windows 8?

I'm currently using a 4 year old 13" MacBook, but need more screen real estate for writing my thesis, so want a laptop with a bigger screen, but bigger MacBooks are out of my price range. There is a hefty premium attached onto 15" Windows 8 touchscreens, so was hoping to get away with a reasonably nifty laptop for circa €800.

Only worry is that I'd get a shiny new laptop then instantly regret not pushing the boat out and getting a touchscreen. I'm fairly used to using keyboard shortcuts from my Mac days, so learning a few more wouldn't really put me off, as some are suggesting learning these make Windows 8 very intuitive.

Having taken the plunge and bought a non-touchscreen laptop with Windows 8 I must say that it has been a fairly painless transition. Once you get to grips with about 5 keyboard shortcuts, e.g. <windows> + D to get to the desktop, it's not much different to Windows 7.

Start screen seems a bit gimmicky and I tend to spend >90% of my time in the desktop screen, but a few of the Metro ( forgot what they're now called) tiles are quite nice to use (even with a touchpad or mouse). It may just be my laptop settings, but the news tile and sports tile are very British-centric, no real sign of Irish news sources which is a pity. But this could just be my laptop, I bought it from a British website. Is this the same with everyone?

I haven't had any desire to touch the screen so far, nor can I envisage myself ever really wanting to, so no regrets so far about skimping on the touchscreen, but I can see the tiles being nice on a tablet.

Final point for anyone thinking of making the plunge is the apps store is fairly barren, missing some essential apps, such as Twitter and Spotify. Granted there are plenty of third party Twitter apps and can just download Spotify from the Spotify website, so minor annoyance really, guess it's also early-ish days for the OS, so bit of leeway I guess is needed.

Overheal

Those kind of apps I haven't needed get. Apps I've used a lot are People, Mail, Reader, IE, and notepad. A favorite is side by side reader with notepad. Messenger and Skype are good sidebar apps to run too. Its fantastic too to get messages pushed when doing other things, otherwise I'd have to get the push update on my phone or wait until I sign back into Facebook, Tec

Ultimately the start environment is less resource heavy than the desktop container which is why its going to help HDD machines to boot quicker. If you force it to start in desktop you lose that streamlining effect. I prefer to go into the mail app for my first few minutes at boot, its much faster than waiting for the desktop to load, wait for Firefox to load, then wait for Gmail to load.

Torqay

Handy little trick here:

How to remove all bundled Modern apps from your user account in Windows 8

Doylers

Its fond of crashing

Fysh

Doylers wrote: »

Its fond of crashing

What hardware are you running on? Was it an in-place upgrade, a clean install or a machine shipped with Win 8 preinstalled?

Gbear

I've mentioned it on this thread before but I'll say it again because I've noticed it again recently.

Task Manager doesn't really seem to work anymore.
Invariably I have to just sign out if I want to quit out of a crashed program (usually a game).

Now that works pretty well because everything runs so fast in W8 but it's not what you'd call an elegant solution.

ressem

There was a problem with Windows 8 and ACPI which meant that some laptops would not power down using the software's off button. They fixed that in the last update bundle.

AMD graphics drivers displayed a high number of "stopped responding" issues for the first couple of months. I haven't seen one since February.

If there's a laptop running Vista then I'd install it immediately in preference if it was affordable. It's ridiculously more responsive on old hardware.

Until I know that the Windows SxS (system partition folder) and related bloat has been resolved I'll be wary about ordering a tablet or even phone with a Windows OS though.

nc6000

I'm running Windows 8 with dual screens and I think it's great. I had one or two issues with my Microsoft Wireless Mouse but resolved this by rolling back the Bluetooth driver.

I've noticed one or two little bugs like the speed of the wheel on my mouse seems to change after I take the PC out of hibernation and I have my Desktop Background set to shuffle images every 2 hours but it seems to change every hour regardless of what setting I have.

Apart from that it's pretty good. Boots up in no time having the Metro UI on one screen and Chrome on the other works out great.

bucks73

Upgraded my Win7 desktop back in January to avail of the special offer price and wasn't gone on the Metro but found Stardocks Start8 and ModernMix a couple of weeks and think they are excellent addons. Now boots straight to desktop and can run Win8 apps in windows instead of full screen.

Havent had one problem since changing. It was a clean installation.

Sir Oxman

bucks73 wrote: »

Upgraded my Win7 desktop back in January to avail of the special offer price and wasn't gone on the Metro but found Stardocks Start8 and ModernMix a couple of weeks and think they are excellent addons. Now boots straight to desktop and can run Win8 apps in windows instead of full screen.

Havent had one problem since changing. It was a clean installation.

I have Start8 since the start and now ModernMix (which is excellent) thanks to this post

uncle_sam_ie

Sir Oxman wrote: »

I have Start8 since the start and now ModernMix (which is excellent) thanks to this post

Stardock must be laughing all the way to the bank at Windows 8. These are the type of features MS should have included for desktop users.

Sir Oxman

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Stardock must be laughing all the way to the bank at Windows 8. These are the type of features MS should have included for desktop users.

I agree.