7 ms·

I have a hard time imagining that many Windows 7 users are eager to upgrade to Windows 8 on their desktops and laptops, given the drastic changes catering to to

I have a hard time imagining that many Windows 7 users are eager to upgrade to Windows 8 on their desktops and laptops, given the drastic changes catering to touch interaction, bringing them little apparent value at best, and significant lost productivity and frustration at worst. My Windows 7 box is for gaming and productivity (not necessarily in that order), and after all I've seen of it, I wouldn't touch Windows 8 for that with a ten-foot pole. I'll wait for Windows 9 Classic Desktop Professional Edition (Win7 tarted up with a new skin including 30% more alpha blending effects for some reason).

anigbrowl 14y ago
I'm pretty stoked about it actually.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  I think the Surface Pro looks like a nice device, and Windows 8 makes perfect sense there. For my gaming rig/media productivity desktop with a large monitor, however, it seems detrimental to me. What has you stoked about it?
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    Much tighter multimedia kernel, which is a big deal for me. Downside: not on the ARM tablets. So paradoxically, the opposite of your pro/cons. I'm neutral on teh tablets; I have an Asus Eee pad and Android just got a major audio shot int he arm with Jellybean, so I haven't decided whether to stick with that platform or switch to Surface (or indeed an iPad). But for big projects, you need a desktop. http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/music-developer-on-windows-8-a-leap-forward-for-desktops-a-leap-backward-for-metro-winrt/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/music-developer-on-win...
novalis 14y ago
I'll use it in a VM until the dev tools I work with start to support it, then I'll go all in. It is always the same thing when a full OS update comes, this is not any diff from the others. I'll keep my linux machines handy on the side as always. I don't see what the ten-foot pole security counter measures bring to the table at this point.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  The pole is to keep that cluttered ribbon interface away from my relatively clean Explorer windows, the touch-centric gestures away from my mouse-driven desktop, and to ward off the mental expense of context changes as my environment switches between the classic desktop with classic apps, the start screen and various metro apps.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    >The pole is to keep that cluttered ribbon interface away from my relatively clean Explorer windows The ribbon is minimized by default. What's cluttered about this more than Windows 7? http://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/expand-the-ribbon-using-down-arrow.png http://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/expand-the-ri...
    - WiseWeasel 14y ago
      The most glaring offense is the poor organization and positioning of the elements. Notice the many different areas the groups of widgets are scattered.
  - novalis 14y ago
    Hey, I skipped ME and Vista, that is why the VM gets a whirl first. We shall see.
nemo1618 14y ago
Have you actually used Windows 8? I don't make much use of the metro apps, but there are lots of smaller improvements that I appreciate, like the new task manager, file copy dialog, login screen, etc. The sight of the new start screen incites revulsion in most power users, but try to remember that you won't be spending much time there. Treat the start screen like what it really is: a fancier start menu. Like me, you'll probably spend most of your time on the desktop, so Windows 8 really feels more like Windows 7.2. So I think your "ten-foot pole" proclamation is a little unjustifiable.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  The task manager is something I use to find the app that's misbehaving (usually Firefox) and kill it; I can't imagine much relevant improvement, unless it somehow allows me to do this faster. It would have to be faster than "control-shift-escape -> [start typing name of offending app until it's selected] -> alt-E -> enter -> escape" -- maybe using the "control" modifier instead of "alt" would be an improvement, or maybe assuming I'm only going to kill one process and exiting the task manager automatically after killing the app. Other than that, I've got the login screen bypassed on boot and file copying has not been a problem for me; I don't see any value here. I don't need to put up with any of that other stuff; I'm happy with Win 7 the way it is.
  - srdjanjovcic 14y ago
    Did you actually see new task manager? It is big improvement above old one... At the end, what nemo said is that there is no earth-shattering improvements in _any_ single area, but that overall you get something out of it, even if you do not use new Metro apps...
- jfoutz 14y ago
  That's kind of the issue, right? There's no way a big enterprise is going to be using 8 the day after launch. I suspect most will be hostile to it. MS's best bet is to get 8 into the hands of as many users as possible, so they'll push work to upgrade.
madoublet 14y ago
I honestly think my productivity is a lot better in Windows 8 then in 7. The updates to search are fantastic. You simply hit the start key and type what you are looking for. You get smart filters on the right that allow you to filter by type (files, apps, settings) and even by app. I have also found that managing multiple desktops (something I often do for work) is made a lot easier by the hover corner. Plus, everything just looks so much better. Once you get the smart tiles up and running to your liking, there is nothing like it. Sometimes, I just toggle the Start screen to see the weather, news, etc. Very cool.
- illumin8 14y ago
  On every version of Windows I've ever used, the search indexing service steals precious background disk and CPU cycles, and almost always causes issues with the two main things I use my computer for: gaming and music production. I can't even count the number of times that the search indexing service spun up in the middle of a gaming session and made my system start to lag. Of course they say it runs as a low priority process, but heavy disk access is going to give you performance problems in CPU/GPU intensive games. Making music is no different - heavy disk access makes it that much more likely that my system will have audio dropouts or in some other way ruin my recording session. I've disabled search indexing in every version of Windows. In Windows 7, it even makes the start menu almost non-functional because you have to make 3 clicks just to get to the Run dialog.
  - WiseWeasel 14y ago
    You need to upgrade to a solid-state boot and app binary drive already! There is no going back.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    Why would you use the start menu to get a run dialog? Windows key + R I haven't had any performance problems while running games with search indexing on. This laptop doesn't even use SSD.
    - derekerdmann 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago

I'm pretty stoked about it actually.

WiseWeasel 14y ago
I think the Surface Pro looks like a nice device, and Windows 8 makes perfect sense there. For my gaming rig/media productivity desktop with a large monitor, however, it seems detrimental to me. What has you stoked about it?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  Much tighter multimedia kernel, which is a big deal for me. Downside: not on the ARM tablets. So paradoxically, the opposite of your pro/cons. I'm neutral on teh tablets; I have an Asus Eee pad and Android just got a major audio shot int he arm with Jellybean, so I haven't decided whether to stick with that platform or switch to Surface (or indeed an iPad). But for big projects, you need a desktop. http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/music-developer-on-windows-8-a-leap-forward-for-desktops-a-leap-backward-for-metro-winrt/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/06/music-developer-on-win...

novalis 14y ago

I'll use it in a VM until the dev tools I work with start to support it, then I'll go all in. It is always the same thing when a full OS update comes, this is not any diff from the others. I'll keep my linux machines handy on the side as always. I don't see what the ten-foot pole security counter measures bring to the table at this point.

WiseWeasel 14y ago
The pole is to keep that cluttered ribbon interface away from my relatively clean Explorer windows, the touch-centric gestures away from my mouse-driven desktop, and to ward off the mental expense of context changes as my environment switches between the classic desktop with classic apps, the start screen and various metro apps.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  >The pole is to keep that cluttered ribbon interface away from my relatively clean Explorer windows The ribbon is minimized by default. What's cluttered about this more than Windows 7? http://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/expand-the-ribbon-using-down-arrow.png http://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/expand-the-ri...
  - WiseWeasel 14y ago
    The most glaring offense is the poor organization and positioning of the elements. Notice the many different areas the groups of widgets are scattered.
- novalis 14y ago
  Hey, I skipped ME and Vista, that is why the VM gets a whirl first. We shall see.

nemo1618 14y ago

Have you actually used Windows 8? I don't make much use of the metro apps, but there are lots of smaller improvements that I appreciate, like the new task manager, file copy dialog, login screen, etc. The sight of the new start screen incites revulsion in most power users, but try to remember that you won't be spending much time there. Treat the start screen like what it really is: a fancier start menu. Like me, you'll probably spend most of your time on the desktop, so Windows 8 really feels more like Windows 7.2. So I think your "ten-foot pole" proclamation is a little unjustifiable.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
WiseWeasel 14y ago
The task manager is something I use to find the app that's misbehaving (usually Firefox) and kill it; I can't imagine much relevant improvement, unless it somehow allows me to do this faster. It would have to be faster than "control-shift-escape -> [start typing name of offending app until it's selected] -> alt-E -> enter -> escape" -- maybe using the "control" modifier instead of "alt" would be an improvement, or maybe assuming I'm only going to kill one process and exiting the task manager automatically after killing the app. Other than that, I've got the login screen bypassed on boot and file copying has not been a problem for me; I don't see any value here. I don't need to put up with any of that other stuff; I'm happy with Win 7 the way it is.
- srdjanjovcic 14y ago
  Did you actually see new task manager? It is big improvement above old one... At the end, what nemo said is that there is no earth-shattering improvements in _any_ single area, but that overall you get something out of it, even if you do not use new Metro apps...
jfoutz 14y ago
That's kind of the issue, right? There's no way a big enterprise is going to be using 8 the day after launch. I suspect most will be hostile to it. MS's best bet is to get 8 into the hands of as many users as possible, so they'll push work to upgrade.

madoublet 14y ago

I honestly think my productivity is a lot better in Windows 8 then in 7. The updates to search are fantastic. You simply hit the start key and type what you are looking for. You get smart filters on the right that allow you to filter by type (files, apps, settings) and even by app. I have also found that managing multiple desktops (something I often do for work) is made a lot easier by the hover corner. Plus, everything just looks so much better. Once you get the smart tiles up and running to your liking, there is nothing like it. Sometimes, I just toggle the Start screen to see the weather, news, etc. Very cool.

illumin8 14y ago
On every version of Windows I've ever used, the search indexing service steals precious background disk and CPU cycles, and almost always causes issues with the two main things I use my computer for: gaming and music production. I can't even count the number of times that the search indexing service spun up in the middle of a gaming session and made my system start to lag. Of course they say it runs as a low priority process, but heavy disk access is going to give you performance problems in CPU/GPU intensive games. Making music is no different - heavy disk access makes it that much more likely that my system will have audio dropouts or in some other way ruin my recording session. I've disabled search indexing in every version of Windows. In Windows 7, it even makes the start menu almost non-functional because you have to make 3 clicks just to get to the Run dialog.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  You need to upgrade to a solid-state boot and app binary drive already! There is no going back.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  Why would you use the start menu to get a run dialog? Windows key + R I haven't had any performance problems while running games with search indexing on. This laptop doesn't even use SSD.
  - derekerdmann 14y ago