[proton007]

One word:  Over-engineered.

 

[Eric_C]

Quote:

Still it takes 4 clicks to power down the machine - in windows 7 it takes 2. Of course you can create your own shortcuts and change settings etc but big buttons and fullscreen page switching is really not making the most of desktop computer's capabilities. 

 
Correct, you can make a shortcut to shutdown and here's how I made mine:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-shutdown-windows-8-in-just-one-click
 
Now, it's one keystroke (Windows key, to get to Start Screen) and one click (on the shortcut).
 
As roller said, use shortcut keys more. I hit Alt+Tab and Win+Tab a lot, Win key a lot, and Win+K (for settings) a lot. It's worked out fine.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by proton007 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
As do I.  But Win 7 is rock stable for gaming. So, as you say, spending $50 is a pain.
 
As a matter of fact, I use Win7 only for gaming. Linux is my primary desktop. 

 
Please don't misquote me. I said US$ 40 / S$ 50 is a very easy pill to swallow. That means it's not a pain, it's just a cost to bear.
In your case upgrading doesn't sound like it would make sense. Why learn a new OS when you barely interact with the current one? 

 

[proton007]

Quote:

In your case upgrading doesn't sound like it would make sense. Why learn a new OS when you barely interact with the current one? 

 
Well, I do interact with Win 7, almost all day at the office. I'm just not that keen on making it my home desktop.
And I'm not averse to learning the OS or anything new for that matter. Using Linux (with KDE), I've learnt the keyboard interface for some of the apps that are beautifully simplistic running in command line.
 
I just feel that not everything needs a fancy UI. Hence over-engineered.
 
Quote:

Please don't misquote me. I said US$ 40 / S$ 50 is a very easy pill to swallow. That means it's not a pain, it's just a cost to bear.

 
My apologies. I edited my post.

 

[mark2410]

well i have upgraded my htpc as i thoungt the UI would work for it and vista that was on there was getting a bit long in the tooth.  some stuff is great.  the look of some things like the thask manager and file transfer is great.   wwhats not is that i cant access things.  want to have messenger minimise to the notification bar cant seemingly be done anymore.  same for thinderbird.  couldnt find the start up programmes folder without text commands.  actually text commands is the problem.  everything is now so hidden because you the user is so horrifingly stupid you cant be trusted to be able to access anything.   even fcuking windows update is hidden away!!!!!!!!!!
 
now i get many computer users are morons but i am not.  i want to be able to access this stuff without having to use a keyboard as i am not a great typer. honestly it feels like MS have gone had a look at Unitiy and thought lets do that.  there is much thats really nice about 8 but metro is just carp.  it shouldn be an addition to a start bar not a replacement.

 

[J.Pocalypse]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark2410 /img/forum/go_quote.gif

even fcuking windows update is hidden away!!!!!!!!!!

 
Did you end up figuring that out? The new UI is to my liking, I've found. Different strokes for different folks..
 
BTW, Mouse up to the top right corner, go down to settings. Click. It's at the bottom of the list on the left. Just in case..

 

[mark2410]

Quote:

 
Did you end up figuring that out? The new UI is to my liking, I've found. Different strokes for different folks..
 
BTW, Mouse up to the top right corner, go down to settings. Click. It's at the bottom of the list on the left. Just in case..

oh i have found it but its that you have to jump through hoops to get to it.  everything is in there, just you cant get to so much now without havin to touch the keyboard and i hate that.

 

[Roller]

Windows Update? I just press Win key, type "upd" then press Enter and I'm there. But again, that's through start menu

 

[mark2410]

oh and i did mean the real windows update, not the stupid metro one that doesnt let you first look at the updates available then choose to install them there and then.

 

[tissot]

I have so far very been happy with my Windows 8 upgrade from Windows 7. 
The start menu itself is relic that contains scroll menu and menus under menus and the only thing i used over the years has been search, that on Windows 8 is so much better. Windows 7 was kind of the first movement away from the old with the addition of the bottom bar for quick access.
 
Though i will say that in UI the changes really are very minor (for desktop users) and the real benefits are on touch screen or trackpad users on tablets, hybrids and laptops. What Windows 8 brings to desktop users are just slight speed improvements, but other than that there's no need to upgrade to Windows 8. I personally upgraded because of the super cheap price of it and had already tested the beta.
 
Will be interesting to see how HP Envy X2 i will be getting next month do as i replace my old tablet with it.
 
 

 
They do use Windows Phone, both 7.8 and 8, but then they muck up things by having released Windows RT, which belongs on the same device branch. And since all those share UI similarities with Windows 8, it makes for a not so good segmentation mess that will be a nightmare for uninformed users.
 
I think Windows Phone should simply have all Windows RT features embedded into it, and become similar to how Android works mildly different on phones and tablets, and leave Windows 8 as a desktop OS that could even have a small UI portion dedicated to device/file/settings syncing, which could even be as fullscreen Modern UI app, but they decided to go the opposite way.
 

 
Well Windows Phone 8 kind of does something like that, but not really. WP7.X got the mobile CE kernel that hindered it quite a bit example on memory management, but Windows Phone 8 uses the Windows 8 NT kernel inside and brings things like DirectX support.
 
Supposedly the apps are easy to port between RT and WP8, but that will really be proven in the coming year. 

 

[Whippler]

I installed win8 on my tablet, but looks like win7 worked better. In windows 8 desktop mode the onscreen keyboard doesn't open automatically when one clicks on a textinput field, in win7 the onscreen kb pops up automatically. Well on metro side it works on win8 but, well that just metro. Most used program on tablet is OneNote(desktop version) The metro version of onenote just lacks too much stuff.

win8 isn't that bad you can install classic shell, to get fancy customizable start menu, win8 turns on way faster than 7, has beautiful taskmanager, Win8 can mount .iso fies on its own to virtual drives. I think there are enough additional features to instal this thing on a Desktop.

Man that automatic update on win8 gives you 15min timer for a forced shutdown, had to disable updates

But i'm still not sure about win8 on a tablet.

 

[drez]

I installed win8 on my tablet, but looks like win7 worked better. In windows 8 desktop mode the onscreen keyboard doesn't open automatically when one clicks on a textinput field, in win7 the onscreen kb pops up automatically. Well on metro side it works on win8 but, well that just metro. Most used program on tablet is OneNote(desktop version) The metro version of onenote just lacks too much stuff.
win8 isn't that bad you can install classic shell, to get fancy customizable start menu, win8 turns on way faster than 7, has beautiful taskmanager, Win8 can mount .iso fies on its own to virtual drives. I think there are enough additional features to instal this thing on a Desktop.
Man that automatic update on win8 gives you 15min timer for a forced shutdown, had to disable updates
But i'm still not sure about win8 on a tablet.

Very interesting to hear impressions of Windows 8 on tablet. So far anadtech seems to think the Surface tablet shows a lot of promise but is just a little slow at the moment. Personally I am put off by the problem of software compatibility with ARM based Win8 tablets, but to be honest I think most of the time dedicated apps will still be needed. Still I think the productivity focus on Win8 for tablets is a step in the right direction. Despite the "post PC era" rhetoric I think Apple is making too much money from their laptops for them to take tablet productivity seriously.

 

[Whippler]

I like the keyboard cover of surface, that looks nice but, does it have stylus? And I mean wacom digitazer or something else accurate, not capacitive pen. I'm still happy with my Samsung series 7 slate, thought these new win8 devices would be much better. I'm a computer science student, and its a pleasure to take notes and all with OneNote, and this has enough power to occasionally test pieces of code on some IDEs. And read the course material pdfs and so on.

Metro apps

So i use Chrome as my browser, it immediately replaced the metroside IE witch is not accessible if you have something else set as default browser. Tough chrome has a metro side version of it, but its tile is just the default icon.

On Metro apps, there ain't much to actually use. Metro email app accepts gmail accounts and some other so it works, but i still use gmail in browser I don't think there's archive button on the app.
Calendar app in metro is nice too, and works with google calendar, still i tend to check my stuff on phone, and use the google calendar website to add events. I ques if you don't have a smartphone, the calendar app is nice to check appointments.

There is app for Skype too but that seems to just show all contacts in one list, didn't see any options to show online contacs only, or @least ontop of others :/ So its pretty annoying to use.

Pinball game is nice on the metro to kill time. Also TuneIn app is nice for internet radio, normally i had to go to the stations website and open the stream in browser from there.

That's pretty much all the apps i can find somewhat useful, well there's netflicks but i don't use that. Windows 8 RT/Arm devices would be pretty useless for me.

 

[tissot]

Quote:

I like the keyboard cover of surface, that looks nice but, does it have stylus? And I mean wacom digitazer or something else accurate, not capacitive pen. I'm still happy with my Samsung series 7 slate, thought these new win8 devices would be much better. I'm a computer science student, and its a pleasure to take notes and all with OneNote, and this has enough power to occasionally test pieces of code on some IDEs. And read the course material pdfs and so on.

Non of the ARM (in other words RT Windows 8) tablets have Wacom inside. Though most of the Atom and core tablets do have wacom inside. 
 
Myself as uni student getting HP Envy X2 because it's Windows and i can get word, excel, tablet, keyboard and wacom accuracy to take notes. 
 
 

 Windows 8 RT/Arm devices would be pretty useless for me.

 


 
Same for me. That's why i'm only looking for the core and atom based hybrids and tablets.

 

[Roller]

There is one very important detail regarding Windows 8. The generic USB drivers are much improved, and do fix issues that some USB DACs have. This is especially important for computers that only have USB 3.0 ports, as some USB DACs behave erraticly or even instantly send the system into a BSOD from the moment they are plugged to a USB 3.0 port.
 
It should also be noted that there are kernel improvements that relate to USB 2.0/3.0 DACs with proprietary drivers as well.

 

[JakeJack_2008]

Quote:

....
 
This leads me onto my other problem with W8 - the DPC latency is much higher than W7, which is a no-no for pro audio.  For audio playback, som users have commented that W8 sounds more "solid/cohesive" than W7 - I'm not sure what to make of this, but I will definitely try the consumer preview (for sound quality) before I replace my existing W7 install to decide if there is any difference, and which I prefer.
 
Personally I care little for small differences in desktop performance if the user interface is not refined, and if the audio performance is unknown.  My system really needs a new OS licence installed at this point, I will have a hard time deciding which to buy at this point.  I think in the end sound quality (if there is a difference, and I expect there will be) will be the deciding factor.

 
So, what's the last word regarding the DPC latency  for audio (and video)? Is it really higher?
I want to have flawless audio playback from the Internet,
and also from Blu-ray, DVD, CD discs,  digital-files stored on a hard disk drive.
 
Any audio playback impressions?