I decided to upgrade a Vista laptop to Windows 8. I upgraded from Vista to 7 last night and it went without a hitch. I just purcahsed the $40 Windows 8 Pro, and did an upgrade install. After about an hour when the install was close to completion, the install failed, and reverted back to Windows 7. I'm going to do a clean install soon (which I didn't want to do) - and have it as dual boot with Windows 7 for the moment. I'm just running Windows 7 defrag to consolidate the free space on my harddrive, so that I can shrink my Windows 7 partition with the Disk Management console and have plenty of free space for my Windows 8 partition. Unsurpisingly that didn't work to well - Disk Management console is saying I can only shrink my C partition in size by about 18 gigs, so I'm downloading Easus Partition Master free to do the job. If it wasn't for the limited period of paying just $40 to buy Windows 8 Pro, I would have stayed with Vista.
True, but Vista actually works quite well after both service packs are installed. This laptop I bough second hand recently and it came with the factory install of Vista. Performance at times was terrible, despite having 3 gigs of RAM and a decent processor. After installing the service packs it ran fairly well.
I am running Windows 8 now. I'm not fussed on the Metro interface, but I don't hate it, and it is nice to have Windows looking so different to previous versions. Windows is running really fast on my six year old Sony Vaio - I do not see any need to be running it on a computer with a faster processor. I'm using onboard Intel graphics too, since the nVidia graphics chip is fried. Installation was straightforward. One device driver was not installed, but like in Windows 7, the action centre gave me a direct download link for the driver from Sony. I am having a few issues. The brightness keyboard shortcuts aren't working, but you can adjust the brightness from Windows. Sometimes when the screen dims due to inactivity, pressing a keyboard or touchpad input won't restore the brightness. Closing the laptop does nothing, even though it is configured to make it go to sleep under the power settings. This is something I usually configure so my laptops never go to sleep unless I manually put them in sleep mode. But in this instance I want it to work. I'm currently installing driver updates with the excellent DriverGenius to install driver updates which hopefully will fix some of my problems. If it doesn't help I will try downloading some of the Windows 7 download for my laptop from Sony to see if that can fix the problems. EDIT: I really am impressed with the speed so far. I haven't done anything demanding yet, but just for basic tasks like web browsing and using the Metro interface, Windows 8 really flies on my somewhat underpowered laptop. I would definitely recommend upgrading from previous Windows versions. If you have an old system, and am holding out to buy a new Windows 8 PC - I suggest you don't waste your money and just spend the $40 to install Windows 8 on your current system.
I've installed some of the Sony's own utilitities now, and the brightness shortcuts are working now. When the Metro interface is running the on screen display does not show when the brightness or volume is changed, but it does show when not using Metro. Not a big deal anyway. Windows 8 has it's own on screen display for when the volume is changed, however the Vaio's software is running instead of it now.
There are a number of options for removing the Metro interface and going back to Windows 7 style menus. EDIT: You don't even need to install any software to do it: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-completely-remove-metro-ui-from-windows-8/
All it says is that you can download two sharewares: one called Start8 and the other, RetroUI. Is there a free patch/script to Completely disable the tablet "Metro" UI and bring back the start menu for desktop & laptop users?
Sorry, I posted the wrong link. This is the right one: http://techmell.com/how-to/disable-metro-ui-windows-8/
Wait, for serious? That works with the RTM version, not just the preview? I'll have to test it, but if so... Thank you! Classic Shell is really not sufficient to make Win8 usable, but this might be the ticket. Edit: no, the above does not work at all on the RTM version. Too bad, because Classic Shell is grossly insufficient to make Win8 usable IMO.
That's a shame - I had not tested it before posting the link. EDIT: I just purchased Win8Starter Pro, it's only $6
I'm guessing that Microsoft won't bring back the start menu in Windows 9. Take a look at MS Office, they made a big mistake by introducing the ribbon inteface in Office 2007 and not giving users the option to use the tradition menus if they wanted. In Office 2010 they also kept soley to the ribbon interface. At least there are programs which bring back the start menu in Windows 8, just as there are programs which bring the menus back for Office 2007 and later.
I normally use OpenOffice, even at work I usually use a portable version. I'm not a great fan of Office 2007. As is the way with new MS software, it took it a while to end up on the computers I used at work. One of the things that I like about OO is that it hardly ever changes. I doubt that I'll be in the market for a new computer for a while, I definitely won't be upgrading to Win 8. I'll have to see what is happening OS-wise when I decide to buy a new computer.
I've just install Win8Starter Pro, and I'm not too impressed. You can't access the start menu with the Windows key. You can't close the start menu by clicking on it again - you need to click elsewhere. You actually have to click on the search box before you can search. For the price I'm not complaining, but I was hoping for more. One plus is that there is a hibernate option - which is something I've been missing in Windows 8. I don't know why, but most of laptops seem to use quite a bit of battery power in standby mode - but my Compal HEL80 with a failing batter which only last for a couple of minutes, fares better in terms of standby. I just found this article: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57496506-292/how-to-get-the-start-menu-back-in-windows-8/ and StartMenu7 changes the Windows key back to opening the start menu, so I will give it a try.
If i'm not mistaken, you can't run more than two programs at the same time while in the new teletubbie tablet interface. LOL, That's not what I call multitasking... So, using this new UI would be a very moronic move for desktop or laptop users, IMO.
of course, it's made for smartphones and tablets. i use very few Metro apps. the one i use are the Mail, Skype, Calendar and Skydrive. and of course, the Desktop 'App'.
The people at Microsoft were probably on drugs... They really should include an option to completely disable this absurdity for non-tablet users during the OS installation.
eh, come on, it's not that bad once you get used to it. M$ feels it's a good way to promote their tablets and such. there's apparently been a lot of improvements to Windows 8. unfortunately, most of it is 'under the hood', beside Metro.
Promoting by Imposing a retrictive tablet interface to desktop, laptop and ultrabook users is not a bright idea at all.
After thinking about it for a couple days i decided not to upgrade to Win8 and wait a couple years or Win9 to see what MS brings up to the table. To be honest with you guys, i hope Win8 turns out to be a big fail but thats just me. . .
If they don't bring back the Win7 start menu and don't offer the option to disable the tablet UI on non-tablet devices, I will not upgrade. That is so ridiculous! It's like booting Mac OSX Lion and being forced to use iOS 5.
