Windows 8 has gotten so much hate, and I wanted to know, from those of you that have actually used it, what you think. Note: Only desktop non-touchscreen users In your response, please address: 1. Stability and general buginess. 2. Ease-of-use. 3. Compare to XP and/or 7. 4. Hardware support. 5. Program support/compatibility. 6. Anything else relevant.
Best OS from MS so far! Of course if you don't like the new metro UI, you have a problem, but it is your problem after all. It is very fast, no blue screens in 3 months, and has an uncanny ability to pinpoint solutions to errors that its predecessors could only dream about. The only thing I was disappointed about is booting time: yes it boots in 12 seconds as advertised but then after seeing the desktop (or Metro should I say!) it takes about a minute to be fully functional which is even longer than Vista... What's the point to boot as fast as possible if functionality is delayed anyway...
I hate it. It's probably great under the hood, but the interface is just daft, to the point of making Gnome 3 look usable and intelligent.
i voted "I like it". Metro aside, on the surface, it is not much different from Win 7, which wasn't that much different from Vista itself. i thought the 40$ upgrade price was too good to pass up. i like to keep my OSes current and having the latest technology. within my very limited budget, of course.
1. Stability and general buginess. - Very stable! Best release yet! 2. Ease-of-use. - Smooth as silk, a dream to use. 3. Compare to XP and/or 7. - It's light years ahead of anything before it. 4. Hardware support. - Fantastic so far I haven't had any problems. 5. Program support/compatibility. - Again, great! 6. Anything else relevant. I didn't like Windows 8 at first, I was definitely in the 'Haters' camp. But once I get used to it I wouldn't use any previous version of Windows. Of course that could all change if Microsoft push ads on us in 8.1. But even then I wouldn't downgrade to a previous version on Windows, It would be Linux for me. Back on topic, it's a big from me as regards Windows 8.
Off topic, but has anyone tried the Metro TVCatchup app? it's great! I can drag it to the corner of my screen and have a little TV whilst on Wilders
1. I get BSOD once a week (probably due to undervolting), used to be a few times a day, so it is has gotten better, presumably thanks to updates. 2. It is much more complicated and time consuming to perform tasks, just simple opening control panel (3 sec vs 1 sec in 7), you have to aim for the corner and so on. 3. It is a good old Windows 7 without Start, with a bothering metro and metro "features" jumping out time to time, slowing down my overall user experience. 4.-5. No problems at all, at least nothing different from Windows 7 64-bit. 6. I used 8 since Preview version and I have to say, that RTM was a complete disappointment (turn around), but for 40 bucks I did not really expect much.
I gave it a few weeks and didn't much care for it. Even after getting used to Metro, I found it took me longer to do things than with 7 (so I went back to 7).
I'm (happily) on Win7 and after 'playing' with Win8 (on my associate's PC) I am even happier with Win7.
I don't much care for it. Although I use W7, I have spent some time with my friend's new W8 PC. Coming from a several years old Vista PC, she just couldn't get used to working with W8's new desktop, Metro, Charms. etc. We installed StartIsBack which returned the familiar W7/Vista start menu and with that she is now able to use W8. I can see where the new user interface would work well with a touch-screen, but it leaves a lot to be desired for mouse and touch-pad use.
I just used it on VMware to test some software compatibility and out of curiosity. I thought it was okay. It's good in your 1-5 catagories, maybe better than W7, but I can see why people complain about metro and missing start button, so I wouldn't recommend it to others. Here's the thing though, if I were to buy a new laptop in the near future, I'd get one of the hybrids with a touchscreen so that it can be used as a big tablet or a regular laptop, and I'd run Windows 8 on it (plus whatever linux is recommended for hybrids).
1. Stability and general buginess. Very stable. 2. Ease-of-use. Piece of cake. 3. Compare to XP and/or 7. Overall it seems faster. Boots faster and shuts down faster.Win 7 looks better imo. 4. Hardware support. Brilliant 5. Program support/compatibility. No probs at all. 6. Anything else relevant. I absolutely adore Windows 8.
1. Stability and general buginess --> no problems so far 2. Ease-of-use --> not very easy MS messed up on this one 3. Compare to XP and/or 7 --> Useless metro Apps make this the most bloated OS 4. Hardware support --> no problems so far 5. Program support/compatibility --> no problems so far 6. Anything else relevant --> nothing else to add
I have not used it on a desktop, but all the laptops I have used it on aren't touchscreen. From my experience so far: 1. I have found it to be very stable, but on one computer after only limited use, it did have an experience like Osaban where it took a while after Windows booted for everything to settle down and be usable. This is the same behaviour some users experienced on Vista without any service packs installed. But, to be fair it was an old pre Windows 7 laptop. 2. I prefer the traditional Start Menu to the Metro interface, so in terms of ease of use I would rate Windows 7. 3. Windows 8 runs faster for me than Windows 7, and so far I've only installed in older computers which originally came with Vista or XP. 4. Hardware support seems to be excellent - which is to be expected, as it gets better with every Windows release. If a device works under Windows 7 then it should also work under Windows 8. I even installed a Vista audio driver on one of my laptops. Windows did install the correct Windows 8 driver, but the Vista one has Dolby virtual surround sound which I wanted to use. But it is giving some latency problems, so maybe I should switch back to the driver Windows install and see if it fares batter. 5. I've only had one issue so far - a driver updater which claimed to support Windows 8, did not work properly. Everything else has worked fine - but to be honest I have not installed a lot of software yet. 6. I believe it would have been better to include the Start Menu and maybe just have the Metro interface as option for tablet users - as it suits touchscreen use. Other than that I've really happy with it.
One other thing I should add: while using the trial version, I witnessed significant data loss following an improper shutdown - the system failed to finish booting, and had to restore itself from a VSS backup. This is the only time I have ever seen such data loss on any Windows NT version.
