Windows 8 - Looks really awsome

By making Metro optional and including a traditional desktop for the Luddites amongst us;MS could head off a lot of criticism.Also,by doing so they might avoid creating another "XP" with Win7 around for ever.

 

been running this thing steady for the last 3 days.

the traditional desktop is still there and I use Metro just to launch some apps.
I don't use Metro Apps, I have no need for them.

all in all, once you learn the interface it's pretty much smooth sailing.

but it's not easy for somebody newly trying it; I would recommend watching some videos on Youtube to learn the basics of Metro before even installing it.
I think if M$ had been smart and provided a tutorial in the DP and CP there would not be this much confusion and negative feedback.

 

Thanks for the insight there .

I confess that I've avoided trying Windows 8,largely due to all those negative reviews floating around.When you get older,the tendency is to stick to what's familiar and comfortable,but it's good to speculate now and then.

In your experience is everything generally as easy to navigate using Win8 ?

 

for the most part yes.
but you got to give it a couple of days to get used to it.

if it was not for the performance gains of Windows 8 (read the Cakewalk SONAR tests earlier in this thread) then I feel there would be little advantages for a desktop/laptop user to switch to Win8.

 

I agree with your statement. It is the performance improvements that interest me the most about Windows 8. After using it the RP for several weeks and going back to Windows 7, 7 seems a bit slow on some things, but not much because of my SSD

 

i decided to run my own performance tonight.

this test was only to look at CPU crunching speed; i thought rendering a test file with Blender Portable would be as good as anything.

on Windows 7: 3 minutes 24 seconds
on Windows 8: 3 minutes 17 seconds.

that's a marginal improvement, imo.
i don't know how to calculate percentage but that's not a lot, i guesstimate about 2%.
i was expecting more.

 

The performance increases would vary depending your setup, thats what I'm thinking.

 

yes, that would make sense.

i guess it's up to everyone to run their own tests to see what they get.

 

Yep, I'm sure tons of tests will show up once RTM is released. I would do try myself if I still had Windows 8 setup on my laptop but I removed it and went back to Windows 7. Plus I'm waiting on RTM to see the final product and then decide if I will upgrade or not.

 

Win 8 seems to be more demanding about the video card.

in Win 7, i get a score of 4.4 for my graphic card on the Windows Experience Index but only 3.5 in Windows 8.

so it's something to watch out for if you are running an old computosaur.

 

The scores are different and not directly comparable as Win 8 now supports upto WDDM 1.2 which has additional features that allow for a higher score. Was a similar situation between Vista and Win7.

Cheers, Nick

 

Which makes it all pretty meaningless.

 

Meaningless for comparing your hardware across operating systems maybe, but it was never designed to do that. It was designed to give an impression of how good hardware is for that specific operating system, whilst considering the best hardware that's available at that point in time.

 

For which purpose it is invalid as the same hardware performs better for 8 than 7 and for 7 than Vista whilst the tests rate them as poorer.

Which is what renders the ratings meaningless as they grow progressively more inaccurate from the moment they are first released.

 

Again, they aren't invalid. You are taking the test out of context and complaining about something it isn't supposed to measure. It's supposed to measure your hardware against the features of that OS, it isn't some kind of raw performance benchmark, performance is only a small factor of the entire test.

E.g. does your GPU support xyz new feature? No? Then is gets a lower score.

If you want actual performance benchmarks then several 3rd party software solutions exist.

 

Incorrect. Since:

And seeing as I just said: the same hardware performs better for running the features of 8>7>Vista whilst the tests grant respectively lower ratings the ratings are in fact:

 

I guess you just don't understand. Maybe I'm explaining it badly, but I don't know how to explain it any better.

 

Perhaps, although the reverse is an equally plausible explanation.

 

anyway,
it's no big deal folks.

errr, just finished some more test.

I rendered another test file, bigger this time, using Blender (Cycles render).

the times:

Windows 7: 12 minutes 16 seconds
Windows 8: 12 minutes 03 seconds
Mint Maya (Cinnamon version): 6 minutes 14 seconds.

 

Looks like they may be removing support for desktop gadgets.
http://www.neowin.net/news/is-desktop-gadget-support-gone-in-windows-8
I can live without them, but I am sure there will be people that will be upset.