windows 8 Do you like or hate Windows 8?

[Knife Party]

I also find there are a lot of apps that look plain silly on a 1080p screen, a lot of metro apps don't seem to scale all that well to high resolution screens.

yup same here, for instance a giant picture and the some info for the weather app. I mean wth? Are they that lazy?

[Guest Sasa_RI]

But what do you expect from the apps written for the Phone? Thats the whole point. To lock you in Metro on PC in hope to leverage the HUGE desktop user base and start milking money from the Store and in the process save the WPhone.

[mduren2445]

I don't like the fact that it appears to be more oriented towards touch devices, with the desktop user experience seemingly tacked on at the last minute.

Do I hate it? No. Do I like it? Certainly not. Would I use it with various tweaks put in? If the tweaks made it more of a desktop experience that I've become used to, probably.

I have to agree it is more toward touch devices but it also makes me wonder in some future version of windows are we headed toward the replacement of the keyboard and mouse with a kinect device where "we are the controller". Think about it where WIN8 is more 'touch oriented' how hard would it be to replace the keyboard and mouse with a kinect device? Think about how metro is designed

[Order_66]

Oh my, the hostility toward anyone who dares to dislike "8" or point out any of its numerous (and glaringly obvious) flaws...

[Noir Angel]

As a gamer, a Keyboard and Mouse make great gaming input devices as it is. No touchscreen is ever likely to have me sold for anything above casual gaming because quite simply no touchscreen can match the accuracy and smoothness of keyboard and mouse input.

[LaP]

Why would i hate an OS ?

This said i don't think Windows 8 works very well in a productivity environment. So i'll keep Windows 7 on my desktop computer. I might get a Windows 8 tablet though.

[+devHead Subscriber²]

The thing I'm probably upset more with other than the full-screen Start menu is the removal of certain customization options. In Windows 8, you cannot change the fonts on any part of the OS, whether icon text, title-bars, etc. Why would they remove that on the Desktop OS? Is it because it's really not needed for phone and tablet devices? Maybe so. So all non-touch device users don't get to have it anymore.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

it also makes me wonder in some future version of windows are we headed toward the replacement of the keyboard and mouse with a kinect device where "we are the controller".

If this happens, I think I'll leave the IT industry.

[Miuku.]

If this happens, I think I'll leave the IT industry.

Already did - much happier nowadays. Try healthcare, we're having a party over here :p

[BajiRav]

I also find there are a lot of apps that look plain silly on a 1080p screen, a lot of metro apps don't seem to scale all that well to high resolution screens.

that's because Windows 8 has only 3 supported DPI scales. If your monitor is not using them, you get standard 96 DPI problems i.e. same messy **** that Windows 7 and lower have/had.

Oh and only WinRT apps bring proper DPI scaling support by default.

read: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-different-screens.aspx

[d4rk5ky]

Hate it on a desktop but would probably use it if i owned a tablet.

[Mando]

I dont "hate" Windows 8, I dislike Metro and i dislike the mishmash of ui styles, bolting the ribbon to explorer (a futile experiment) etc, doesnt mean I hate the actual Windows code, just the pointless metro for non touch devices, its back to fisher price computers interface. It works on phones and tablets.......doesnt work for power users who want to have the choice of showing or not showing metro....its Active Desktop rehashed........and lets face it how long did Active Desktop survive????

[Mando]

Already did - much happier nowadays. Try healthcare, we're having a party over here :p

Lol i did exactly the same 10 years ago but the other way round, screw doing anything for the NHS in the UK hell on earth to work for (i worked patient contact healthcare for 13yr), now working IT in a Bio-med company and couldnt be happier :)

[cork1958]

Would've voted for, No, I hate it, but that's a little to strong. It's tolerable.

I WILL be sticking with Windows 7 for as long as it's supported though.

[shockz]

Dislike 8, but will still be upgrading. Job requires me stay current with the latest (although in this case... not greatest) stuff.

[George P Global Moderator]

Since the release of Windows 7 and the new taskbar my needs for the start menu have dropped like a brick so the start screen changes don't effect my work on a desktop, I just pin my desktop apps to the taskbar. Anything I don't pin is still just a winkey+type search away like always.

I think Win8 might actually make me go multimonitor finally, Having the start screen on one monitor 24/7 sounds good to me since I can better take advantage of the live tiles feeding me info without having to jump in and out of apps like I still have to to some extent on Win7. I also like the native taskbar multimonitor and other changes they've added to Win8 so far, no need for some 3rd party apps to do stuff now.

[fbsduser]

I voted "Doesn't bother" because I don't use Windoze. I use OSX86, Linux or BSD these days.

[Matthew_Thepc]

I voted "Doesn't bother" because I don't use Windoze. I use OSX86, Linux or BSD these days.

intriguing, I've had the exact opposite experience. I used to use Linux a lot, but ever since Win 7 came out I've really seen no point in using linux (except for fun). Why do you use linux/bsd more than windows? (genuinely curious :p)

[PGHammer]

Of course, they wouldn't run. The proof is in the pudding! Windows 8 is a tablet-centric OS. Why would you need to run PowerISO on a tablet?

All this talk of Windows 8 as being *tablet-centric* and *touch-centric* keeps deliberately under-emphasizing the reality that it still (other than WinRT) supports more Win32 (you know - software from previous versions of Windows) applications and games than 7+SP1. Also, not even keyboard and mouse users actually *need* the Start menu - thanks to other features in Windows 7, I actually used the Start menu there very little (about as little as I use the StartScreen in 8, for that matter).

PowerISO will, in fact, run in Windows 8 - but as an image-conversion utility (for the quite-understandable reason that image mounting is now a core feature of the OS itself).

Disk-defragmentation utilities are also in serious trouble with Windows 8 (for the same reason PowerISO is) - the included Disk Optimizer is several steps up from Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7 (and actually trumps Diskeeper 11 Pro Premier - a not-exactly-cheap commercial disk defragmentation utility). Right now, I'm running the trial version of Diskeeper 12 Professional (which, unlike 11, is supported in, and supports, Windows 8); however, it still has to justify itself compared to Disk Optimizer.

Note that none of this has anything to do with improved touch support, support for different hardware form-factors, or anything other than operating-system feature improvements.

One item I'm actually pleased with in Windows 8 (compared to Windows 7) is the improved keyboard support - I have (in several posts) called Windows 8 the most keyboard-friendly Windows since 2000 Professional. Universal Search, Runboxing, etc., and far more keyboard shortcuts than Windows 7 (with or without SP1). I have to ask the detractors - are you THAT reliant on a mouse or other pointing device?

Windows 8 is not a tablet-centric OS (Adamodeus and others) - while it does support touch better than Windows 7, there are added benefits for non-touch users in Windows 8 as well; (don't blame me - or Microsoft - for your unwillingness to see, or use, those benefits).

[fbsduser]

intriguing, I've had the exact opposite experience. I used to use Linux a lot, but ever since Win 7 came out I've really seen no point in using linux (except for fun). Why do you use linux/bsd more than windows? (genuinely curious :p)

Because:

1) It's free of DRM, artificial restriccions and malfeatures (there's no way to know what the ex-convict and the mirrorhead nutjob that runs Microsoft have maliciously embedded in the guts of Windoze).

2) It's open source (again I don't know if the MS CEO's have planted bombs within the guts of Windoze, with Linux OTOH I can study and audit the guts of the OS AND APPS that run on it, which means that if there were any malfeatures I (or any of the thousands of coders working with Linux) would have spoted it and screamed bloody murder).

3) It's very customizable OOTB.

4) It's very consistent (GTK3. GTK2 and QT4 apps (which are the bulk of the stuff you'll find in Linux) look similar, use the visual style you set, put their menus were the DE defines, share the clipboard, allow drag & drop between them, use the same keybindings, their menu layouts are consistent among all of them, they all take advantage of all the features present in the OS nativelly, etc). Compare that with the hodgepodge of ways windoze apps look like (they never use the native controls) and the fact that each app implement it's unique keybindings, menu layouts, etc. It's an ugly mess.

5) Software installation management. Want a bunch of programs. Go to the software Center, search the ones you want, select them all and then click the apply button. Want to uninstall something. Search it in the Software Center, select for uninstallation, click apply (Heck, you can schedule several install and uninstall operations and carry them out in one go). No registry mess, no leftovers from uninstalled software, no crapware, no unwanted add-ons. No need to hunt down shoddy websites and cracks.

6) Supports a wide variety of robust filesystems and partition tables (My laptop uses a classic Phoenix non-UEFI BIOS and I have OSX86, one Linux distro and FreeBSD all running off a gpt partitioned HDD, Windoze can't boot off gpt in a non-UEFI BIOS, but OSX86, Linux and BSD can).

And I can count quite a lot more reasons why I prefer Linux (and OSX86 and BSD) over Windoze.

Now, out of curiosity. Why you, after having used Linux you chose Windoze and it's bugs and viruses?

[TechAddict]

Used my friends windows 8 laptop today and loved it.

Not sure why people say that the metro start screen and hot corners are hard to use with a mouse and a keyboard.

Using it with the track pad is also very easy.

It's pretty fast and responsive..

[bjoswald]

Windows 7 is "fast and responsive" too. But it doesn't have the unnecessary Metro on top of it. See the dilemma?

[TechAddict]

Windows 7 is "fast and responsive" too. But it doesn't have the unnecessary Metro on top of it. See the dilemma?

But it's not the "fast and responsive" part that I was trying to say. It's the "metro is cool and works well on non touch screen devices" part.

(Just my opinion though ;))

[Nick H. Supervisor]

It's the "metro is cool and works well on non touch screen devices" part.

Congratulations. You've established that you can go and sit with the people who think Metro is great rather than the Metro haters.

Let's not create a thread for every person that has an opinion on Windows 8. Every time it just dissolves in to both parties bickering with one another. At the end of the day there will be people that like it and people that don't, you won't be able to change their mind.

[George P Global Moderator]

Congratulations. You've established that you can go and sit with the people who think Metro is great rather than the Metro haters.

Let's not create a thread for every person that has an opinion on Windows 8. Every time it just dissolves in to both parties bickering with one another. At the end of the day there will be people that like it and people that don't, you won't be able to change their mind.

So true, just let the market decide in the end, though if it's a "flop" or not seems to be up in the air, for all the negative press and "flop" tags Vista got it did hit ~20% or so of the PC market until Windows 7 came, I wouldn't really call that a flop but oh well.