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Sell me on Windows 8


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I am buying a new computer in 2 weeks due to the untimely death of my current one.  I know it will be loaded with Windows 8 with an upgrade to 8.1.  This computer will be a desktop tower.  I have a Windows 7 ultimate disc.  I have had nothing but headaches in my exposure to Windows 8 thusfar.  Is it worth me getting the hang of, or should I just say fuck it and install 7?

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8.1 is fine. The tile shit is still around, but you don't have to deal with it much. Keep the icons you need the most on your taskbar, (same as you do on 7) and to get to other applications, windows key -> type name of application and boom.

Meanwhile it boots up much faster than 7. I have 7 Professional on my work laptop and it is soooooo slow to start up. Every morning I turn the damn thing on, key in my password and go get coffee.

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It does take practically zero time to boot up, but I was so thrown off by the interface that I downloaded a program that makes WIndows 8.1 look like Windows 7 called Classic Shell. God, some of the touchpad's quick feaures nearly had me throwing the laptop before I figured out how to turn them off. Now my touchpad doesn't work at all, but such is life.

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Just get it so it defaults to the desktop and avoid all their weird fullscreen weather and stock market bullshit programs and you'll be golden. Disable charms, I don't really remember what these did but I'm pretty sure nobody wants them active. Get a USB drive ready with all your must have shit like Waterfox and a complete backup of your browser profile (bookmarks, passwords).

 

Here's another tip:  You have to make your own shortcut to "my computer" for your desktop.  You know you want it.

 

When you want to shut down, right click the start button at the bottom and you'll get the shit you need.  That menu has all the really useful shit.

 

Takes like 10 minutes to install and the rest of the afternoon to fluff the pillows and get shit stinking the way you want it to.

 

The only useful thing that windows 8 has is that thing where if you kinda jam your cursor in the bottom right corner it shows a big ass date and time square on the left side of your screen.  Good for bleary eyed 9 AM computing when you just woke up.  Gets way more use than that old windows 7 bullshit where you drag two windows to either edge and it snaps 'em into place.  USELESS.

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Just get Classic Shell.  I've been using Windows 8.1 for months and, thanks to Classic Shell, no learning curve.  I hate the Windows 8.1 tile interface and the whole "make it work like touch" style.  Ugh.

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I actually like using Windows 8. The Metro tiles are pretty cool and I like being able to have a split screen of Desktop and Metro to do different things on each. Boot up is extremely fast and I actually have no icons on the desktop screen other than the programs pinned to the task bar.

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8.1 is fine. The tile shit is still around, but you don't have to deal with it much. Keep the icons you need the most on your taskbar, (same as you do on 7) and to get to other applications, windows key -> type name of application and boom.

Meanwhile it boots up much faster than 7. I have 7 Professional on my work laptop and it is soooooo slow to start up. Every morning I turn the damn thing on, key in my password and go get coffee.

 

 

I second what Cristobal said - 8.1 is tolerable, and faster.

 

***NOTE: I'm sure you all may already know this, but I'll throw it out here anyway.***

 

 

Up until the point that it no longer has that new car smell. The processor is primary built around the OS with a bit more to carry over. Corporate computer's are notorious about this. They want to be cost efficient (so they will buy the lowest running CPU's that their data can handle) plus they don't want their employees spending the day looking at cat videos and playing WoW. Once you start adding in programs and updates, that's when the lag starts coming in. Not because your processor is old, just that all the added features gives your CPU more resources then it was built to handle. It happens with all computers over time. Give it about 6 months to a year of downloading and even 8.1 will start lagging.

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But there is supposed to be some feature that lets you go back to having a normal desktop used by human beings, so I guess it's a non-issue in the end.

 

Yes. It's called installing Windows 7 and kicking that shitshow Windows 8 OS to the curb.

 

Also, for the record, I thought that Windows 8 would be the perfect OS for a tablet. Then I messed with my buddy's Surface Pro and I wanted to throw that fucking thing at the wall. I'm an odd sort who actually doesn't like OSX and prefers Windows, but when it comes to tablets, iOS and even Android get it right. Metro looks REALLY awesome though, so they have that going for them, which is nice.

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