Jimmie76

Dare I say you're an above average person?

Jimmie76

What first worried me about it was when people who work in the IT area were .....ing about it and saying it was far too complicated and designed for touch screens not desktops/laptops. If you've ever had to nursemaid people through new software it is not a fun experience when they are calling you constantly to achieve simple tasks that they could previously do on their own. It is even worse when they can't get their head round it no mater how many times you explain it. This is more revolution than evolution, and you have to wonder whether MS should have done what I said above Modern is optional in 8 then possibly like it is now in 9. I don't understand how the loss of heirachical structure in the main menu is a good thing, maybe I'm just getting old.

ScottC

I don't know about that - I installed it on my laptop back in September (through MSDN) and hated it. But after reading the reviews, I felt I had to give it another chance.

CPRich

Oh no. Change. Arggghhhh. Run away.....

I'm curious about how many of the above posters have actually tried 8? I remember the same hue and cry when ribbons were introduced in Office. I tried them immediately and found them to allow me to work much more efficiently.

My new i7/16GB/256 GB SSD/3TB/BR/24" machine should be here on Wednesday. I'll comment after I actually use it.

alanh

I'm actually using Win8 right now. I'm in the computer biz, so I figured I'd stay on top of it. I did install it on a secondary hard drive, rather than upgrading my Win7 installation. (The same workaround for a clean install of Win7 works for Win8 if you only have an "upgrade" license key.)

It's... okay. If you're familiar with using a tablet, you'll catch on to the Modern interface pretty quickly. As mentioned above, the split-personality can be a bit annoying. It's possible to run two different instances of Chrome in Modern and Desktop modes. Unless you've enabled sync, they won't share the same bookmarks or history.

There's the Computer Settings on the Modern side, but there's still the classic Control Panel on the Desktop side that still has many more options. For some actions (like advanced printer setup) you'll get bounced over from Modern to Desktop.

The Modern interface isn't as intuitive as the older interfaces. You have to be told to mouse into the corners to bring up the charms or task switcher; there's no real way to figure it out by looking at it.

You also have to read up on what dragging the top of Modern apps does -- to the side to make a 1/3-2/3 screen split, or down to the bottom to close an app. A cheat sheet of Win+keystroke shortcuts also helps a lot. For example, Win+X brings up a power user menu with options for the classic computer management console or the control panel.

Multitasking really sucks on the Modern side and definitely reflects the tablet influence. You can have at most 2 Modern apps on the screen at one time.

There's some backwards compatibility. You can close a Modern app with ALT-F4, though this is less of an issue. Like on tablets, Modern apps in the background are suspended and may get swapped out of memory, so being in the background shouldn't be consuming resources. But this also means an app that should be doing something (like a web page playing music) will also get suspended.

DeafFlyer

I played with it at Best Buy this morning. It took me less than a minute to figure most of it out. I like it a lot. I am considering updating one of our desktops to it. I don't get why so many are afraid of it.

ScottC

Surface is here today

I'm going to upgrade my Zenbook Prime to the new Tachi and my HP DMZ1 to the Vivobook (which is an AMAZING deal at $499!).

I can't stop playing with my Surface....

boerne

i can't believe you said that.....

I got an AO725 from target and put in 8 gig ram and an ssd. i "upgraded" to win 8 today and this little throw away laptop is fantastic. It feels faster than my mac air 2011. or maybe because it is new. I still have some learning curve but so far i really like it.

Jimmie76

I've tried it on a few occasions although not for very long in each case, and to be honest I did try and approach it with an open mind giving MS the benefit of the doubt. The problem was it looks like the interface on the WP7 and that made me want to touch it, on a non touch device which was frustrating and the large tiles were pointless when using a mouse. Yes it was quick and booted quickly but I couldn't get past the fact that you couldn't really multitask in Modern (which is just another layer of complexity) and they could have introduced this new version without the need to insist on the Modern interface for desktop (e.g. non touch) users in this release. Once the surface is a hit they could then have introduced Modern to the desktop, and it would have had more traction.

deubster

On Friday, I upgraded my laptop from a conventional HD to a larger SSD. For $40 (the W8 Pro upgrade download direct from MS), I thought, why not - and decided to set it up as a dual-boot system. I initially installed Vista (I had a licensed copy) which I upgraded to Win8 (very simple upgrade process, BTW), then had the dickens of a time installing Win7 in a second partition.

To begin with, the Win8 install wouldn't let me shrink the volume smaller than 160 GB, so on a 256 GB SSD (240 or so usable), I only had 80 GB for Win7. OK, fine, that's more than I had in my Win7 partition on the old drive, so I could live with it.

Thus far, I'm not impressed. Troubles printing. Difficulties joining a domain. Troubles with setting up a VPN connection. Had to search and study a lot just to find simple things.

I'm not sorry I did it, as I'll have to learn it sooner or later - might as well be sooner. But it's not usable as a primary OS out of the box, not if you actually do more than web surf with your computer. I expect that in the next several months I'll figure most things out, and that MS will hopefully respond to the criticisms.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of Windows 8 - sooner or later people may appreciate the same OS from desktop to laptop to tablet to phone. But the execution falls short. Desktop users find the interface a hindrance to work and tablet users can't run real programs (they are using RT version for now).

piper28

It's easy to get to the desktop. Now, try doing anything once you're there. Oops, that's right, no start menu anymore, so now you have to figure out how to start an application.

Next, install a bunch of apps on the computer. Then see what a mess the tiled interface becomes because there's no hierarchy there. Any program that installed things in sub folders in the start menu, now they all show up on the main menu, even if it doesn't really make sense for them to do it. Maybe some people don't mind flipping through pages of tiles looking for the app they want, similar to the way a tablet or smartphone is done, but I don't need that nonsense on a computer.

I also felt it took way too long to track down where I could change the network settings. I felt it was very non-intuitive to get to.

I'm actually a little more concerned with this when it comes to the new Windows Server version. I haven't had a chance to play with that yet, but from what I could see, they've gone the same route with the interface, and while I could see there being some places where there might be some advantages to that, because of the security limitations you get on things in the modern interface, it limits the usefulness of the live tiles. (I was doing some reading about this the other day, but for the life of me can't remember the article I was reading.) I do need to spend some time working with the new server platform though to determine if there's anything useful in it that my department could use. I'm just not looking forward to it, because I think it's going to be a pain to do things.

rybob1

You do realize that you can organize and resize the tiles in the "start menu"? You can create groups and drag groups around so that the important programs are at the beginning of your screen?

bullroot

press windows key (or search charm) and type name of the application. hit enter. pow.

Same as how most people start apps in w7 except the start menu is now the start screen. once you've done it a few times it's pretty intuitive.

N830MH

Ugghhh...I don't think you're gonna like that. The Windows 8 is very terrible program. Don't try to upgrade new Windows 8. Don't do it! Just stay on Windows 7.

DYKWIA

Why? Give me your reasons for not upgrading.

I upgraded yesterday, and it's fine.