My primary computer at home is always on. My work laptop boots in under a minute.

I have no idea what you mean by "better core usage." I have software that is specifically written for multiple cores, e.g. Adobe Premiere. The stuff that isn't won't benefit from multiple cores.

As for a faster browser, I don't use IE. Chrome loads much faster and runs rings around IE.

The "benefits" of Win8 you've described are minimal, whereas the downsides, which I've already outlined, are significant. Win7 was a clear improvement over XP (and Vista), and offered features (many cosmetic) that are appealing to those who use desktop computers as something other than toys, including markedly better stability. Win8 is a giant step backwards.

Not noticeably so on modern hardware, IME.

How often do you reboot that it matters? With a laptop using sleep with an SSD, Windows 7 comes back as fast as I could possibly want it to.

Not necessarily a win; see some of the discussions about the new multicore "optimizations" actually playing rather poorly with Intel's "turbo boost" feature.

Anyone still using IE deserves what they get. Chrome is allegedly faster than Firefox; I find that Firefox is the only one which has gotten better rather than worse at it's UI and behavior over time.

There are some very nice tweaks to things like task manager and explorer, on the desktop side. The latter, however, comes with the AWFUL ribbon-ification, and elimination of menus (replaced with unintuitive windows-key based shortcuts; they claim it's "more keyboard friendly" but I don't see how, unless like my mom you like going back to the "magic memorized key combinations" of say, the Wordperfect-for-DOS days.)

IE????

Sorry, you lost me there. FF or Chrome still have it beat by light years.

Welcome to FT! ^

Mossberg: Avoid installing Windows 8 on a PC over 1 year old, if possible.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories

Ouch.

Interestingly, I'm running Windows 8 on a 2009 HP desktop with no issues at all. Installation was quick and painless.

If you don't like rants, please skip this, okay? (smile)
 

I am trying to adjust to Windows 8. I was looking forward to learning the new interface.

I have adjusted to it (I suppose). Things I click on still vanish, but I find them eventually. Specific files, that is, related to genealogy, from the past few days, where I remember specific names. Otherwise--I wouldn't even know they existed any longer, because I can't find any listings of overall files in general--if that is the right way to word my quandary.

Anyhow--But I don't think I am going to be able to use this new laptop as a primary computer and am looking around to see if I can get a new or newish laptop with Vista, to replace my tried-and-true favorite, which is slowing down.

My main disappointment with Windows 8: I can't get my Verizon email on the new laptop. On my Vista laptop I could press a button and it would appear in Windows Mail. (Had to do some some of gimmicky send and receive deal to do that, IIRC.) Windows 8 says uh, uh, no POP email for us, not on Windows Live (or whatever they call it).

All I want is easy-to-receive email, people! (If I sound plaintive, please be assured that that is because I am!)

And those post-it note-like things I could have in Vista! I am going to miss them!

Oh, and my old way of browsing the web! Click on IE usually (Chrome sometimes), and search away. Now when I click on IE, it has this line, will I let MS read my keystrokes?)

Well, no, I don't think I will, not so long as I have a choice!

And that gets me back to the Metro screen. All that is, primarily, is a promotion of Bing or Bling or whatever you call it, plus whatever else you're promoting? Talk about nerve!

(calming down--)

But my new laptop has a camera. And Skype. So I will be able to use Skype finally.

IF I could figure out how to do so! Evidently I have to register for phone calls, however, not just for the free Skype. (I am probably mistaken about this, but the ins and outs of Skype are beyond the scope--get it, scope? skype?--of your average English major.)

So I can't find anything on the new laptop. That is not really as bad as it sounds.

Because--

by.the.time.I.have.finally.given.up it occurs to me that I no longer remember whatever program or procedure or whatever in general it was that seemed so important to find in the first place, and I give up and walk away.

So Windows 8 is, in a sense, and paradoxically, a real time-saver.

Oh, and P.S., people--what is going to happen to all my emails from the past several years relating to genealogy, stored in my Vista laptop, that to me are priceless? There are far too many saved on Windows Mail to send back to Verizon storage. So I can try to get a new Vista laptop, but shouldn't I be able to transfer them to my new computer?

You'll need to get another offline-email program (Thunderbird and Outlook are the two main ones these days) that can import from Windows Mail (don't know whether either can or both.)

I think Windows Mail under Vista stores the individual messages in a standard EML format (basically, one text file per message) somewhere buried in the user directory (plus a proprietary index file) so in a pinch they could be imported manually to something, but that's a major pain.

Thanks. The last sounds too confusing for me, but I Googled Thunderbird and that looks good. I'll give it a try.

Appreciate the info. ^

@nkedel: I never liked the sleep function, I use hibernate instead. Otherwise, if I'm traveling and know that I won't be using the computer for more than one day, I will turn it off. The option is still there, you know..

@PTravel: I understand your point of view. It's yours and that's that. But it does not mean that you're right.

@Doc Savage: IE's market share is more than Chrome's and Firefox's all together, but that's just statistics. I have four browser installed and each has its own purpose. Try running business tools in FF, when they were developed for IE.

@Jimmie76: Thanks man! :)

Skype is now owned by Microsoft.

Your call; nothing wrong with that, although with huge modern memories[*] that's going to be slow(ish) whether you have an SSD or a disk (less bad with a good SSD.) IME, although this is with slightly less memory than the worst, I can get 30+ hours on sleep with a 9-cell battery, and the cost in disk space for the hibernate file isn't worth it on a 240gb SSD.

(* I've only got 16gb but quite a few of my colleagues carry tank-like workstation replacements specifically because they'll hold 32gb rather than being limited to 16)

Sure, but if you're turning it off for more than a day that can't be happening more than once a day. and it's not exactly pokey on modern hardware (decent processor and SSD) on Windows 7. Plus hibernate, since the machine is off, will happily sit hibernated forever so once you're using that, why use "off?"

In any event, to the extent that it fits your workflow, and that saves time, guess that's a rare positive for Win8. I generally only restart/shutdown every couple of weeks when a patch or installer comes along that requires a reboot; Win7 (and to a lesser extent, even Vista and XP64) seems relatively free of the memory leaks and driver quirkiness that would force a restart every couple of days on older versions of Windows, and sleep has been bulletproof on modern hardware (for values of modern dating back about 3 laptops to 2008) with it.

Having been on the writing side for a bunch of those business apps, my part of the market (enterprise java rather than .NET) has moved towards browser neutrality, even when the marketing droids don't admit it. .NET or even closer-in MS platforms (Sharepoint-based stuff, for a common example) are much more closely tied to IE, as is some antique stuff.

Of course, a lot of that stuff broke with IE 8, or 9, or 10 -- especially on antique stuff (and while I think of IE7 on XP as the "least common denominator" I'm willing to bet that someone here has an example that will only run on IE 6.)

OTOH, it's hard to imagine anything still depending on IE -- especially older versions of IE -- where the browser speed matters on newer hardware. And for newer, scripting-heavy/ajax-y stuff, if you are hitting newer stuff that's IE only, I feel bad for the devs who have to work on it.

No worries hope you enjoy it here.

Chrome has a larger market share than IE, and Firefox is not far behind...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage...f_web_browsers