Win 8.1 ???

pmanton

pmanton

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My wife needs a new computer. I am trying to find one with Windows 7 installed with limited success. I have heard so much bad about Win 8 that I'm leery of it. Is it that bad? is 8.1 an improvement? Opinions please

Thanks

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
It takes a little getting used to, but it is actually better under the hood and faster on the same hardware. There are already a few threads about it on the board. People will bash it, because they don't like the change in the UI, but everything is there and once you have it set up, you can navigate fine. If you are buying a new laptop, I recommend you get one with a touch screen. I don't use the touch screen a ton, but for some stuff, like scrolling through a wide spreadsheet or some of the navigation stuff, it is handy.
 
In 30 seconds you can fix the Windows 8 UI problem. Download the free "Start Menu 8" from iobit.com and install. Don't install their Advanced System Care program. You'll now boot into the normal Windows 7-looking screen, complete with Start Button and all the normal menus. The Windows 8 interface is still there, and you can switch between them if you want.

You'll end up with the familiarity of Windows 7, with the advances of Windows 8.
 
If it is a touch screen, as my Surface is, Windows 8 is actually kinda nice.

Without it, get the old UI back and you're golden.
 
I have 8.1 on my desktop and get along OK. Also have it on Surface Pro. Sometimes I think I'd prefer a C: prompt, but by and large it's OK. I tend to use the desktop, which for the most part is about like looking at 7 Pro.
 
I am warming up to 8.1

I was in a similar situation, My motherboard died on my Win 7 box.
I bought my wife and my daughter laptops this past year and each had Win 8 and I hated it. It was hard to find everything.

I ended up buying a ASUS box with 8.1 and it is working out fine. 8.1 can be configured to boot directly to the desktop. The traditional start button takes you to a seperate screen with all the programs across the screen. I actually like it better than 7. The search button is your friend. If you cant find something, search for it. A 10 minute Youtube tutorial will show you how to navigate 8.1 just fine.
 
Hewlett Packard is selling a few desktop and laptop models with Windows 7 on them. I bought one of each. (They have a Memorial Day sale going on until the 27th.)

http://www.shopping.hp.com/
 
Palmpilot said:
Hewlett Packard is selling a few desktop and laptop models with Windows 7 on them. I bought one of each. (They have a Memorial Day sale going on until the 27th.)



http://www.shopping.hp.com/
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You can even downgrade the OS by reinstalling, but I really don't see the point. Win 8.1 is a stable OS. The only issue I have had is that it forces you to IE11, which has compatibility issues with a VPN client I need for work, but I have found a work around for that.
 
John221us said:
You can even downgrade the OS by reinstalling, but I really don't see the point. Win 8.1 is a stable OS. The only issue I have had is that it forces you to IE11, which has compatibility issues with a VPN client I need for work, but I have found a work around for that.
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I'm not proselytizing for Windows 7, just letting people know the opportunity is there.
 
Classic Shell fixes the worst of the GUI annoyances.

Other than that, it's an outstanding OS -- quite possibly the best MS has ever built. Fast, stable, efficient... I have no complaints about it other than the GUI, which can be fixed.

-Rich
 
With my wife telling me " I do NOT want Win 8.1" I found a new Win 7 tower on Amazon with specs suitable for what my wife does. ( quilt stuff--keeps track of my airplane expenses with Excel :sad: )

Problem solved for now. Her old XP setup became corrupted and I could not do a repair on it. Her computer is at least 12 years old and really needs replacement.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
RJM62 said:
Classic Shell fixes the worst of the GUI annoyances.

Other than that, it's an outstanding OS -- quite possibly the best MS has ever built. Fast, stable, efficient... I have no complaints about it other than the GUI, which can be fixed.
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In another thread, I thought you said they had removed features. :confused:
 
pmanton said:
With my wife telling me " I do NOT want Win 8.1" I found a new Win 7 tower on Amazon with specs suitable for what my wife does. ( quilt stuff--keeps track of my airplane expenses with Excel :sad: )

Problem solved for now. Her old XP setup became corrupted and I could not do a repair on it. Her computer is at least 12 years old and really needs replacement.

Paul
Salome, AZ
Click to expand...

I spent a couple of hours today installing Ubuntu 12.04 as the OS on an old Dell Dimension 3000 with a very corrupted copy of XP. Needed BIOS tweaks and GRUB edits to boot reliably but runs great now. Faster than ever. Not bad for a $4.95 bootable disk from ebay. Backed up all the data from the old system on a usb drive and installed a clean Virtualbox copy of XP to access it as I need it.

Comes with Firefox and a bunch of Linux applications. Head and shoulders better than windows, but very different at the machine level.
 
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Recently bought a new Acer R7 touchscreen convertible laptop running 8.1 and I am adjusting to it.

As others have suggested, there are options to lay over a more Win7 style start screen.

Win 8.1 is the fastest Win product I have ever played with and it seems to be running very well, really cool with the touchscreen.

'Gimp
 
I hated it at first, but StartIsBack fixed most of my complaints. Now that I have a Win8 tablet I'm learning to appreciate some of the UI elements.

It's like the ribbon bar that was added to Office some years back. At first, everyone hated it. After a few years everyone got used to it, and people now praise it.

That said, one of the latest Win8 builds MS showed off had the old star menu back, but with a small flyout with some metro tiles.

http://www.techradar.com/news/softw...could-come-this-autumn-as-windows-8-2-1244018
 
lionclaw said:
I hated it at first, but StartIsBack fixed most of my complaints. Now that I have a Win8 tablet I'm learning to appreciate some of the UI elements.

It's like the ribbon bar that was added to Office some years back. At first, everyone hated it. After a few years everyone got used to it, and people now praise it.

That said, one of the latest Win8 builds MS showed off had the old star menu back, but with a small flyout with some metro tiles.

http://www.techradar.com/news/softw...could-come-this-autumn-as-windows-8-2-1244018
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, what advantages do you think StartIsBack has over the free (as in free beer) Classic Shell?

-Rich
 
PC Shell is the GUI interface to get rid of the Metro 8.1 interface. I have it on my 8.1 systems and my wife did not skip a beat when she booted up her laptop on her last trip.
 
Get 8.1. It takes about 10 minutes of getting used to. I think you'll find that the changes from win 7 makes sense especially for those who were using windows 7 features correctly.
 
Bought a touchscreen laptop (Win 8.1) for my wife late last year. She likes it. I hate it. She is computer illiterate. I am not and like to customize my computers. Windows 8 makes it extremely difficult or impossible to modify settings when your system or lan doesn't meet the cookie cutter norm. Frustrating. Little things like finding "Printer Properties" or changing network settings can take hours of internet searching to figure out, if possible at all. It's taken me 20+ years to get to this point but I can honestly say I'd rather have a sister working in a cat house than Windows 8 on any computer I use.
 
Dell have a few with Win7 on them, just got one last week, just set it up for dual 7/8.1 boot to test drive it
 
JohnAJohnson said:
Bought a touchscreen laptop (Win 8.1) for my wife late last year. She likes it. I hate it. She is computer illiterate. I am not and like to customize my computers. Windows 8 makes it extremely difficult or impossible to modify settings when your system or lan doesn't meet the cookie cutter norm. Frustrating. Little things like finding "Printer Properties" or changing network settings can take hours of internet searching to figure out, if possible at all. It's taken me 20+ years to get to this point but I can honestly say I'd rather have a sister working in a cat house than Windows 8 on any computer I use.
Click to expand...

Search is your friend. Go to the tile screen and just start typing. Whatever you were used to looking for, such as Printers or Programs. All the stuff is still there and as Rich has pointed out, under the covers it is a much better OS.
 
I just loaded Classic Shell and selected Win 7 mode. My wife loves it. She got lost in the Win 8 screen a few times, but knows how to go down to the corner and start the 'desktop' now to get back to classic shell of Win 7.
 
John221us said:
Search is your friend. Go to the tile screen and just start typing. Whatever you were used to looking for, such as Printers or Programs. All the stuff is still there and as Rich has pointed out, under the covers it is a much better OS.
Click to expand...

I also mentioned in passing that I hate the UI and installed Classic Shell. :lol:

But yeah, Search is another way to find things. A lot of us just don't want "another way." We were perfectly happy with the old way.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I also mentioned in passing that I hate the UI and installed Classic Shell. :lol:

But yeah, Search is another way to find things. A lot of us just don't want "another way." We were perfectly happy with the old way.

-Rich
Click to expand...

One article I saw complained that the Windows 8 UI was a poor design because it lacked discoverability. Is that true of 8.1? If so, does Classic Shell fix that problem?
 
pmanton said:
My wife needs a new computer. I am trying to find one with Windows 7 installed with limited success. I have heard so much bad about Win 8 that I'm leery of it. Is it that bad? is 8.1 an improvement? Opinions please

Thanks

Paul
Salome, AZ
Click to expand...

Just make sure you get a touch screen and Win 8 and it's ok, without it sucks.
 
JohnAJohnson said:
Bought a touchscreen laptop (Win 8.1) for my wife late last year. She likes it. I hate it. She is computer illiterate. I am not and like to customize my computers. Windows 8 makes it extremely difficult or impossible to modify settings when your system or lan doesn't meet the cookie cutter norm. Frustrating. Little things like finding "Printer Properties" or changing network settings can take hours of internet searching to figure out, if possible at all. It's taken me 20+ years to get to this point but I can honestly say I'd rather have a sister working in a cat house than Windows 8 on any computer I use.
Click to expand...

:confused: I guess being computer illiterate has advantages, I can find my way through all that stuff.
 
Henning said:
:confused: I guess being computer illiterate has advantages, I can find my way through all that stuff.
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Not necessarily computer illiterate, just conforming to Microsoft's 80 percentile target :). There's no shame in being content with the status quo.
 
JohnAJohnson said:
Not necessarily computer illiterate, just conforming to Microsoft's 80 percentile target :). There's no shame in being content with the status quo.
Click to expand...

I've managed to find my way through every OS to make it do what I need except Linux.
 
Palmpilot said:
One article I saw complained that the Windows 8 UI was a poor design because it lacked discoverability. Is that true of 8.1? If so, does Classic Shell fix that problem?
Click to expand...

Lacks discoverablity? Yeah, I'd say that's something I'd agree with. But whether it does or it doesn't, those of us for whom computers are tools, not just toys, tend to not want to waste time having to re-discover the UI. It's been pretty much the same since 1995, and as boring as it may be, it's what we're used to and it works.

As for Classic Shell, the single biggest complain we Luddites have about the new UI is the lack of a familiar Start Menu and other navigation features we've become accustomed to, and Classic Shell does in fact fix those problems (and even makes a few improvements along the way). So I'd have to say yes. Considering its popularity, I reckon a lot of other folks feel the same way.

In fact, I think Microsoft needs to send Ivo Beltchev a generous check (if they haven't already) for saving their otherwise superb OS from almost-certain obscurity. You have no idea how many folks have called me, usually screaming and cursing, in a last-ditch effort to avoid taking their newly-purchased PCs back to the store for refunds. It's actually amusing to hear the change in their mood and tone after I talk them through the Classic Shell installation.

-Rich
 
Do you need 8.1 for Classic Shell though? Isn't that what's always been in the corner square with 8? I've always been able to get my regular desktop and a familiar navigation screen. Yeah, there's more stuff there as well, and if you don't have a touch screen it's a kludge to work in, but on my Sony with the touch screen I'm just fine. The only thing that really annoys me is when I scroll across the touch pad it flips processes/programs.
 
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Henning said:
I've managed to find my way through every OS to make it do what I need except Linux.
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Linux is a superb server OS. On the desktop... well, it depends.

When Win98 was Microsoft's current OS, I used Linux as my primary desktop OS because it was stable and did what I needed it to do. I wasn't a Linux zealot or an anti-Microsoft crusader. I just wanted a stable OS that didn't lock up or crash several times a week. So I used Linux for most of my day-to-day work, and Windows for applications that wouldn't run on Linux. I always preferred the Debian-based Linux releases for the desktop.

After Win7 came out, however, I gradually found myself spending more and more time in Windows; and now I spend almost all my desktop time in Win7 or Win8. (I still use CentOS for my servers.)

That being said, Linux Mint is a very capable desktop Linux distribution. I use it mainly for resource-intensive tasks like video transcoding because it's fast and resource-efficient. I'm also toying with the idea of building a media server on top of Mint for the same reasons. But I could happily use Mint as a desktop OS if not for all the Adobe software I run.

Most of that software (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, etc.) cannot be made to run properly on Linux. I've gotten some of the programs to run poorly on Linux in the past, but never well enough for production use.

But it's all moot now. Microsoft has finally figured out how to build a fundamentally excellent, stable operating system. Two of them in a row, in fact. So I no longer mind spending my days in Windows.

-Rich
 
Henning said:
Do you need 8.1 for Classic Shell though? Isn't that what's always been in the corner square with 8? I've always been able to get my regular desktop and a familiar navigation screen. Yeah, there's more stuff there as well, and if you don't have a touch screen it's a kludge to work in, but on my Sony with the touch screen I'm just fine. The only thing that really annoys me is when I scroll across the touch pad it flips processes/programs.
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Classic Shell will run on 8. I had it on 8. But if/when you upgrade to 8.1, you'll have to uninstall and reinstall Classic Shell (at least if you want it to work properly).

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Linux is a superb server OS. On the desktop... well, it depends.

When Win98 was Microsoft's current OS, I used Linux as my primary desktop OS because it was stable and did what I needed it to do. I wasn't a Linux zealot or an anti-Microsoft crusader. I just wanted a stable OS that didn't lock up or crash several times a week. So I used Linux for most of my day-to-day work, and Windows for applications that wouldn't run on Linux. I always preferred the Debian-based Linux releases for the desktop.

After Win7 came out, however, I gradually found myself spending more and more time in Windows; and now I spend almost all my desktop time in Win7 or Win8. (I still use CentOS for my servers.)

That being said, Linux Mint is a very capable desktop Linux distribution. I use it mainly for resource-intensive tasks like video transcoding because it's fast and resource-efficient. I'm also toying with the idea of building a media server on top of Mint for the same reasons. But I could happily use Mint as a desktop OS if not for all the Adobe software I run.

Most of that software (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, etc.) cannot be made to run properly on Linux. I've gotten some of the programs to run poorly on Linux in the past, but never well enough for production use.

But it's all moot now. Microsoft has finally figured out how to build a fundamentally excellent, stable operating system. Two of them in a row, in fact. So I no longer mind spending my days in Windows.

-Rich
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If you can make a video server that will drive 8-10 separate viewing stations, let me know. BTW, there's really good money in it if you can beat Kalidescape's prices. Right now they have the only system that will do it, and they are awful proud as evidenced by their prices. Every other system and custom built (read stabbed together using off the shelf parts and downloading commercial software going through some Chinese or other third party box) can manage only three before you start having stuttering and flickering issues.
 
RJM62 said:
. . . .those of us for whom computers are tools, not just toys, tend to not want to waste time having to re-discover the UI. It's been pretty much the same since 1995, and as boring as it may be, it's what we're used to and it works. . . .

-Rich
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I am amazed at how may software people don't get that. I have been using the same CAD/CAM software since it was a DOS program and they keep changing stuff, moving commands to different menus. Not better, just different. I have gotten so I hate to upgrade anything.
 
I personally didn't think 8 was that bad, but there were definitely some things that I had to get used to. To avoid windows 8, the last computer I bought was a Mac (i know shame on me). As far as personal computers go I am happy with it, but it was really for my wife as she does a lot art and imagery. For a business machine I couldn't use it because most of the stuff we use is not mac friendly. So I guess windows upgrades are something we just have to deal with and accept the learning curve.
 
I have 8.1 on my laptop and desktop. I use Classic Shell on the laptop and the Stardock equivalent on the desktop. either one does a good job.

As mentioned though you can just start typing to find what you want.
 
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