[Closed] Just bought a new laptop that comes with Windows 8.

My dad's just off the phone trying to get me to help him work his shiny new "windows 8".

I'm Googling how to revert the theme back to Vista, or earlier.

You might have missed windows 7 which is actually pretty good.

There are many guides on the Internet that help you make windows 8 look like windows 7.
Do them.

Yea verily, for it is he who decreed that Windows 8 is good.

Check out the Independent today. All even numbered windows releases are crap.

Okay, just had a quick google and I see there are indeed various sites about converting back to 7. Ay recommendations for a safe and reliable one? Ta.

I've just bought a new laptop and actually had the option to go with 7 but thought no I'll try 8 even though I'm sure I'll hate it and end up going back to 7. Rather to my surprise I've found it better than expected and currently don't have any plans to revert.

revert, revert, revert. etc.

I don't know what this PC came with, I made it look like XP immediately.

Edit: In fact, as close to '98 as possible. Custom coloured toolbars the lot.

Using Windows 7 here. It's the best OS Microsoft have done IMO.

I had DOS open the other day, to open a .txt file, just to reminisce.

[url= http://download.cnet.com/Start8/3000-2072_4-75732532.html ]Start8[/url] is what you need to make Windows 8 useable.

I have just spent the best part of three hours trying to install Windows 7 on a windows 8 laptop. PITA. 👿

I believe MS are hot on the case of making Windows 8 a bit more, well, Windows-like. So says my well-informed SO.

Could be you tech luddites just need to spend a little time getting used to it (and learning the touchpad shortcuts etc) instead of banging your rocks together and whinging about how it's not what it used to be.

It's not actually half bad at all after the learning curve, and speed wise it's much better than 7.

I 've had to use a Mac for the past 2 months at work.

I can't work it. Intuitive my arse.

Someone said on the twitterer the other day "Windows 8, the new NT"

Ie:cack.

Or wait a little bit for windows Blue aka windows 8.1 aka oh shit we've done another Vista, oh sod it lets bring the start button and desktop mode back because a hell of a lot of people are hating this shit!

Metro on a phone yes
Metro on a tablet yes
Desktop/laptop IMHO no!

Lol at flaperon.

Didn't you know? Everyone on stw works in the it industry.
We're all experts and trust us, windows 8 is crap.

I dislike waiting for the Start screen to load, then clicking the program I want and being dumped into the dekstop which I then also have to wait for while it also loads.

And my PC hangs roughly every half hour for 5 mins each time while Windows laughably 'updates' itself (which it inevitably then fails to do).

And I even bothered to learn the shortcuts. But I still hate it. Much preferred my Win 7 installation which ran quicker and was MUCH more stable.

Hate Windows 8. Unstable, unusable piece of cack.

[/rant]

I quite like it to be honest. Like seven but with a massive, easier to use, easier to customise start menu.

Eight is fine once you get used to the bigger Start menu. Not had any problem with stability so far and it's nice and zippy on my SSD laptop.

Would be even better with a touchscreen but mouse and the windows key works just fine for now 8)

biggest improvement i made with the SO's laptop was turning off the track pad gestures, Trying to copy Apple and failing miserably!!!!

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, said Windows 8 would be like combining a toaster and a fridge – something that, while technically possible, was “probably not going to be pleasing to the user”.

😀

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/330c8b8e-b66b-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2ShUXABPh

Windows 7 on our lappy is ace, Windows 8 on work lappy is OK, but as above I disabled the trackpad gestures to help... It takes time, but it is growing on me.

I tried the Windows8 release client for a while before it was released. I didn't find it too bad to be honest. I can see how it would work very well on tablets/touch screen PCs/phones etc. but for anyone who does more than basic tasks (web browsing etc) it just seems to get in the way on a 'normal' PC. I'll be sticking with windows7 for the foreseeable future.

Mind if you want something really horrible to use, try Ubuntu's head-up-display system.

I've got Windows 8 on my works laptop. It's ok but can be frustrating at times.

The Mrs needed a new laptop to as old one is a bit slow (10years old) considered getting a cheap Win 8 laptop but thought better of it. In the end I bought a second hand MacBook Pro as that is more straight forward to use.

For the IT bods try using Windows Server 2012 via remote desktop. It has the same UI layout as Win 8. I had to Google how to find out where Internet Explorer is and how to log out. Using the charm action is difficult in a VM window and you can't use the Windows Start key. Downgraded the server to Windows Sever 2008.

I was at a tech day at Microsoft central a little while ago to look at Windows Server 2012. Didn't see the Metro interface once all day. Seems even the MS techs disable it.

What's with all the fuss about missing a start button. You now have a massive, full screen sized start button. It really is not that hard to figure out. But then, judging by all the grief here, perhaps it is.

Agree with a couple of points ^^ that perhaps the "metro" style apps are not such a great experience on a desktop / laptop vs a touch screen tablet or phone but overall it's reasonably responsive (at least as quick as 7) and I have found getting used to the Start screen doesn't take very long.

And Cougar, I suspect it is because Server 2012 does not boot into the Start screen that you may not have seen much of it at the tech day. Starts up with the desktop and Server Manager.

Seems I learned a lot. (-: I really should take a proper look at it at some point.

I'm amazed at how many people don't seem to be capable of understanding this. It really is so simple, at least it was when I tried it.

The icons are just bigger, and they are all across the screen instead of in the bottom right. Scary, I know.

Never under estimate the resistance to change in any work force would appear to be the lesson of this thread!

Persist with it. The more I use it the more I like it. At first it was like trying to cook in someone else's kitchen but now I've found everything I realise that the layout works rather well.

The icons are just bigger, and they are all across the screen instead of in the bottom right. Scary, I know.

It's wouldn't be scary, if this were true....but I don't think it is. For example, the Skype app that runs on the start screen does not have all the functionality (and forces you to use a MS account) of the proper Skype app which runs on the desktop, so you need two separate apps. Internet explorer run from the start menu looks and behaves differently to the IE installed on the traditional desktop. The settings appear to be done in two places, there is the old style control panel and a new settings app under the metro start screen, but this can only be used for a subset of what you use the old control panel for.

I've only played with it for an hour or so, but to me it does not seem like it's properly integrated into the OS, it's just a bolt on, but at the same time, it's taken away some of the useful functions in Win 7.

Best case, MS have been very poor at getting across to users how to get started with Win 8. I like the look of the Metro interface, but it looks like they have only done half a job in integrating it with the OS.

The main thing that sent me back to Windows 7 was the lack of POP3 support in the email program that comes with Windows 8. I know there are work arounds, but why should I?

@Richmars - Probably easier to do the work around than regress, surely?

I got a cheap copy (£10) through work and upgraded my 5 year old Vista desktop with it, no more crashing, much faster, but I did install Classic Shell.

Only thing that doesn't work so far is the crappy Garmin USB to Serial cable so it looks like I'll be upgrading from my old Garmin Etrex H.

Given the Outlook/Mail habit of automatically binning important mail I didn't even try the mail program. Thunderbird is free and works. Once installed you get a nice little icon on the start page (as with everything else you install).

molgrips - Member
I'm amazed at how many people don't seem to be capable of understanding this. It really is so simple

This sounds like Microsoft. The real question is 'why'? There's a decades old convention that individuals and corporations have bought in to. Millions of hours of training and productivity have been invested in this. It's a bit like changing the accepted conventions of the dash layout of a car just to appear fresh and funky.

There's resistance because it's change to a fundamental work tool for most of us. If it were 'that simple', there wouldn't be such a kerfuffle would there?

I still don't 'get' the changes to ribbon menus in Office with no option for a 'classic' view. Same sort of thing, buggeration for buggerations sake.

The main thing that sent me back to Windows 7 was the lack of POP3 support in the email program that comes with Windows 8. I know there are work arounds, but why should I?

I find that curious, given that Windows 7 doesn't come with an email program at all.

Given the Outlook/Mail habit of automatically binning important mail I didn't even try the mail program.

Again, I've used "Live Mail" since it was Internet Mail and News, and I've never had that happen to me.

I still don't 'get' the changes to ribbon menus in Office with no option for a 'classic' view. Same sort of thing, buggeration for buggerations sake

I was exactly like you until I bothered to go through the tutorials that they provide. Now I find it much much better as everything has been moved into much more logical places or is hidden when I don't need it which makes finding other stuff easier. As has been said already you need to invest a bit of time in learning but it is really worth the effort, you can get stuff done way faster

When I learned to drive I had to learn hand signals, some cars had the indicators on the dash in the middle, the radio was a long stretch and required turning a knob to find a channel, the dip switch was foot operated, the start button was on the floor, you had to get out of the car to adjust the wing mirror, the speedo was better placed for the passenger... . I'm happy they've improved the dash layout on cars and I'm happy with the new opening screen of W8.

The 'old' design of Office, wasn't scalable, I think might be the problem. I've seen power users (ie, people who actually vaguely know how to use it) with so many toolbars displayed that their workspace is reduced to a postcard at the bottom of the screen.

Whilst the ribbon might not necessarily be ideal (I really don't understand MS's fascination with ever-bigger icons for a start), it's a definite improvement on pre-2007 editions.

Trouble is, if you use win 8, Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint, Visio, Project and Outlook, that's a lot of productive time spent 'making the effort' whilst continuing to deliver the 'real work' already committed to.

Ribbons etc are great for mouse jockeys and occasional users, less so for those who've committed their experience to muscle memory.

I'm starting to sound like a luddite so I'm off to burn some witches for heresy 🙂

The real question is 'why'?

Well that is a good question. MS are faced with competition from Apple, so they need to respond. If they just stood still the world would be thinking of MS as the boring plain workaday option and Apple as the lovely luxury item. They don't want to be thought of this way.

W8 is a much bigger step than simply rearranging the start menu and taskbar. The front screen can be quite powerful with those tiles displaying content.

I really do agree though that the metro front end shoul dhave been an option, or maybe even like an app, and that when you switch to desktop mode the start menu should be there. That way if you just open up your machine for a quick social network browse or catch up on something, metro makes it easy; but if you sit down to work you can do it in productivity mode.

They are actually two different styles of use, MS should perhaps recognise this. They COULD produce two OSes in fact, work and lifestyle say, or they could make it easy to switch between modes. Or.. they could sell a work version without the metro stuff.

OR, even better still, a work version of Metro. So your sysadmins could configure your start screen for you to provide all the work stuff you want with your apps displaying useful info in those tiles set up for your particular job.. hmm..

Still using XP here at work (can't see any point in changing) and Macs at home, but very much enjoying learning Python and working with this on the Raspberry Pi 🙂

[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7300/8725764434_80483bc1d0_b.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7300/8725764434_80483bc1d0_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/59103763@N08/8725764434/ ]pi[/url]
Currently encoding a video made from timelapse images taken last night by the Pi.

[i]MS are faced with competition from Apple, so they need to respond[/i]

Been using Windows 8 on a desktop for about two months now. I find the whole user interface so awkward that I'm actually contemplating getting an iMAC instead!

My new laptop that I bought a month ago has Windows 8 on it and it replaced my old one with XP and I could not get on with the metro interface and charms thing, so I downloaded one of those start button apps and things are much better.

One positive about Windows 8 is the speed with which it boots up and closes down in comparison to XP.

Yes, each new version of Windows gets much better technically, aside from the user interface.

It's completely designed for touch screen (on which it is [i]ok[/i], but nowhere near as intuitive as Apple's stuff). So, on non-touch screen systems, it just doesn't fit.

As an aside to the interface, I got my son a Windows 8 phone. Oh. My. Lord. What a complete and utter FAFF to set up.
Ok, I'll explain - you're prompted to set up the country/region when you switch on... Set to UK. You're then prompted to set up a Windows account.. no country prompt (why would you need one, you've already told it you're in the UK)... Turns out the account you've just set up for your kid is US based. Oh, so he can't download anything (because although my MS account is UK, the credit card it wants to verify that I'll let him download stuff is US because my son's account is US (you still with me?). Right, so set him up a new account, make sure its UK... then change the phone to that account. How? FACTORY RESET!
What fun.

A few stories online suggesting MS might bethinking about a major rethink of Windows 8 as feedback has been so poor

Above quote "Windows 8 is the new NT" is priceless, love it

Good points above. The real reason for this is pure marketing. Of course there are some technical improvements but to dress those up a some sort of ergonomic revolution is just Ed Balls. MS need 'new' products every few months to keep the revenues flowing and the corporates subscribed (read tied in). However, to dress this up a something solely for our (the users of the damn stuff!) benefit is laughable.

My main gripe is the investment made in training and familiarisation is discounted with a quick 'get used to it, Luddite' comment that simply belies the retraining required to get productive again. Imagine the furore if 'tools' in other industries were changed willy nilly just to appease the marketing boys.... Grrr, 🙂

Flaperon - Member

Could be you tech luddites just need to spend a little time getting used to it

Sounds like the definition of a bad consumer OS to me, tbh. OSs should work how you want them to work not how they want you to work.

I've been using Win8 since the preview came out. I can't say I miss the start menu but I'd definitely miss the speed and stability if I went back. In fact Win8 on my PC is more stable than Mountain Lion is on my iMac - now how did that happen? I agree that some of the execution of the GUI needs tweaking but the OS seems fundamentally sound.

If I hadn't missed the cheap deal I was going to load Win8 on the iMac to see how well it worked with the magic trackpad, maybe that would be the golden combination.

It's completely designed for touch screen (on which it is ok, but nowhere near as intuitive as Apple's stuff). So, on non-touch screen systems, it just doesn't fit.

As an aside to the interface, I got my son a Windows 8 phone. Oh. My. Lord. What a complete and utter FAFF to set up.
Ok, I'll explain - you're prompted to set up the country/region when you switch on... Set to UK. You're then prompted to set up a Windows account.. no country prompt (why would you need one, you've already told it you're in the UK)... Turns out the account you've just set up for your kid is US based. Oh, so he can't download anything (because although my MS account is UK, the credit card it wants to verify that I'll let him download stuff is US because my son's account is US (you still with me?). Right, so set him up a new account, make sure its UK... then change the phone to that account. How? FACTORY RESET!
What fun.

mine was a piece of piss to set up.

OSs should work how you want them to work not how they want you to work.

Except how you want it to work is exactly how W7 wanted you to work.

It's all about them coming up with good ideas and you adopting them. Always has been. This discussion comes up every single time MS change stuff. I remember it when W95 came out.

As for investment in training and productivity - really? If you're doing lots with the OS, then you're a techie, and you can figure it out like you did for everything else. If you're not, then you just click on the apps you need for your job the same as always.

Trouble is, if you use win 8, Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint, Visio, Project and Outlook, that's a lot of productive time spent 'making the effort' whilst continuing to deliver the 'real work' already committed to.

Nope, exactly the opposite. Once you've 'got' the idea behind the ribbon you can navigate in all of those applications really easily whereas in the past they were all a bit different in how to find things. In Win8 you no longer even bother looking for where the settings are, you just search. Want to bring up reliability history, just 'Win-W reliability' and you're there. Much easier than ever before. I understand the pain with the change but it is so worth the effort of learning it

molgrips - Member

Except how you want it to work is exactly how W7 wanted you to work

Not exactly- since 7's way of doing things was so similiar to pretty much everything else. You could jump from Win 3 or Proper Ancient Mac or our old OS2 builds to Win 7 with very little readjustment, they all shared the same logic. Sure, there's an element of chicken/egg but it doesn't really matter that much- good design builds on the familiar unless the familiar's massively inferior.

Not exactly- since 7's way of doing things was so similiar to pretty much everything else.

Only the start menu, which was also new once. Vista was the big change in terms of how you did configuration and maintenance and stuff.

W3.1 to W95 was a big step.

The main thing that sent me back to Windows 7 was the lack of POP3 support in the email program that comes with Windows 8. I know there are work arounds, but why should I?
I find that curious, given that Windows 7 doesn't come with an email program at all.

Given the Outlook/Mail habit of automatically binning important mail I didn't even try the mail program.

Well three of us at home have been using email in Windows 7 for the last few months so we must have a special, unique version with email.
Also never had a problem with the (non-existing) email software losing emails.

I have both Mountain Lion and Windows 7/8.

Mountain Lion >> Win8 for usability.

The start screen sucks big time. Move your mouse out of the way? Oops, charm comes up. The desktop, to be usable, has to have all the programs you use pinned to the task bar, else you're dropping in and out of the metro interface to start anything. Some people I know hunt out the EXE files to run or put shortcuts on their desktop to avoid that.

Stability wise - its OK and under the hood there seems to have been improvements. I've never had ML crash on my 2009 iMac, but neither have had win8 crash either. Win7 on the other hand does tend to crash on shutdown of my work laptop (think its a driver issue).

Live tiles are nice when you first see them then shortly afterwards you ignore them. The Apple version of having, say, a little red number next to your mail program icon is better: you know something is there for you to look at but I can't be faffed with sitting and waiting for a tile to update with something, usually a mail from CRC about their latest deals.

But lets face facts - the only reason Metro was put onto windows was the marketing department, to make all Windows offerings look the same, regardless of use. Win Phone 8/X-Box/Windows now all use metro and I know one gamer who doesn't use his X-Box as much as he used to because of the change-for-change's sake.

Metro is great for touch, but not much else.

[i]mine was a piece of piss to set up.[/i]

Yours? So not your child's?

I still don't 'get' the changes to ribbon menus in Office with no option for a 'classic' view. Same sort of thing, buggeration for buggerations sake.

Thing is, if MS had kept a "classic" view they'd have to spend money on maintaining it, bug fixes, etc. And the Ribbon really is a lot better, you realise just how poor endless button menus are when you fire up Libre/Open Office.

It's a bit like changing the accepted conventions of the dash layout of a car just to appear fresh and funky.

the only reason Metro was put onto windows was the marketing department, to make all Windows offerings look the same, regardless of use

What everyone is missing here, is that the reason Microsoft want Metro apps highlighted, is because they want you to buy your applications from their Windows Store, because they get a hefty cut in everything sold on it. Same as Apple and their app store.

For the end user it is hard to know whether that is a good or bad thing - I mean Microsoft get a hefty cut, but then when you buy a product from anyone except direct from the original developer, there are importers, distributors and all that rubbish taking a cut which probably works out similar to the Windows Store tax. For small developers it is also hard to know - it obviously ups the cost compared to direct distribution, but on the other hand, it makes it easier for people to find and install your stuff.

For the end user it is hard to know whether that is a good or bad thing

It's meant to be much easier to develop apps for Metro than for Windows natively. This could result in an explosion of cheap really useful stuff for Windows, which would be great for consumers. Or it could end up like Chrome apps...

It's all about them coming up with good ideas and you adopting them. Always has been. This discussion comes up every single time MS change stuff. I remember it when W95 came out.

And i have been using windows since 3, mac since 7 and Solaris from 5,

OS's evolve, if you can use one version you can use the following version, there is always a learning curve, but w7 to w8 is a huge curve compared to any other release from any platform i have used.

Is fundamental change a good thing? maybe the collapsing sales of PCs can answer that question?

There could easily be more than one reason for collapsing PC sales though.

"They are actually two different styles of use, MS should perhaps recognise this. They COULD produce two OSes in fact, work and lifestyle say, or they could make it easy to switch between modes. Or.. they could sell a work version without the metro stuff."

This is the whole point, they want one OS that provides the experience you want when sat at home on the sofa, and the experience you want when in the office, so you only need one device.

I've got a single touch enabled device for work and home, at home I spend most of my time on the metro interface, at work I spend most of my time on the desktop interface.

Switching between the two is easy as you just click on the Windows key. Starting things is easy because you just click on the Windows key and start typing what you want to start, I really don't miss the start menu now, but I did to begin with.

molgrips - Member

W3.1 to W95 was a big step.

Don't really agree tbh, I went from 3.11 to XP and that wasn't a big step. Some differences but the main logic was the same. That's not true of 8 IMO, it's a reinvented wheel.

There was no start menu in 3.1, or did I get that wrong?

EDIT see for yourself 🙂 http://www.michaelv.org/

No, there was no start menu, but that's not a massive change- it's just an extra way to get to the same results that they added to complement the existing methods.

Ribbons etc are great for mouse jockeys and occasional users, less so for those who've committed their experience to muscle memory.

This, exactly this. Every bloody change since the mid '90s, long before the damn ribbon, has made Excel (where I spend a lot of my working day) easier to use if you faffily waft a mouse pointer around, but harder / longer / slower if you know what you want to do and know what the keystrokes required to do it are.

I'm still using Excel 2003 a lot, but there's things I could do quicker in '98..

Did the keyboard shortcuts all change?

Did the keyboard shortcuts all change?

Not all of them, but enough of them to be a right royal PITA.

Shortcuts and menu routes - don't know if there's a term for it, but I'd distinguish, as a keyboardy user between a shortcut (e.g. Ctrl+P for print) and a learned route through the menus (e.g. the equivalent of wafting your mouse over "Format", clicking then wafting over "Conditional Formatting" and clicking that, being, for a keyboard user, the three keystrokes of ALT O and D which is much much quicker when you're used to it).

So yep, between shortcuts and keystrokes to access functions in menus and sub-menus, there's plenty gone or changed with 2007 and its damn ribbons. It seems that MS don't like people to use keyboards, which baffles me when applied to spreadsheets and word processors particularly.

I think MS just want to piss you off.

Remember, that old version you used to love was new once.

Some positive then:

Switch on: it boots faster than any other computer I've used. The various standby options work without crashing so I only boot once a day.

The Metro screen is there with the CAC 40, the news clicking round (this morning I read an article about the films in the Cannes festival) and a desktop icon if I want to use the machine like W7.

The applications that run direct from Metro are full screen with no bars top or bottom. That means everything is bigger and I can read without glasses. To close the window drag it to the bottom, other options are on a right click. As screens get wider, bars top and bottom take up more space. Press F11 if you're in Firefox to see how much you gain.

Move the mouse right on the Metro page (no need to find a bar and drag it across) and there's every application on one page. Choose and click.

To switch off, click the big red button bottom left (a Bell Packard addition I think).

In conclusion, new things I like and all the old things are there if I want them.