Microsoft Windows 8, The TechSpot Review

As usual, various computer store employees are clueless as to when windows 8 is available for retail in cagayan de oro, a city in southern philippines.

I have ask 2 weeks ago and again yesterday if windows 8 is to be sold on october 26, 2012.

microsoft is doing the right thing by selling its products thru its own microsoft store.
I only hope that the online version of microsoft store is also available for us in the philippines.
 
The Metro Start Screen will never be close to equivalent to the start menu, until that 1-2 second animation lag is gone.

It just kills productivity completely. Faster boot times, more responsive windows? Gee, that's great, until the action you do most takes 1-2 seconds..
 
Is Windows 7's instant window response not fast enough for you? The Start Screen and "apps" are bottlenecks for productivity on the desktop. Windows 8 is not for me.
 
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St1ckM4n said:
The Metro Start Screen will never be close to equivalent to the start menu, until that 1-2 second animation lag is gone.

It just kills productivity completely. Faster boot times, more responsive windows? Gee, that's great, until the action you do most takes 1-2 seconds..
Click to expand...

To say nothing of trying to find what you actually want, because its somewhere in a vague, crazy-quilt screen full of crap instead of neatly tucked into a folder or sitting always ready on your desktop. Windows 8 is ten kinds of fail. Metro sucks. The ribbon sucks. Hiding vital functions and removing important features for NO REASON sucks. Microsoft has misread the market because its too busy believing its own bulls#*t.
 
An 85 is awfully generous IMO. I'd say more like a 65. The multiple unnecessary barriers to productivity, such as the god-awful ribbon, are bad enough. Add the insult to good interface design called Metro, and incompatibility with about 80% of the programs currently on the market and you're talking about a paradigm shift...to mediocrity. Windows 8 will be the best thing that ever happened to Linux and OSX.
 
I miss the old search :(
I also find the always fullscreen part of metro to be the dumbest thing ever in an OS called Windows. Was it that hard to make apps windowed?
 
Puiu said:
I miss the old search :(
I also find the always fullscreen part of metro to be the dumbest thing ever in an OS called Windows. Was it that hard to make apps windowed?
Click to expand...

I agree, totally stupid... on desktop computers. On tablets the always full screen and touch makes sense. MS really should have made two separate operating systems.
 
No need for 2 OS's, but
MrBungle said:
I agree, totally stupid... on desktop computers. On tablets the always full screen and touch makes sense. MS really should have made two separate operating systems.
Click to expand...
No need for 2, just an extra button for PC's.
Windowed and resizable = something the competition doesn't have.
A missed opportunity which could cost them a lot.
 
Windows 8 was clearly designed with tablet & PDA users in mind. For everyone else, I'm not interested in an OS that turns my $5,000 rig into a $200 Tablet.

Every-other MS OS blows chunks. 95 good, 98 bad, 98se good, ME bad, XP good, Vista bad, Win7 good, Win8... one guess.
 
Windows 8 really isn't bad IMO. I've been very anti-new-ui but since I put 8 on my gaming rig and forced myself to use it daily it's kind of grown on me even more. The hardest thing I've had to accept is that the Windows 8 ui is actually just my Start Menu already fully expanded... problem is I never really launched my apps from the Start Menu. I thought about why I didn't do this and it's because of the time and mouse clicks it takes to expand the Start Menu - sooooooo... now I am getting used to launching from the NEW Start Menu (aka Metro UI). The Task Manager is just awesome and the file transfer windows are great! Being able to easily see live disk performance/activity without any third party tools is nice as well. I've had great gaming performance with it so far and haven't run into any problems yet. Overclocking my monitor took some different steps, but I was able to get things back to the way I want them after figuring out that I just had to use alternate methods. So far, I'm pleased.
 
I am red green colour blind and this new menu just gives me a headache looking at it, I still use XP because it is clear and easily readable, much as I would like a better/faster desktop PC It seems very unlikely my updating to windows8
 
Very nice review, but I would have liked to see more on performance, besides fast boot-up. For desktop users who leave their PC on all day (and night), it's task switching, window opening, file-access, paging and the associated work-related speed that make a difference. My system autoboots just before I wake up,so it's always ready anyway and I use AllOff to turn it off at sack-time.
 
I won't be getting 8 and hoping windows 9 gets back to being a desktop OS. Windows 7 will definetly be popular for a long while now.
 
I'll be sticking with Windows 7. That is an OS designed to be operated optimally with precision input devices. Which means that screen space is utilized efficiently throughout the interactive experience. Whether it is the resizable windows and their minimalist menu tree toolbars, or the compact icon-laden desktop and windows workspaces, or the feature dense configuration and interactive menus from general programs. Such UI efficiency is also most immediately evident in the excellent Start Menu. This one button centralizes all the functionality of your OS into one location - all neatly organized and easily accessible. Your personal files, pinned and most frequently used items, all program tree, universal search, computer explorer, control panel, devices, network, help and shutdown. Any one of those functions can be easily launched WITHOUT obscuring your multiple windows and desktop workspace. Productivity, research, entertainment, communication or a multitasking combination thereof, whatever task I want to accomplish on my computing device I do not want the UI system to get in the way. It is this unobtrusive and non-constrained nature of the Start Menu-Windows-Desktop-Icons-Pointer UI system of Windows 7 which I prefer.

Metroblox 8 has a full screen interface that is archaic and constraining in capability to both users and developers by comparison. Even the 'live' tile feature is not new, desktop gadgets/widgets of Windows 7 and XP provide identical functionality without being intrusive. I certainly hope that this mess of a UI system is discarded entirely or made optional in the next Windows.

I find it ridiculous that anyone would dismiss the Start button menu as irrelevant. Such people do not make full use of the functionality it provides so they obviously have no need for it.
 
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One of the many frustrating things about Metro I found is that if you have multiple monitors you still can't leave any metro apps open (or start screen itself). As soon as you click on anything on the other screen it all minimizes.
For those who want start button there is a bit of help. IOBit has created an application for that. http://www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8.php. I am using it right now. It does not have the options as the original did,but it's a whole lot better than have to go to Metro every time you need something.
 
LNCPapa said:

"Windows 8 really isn't bad IMO. I've been very anti-new-ui but since I put 8 on my gaming rig and forced myself to use it daily it's kind of grown on me even more. The hardest thing I've had to accept is that the Windows 8 ui is actually just my Start Menu already fully expanded... problem is I never really launched my apps from the Start Menu. I thought about why I didn't do this and it's because of the time and mouse clicks it takes to expand the Start Menu - sooooooo... now I am getting used to launching from the NEW Start Menu (aka Metro UI). The Task Manager is just awesome and the file transfer windows are great! Being able to easily see live disk performance/activity without any third party tools is nice as well. I've had great gaming performance with it so far and haven't run into any problems yet. Overclocking my monitor took some different steps, but I was able to get things back to the way I want them after figuring out that I just had to use alternate methods. So far, I'm pleased."

I lost posts like these from users. Microsoft should recruit these people and put them into new advertising for Windows 8.

Best parts that would make excellent bullet points of the front of the Windows 8 packaging: "FORCED myself to use it daily". "The HARDEST thing I've had to ACCEPT". "Now I am getting USED to".

You could substitute some of these phrases into an interview with an incarcerated criminal and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Are they talking about Windows 8 or doing time in prison? Who knows?

Things to make you think. How many people reading these forums had to force themselves to use Windows 7?
I am not looking for an Operating System that I have to force myself to use. I am not looking for an Operating System that I can get used to over time. I am looking for an operating system that makes me say, "Hell yeah, I want that operating system because it does this, this, and this.

Humans can adapt to almost anything. But generally they only adapt when they have no other choice. Stop thinking there is no other choice. We the people, determine whether Windows 8 succeeds or fails. Use your power to influence the future. Don't adapt to something you have no interest in from the very beginning.
 
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Guest said:
You could substitute some of these phrases into an interview with an incarcerated criminal and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Are they talking about Windows 8 or doing time in prison? Who knows?
Click to expand...

You could also apply those phrases to a student being taught in school or a person moving into a new job or a person learning to play a video game.

People cried and moaned about Windows XP when it came out because it was "too colorful and flowery" but now we're still trying to pry it from their cold, blood constricted hands because they hate change so much and refuse to switch to Win 7 because of this reason or that. The biggest hangup I've seen in technology is the fear of change. I've been working in IT and with computers in general for over 25 years now and I've almost always at least given the changes a fair shake before either accepting them or writing them off. I worked with someone a few years ago who was very upset to have to come to me for help on some AD related issues because he said he had been a Novell admin for over 20 years and now he has to talk to this "youngbuck". All I could say to him was "You should have kept up with the changing times... this is an AD shop and you refused to look at it at all since Novell is the only thing you thought we'd ever need."

Don't fear change or your time in IT will be just one or two generations and you'll be that old fogie that everyone calls "oldschool". I'll give it a shot and see if the millions in research that MS did actually does improve my productivity or enhance my experience.
 
It's not the fear of change. It's that this OS isn't for desktops. It's for tablets. It's not an improvement to the previous version, but simply a change to the UI that enables it's use on the touchscreens. On the desktop computer it actually feels like a step down. When XP and 7 came out they were hard because there was just so much difference between them and their previous versions and so many more features that it was scary.
 
"You could also apply those phrases to a student being taught in school or a person moving into a new job or a person learning to play a video game."

Very good. And who would want to take that job or go to that school or play that video game if you did?

LNCPapa said:"
People cried and moaned about Windows XP when it came out because it was "too colorful and flowery" but now we're still trying to pry it from their cold, blood constricted hands because they hate change so much and refuse to switch to Win 7 because of this reason or that. The biggest hangup I've seen in technology is the fear of change. I've been working in IT and with computers in general for over 25 years now and I've almost always at least given the changes a fair shake before either accepting them or writing them off. I worked with someone a few years ago who was very upset to have to come to me for help on some AD related issues because he said he had been a Novell admin for over 20 years and now he has to talk to this "youngbuck". All I could say to him was "You should have kept up with the changing times... this is an AD shop and you refused to look at it at all since Novell is the only thing you thought we'd ever need."

Don't fear change or your time in IT will be just one or two generations and you'll be that old fogie that everyone calls "oldschool". I'll give it a shot and see if the millions in research that MS did actually does improve my productivity or enhance my experience.

Your so far off the mark on this one isn't even funny. It's not about fear of change. When I sit down at my desktop I ask myself one question. Does it make sense to take my precision-pixel-pointing device and ability to type 40/50/60+ wpm on my keyboard, throw it all out the window, replace it with my index finger, and expect it to somehow be better? Show me somebody typing a document faster with 1 finger than using 2 hands on a full-size keyboard. Show me somebody playing quake 3 or Warcraft 3 with 1 finger doing it better than they can with a full-size keyboard and pixel-precise pointing device. You cant!

If people truly feared change alone then Windows 7 wouldn't be the success it is today. What people fear is change for changes sake alone. This change from Windows 7 to Windows 8 is insanity. Its whacko. It's slapping a tablet interface on a desktop OS and expecting everybody to be happy.

"Yeah but why are you complaining, you can still use your keyboard and your mouse?" So why the hell do I need to even start using a single finger to do things on my desktop? I can do everything I need to do on my desktop NOW. I don't need Windows 8 to do anything new.

Using a touch-interface makes "sense" on a mobile device. So that people don't have to lug around a full-size keyboard and mouse. It doesn't make sense at home sitting in front of my 21.5" monitor. I don't hold my 21.5" inch monitor in my hands. It sits at least 36" away from my face. If I sat any closer than this to my 21.5" monitor I would start to go cross-eyed pretty damn fast. How many studies did Microsoft do with a classroom full of children holding 21.5" monitors in their hands and seeing how long they can hold those without getting tired? I can't believe I seriously have to explain these common sense points about why Windows 8 fails on the desktop.

And your classifying everyone who hasn't upgraded their OS as people who fear change which is not likely 100% of the people. If people use an operating system for 20 years it doesn't mean they fear change. It might actually mean they are happy with what they got and don't see the need for change. Which, currently, is where I stand with Windows 7, and even more so when I look ahead to the disappointing options that stand before me.

Rip out the retarded UI from the RTM version of Windows 8, release it in six months, as Windows 8 for Desktops, and people will be happy. People will stop bitching, It's not that difficult to solve this problem. If Microsoft wants to keep giving desktop users the middle finger, let em. I ain't budging from where I stand.
 
LNCPapa said:
You could also apply those phrases to a student being taught in school or a person moving into a new job or a person learning to play a video game.

People cried and moaned about Windows XP when it came out because it was "too colorful and flowery" but now we're still trying to pry it from their cold, blood constricted hands because they hate change so much and refuse to switch to Win 7 because of this reason or that. The biggest hangup I've seen in technology is the fear of change. I've been working in IT and with computers in general for over 25 years now and I've almost always at least given the changes a fair shake before either accepting them or writing them off. I worked with someone a few years ago who was very upset to have to come to me for help on some AD related issues because he said he had been a Novell admin for over 20 years and now he has to talk to this "youngbuck". All I could say to him was "You should have kept up with the changing times... this is an AD shop and you refused to look at it at all since Novell is the only thing you thought we'd ever need."

Don't fear change or your time in IT will be just one or two generations and you'll be that old fogie that everyone calls "oldschool". I'll give it a shot and see if the millions in research that MS did actually does improve my productivity or enhance my experience.
Click to expand...
When XP came out it was actually a really bad OS. It took them 2 service packs to repair the bugs and major security problems and even then XP still had a lot of bugs. But nobody said that XP was a step backwards like we doing with win8.
I don't care if they put metro in, I can ignore it. I can install a 3rd party start menu. What people are complaining about are the restrictions. They put so many restrictions in as a insurance that people will use the new UI. They wanted developers to feel more secure when they invested money in new metro apps. This has failed! Now they have an OS will lots of restrictions that people hate and no good apps to make them think that those restrictions are worth the trouble.
 
Very nice review - - well written and the pics are a great help.
It also confirms my lack of interest ;)
 
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