originally posted in:Sapphire
I just got a new computer running Windows 7, and I've not had much experience with Windows 8, although I don't like what I've seen of it, but anyway, a question for those who have it, how is it? Is it a good OS? What are the good features? What are the bad?
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One alternates windows OS. It's crap for anything not a tablet. It's attempting to be aesthetic while sacrficing functionality and noone wants to develop for it due to it's clunky design for non-tablets. Basically only get it for tablets.
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From the demo I used for a while, I liked it. It was a decent OS, though the biggest difference was the start menu. Aside from that, there's a few nifty features about it, but nothing worth switching over from Windows 7.
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Edited by Hoggs Bison: 2/10/2013 11:21:41 PMWell, there are two parts to Win8, right? The desktop experience is easy to talk about: it's like Win7, except better in every way. Then there's the replacement for the Start Menu: the Start Screen. The opinion I (and a lot of people) had was that the Start Screen was nice for touchscreens, but an unnecessary annoyance for desktops. As it turns out, Win8 likes to keep things consistent: the Start Screen is like the Start Menu, except better in every way. There are some obvious benefits. Replacing icons with live tiles allows you to get information at a glance. I know calendar appointments, recent mail, top stories in sports and politics, and what my best friends are up to... before I even open the desktop. Metro apps are also a lot nicer for content consumption (reading news, for example) since they're a lot cleaner and more clutter-free than webpages. Then there are the not-so-obvious benefits. Tiles scale by screen size; that is to say, the larger your screen, the more programs you can view in the Start Screen. With the Start Menu, you're limited to 20 programs,whether you're on an ultrabook or a gaming rig. Tiles also offer basic usability benefits. They're larger targets than the list in the Start Menu, allowing you to navigate to them more easily. The usability benefits of grouping are more interesting. Firstly, having a group of tiles allows you to access more programs with less pointer movement than in the Start Menu. Secondly, being able to arrange tiles in unique positions makes locating programs easier: rather than a program being the 10th one down, it can be the one in the corner, or the only one in a row. tl;dr the Start Screen actually makes "Start" useful for something-- even on a desktop. Getting information, consuming content, and locating programs are all much easier in the new iteration of Start. And that, in turn, makes Win8 better than Win7 across the board. tl;dr tl;dr Win7 good, Win8 better.
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I think its pretty good.
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If your computer has a touch screen - get it! If not and youre using a mouse and a keyboard - AVOID Windows 8 AT ALL COSTS!
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Edited by HurtfulTurkey: 2/10/2013 9:51:42 PMI'm using it right now. It's got a short learning curve to it, but everything is an improvement. The start menu from 95-7 feels so obsolete and useless after using Metro, and other stuff like the Smart Corners and Charms Bar are much more intuitive. It's faster, has a smoother UI that is better for both digital and touch interface, and is fairly free of glitches (although I did encounter one that forced me to do a refresh). If you absolutely need the start menu (for the life of me I can't understand why), there are dozens of tools out there to restore it.
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Edited by Braydzz: 2/10/2013 9:59:13 PMI like it way better it has the crispness of the start menu but it also has the desktop that all the previous windows have. I also like how in the games app you can check you XBL friends list, edit your profile and I'm pretty sure you can send messages from it too. Also if you bought any movies or TV shows on your Xbox you can also watch them on your PC. Also on a side note the travel app is pretty amazing it has so much detail about places around the world. And with the messenger app you can link your Facebook and your other social media sites to it and talk to everyone from one app but I haven't used it much. Three complaints that I can think of are one being once you link your windows live ID it overrides your current user password with your email password but there might be a way to change it. Second is that organizing the start menu can be kinda frustrating it reminds me of trying to organize apps on my iPhone. But I like how you can group icons and make certain ones bigger or smaller. And I also find that I don't really find the apps from the store useful EG. The having the newegg app when I could just go to the website or the Skype app when I could just minimize the downloadable version and talk to my friends while doing something else. I haven't found any useful apps so far. And I don't think you can search for apps in the store.
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Edited by Oleg The Great: 2/10/2013 9:55:22 PMSucks. It removed good features from Windows 7 like the start bar and gadgets and IE10 is still worse than Chrome with Ad Block. Also I had to replace all the default programs used to open files with other ones because in W8 the default programs are apps that load up and take up the whole screen. VLC for Videos Adobe Reader for PDF Windows Picture viewer for pictures and so on...
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I have it. It definitely takes some getting used to, but the more I use it, the more I'm liking it.
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I have it, I don't really like it that much. The start menu is more annoying than useful.
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I bought it when it was on sale for like $30. Worst $30 I've ever spent. It's pretty much windows 7 with a lot of stupid features that make it useless for P.C. I've been using it for like 3 weeks now and I'm only going to give it 1 more week before I revert back to windows 7. I've found there to be little value in any of the new features for P.C. and it was much easier to navigate windows 7, find files, create mods, download software, and pretty much everything else. Again, I'm giving it one last week to appeal to my senses and hopefully help myself adapt to it. I seriously doubt I will though, Windows 7 worked much better for me personally.
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I have it and I like it I like the "start menu" because it's like a tablet homescreen and I can make all my favorite programs immediately accessible and it looks nicer than desktop shortcuts It also offers a lot in the form of social media integration, and things like that
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Windows 7 master race