Windows 8.1

[AceGoober]

Some people experience no issues with games or applications running under Windows 8.1; others do. Personally, I'm waiting until after the first patch is released prior to recommending upgrading to Windows 8.1 to any of my friends or clients.

[nukafish]

hahaha im sorry its just too funny. Microsoft refuses to admit their OS sucks hard. they put the Start button back, because they know it should be back, but is like ok but your still going to have to deal with tiles on a desktop. they should just have made a separate OS for tablet and PC. though i dont have much hope for W9.

 

Microsoft did admit that Windows 8 was a failure to the consumer, since no one liked it, they added the start button because people asked for it back, if it was up to them they wouldn't have put it back, but they want to try to do what the consumer wants, though they haven't done a great job.

[JimboUK]

 

hahaha im sorry its just too funny. Microsoft refuses to admit their OS sucks hard. they put the Start button back, because they know it should be back, but is like ok but your still going to have to deal with tiles on a desktop. they should just have made a separate OS for tablet and PC. though i dont have much hope for W9.

 

Microsoft did admit that Windows 8 was a failure to the consumer, since no one liked it, they added the start button because people asked for it back, if it was up to them they wouldn't have put it back, but they want to try to do what the consumer wants, though they haven't done a great job.

 

 

The consumer wanted more than the start button duplicated from the side, they wanted the start menu. Microsoft has really lost it's way, it's one screw up after another, under Bullmer they forgot that the customer has choices and you can't just inflict things on people.

[greaper1666]

i would have made the metro interface optional by having the option to go to it through a normal start menu.

[Korodic]

I dont think windows 8 is that bad tbh. There are some aspects I hate:

More clicks to shut down.
More clicks to search (because the results are collapsed into categories rather than expanded by default).
Managing apps (charms bar) vs applications (task bar), gets annoying to manage to lists of open apps.
Apps are 100% touch screen oriented. Apps have to be dragged down to close, your mouse has to go into corners and WAIT (this is kinda annoying).
Microsoft didn't really bother to adapt any part of Win8 to make up for the difference of use in a laptop/desktop vs mobile gesture.

The start screen itself isn't so bad. I never used it anyways other than to search/shutdown.
You can manage your applications in an organized way and it's pretty colorful :3
You can also group apps logically, especially if they serve on purpose.

If they spent more time on the mouse/kb interface with their supposedly hybrid OS and did not make everything require more clicks it'd be an okay successor to win7.

Ah, one more thing. I'm pretty sure they took out "manage wireless networks" from win8. Extremely useful in win7. Their excuse is you need to use console to do those operations. Uhm, no.... I shouldnt have to.

[greaper1666]

actually the apps can be closed with alt-f4 like any other program

[Korodic]

actually the apps can be closed with alt-f4 like any other program

That's irrelevant because the average user base does not want to use keyboard based commands and need visual guidance.

 

I work for a college IT dept as a student tech, these are real calls

 

Example 1: "Need microsoft word installed on machine" - I arrive, outlook & excel are on the machine, typically word is too. The real problem? The shortcut was missing from the desktop.

 

Example 2: "Google drive has been removed" - I arrived, google officially made the switch (or their chrome updated?) and now the shortcut on their site has been moved from the black ribbon on top to a android-like app symbol.

 

Even for me, I know I can alt+f4 but i like clicking the [X] for my own laziness of not needing the keyboard at all times.

[JimboUK]

i would have made the metro interface optional by having the option to go to it through a normal start menu.

 

I wouldn't have it at all, they could have made Windows itself a little more touch friendly and left it at that, they could keep Metro for tablets and phones. As is Metro just gets in the way and it's not as if Windows 8 is actually any good with a touch screen, underneath Metro is still a system that requires a pointing device for anyone with fingers larger than those of a two year old.

[spookycandy]

I love Windows 8, like Metro (but have some serious issues with it), and upgraded to 8.1 on day one. I think the decision to return the start icon was a mistake because now my multiple monitors have multiple start icons which is not okay and has lead me to patching and customizing instead. 8.1 was more disappointing for me than 8 was. Having used Win8 since beta, going back to 7 just reminds me of how clunky and awful it is to use. I can't believe some people think 8 is inefficient on the desktop. It is so much faster to do everything. I have all my system tools saved right there on the metro start screne, for example.

 

I use metro on a dual monitor desktop (and when working, a triple monitor set-up). It's a godsend. I use it with a mouse (GASP) and do not believe its touch screen-basis to be a hinderance. I do think metro apps are unnecesary bloat, but the UI itself is solid. Now if microsoft would stop pulling from icon colors and automating my taskbar colors, allowing me to decide these things for myself, I would be happier with it.

 

As for it not being very user-friendly, this is another annoyance of mine. A lot of the decisions for accessing things in Windows 8 do not make sense to someone who isn't a power user (which is hilarious because pseudo computer geeks like to whine about Windows 8's "oversimplification"). Nothing is really where it should be (except that ctrl + x or right clicking on the start icon, that belongs there). Computer preferences even made me do a doubletake.

 

My main concern is that with 8.1 I have noticed a lot of stuff that worked to tweak Windows 8 (theme patchers, etc) was broken. Bugs were fixed that really didn't matter all too much whilst glaring bugs that caused actual real problems were completely ignored. If you set your taskbar to be a dark grey or black you can't read the text on your window titles. But who cares about that, am I right? We need to fix a very specific bug that has been exploited to allow people to customize windows more! (This particular bug had to do with being able to select colors from a different windows theme if you kept the colors window open while opening a new preferences window). Another one is that the wallpapers selection is the biggest pain I have ever had to endure (randomly selecting new wallpapers without me telling it too, not saving my changes, not seeing subfolders, etc).

 

I feel as though Windows 8 came out with a huge focus on the power user and then all of the sudden all the focus went to metro and left people like me hanging and looking like this: :ermm: . 8.1 made multi-monitor support worse. I am getting really tempted to write an open lecture letter to the Windows team.

 

I dont think windows 8 is that bad tbh. There are some aspects I hate:

More clicks to shut down.
More clicks to search (because the results are collapsed into categories rather than expanded by default).
Managing apps (charms bar) vs applications (task bar), gets annoying to manage to lists of open apps.
Apps are 100% touch screen oriented. Apps have to be dragged down to close, your mouse has to go into corners and WAIT (this is kinda annoying).
Microsoft didn't really bother to adapt any part of Win8 to make up for the difference of use in a laptop/desktop vs mobile gesture.

The start screen itself isn't so bad. I never used it anyways other than to search/shutdown.
You can manage your applications in an organized way and it's pretty colorful :3
You can also group apps logically, especially if they serve on purpose.

If they spent more time on the mouse/kb interface with their supposedly hybrid OS and did not make everything require more clicks it'd be an okay successor to win7.

Ah, one more thing. I'm pretty sure they took out "manage wireless networks" from win8. Extremely useful in win7. Their excuse is you need to use console to do those operations. Uhm, no.... I shouldnt have to.

 

Alt + F4 on the desktop to shut down.

 

Ctrl + X is another neat little trick.