Windows 8: Good or Garbage?

[Uncle Slayton]

Ok, so my patched together XP laptop finally gave up the ghost and I went to Big Blue Box yesterday to get a new one...

Twenty minutes after I got it unwrapped and fired up, it's back in the box ready for return to the store for a refund. I don't think they've ever come out with a clunkier, uglier, more annoyingly non-functional user interface than Win 8, and I remember Windows ME, ffs.

I'm not computer illiterate by any stretch. That patched-together laptop had solders I made at circuit board level and I even managed to successfully change the tiny fragile fluorescent light tube for the display.

Anyone else have stories good or bad about this? Is it no more than just clicking the "Desktop" button to get the other chattering blinking crap to go away?

I had almost decided to give it a go after I got a desktop that looked vaguely familiar, then I found out I can't use Outlook Express (no POP mail compatibility), so back in the box it went.

[poe]

I bought my mom a new computer that used Windows 8. It is horrible.

[Roger S]

I wouldn't say horrible..... different maybe.... I did spend about 3 days getting my new laptop setup to look like Win 7.

And now that I think about it my Win 7 was set to look as much like XP as I could get it..... So you could say my Win 8 looks like a hybrid Win 7/XP.

With that said.... I'd be perfectly happy going back to DOS.

[SoonerDave]

I'll preface this with the caveat that I'm a software developer with 25 years of service stripes going back to my Unix days at OU, to dBase III days under MS-DOS when I worked part-time, to QuickBasic, C, C#, VB, SQL (and a bunch I've since forgotten) to VMS, Windows 3.1, 3.11, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Heck, I had a developer preview of what was then the "revolutionary" Windows 98 interface grafted on top of Windows NT, the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge. I adapted to and enjoyed the evolution of those interfaces because each one seemed to be a good faith refinement and improvement of the one before it - although I will admit to being a command-line junkie at heart

That all changed with Win 8. Windows 8 was no effort to refine or improve the existing experience or interface; it was a desperate attempt by an out-of-touch company to manufacture relevance in a market where they were clearly clueless. I came variously to refer to Win 8 as "Windows Nause8," or the "Purple Flying Tile Interface." It's awful. Its as though the same advertising crew that thought MS could sell their goofy Surface notepadtopbook with dancing office hipsters designed the Win 8 UI. And the last two Windows laptops I've bought were off the Dell refurb site so I could get Win7 on them, particularly when my own high schoolers told me that they didn't want anything with "that ugly new Windows thing" for a laptop. MS has tried to do damage control that Win 8 was merely an evolutionary step like Vista was for Win7, but that was IMHO disingenuous from the start.

IF I ever try to run Win8, I"lll do it in a VM, and then only because I have to. I don't have the time or interest to install it on my day-to-day machine, only to spend a week installing third-party gadgets only for the purpose of restoring the Win7 experience I already had.

The paradoxical thing about the Purple Flying Tile interface is that it meshes and interoperates very well in the appropriate environment - the XBOX. Just as it would be unthinkably asinine to try to adapt the desktop metaphor to the XBOX, it is equally unthinkable to try and morph an XBOX-suited interface to the Windows PC environment.

[NoOkie]

I'll preface this with the caveat that I'm a software developer with 25 years of service stripes going back to my Unix days at OU, to dBase III days under MS-DOS when I worked part-time, to QuickBasic, C, C#, VB, SQL (and a bunch I've since forgotten) to VMS, Windows 3.1, 3.11, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Heck, I had a developer preview of what was then the "revolutionary" Windows 98 interface grafted on top of Windows NT, the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge. I adapted to and enjoyed the evolution of those interfaces because each one seemed to be a good faith refinement and improvement of the one before it - although I will admit to being a command-line junkie at heart

That all changed with Win 8. Windows 8 was no effort to refine or improve the existing experience or interface; it was a desperate attempt by an out-of-touch company to manufacture relevance in a market where they were clearly clueless. I came variously to refer to Win 8 as "Windows Nause8," or the "Purple Flying Tile Interface." It's awful. Its as though the same advertising crew that thought MS could sell their goofy Surface notepadtopbook with dancing office hipsters designed the Win 8 UI. And the last two Windows laptops I've bought were off the Dell refurb site so I could get Win7 on them, particularly when my own high schoolers told me that they didn't want anything with "that ugly new Windows thing" for a laptop. MS has tried to do damage control that Win 8 was merely an evolutionary step like Vista was for Win7, but that was IMHO disingenuous from the start.

IF I ever try to run Win8, I"lll do it in a VM, and then only because I have to. I don't have the time or interest to install it on my day-to-day machine, only to spend a week installing third-party gadgets only for the purpose of restoring the Win7 experience I already had.

The paradoxical thing about the Purple Flying Tile interface is that it meshes and interoperates very well in the appropriate environment - the XBOX. Just as it would be unthinkably asinine to try to adapt the desktop metaphor to the XBOX, it is equally unthinkable to try and morph an XBOX-suited interface to the Windows PC environment.

8's ok. I just killed the metro start menu and went on with things. If you like the CLI, check out powershell. It's much more *nix like in it's extensibility.

That being said, you're dead right about metro. It's great on the Xbox and touch screen widgets. It does nothing but get on my nerves on my desktop. Apparently, we're not alone in our annoyance with Metro, though: Microsoft Windows 8 Vista comparison made by employees | BGR

[Uncle Slayton]

An update and thanks to all for their insight. I decided to perhaps give the unit another try. Its first attempt at reconciliation with me was to update itself to Win 8.1, after which it immediately went into a blue spiral (at least more decorative and moving than the BSoD), from which, an hour and a half later, it still has not recovered.

Back to the store it goes and off to the Dell refurb site go I.

SD, I share your love for command-line interface. A one-on-one (albeit machine language brokered) interchange between man and machine. The mass spectrometers I teach people to run are all icon-based operation now and when the little icon box gets clicked another zillion times with no result, the operators are lost as to what to do next...so when I sit down and type off what seems like a line of gibberish that fixes the problem, I get looked at by the Millenials/Gen X-ers I supervise alternately as if I'm either a savant or a grumpy old wizard who has brought fire into the camp.

You shall also get credit for the PFTI (pronounced "poof tee") for their new "screen look". Why the eternal **** does everything have to be written to appear as if the audience is 14 years old?

[tomokc]

I bought two laptops last year right as Windows 8 was being rolled out. Went to Best Buy, chatted with a computer sales gal, she steered me to Windows 8, so we configured the machine and placed the order. It was HORRIBLE, and everything I read online agreed. Checking manufacturers' Web sites I saw that Windows 7 was still (barely) available, so back to Best Buy. They strongly resisted exchanging for Windows 7 and said that it wasn't available. I fortunately brought a printout showing the laptop, OS and price on the manufacturer's Web site and threatened to return the laptop and buy direct. After a couple of phone calls the manager admitted, "Well, they must have found a couple of laptops in the back of the warehouse." Uh huh, right.

Here is the market share & rank for the top five operating systems: Windows 8 slowly gains market share traction, analysis shows | PCWorld

1. Windows 7, 44.73%
2. Windows XP, 38.73%
3. Windows Vista (wow!), 4.99%
4. Windows 8, 3.17%
5. Mac OS X 10.8, 2.65%

Even beaten by Windows Vista - OUCH!

[kevinpate]

So what happens when support for XP is finally pulled come April this year? My own plan is to turn the two XP boxes I have into offline workhorses with zero internet use. I don't see any reason to use Win8 thus far, and have no plans in that direction.

[venture]

I finally wanted to test it out and my first reaction was like everyone's here. Win8 is definitely not worth it outside of a system that has a touch screen. On the laptop with a touchscreen it isn't bad at all. However, on the desktop...I had to go to Win 8.1 and then install Classic Shell to get my start menu back. If you have no choice but a Win 8 machine, then download and install it: Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements

I never see the metro/tile screen again in Win 8 and it functions just like a Win 7 machine now.

Side comment on those buying the Win 7 notebooks on the Dell refurb site - get them while you can. I resell a significant number of them per year (one of the larger dell refurb resellers - not to brag ) and the Win 7 configs are really starting to dwindle. Before it wouldn't be hard to get a few hundred a month but now they are pretty limited. I can't even get them in bulk anymore for my buyers.

[Snowman]

While I would not go as far to say it is total garbage, more a case of one step forward two steps back, there was so many stupid decisions on that it was amazing to see they have really learned nothing about product design from their Vista experience. All the improvements they did were under the hood that you never see but the UI issues pretty much negated those benefits and to make it all more frustrating is they did all this when they had a large groups of people telling them what was the biggest problems from the dev and beta releases but they pretty much took all that feedback and threw it in the garbage. The most sound theory I heard was they wanted to force the one interface to familiarize people with win tablets/phones interface, which ironically may have stunted Win8 tablet adoption due to poor reputation of the desktop version.

[Jim Kyle]

IF I ever try to run Win8, I"lll do it in a VM, and then only because I have to. I don't have the time or interest to install it on my day-to-day machine, only to spend a week installing third-party gadgets only for the purpose of restoring the Win7 experience I already had.

I too am a developer and participated in Microsoft's closed beta tests as far back as MS-DOS 5 -- but dropped out when they totally ignored massive complaints about a bug in the display code, for two successive major releases.

I vowed that the day when I could no longer run Win98, I would switch from Windows to Linux and have nothing to do with Microsoft. Unfortunately my customers stayed with Windows, so I had to run at least one WinXP system -- and learned to appreciate it. However when my old Win98 hardware finally died and had to be replaced, all that I could find on the market were Vista systems. I made good on my threat, re-formatted, and installed the Xubuntu distribution of Linux (available at http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/). that was six years ago and I still run that system; a later machine replacement got me a copy of Win7 (which I preserved and "dual-boot" with Xubuntu), and when my wife's machine gave up the ghost, had to settle for Win8 on its replacement.

I found that the freeware program "Classic Shell" makes Win8 look and behave very much like Win7; that horrible "Metro" interface stays quietly hidden in the shadows and no longer bothers me. I installed VMWare's "Player" virtualization program so that she could still use her beloved WinXP tools and Win 3.1 games, as well as interfacing with her (thoroughly obsolete) HP iPaq digital assistant.

As for my own use, I have about a dozen instances of Oracle's "Virtualbox" virtual machines set up on my Linux boxes with various flavors of Windows in them so that I can still support my customers. For daily use, though, I find Linux to be much more convenient than dealing with all the quirks and hipsterism that comes from Redmond these days...

My apologies to the non-geeks in our membership for all the techie talk here, but anyone who dislikes Win8 would do well to have a look at Xubuntu or one of the other flavors of Linux. They're absolutely free for the download, and fully legal. For more details, send me a PM and I'll be happy to help you get off the version-update merry-go-round.

[MustangGT]

Windows 8 is okay if you have a touch screen monitor/tablet etc. For a keyboard and mouse I find it stinks to high heaven.

[PennyQuilts]

Ugh. A couple of months before Christmas I was ready for a new laptop but held off to think about it because a lot of my software wasn't compatible. My laptop isn't going to last forever and this bit about Windows 8 is depressing.

[bluedogok]

I have Win8.1 on my desktop, Win7 on everything else except the iPad Air. It is a horrible interface, I run the classic shell on it which makes it more like Win7. I too have found that various pieces of equipment doesn't run on it.

Places like Directron.com and Mwave.com still have Win7 available if you want it.

[zookeeper]

I have Win8.1 on my desktop, Win7 on everything else except the iPad Air. It is a horrible interface, I run the classic shell on it which makes it more like Win7. I too have found that various pieces of equipment doesn't run on it.

Places like Directron.com and Mwave.com still have Win7 available if you want it.

If you want a new laptop with Windows 7, Dell stills offers them with a free Windows 8 license in the 3000 series. Even they understand what the people want.
For example, their venerable, top-selling Latitude 5430 series is still offered with Windows 7. Only in the overview does it tell you it's "available" with Windows 8.
Latitude E5430 Affordable 14" professional laptop | Dell

[MadMonk]

I agree with just about Venture. It's pathetic that we have to go get software to fix the interface of this OS. The "bones" are fine, it's just the interface that's horrible. What completely floors me is that MS somehow thinks a similar interface on the server OS is a good idea.

[bchris02]

There are two different opinions you will here frequently on Windows 8.

You have the Microsoft fanboys who love it, and immediately love everything Microsoft pushes onto the public no matter what it is. These are the ones that installed Vista and loved it before it was really ready in early 2007. They will tell you how the Metro interface is easier to use and a real step forward once you get used to it.

Then there is everybody else who doesn't understand why Microsoft couldn't have given an option as to which interface to use. Its understandable Microsoft wants to make inroads in the phone and tablet market, but its an extremely poor business model to alienate your core customer-base in order to attract a new set of customers that you may or may not be able to entice. Then MS releases Windows 8.1 after mountains of complains from desktop/laptop users and what do they do? They add back the start button but instead of a real start menu it takes the user into Metro! Talk about a slap in the face. Windows 8 is clunky and unintuitive with keyboard and mouse, and that is a fact. Hopefully Windows 9 allows Metro to be completely hidden for those who don't want it.

[kelroy55]

I bought my GF a new laptop with Windows 8 on it and downloaded a program that makes it look like either Win 7 or XP. I choose Win 7 and since she has it I don't know how thats working but she said it's working great and is good for all she uses it for. I can say I wasn't very impressed with the Win 8 layout.

[bchris02]

Yeah 8 definitely has some good under-the-hood improvements. My perfect OS would be the Windows 8 kernel with the usability of Windows 7. I know there is Start8 but I don't believe in having to but third party software just to make my computer usable.

One way 8 differs from Vista is that Vista was rejected all around while 8 seems to simply be very polarizing. There are more people who love and advocate for 8 than there ever was for Vista.

[venture]

I agree with just about Venture. It's pathetic that we have to go get software to fix the interface of this OS. The "bones" are fine, it's just the interface that's horrible. What completely floors me is that MS somehow thinks a similar interface on the server OS is a good idea.

I can't stand the fact they went with the same UI on Server 2012. Oh it drives me nuts. At some point I need to start learning Ubuntu or another Linux OS and put that on the other server box I haven't been using.

[bchris02]

I can't stand the fact they went with the same UI on Server 2012. Oh it drives me nuts. At some point I need to start learning Ubuntu or another Linux OS and put that on the other server box I haven't been using.

I agree. Nobody uses a touch screen on their server and nobody will in the near future. Even worse, servers are usually managed via remote connection which works horribly with the metro interface. I wonder who made that business decision and why. Whoever it was needs to be fired. Smart people saw this failure coming since the Windows 8 Preview days and begged MS to make changes by release yet they did not. I know when I booted the 8 preview the first time I thought it was a joke and that there was no way they would release it like that.

[jerrywall]

I don't see the hate. The metro interface is just a full screen start button. Hit the windows key to switch between that and the traditional desktop. I spend very little time in the metro interface, but its existence doesn't bug me at all. In fact, I find 8 to boot faster, be more stable, and work better. I work full time on multiple monitors with it, and it seems to be a big improvement over 7.

I think folks learning how to use it (and yes, there are some changes, so there is a curve) makes the biggest difference. For example, hitting the windows key to bring up the metro interface, and then type the first few letters of the program I want to run, and hitting enter. Very quick, and responsive, and simplifies the use of the machine for me. The changed interface for managing networks is a significant improvement IMO as well.

I will say I switched to a touch pad from a mouse a while back, due to wrist and hand pains from 20+ years doing computer work, and the touch pad interacts with W8 very well, so that's been a bonus.

[SoonerDave]

I can't stand the fact they went with the same UI on Server 2012. Oh it drives me nuts. At some point I need to start learning Ubuntu or another Linux OS and put that on the other server box I haven't been using.

Makes me delighted I"ve at least tried to keep some superficial Unix skills going with my Linux boxes around the house. Its reminded me how fundamentally important it is to continue understanding how the stuff operates under the hood, not just how the GUI cobbles it all together!

[SoonerDave]

I don't see the hate. The metro interface is just a full screen start button. Hit the windows key to switch between that and the traditional desktop. I spend very little time in the metro interface, but its existence doesn't bug me at all. In fact, I find 8 to boot faster, be more stable, and work better. I work full time on multiple monitors with it, and it seems to be a big improvement over 7.

I think folks learning how to use it (and yes, there are some changes, so there is a curve) makes the biggest difference. For example, hitting the windows key to bring up the metro interface, and then type the first few letters of the program I want to run, and hitting enter. Very quick, and responsive, and simplifies the use of the machine for me. The changed interface for managing networks is a significant improvement IMO as well.

I will say I switched to a touch pad from a mouse a while back, due to wrist and hand pains from 20+ years doing computer work, and the touch pad interacts with W8 very well, so that's been a bonus.

As with many things, its a matter of preference, I suppose, but I've been working with multiple monitors on Win7 for years now effortlessly, so I'm not quite sure how Win8 makes that experience evolutionarly better...same goes for its stabilty. I couldn't tell you the last time I had any of my Win7 boxes bluescreen in the last...what...several years? Last time I can recall a bluescreen was on my daughter's laptop when she was playing some really old game, but the point is the BSOD became a bit of an anachronism with Win7, and the crazed chipmunk that made the decision to put the Win8 interface on a server operating system ought to be publicly flogged.

The "Learning curve" issue is relevant, but the bigger issue is the implied value proposition. What great thing resides in Win 8 such that I should a) pay for, and then b) take my precious time learning, and then c) spend time overcoming to get rid of? With a nearly always-on machine and no stability issues, the relative value of improved boot speed and stability aren't compelling selling points. I mean, I've tried over the years to stay as open minded as I can, adapt, take advantage of truly newer and better elements, but this time around I just don't see either an incremental or revolutionary improvement "under the hood" that convinces me I need to take whatever amount of time necessary to keystroke my way around an interface I have no desire to use (or to restore essentially what I already have, yet paid money to get).

Ballmer's long-term future at MS was more broadly scripted by virtue of the Surface failure, and the decreasing relevance and ubiquity of Windows and its cash-cow Office as things like GoogleDocs, iPads, Tablets, Android-based devices, etc, etc. become direct, lower-cost competitors. MS is now the IBM of the 2010's, trying to figure out how to be relevant in a market it can no longer dominate merely by virtue of its own inevitability.

[Snowman]

then[/I] c) spend time overcoming to get rid of? With a nearly always-on machine and no stability issues, the relative value of improved boot speed and stability aren't compelling selling points. I mean, I've tried over the years to stay as open minded as I can, adapt, take advantage of truly newer and better elements, but this time around I just don't see either an incremental or revolutionary improvement "under the hood" that convinces me I need to take whatever amount of time necessary to keystroke my way around an interface I have no desire to use (or to restore essentially what I already have, yet paid money to get).

...

People buying the software and updating an old pc is generally the exception not the rule, most of the time people are buying a new machine and getting a copy of whatever version the OEM was putting on it. Though a lot of medium to large businesses were able to do this for either Win7 and Win8 just from where standard pc specs were at the time, the licensing model MS does means they had the option of upgrading but pay the same if they choose to or not, though in Win8's case they have pretty much been avoiding it both due to the hassle of training everyone on a new interface and with many still having only recently gone to Win7 from XP do not want to go through all the testing of 3rd party software and updating internal applications for what looks like is a version that is going to be as lightly used as Vista by corporations.