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WINDOWS 8 ???

PAUL161

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Windows 8, what's the benefits, if any? I was told not to test drive it on a download, as it looses everything when you dump it and go back to W 7. Supposedly you have reload everything from a backup. Any truth in this? PJ
 
My initial impressions are that it <span style="font-style: italic">seems</span> to be a little smoother on older machines I've used. On laptops the start-up from hibernation is very fast compared to Win-7. It's less graphics-intensive so machines that aren't equipped with decent video cards immediately seem a little quicker and smoother.

They're pushing the new start screen and the design for touch-screens. I don't like the new start screen and I hate touch-screens. Neither are a selling point for me but I think it's obvious the OS is a big move toward moving windows to a user environment that will be the same, or at least similar, on multiple platforms.

As to the installation situation, I wouldn't be at all surprised. I don't usually do "upgrades" anyway. I keep everything backed-up but when I do a major upgrade I start with a new HDD and start fresh. My laptop gets a new drive annually <span style="font-style: italic">anyway</span>. Read up on it though, there will be a ton of information on it once it hits the street.

Rest assured there are a lot of people who have no desire in the least to move to Windows 8. I've been running the last two versions on one laptop and it's ok. I'll probably move the airplane laptop over to it after awhile too - but I've seen no good reason to change my desktop machine.

More information on the "features" are available here, here, here, here, and here. Google about upgrade issues here.
 
<span style="color: #3333FF"> <span style="font-size: 20pt">*YAWN*</span></span>
 
If my 95 discs would work, I'd be using them. As it is, I am on XP. And I'm NOT paying Gates and Co. for any more of their BS (bad software).
Around here we know firsthand from employees what goes on, why Vista was pushed out early (and why it was so overloaded with glitz), why 7 is what Vista was supposed to be......I am currently looking for a refurb laptop, to replace the 15-year-old Dell Inspiron 5000e, and found if I buy a Dell with 7 on it, if it had XP from the factory, the BIOS has the license code for XP in it, and I can get a Dell XP load disc, and I'm set. I don't care if Gates and Company won't support XP after 2014 (or whenever), as every "update" is simply bloatware anyway.

Why would you consider 8 if 7 is working for you?
Just interested is all.
 
I am going to avoid 8 as long as i can. 7 works just fine. M$ does not need me to give them any more money.

m
 
As a producer of commercial software products I have no choice but to use Windows 8, but as a user (word processing, finances, e-mail, web surfing) I see no reason to jump on every new thing that comes along. It has been ages since we've "upgraded" a machine to a new Windows version.

I can't imagine why a user ever needs to change Windows versions unless they're buying a new computer. In that case, going with the latest version usually makes sense.
 
f17_fpo_screenshot.png


hint hint
 
coldplugs said:
I can't imagine why a user ever needs to change Windows versions unless they're buying a new computer. In that case, going with the latest version usually makes sense.

It's the same mentality as those who stand in line for the latest gadget, just "because".

I do it for the same reason you said. I want to make sure my software works with whats out there, and sometimes I'm happy with the changes that are made anyway. I adopted Windows 7 early on and it was (is) far better than XP to set up, manage, and use.

Contrast that with the developer of one of the biggest products in our business though. They've made no effort to change anything in many many years and it's causing problems. At $35k and $3500 a year you'd think they'd make an effort yet they won't even correct spelling mistakes in the UI. :frown:

For everyone else though, just read up on whats available and use whatever you like. Most people couldn't care less what you use. Sadly these kinds of discussions occasionally bring out some of the silliest and childish remarks imaginable. Sometimes that says a lot too.
 
If you'd ever had a personal run-in with Bill security, or been the poor citizen he and his old man tried to foist off several initiatives onto us (one of which LOST by the biggest margin ever in state history), know from friends who work there what happened with Vista (same guy telling them to add, add, add), still wasn't released, fired the manager, and released Vista......one of the worst OS ever....and 7 came along right after it to "fix" it.....
Remember XP SP3?
Maybe. maybe not.
Horrible track record...lots of folks could not get it to load.....I spend a week....it would get so far, ooops, and unload itself.
Find out months later, oh, dear, we wrote the Service Pack for an Intel processor, not for an AMD. That's what they said.
Fixed it and it all worked.

Ever set your computer up to "notify, but do not download" updates?
Do you remember when the big problem happened?
I do.
Walked into my office as my computer was re-booting.
Seems they wanted everyone to have "Genuine Advantage", or whatever it's called, that proves (every time, mind you) that your software is legit.
They wrote it as a "critical update" that overrode your settings and downloaded it anyway.

After that, I figured out how to kill it so they could never, ever do that again.

Tries, and fails, every day.
I've got the log files to prove it.

Not making any of it up.

Not even the customer I used to have who got a call from some kid working in his Dad's garage, trying to do some software for HP, I think, couldn't get it to work. Offered this customer half the kid's company if he could help him get it working.
Customer turned the kid down flat....and nobody lets him live down the fact he turned down half of MicroSlime.

You can't make this stuff up.

Why do you think they keep coming up with new OS? And stop support of older ones?
Gotta sell more, gotta keep Billy as the richest man in the US at all costs.
 
:iagree:
 

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My Desktop machine has two 300 gig hard drives, one has W-7 the other has Linux. The Linux Fedora program is almost twice as fast as windows, if speed is of any importance. I just have a hard time with the change of format and program names. 30 years of DOS and windows have pickled my brain. Actually, I liked DOS and had a hard time converting to windows back then. 3.1, sounds like something out of the dark ages. I save everything, don't know why, my wife says I'm a pack rat. I even have the original release of W-95 on 13 floppies, it was immediately switched to CDs, I think for security reasons! Yup, I'm a pack rat! Maybe that's why I like old beat up MGs! :thumbsup: PJ
 
DrEntropy said:

My server running BCF is running Linux. For my home use, I made the move from Windows to MAC OSX (Currently running Lion). I have Windows 7 installed on my iMac also, so I can run both at the same time (using Parallels) and easily switch between the two. I really like the MAC OS. Haven't had a single glitch so far.
 
PAUL161 said:
Windows 8, what's the benefits, if any? I was told not to test drive it on a download, as it looses everything when you dump it and go back to W 7. Supposedly you have reload everything from a backup. Any truth in this? PJ
To get back to the test drive question, the "release preview" won't let you un-install back to a previous version of Windows. See HERE. That is not the commercial version though. I can't imagine the retail version won't let you go back, but I've been wrong before...
 
It says W8 preview takes 16 gig of space, how about downloading it on a stick and run it from there, think it'll work without messing up anything? curious. PJ
 
The minute you open it, to load it will find and overwrite the areas currently in use by 7. At least, that's the way MS has always done it.
If you're going to play around, use those "sticks" to back up everything and hope like heck 8 will allow all those 7 files to be loaded.
 
Another thought - before installing Win8, make a disk image of the physical hard drive you're currently running. I use "CloneZilla" (on a bootable CD) to copy my HD to an external HD. Then, if you've installed Win8 and decide you don't like it, boot from CloneZilla disk, and copy the original disk image back to the hard disk.

https://clonezilla.org/

Tom
 
Another good disk utility for duplicating a drive image is Acronis.

*nudge-nudge*
 
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