[noise747]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

You say resource hungry but of course that depends upon the resources available to you. Your dual core with 1Gb or ram on Windows 8 would be like an asthmatic without ventolin sucking for air. I doubt you got 8 running, more of a slow walk.

Software matches hardware and visa versa these days if you want good results with new software, if not stick with the older software you have.

Windows 7 used to work on it ok with 2Gb and even when the memory went belly up and I ended up with 1Gb it still worked ok. that computer was my main computer before I got this one.

I thought windows 8 was suppose to use less resources than Windows 7, if not then it just proves the point I have been making for a few years now.

We buy more powerful computers and software and Os producers find ways of slowing them down.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by noise747

We buy more powerful computers and software and Os producers find ways of slowing them down.

This statement grates on me. You compare windows 8 on your pc now to windows 3.1 on your 486, then tell me which is slower.

Or even workbench on your A500! You'll be surprised without rose tinted glasses.

[cnbcwatcher]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

The only difference is the thing thats printed on the key. I think the command key acts as Alt. Then Alt is the windows key.

I thought the command key acted as Ctrl?

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

I thought the command key acted as Ctrl?

Probably .

If i had it in front of me i'd just do it anyway, because i dont look at keys. The keys still all just work though.

edit: actually, i think your wrong. Thats how keyboard shortcuts get translated on OSX by apple, not how the actual key codes are translated raw.

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by noise747

Windows 7 used to work on it ok with 2Gb and even when the memory went belly up and I ended up with 1Gb it still worked ok. that computer was my main computer before I got this one.

I thought windows 8 was suppose to use less resources than Windows 7, if not then it just proves the point I have been making for a few years now.

We buy more powerful computers and software and Os producers find ways of slowing them down.

It is, running it on 1Gb though and complaining is taking the pee a bit.

[alan1302]

Originally Posted by noise747

We buy more powerful computers and software and Os producers find ways of slowing them down.

Or OS and software producers find ways of using all the available power that they have -

[noise747]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

This statement grates on me. You compare windows 8 on your pc now to windows 3.1 on your 486, then tell me which is slower.

Or even workbench on your A500! You'll be surprised without rose tinted glasses.

Maybe compare to windows 98 on a 1GHZ machine, just think how fast windows 98 would be on a modern machine. the Amiga was a advanced machine, the Os is still being produced and is now on version 4.


Never had a 486 or used windows 3,1

[noise747]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

It is, running it on 1Gb though and complaining is taking the pee a bit.

windows 7 worked on 1GB. not ideal but it did work.

I will get some more memory for the machine at some point, before DDR2 memory rise in price.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by noise747

windows 7 worked on 1GB. not ideal but it did work.

I will get some more memory for the machine at some point, before DDR2 memory rise in price.

Is there a significant performance difference between the Win8 and the Win7 on the 1GB? You said it worked but it struggled. For Win7 you say it works but not ideal, what's the difference?

Also, I think it's a silly argument in an age when machines routinely come with 4GB or more RAM, why wouldn't one want to have more RAM?

Even the latest phones have 1GB RAM now. Would you want to run a desktop-class OS on a phone?

[carnivalist]

Originally Posted by noise747

Linux is getting as bad or almost, look at the latest gnome and also this unity rubbish ubuntu is using.


I gone for mint at the moment, they have something called Mate, which at least is better to use.

Well there are many more distros than mint and Ubuntu - although I agree that the new Unity on the latter is a pile of horsesh*t.

On that note, is Windows 8 still intending to prevent users from multibooting? If so criMosoft can eff off as far as I'm concerned.

[DotNetWill]

Originally Posted by carnivalist

On that note, is Windows 8 still intending to prevent users from multibooting? If so criMosoft can eff off as far as I'm concerned.

How do you mean? On ARM they want hardware manufacturers to only own load signed code just like every other ARM tablet device on the planet. There is no such provision on x86.

No one is stopped a Linux distro talking to hardware vendors and getting their cert on there.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by carnivalist

Well there are many more distros than mint and Ubuntu - although I agree that the new Unity on the latter is a pile of horsesh*t.

On that note, is Windows 8 still intending to prevent users from multibooting? If so criMosoft can eff off as far as I'm concerned.

You've completely misunderstood the secure boot story. The fact that Asus is going to be offering a device that dual-boots Android and Windows 8 proves this.

[DotNetWill]

Originally Posted by TheBigM

You've completely misunderstood the secure boot story. The fact that Asus is going to be offering a device that dual-boots Android and Windows 8 proves this.

From comments I've seen all over the internet, he's not the only one.

Once again the problem is the "tech media" anything for clicks regardless of reality.

[lettice]

Originally Posted by noise747

windows 7 worked on 1GB. not ideal but it did work.

I will get some more memory for the machine at some point, before DDR2 memory rise in price.

Ive a spare laptop that I use to play with, it has only 768mb and runs fine with Win7 and Win8.
It runs very well with linux and a vmware osx lion setup.

It wont go all guns blazing with Win, but its very usable.
Oddly, I think it runs better with Win8 than Win7.

Memory though sure will improve things for you. DDR2 memory is very cheap for the added benefits.

[omeletpercy]

After a near week trialling it on the family Laptop we have all come to a conclusion.... Its not good !

I'm sorry but for us types who are more up with technology its a learning curve at first but you eventually get used to it. Darting all over, having to dig around for usability, employ keyboard short cuts etc. Normal users it isn't.

The biggest downer is the lack of controls for the mouse in Metro.
I mean there is still no CLOSE button on Metro apps FFS !. The pop-up charm bars etc seem temperamental - you have to dart all over the place all the time.

You feel as if all the controls are hidden away. Even basic settings. There is a claustrophobic feeling too on these apps.

The need to have to switch to desktop to do anything more complicated than viewing picture files defeats the purpose of Metro.
For example importing pictures and music from a USB stick.
Then the fact of darting back to metro start feels wrong all the time.

Some metro apps are just too text heavy. Mail looks like one big screen of text. Its plain and dull.

It runs just the same speed as the Windows 7 partition too so where the massive speed benefits come from I just don't know.

I wanted us to trial Win 8 for a possible upgrade later this year. But in fairness I think Windows 7 does a fantastic job for a Laptop and Desktop Machine. Touch screen might be different but then again why do I want something more complicated than the iPad?

So for us, Fail.

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by omeletpercy

I mean there is still no CLOSE button on Metro apps FFS !.

You can easily close metro apps in W8RP!!!!

Mouse to top left corner, mouse down then press right button over required app and choose close!

[John259]

Originally Posted by omeletpercy

After a near week trialling it on the family Laptop we have all come to a conclusion.... Its not good !

If you've got a keyboard/mouse computer, can you totally ignore Metro? Can you go as far as disabling or even uninstalling it?

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by John259

If you've got a keyboard/mouse computer, can you totally ignore Metro? Can you go as far as disabling or even uninstalling it?

No & No

[John259]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

No & No

Thanks Annie.

Could you explain briefly why Metro can't be ignored?

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by omeletpercy

After a near week trialling it on the family Laptop we have all come to a conclusion.... Its not good !

I'm sorry but for us types who are more up with technology its a learning curve at first but you eventually get used to it. Darting all over, having to dig around for usability, employ keyboard short cuts etc. Normal users it isn't.

The biggest downer is the lack of controls for the mouse in Metro.
I mean there is still no CLOSE button on Metro apps FFS !. The pop-up charm bars etc seem temperamental - you have to dart all over the place all the time.

You feel as if all the controls are hidden away. Even basic settings. There is a claustrophobic feeling too on these apps.

The need to have to switch to desktop to do anything more complicated than viewing picture files defeats the purpose of Metro.
For example importing pictures and music from a USB stick.
Then the fact of darting back to metro start feels wrong all the time.

Some metro apps are just too text heavy. Mail looks like one big screen of text. Its plain and dull.

It runs just the same speed as the Windows 7 partition too so where the massive speed benefits come from I just don't know.

I wanted us to trial Win 8 for a possible upgrade later this year. But in fairness I think Windows 7 does a fantastic job for a Laptop and Desktop Machine. Touch screen might be different but then again why do I want something more complicated than the iPad?

So for us, Fail.

You close the metro app you're in by holding it from the top and dragging it down. If you want to close multiple ones, right click on them from the switcher and close the ones you want in one go. But Windows 8 is designed such that you don't need to worry about closing apps. Just open and use the ones you want, Windows will manage system resources for you. All of this was in the CP too.

The charm bar works pretty well for me with mouse and works great with keyboard. Just remember to mouse to either top-right or bottom-right corners then mouse along that edge towards middle-right. Also activating all these controls will be simpler when your laptop has a touchscreen or you have a multi-touch trackpad that is enabled for gestures.

Are you running the release preview or the consumer preview? Mail still isn't perfect but is significantly better now with a persistent three pane view showing: accounts/folders, emails, opened email. It's clean, crisp and efficient for the eyes, not sure what else you want in the app?

The rest of your points seem confused. On a non-touch laptop/desktop you will spend most of your time in the desktop mode similar to how you use win7 and that's okay, there's no requirement to use metro apps. Now that metro apps have become more commonplace, I use a combination of a few matro apps but mainly in the desktop. When you have a tablet or hybrid or touchscreen laptop then metro will make more sense.

On the one hand you complain metro apps are over simplified and on the other that it is too complicated - how can you have such a dichotomous view at once? The lack of metro apps right now is probably limiting what you think can be done in metro. Download some apps - for example the ashampoo photo editing app. download a news app etc etc. The idea only very basic things can be done in metro is simply wrong. The app store "tap" just hasn't been opened yet.

Also you're example of needing to use desktop to import photos is wrong. A few days ago I put an SD card into my laptop, it gave me several choices of how to do the import. I did it once on the desktop side (so I could do a bunch of file management things as well). Later, I took some pictures, put the SD card in laptop again and instead used the photos app to pull them in and the photos appeared inside the app seamlessly.

Windows is more full-featured than iOS, e.g. having a proper print subsystem that lets you print to any printer, not needing a special AirPrint printer. A windows RT tablet will come with Office applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint (with a touch-friendly mode built-in). Windows 8 allows for new form factors like hybrids (use metro on the go in tablet mode, come home and dock your tablet to make it like a laptop and do some real work on the desktop side). But you get to have all your software and files and things in one place on one device, no endless syncing everywhere.

I have an iPad at home, it's not THAT simple, you have to figure out how to do things, where certain things are. E.g. I'm used to my apps having their own settings inside the app itself whereas the iPad groups them in a monolithic settings app. Simplicity is ok at first but as you get accustomed to it, it becomes restrictive and claustrophobic. I think Windows 8 does a better job of simplifying things and making it touch-friendly but still leaving enough power and control in the machine to enable you to do what you want in a streamlined and efficient way.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by John259

If you've got a keyboard/mouse computer, can you totally ignore Metro? Can you go as far as disabling or even uninstalling it?

Originally Posted by John259

Thanks Annie.

Could you explain briefly why Metro can't be ignored?

Metro is windows, the desktop is now conceptually "just an app" inside of a metro windows system. If you ever want to go to start you are in metro. You wouldn't be able to remove it without doing a deep-level crippling hack-job on windows.

On a practical basis however, you can live within the desktop side and rarely be exposed to metro UI elements but you will be exposed now and again. If you're not at all interested in metro, you should stick to Windows 7.

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by John259

Thanks Annie.

Could you explain briefly why Metro can't be ignored?

Because you have to use a metro app to access the desktop and MS have disabled al;l the hacks to bypass metro.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

You can easily close metro apps in W8RP!!!!

Mouse to top left corner, mouse down then press right button over required app and choose close!

Its easier than that. Just drag the app to the bottom of the screen closes it.

[omeletpercy]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

Its easier than that. Just drag the app to the bottom of the screen closes it.

Originally Posted by anniebrion

You can easily close metro apps in W8RP!!!!

Mouse to top left corner, mouse down then press right button over required app and choose close!

what ever happened to the simple X button = close ?

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by omeletpercy

what ever happened to the simple X button = close ?

Metro apps have no windows so there is no min/max/close buttons.