[advid]

..all I want from ANY os is just to switch on my laptop or desktop and 'quickly' boot up and get into my required software... ( eMAIL / Web / Word / Excel / Powerpoint/ Photohop ect ect) and get on with what I need to do...

I really doesn't matter what my opening screen is like - tiles / icons or even a good old text menu - just click and go and get on with what I need to do....

Is all this colourful 'easy to use' stuff that Win 8 gives us actually what people who 'use' their pc's for work (and occasional pleasure) really want ?

I'm still quite happy with XP on a couple of desktop PC's....and my laptops run Win 7...

[Weigh-Man]

It's all about tablets and touchscreens nowadays, I don't think they were really thinking about desktops/laptops when they designed Win 8.

I will stick with Windows 7, I have had it installed on my desktop since it came out and to be honest I have never had any problems with it and it does everything I need.

[Helbore]

Originally Posted by advid

..all I want from ANY os is just to switch on my laptop or desktop and 'quickly' boot up and get into my required software... ( eMAIL / Web / Word / Excel / Powerpoint/ Photohop ect ect) and get on with what I need to do...

Being that Windows 8 is the fastest booting version of Windows to date, it sounds like you need it.

[SnowStorm86]

Originally Posted by Helbore

Being that Windows 8 is the fastest booting version of Windows to date, it sounds like you need it.

It certainly shuts down faster but I'm not convinced to boots up faster than Windows 7. If anything it seems a bit slower for me.

[Stuart_h]

Amongst our various PCs and laptops around the house one unit is an all in one touchscreen machine. For £25 I gave win 8 a go last night. I think I quite like it ....

Not sure I'd bother if it wasn't touchscreen though.

[Stig]

Another Windows 8 bashing thread .... Who needs it..?

[Zack06]

Originally Posted by SnowStorm86

It certainly shuts down faster but I'm not convinced to boots up faster than Windows 7. If anything it seems a bit slower for me.

Definitely boots way faster than Windows 7 on my laptop.

And to the OP, you can have a link to all your favourite programs right on the Start screen, so when you boot in, all you have to do is press 1 button to launch it. Simples.

[advid]

Originally Posted by Stig

Another Windows 8 bashing thread .... Who needs it..?

..i'm not really bashing Win 8 ...as I said - all I want is for an OS to boot and run quickly...then use my required software...

Maybe - as someone mentioned ... Win 8 may be good for this...!

Why not put a 'basic' (boot up) OS onto an SD card - plug in and go straight to the software ?

[Maxatoria]

SD cards are pretty slow, get a small & cheap SSD just for OS & Porgrams and the system will fly

[DJGM]

OP ... there's a free 90 day trial of Windows 8 Enterprise available to download from Microsoft's MSDN website.

Don't worry about all the stuff it being for developers, it's still a fully functional version of Windows 8 that can be activated
for 90 days. Download it, install it on a spare hard drive or partition, install all your usual apps, and use it as your main
operating system for while and see how you like it ... or not ... however the case maybe!

Even add a traditional Start menu if you're the new Start Screen doesn't float yer boat!

[noise747]

Originally Posted by SnowStorm86

It certainly shuts down faster but I'm not convinced to boots up faster than Windows 7. If anything it seems a bit slower for me.

Nor me, anyway how many machines shut down completely these days? My desktop is always in sleep mode, I may do a complete restart once a week if i remember.

My laptop also used to be in sleep mode, now it can't as the battery have gone and will not hold any power what so ever.

So start and shut down speed is not really relevant these days.

[TheBigM]

Originally Posted by SnowStorm86

It certainly shuts down faster but I'm not convinced to boots up faster than Windows 7. If anything it seems a bit slower for me.

To get the full benefit of improved boot times, you'll need a PC with an SSD and UEFI.

[cnbcwatcher]

Originally Posted by Helbore

Being that Windows 8 is the fastest booting version of Windows to date, it sounds like you need it.

I know another operating system that boots up really fast

[DJGM]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

I know another operating system that boots up really fast

Yes ... it's Linux Mint, on a laptop made by Samsung, with a quad core Intel CPU!

Or, a Hackintosh version of Mac OS X running on a standard PC!

[Rodney McKay]

Perhaps I'm wring but Windows 8 is ideal for the surface tablet, but for a desktop or normal laptop doesn't really offer anything over the existing Windows systems available

One thing did puzzle me watching the BBC review of Windows 8 on Click, the two parts of the system (the tablet mode and desktop mode) don't seem to share info, as they showed with the web browser, that I find odd, does anyone know if that's correct?

Also no start button, I've just got so used to Windows XP I even installed an app on my Windows 7 machine to give me the XP style menus, I just like them.

I remain to be convinced that outside of the surface tablet Windows 8 is really worth bothering with, having said that the firm I work for may well be looking at something like the surface tablet as we do a lot of work on the road where the tablet mode is more useful but also then want to work traditionally at a desk.

Like I say my concern is apps being able to share data between the two interfaces.

[d'@ve]

Originally Posted by advid

..all I want from ANY os is just to switch on my laptop or desktop and 'quickly' boot up and get into my required software... ( eMAIL / Web / Word / Excel / Powerpoint/ Photohop ect ect) and get on with what I need to do...

45 seconds here, of which 27 seconds is the BIOS/POST screens and it has to get through a dual boot screen too, as well as fire up Classic Shell and Kaspersky. That's from pressing the power on button to firing up Firefox on the desktop and using it online.

A newer faster BIOS should speed it up more, mine's 4 or 5 years old. PC is a 4 core Athlon 965, with 3 physical hard disk drives inside.

Windows 8 seems to learn what it needs based on your usage and pre-prepare startup files, because when you first use it it takes about 30 seconds longer but that soon comes down to the 45 second area (BIOS + 18 s). Shutdown to power off takes about 15s.

[cnbcwatcher]

Originally Posted by DJGM

Yes ... it's Linux Mint, on a laptop made by Samsung, with a quad core Intel CPU!

Or, a Hackintosh version of Mac OS X running on a standard PC!

Either of those will do nicely, though I use the second OS you mentioned Haven't used the first one yet.

[1saintly]

Originally Posted by DJGM

Yes ... it's Linux Mint, on a laptop made by Samsung, with a quad core Intel CPU!

Or, a Hackintosh version of Mac OS X running on a standard PC!

Bah, its in the slow lane compared to my Xfce

[simmer]

For someone who uses their PC for leisure, I think Windows 8 is great.. It's colourful, bold, fun, fast, intergrated. The the live tiles are also a great touch. I love how simple the mail, calendar, maps, news apps ect are. It just gets the job done without having to install additional software and configuring it all. The notifications that pop up are useful. It kind of reminds me of the flashy fake computers/OS you see in movies. Lol

For users who use their PC for business I think should have the option to boot straight into desktop mode. This will make it more enterprise friendly.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by simmer

For someone who uses their PC for leisure, I think Windows 8 is great.. It's colourful, bold, fun, fast, intergrated. The the live tiles are also a great touch. I love how simple the mail, calendar, maps, news apps ect are. It just gets the job done without having to install additional software and configuring it all. The notifications that pop up are useful. It kind of reminds me of the flashy fake computers/OS you see in movies. Lol

For users who use their PC for business I think should have the option to boot straight into desktop mode. This will make it more enterprise friendly.

Not just businses but anyone. i know a a few game players and they would want the desktop right away, I do video editing, I would want the desktop right away, a mate of mine uses his Pc for multi-track audio editing, he would want to go to the desktop right away.

I wonder how many people will buy a windows 8 computer and go no further than the Modern UI, that would then by a waste of money and power.

The one problem with windows 8 is that the two interfaces are separate, it is as if they took windows 7, just got rid of the start menu and added some tile UI on the front end.

Can any software from the desktop pass info to a Modern UI app?

Oh, as for who needs it, no one needs it, they are not going to die without it.

[Undefined]

Originally Posted by Rodney McKay

One thing did puzzle me watching the BBC review of Windows 8 on Click, the two parts of the system (the tablet mode and desktop mode) don't seem to share info, as they showed with the web browser, that I find odd, does anyone know if that's correct?

They're certainly correct regarding the web browser. I have Chrome installed on the preview, which seems to load a different profile depending on whether it's launched from the Start screen or the desktop. I was hoping it was only doing that on the preview version, obviously not!

Other that that weirdness, I like W8 a lot. I run a small business (just me and OH), and am thinking of installing it on my business PC. I think the Start screen will be useful once there's a good range of business-relevant apps, and being able to have the desktop on one screen and the start screen on another will be very useful (my main PC is a laptop extended with a large screen).

[Orbitalzone]

Originally Posted by DJGM

OP ... there's a free 90 day trial of Windows 8 Enterprise available to download from Microsoft's MSDN website.

Don't worry about all the stuff it being for developers, it's still a fully functional version of Windows 8 that can be activated
for 90 days. Download it, install it on a spare hard drive or partition, install all your usual apps, and use it as your main
operating system for while and see how you like it ... or not ... however the case maybe!

Even add a traditional Start menu if you're the new Start Screen doesn't float yer boat!

Good idea but note that once the 90 days are up you cannot buy it to continue to use it.

• The evaluation edition will expire and cannot be upgraded.
• To upgrade, the evaluation must be uninstalled and a non-evaluation version of Windows must be re-installed from your original installation media.

[Helbore]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

I know another operating system that boots up really fast

For years OSX trounced Windows for boot-up times. However running Windows 8 on a PC with UEFI and an SSD, it makes OSX's boot up look slow!

Literally, my boot sequences goes UEFI screen, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it flash of the Windows 8 logo and then I'm at the logon screen. That's about five seconds - with most of that being the length it takes to get past UEFI. A cold boot takes about ten seconds (that'd about fifteen seconds to do a restart - five to shut down, ten to cold boot).

It's shockingly fast.

[chitarivera]

Can you have your email in Outlook in Windows 8?
I'm sick of them messing about with stuff.
My old laptop was full so I bought a new one in the summer and it was Windows 7 - but I couldn't use Outlook.

That was a real pain.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by chitarivera

Can you have your email in Outlook in Windows 8?
I'm sick of them messing about with stuff.
My old laptop was full so I bought a new one in the summer and it was Windows 7 - but I couldn't use Outlook.

That was a real pain.

Do you mean Office Outlook, or Outlook Express and the new version called Windows Live Mail?

Either way, there's no problem with Windows 7