Windows 8

[wyliecoyoteuk]

And people thought Unity was bad!
Shaping up for a corporate market failure.
Vista mk2.

[Rhakios]

With the Weather app open, hover your mouse over the bottom right-hand corner of the screen until the "Charms" bar appears (what an awful name !!). Select Settings, which will open up a Weather options bar. In that bar select Settings and under Units you can choose either F or C.

Thanks for that, Marrea. I hadn't found this out for myself if only because on this installation it seems I have to hover my mouse over the bottom right hand corner for an inordinately long time before the charms bar appears. I certainly wouldn't have had the patience if you hadn't suggested it. Outside the weather widget it pops up quickly enough.

I've not had any problems playing mp3s in 8 but I do have it installed natively. Don't know if that makes a difference.

Virtual machines are often less stable than hardware installations, in my experience, but at least one doesn't suffer from the problem of not being able to find compatible drivers. VMs usually either work as well as they are going to, or not at all, while installing on real hardware has often left me struggling to find a driver to make something like the network card work. Anyway, my hardware test box is running Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu now, perhaps Xubuntu later).

At the moment my main difficulty is trying to work out how to navigate my way around the o.s.

Frustrating isn't it?
Have you tried IE much yet? I'm trying to make sense if it, right clicking opens up a top panel with Window history in it and you can grab the top of the Window and shrink it (why?), but where are the Bookm.. er Favourites? Ho hum (again).

Need too much time (which I don't have to spare) to work out how it's supposed to work.

[Marrea]

… installing on real hardware has often left me struggling to find a driver to make something like the network card work.

Post native installation on my XP/Linux test machine (a six year old Asus Terminator) Win 8 did not recognise either my onboard ethernet card or my sound card. On another computer I googled without success for a Windows Vista or 7 driver for my ethernet card – a 3Com 3C920B-EMB-WNM. I therefore decided to try and get online using a Sitecom USB/Ethernet adapter I had lying around which I bought goodness knows how many years ago for my old Windows 98 machine. Surprisingly, the Sitecom website still had it listed along with a beta Vista driver so I used that and, even more surprisingly, Windows 8 immediately recognised it and I was online. And among the updates which Win 8 then displayed, guess what – my 3Com driver was listed! After letting that install, I was able to dispense with the Sitecom USB adapter and plug the ethernet cable straight into the computer again.

So …. Windows updates had the necessary ethernet driver but you can't get Windows updates without an internet connection and you can't get an internet connection without the correct ethernet driver and you can't get the correct ethernet driver without an internet connection. Fortunately the updates also installed a driver for my sound card (SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio) so that was another problem solved.

Have you tried IE much yet? …..... where are the Bookm.. er Favourites?

I am afraid I have not persevered with the Metro IE as I find it almost unusable and have therefore stuck to the desktop version. I understand that the Metro version does not include the traditional Favourites, instead requiring you to pin websites to the Start screen which I regard as a rather clumsy arrangement. I have also discovered that as Flash has been barred from the Metro IE version it is not possible to view BBC news videos and you need to switch to the desktop IE for that. So, all in all, the Metro IE is pretty useless as far as I am concerned.

Other than that, I have installed LibreOffice but as yet have only tested Writer, which seems to work perfectly.

[Marrea]

Shaping up for a corporate market failure.

Indeed. And probably not just confined to business either. People like myself, who are not interested in touch screen mobile devices or the current Facebook/Twitter social networking craze but instead spend most of their time on the more "serious" types of computer tasks, are not I think going to be at the head of the queue to buy Windows 8.

[wyliecoyoteuk]

despite being around for 3 years, the ribbon is still hated by more than 60% of the workforce,
and items like this won't help.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29 ... x_savings/

[wyliecoyoteuk]

It seems that MS have stopped caring about their customers (if they ever did) now it is this what you get, put up with it.

[Ram]

It seems that MS have stopped caring about their customers (if they ever did) now it is this what you get, put up with it.

Unity anybody ?

[wyliecoyoteuk]

It seems that MS have stopped caring about their customers (if they ever did) now it is this what you get, put up with it.

Unity anybody ?

The difference is that there are easily installed alternatives to Unity, KDE,Gnome3, XFCE, etc.

In the Windows world, there is only Windows.
In the MS office world, there is only the ribbon (yeuch)

[Rhakios]

I'm beginning to think that Windows 8 doesn't like VMWare, another lock-up last night which also affected the host machine, luckily I could ssh in and kill the guilty vmware process. Don't know if I dare to try it again.

[wyliecoyoteuk]

Well, finally installed it ion Vbox.
It does seem very confused as to what it is.
I can see it being a decent tablet OS, but as a desktop, its pants.
Unity for example, is far more usable.

If they just put the tablet stuff there for tablets, and a standard desktop for business, it might be a great OS (washes mouth out with soap).
As is, it is just annoying.

I am assessing our network for the next upgrade cycle, and at the moment, the majority is going to be Win7 before the end of the year, some Ubuntu, Redhat and 2012 servers.
With a bit of luck I'll be ready for retirement before win 8 becomes necessary (mind you I can see it being such a flop that win9 will be out in 2 years)

[wyliecoyoteuk]

Well, finally installed it ion Vbox.
It does seem very confused as to what it is.
I can see it being a decent tablet OS, but as a desktop, its pants.
Unity for example, is far more usable.

If they just put the tablet stuff there for tablets, and a standard desktop for business, it might be a great OS (washes mouth out with soap).
As is, it is just annoying.

I am assessing our network for the next upgrade cycle, and at the moment, the majority is going to be Win7 before the end of the year, some Ubuntu, Redhat and 2012 servers.
With a bit of luck I'll be ready for retirement before win 8 becomes necessary (mind you I can see it being such a flop that win9 will be out in 2 years)

Edit: classic shell puts it all back, and just proves that it is stupidity, not technical barriers, that are preventing MS from offering a sane solution.

[guy]

I read somewhere that Google have upgraded Chrome OS to allow windows that don't necessarily fill the screen - and more than one open at the same time, even.

The future is here!

[wyliecoyoteuk]

Spent some time with it.
This is a train wreck, as far as the enterprise is concerned.
MS have basically replaced the start menu with Metro, lazy programming, clumsy interface.
Even on a dual screen, single focus.
Constant switching between Metro and the desktop, even to accomplish simple tasks.
I must confess that I actually like Unity on Ubuntu, but if some people find Unity confusing, this is far, far more confusing, and much more difficult to use.

[reklan]

Totally agree.

Windows 8, will not get widely used by te enterprise, unless they make changes to how the software currently is.

As an IT Manager, and been in the industry in the mid 80's this is the worst OS MS has done...

There are some really good changes to Win 8, like the boot speed ups, the new task manager. Even the Metro UI, isn't that bad. (But should be a option, not forced upon the users.)

The main mistake is the removal of the start menu on the desktop, having to go to the metro interface to launch an app that doesn't have a shortcut on the task bar or desktop is rediculous. especially having to scroll through everything to get what you need.

I must admit to not being a Unity fan, but after a week on Windows 8, in installed Ubuntu with unity, and I must admit that while there are things in 11.10 that are still not to my liking, at least it makes sense how to use it, and what they are aiming at.

Windows 8 is currently a train wreck..

[MartyBartfast]

...this is the worst OS MS has done...

Please tell me you forgot about Vista?
Surely Win8 can't be worse than that abomination?


If it is I hope it never crosses my path, I still get the shakes when remembering having to keep fixing the Mother-In-Law's Vistat lappy .