Be Excellent To Each Other

Surely if it's ugly, it's ugly on both?

I know there's a Surface machine in Sys Dev and it kills me that I'm not allowed to play with it. It's so pretty

I was referring to usability. The design suits finger-tapping and dragging on a tablet, but on a desktop PC it's no substitute at all for the normal Windows GUI.

And yes, it's ugly on both.

My windows 8 install didn't work.

Instead I watched a video on Youtube of some guy using it. It looks confusing.

Tomorrow nights job will be too delete the partition that I've had to make and to remove the dual boot option. Wish me luck.

Realised that ranting about the lack of Windows 8 Pro tablets to review because I absolutely MUST have one before I go away on the 20th October is somewhat academic when one realises that Windows 8 isn't released until the following Friday.

You could buy a Windows 7 tablet and install Windows 8 on it. They have the same requirements.

There's precious little windows 7 that interests me. May well be w7 crippling otherwise good hardware. All the new pretty pretty is android only at this point, with a load of new shiny shiny annoyingly on the horizon.

You read the post to the end, right?

Yes. To summarise, I want tomorrows hardware, optimised for my planned use, not yesterdays hardware upgraded. Shiny.

And I want to know what that will be today, and I want it 7 days before it is released worldwide. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!!!?11

Just whacked the Win8 preview on a separate partition and am fiddling with it right now. It's, um, it's interesting that's for sure. As others have said, the Metro UI is probably really nice for touch screen devices but for a normal desktop machine it's pretty but not all that useable. By which I mean that there's nothing I can think of to do with it that wouldn't have been much, much easier with Win7. After guessing at some shortcut keys it's a bit less intrusive as I can get to the real desktop easily enough but it really is going to confuse the living fuck out of any normal user who just wants a Windows PC.

The 'apps' for video, music and pictures are a nice idea to extend the Libraries concept that Win7 brought in, but they don't actually work. The Photos app won't show anything even though I've added a whole folder of images to the underlying library; the Videos app shows nothing under the My Video section and forces me to go browsing and there's a similar flaw with the Music app in that it only shows a handful of my albums randomly. I sort of can get to everything from those apps if I go browsing around from within them but then what's the fucking point? I might as well just launch Explorer and work my way along from there. Also, the Music and Video apps prioritise trying to sell me shit over showing me my own files which can absolutely GTFF.

Even just getting a list of all the programs I've got installed and launching one (i.e. what the old Start menu was essentially for) is a real fucking pain in the arse and even when you do find the list it just throws all the icons for everything you've got installed right in your face which is confusing and overwhelming. It's basically the Xbox interface with a couple of concessions to PC usage stapled on and it just doesn't work at all.

Unless they're planning on having a big fat 'always give me a more trad Windows layout' option somewhere I'd never in a million years recommend this for family members or anyone like that and I'm not even that interested in it for myself to be honest.

Edited to be slightly more readable.

Does Win8 stop you using paragraphs?

It was just a brain dump of my thoughts about it but it's a fair point so I've edited.

Cheers. I tried reading it twice, but my brain rejected it both times a few lines in.

I suspect Windows 7 will do me just fine until Windows 9 comes along, same as I stuck with XP until Windows 7 had been out for a while.

No interest in Windows 8 whatsoever.

Windows 7 is a genuinely excellent OS and it's unlikely to leave you wanting for much. Which is part of the problem, there's very little that Win8 does that doesn't seem like a step back (e.g. doing away with the genuinely useful and instantly accessible universal search feature). I mean, there's a few UI tweaks which make the common aspects look a wee bit nicer but those are entirely non-functional so it's hardly worth moving for.

If you want to search, pop up metro and start typing. It's completely unsignposted.

tiles can be grouped, but I don't know how.

I must admit with only a month before the release I’m not bothered by Windows 8. With Windows 7 I ran RTM versions as my main OS for months before the final release. I’ve installed 8 on a tablet at home and a touch screen device at work.

Problem is that is has very little for a desktop PC user, Windows 7 is looking to be the New XP in that people will stay on it for ages, for the first time in 8 years this will be what I’m doing.

No start button and a pointless (for desktops) touch UI make it not worth the hassle

I have played a bit with Windows 8 and keep meaning to install it virtually on my laptop.

I suppose with Windows 7 working so well, i am not in a rush to move on to something different.

I've installed it as the main OS on my work laptop, because we've finally got our build process working on 64bit Windowses and I don't see the point in switching now then again later. Twice in two days though, thanks to cunting Dell*.

The main issue so far is that something is different in msxml6.dll that prevents us importing it (and therefore compiling our code) properly. Other than that, it's nice to have Hyper-V virtualising properly instead of VirtualBox sitting on top. Sound card doesn't virtualise, but eh.

* They've done something weird with the Intel SATA controller, seemingly to prevent installation of Windows 7 32bit; the Intel drivers just Do Not Work. Now with Win8 it only installs with it set to ATA in the BIOS; the AHCI drivers just Do Not Work. Trying to persuade them resulted in the hard drive getting wiped.

Surface RT tablet is sack of shit:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-ha ... -rt-review

Doesn't exactly tie up with what I've been hearing elsewhere.
But then again, meh. Not really sold on tablets anyway.

For yourself, or as a force of change in the industry?

For me.

Tablets are pretty good for some things, women and children, mainly.

Uhh, what?

Most men prefer a proper computer, whereas women and children get by quite well with the simplicity of a tablet.

Refuses to bite.

Disagree. Holding one right now, it is excellent. I'm loving it.
(Not mine sadly it belongs to another family member)

So, women and children are too stupid to use proper computers?

It's not a question of intelligence, I think it's a case of tablets being computers for people who don't like computers very much, and/or who aren't interested in computers, and/or who don't understand computers.

Now I'm not for one second suggesting that women are incapable of understanding computers, I've worked with a few female techies over the years and they've been as good as any bloke (very, very much in the minority in numerical terms though), BUT, the fact remains that 'computer geekery' is still very much the domain of the male - for better or for worse.

Going off my own family and circle of friends, the people who've latched onto tablets are the women, the old people, and the children, and the blokes who don't like computers.

Indeed, my bestest chum (the one who comes over every year to visit) has practically attached himself to his iPad via an umbilical cord, I don't think it's any coincidence that he's never built a PC in his life, has always sort of 'tolerated' one at home rather than actually liked it, and every time anything has ever gone wrong with it, he's carted it off to PC World or suchlike to have one of their 'experts' look at it. He loves his iPad mostly because it separates him from having to get entangled with his PC on any sort of regular basis.

Please understand there's no insult intended with what I've said above, I've just found that tablets seem to find the most favour with people who don't like computers in the traditional sense - and that tends to be women, children, and old people who don't like technology very much.

I can appreciate tablets and what they do, and by all accounts they have actually shifted the entire demographic of 'computer users' (just Google around the subject), but I think there's a reason why they've done that - and that's because they make using a computer very much like not using a computer ever used to be before.

(And yes, I do realise that's progress and I applaud it on that level )

My take on it is that a tablet instead of a computer serves a different purpose to a tablet and a computer. Both are equally valid, but it's probably different types of people. People who understand/care about technology/computers would probably be more likely to use tablets/smartphones, whereas geeks will be more likely to use either, depending on the situation.

You sir have a very usual view of the world..

As I work in IT I felt I needed to push myself with Windows 8 and try and use it. I have no intention of installing in on my Alienware PC at home, so put it on a HP 2740p Tablet, this model is 2-3 years old now.

The success of Windows 8 in the tablet market will depend hugely on the hardware its installed on. With the HP I regularly loose the finger touch functionality, although the supplied pen works. I have to reboot by pulling the battery out before the finger touch works.

Windows is a pain in the arse for none touch systems, I find you need to do more clicks to get things done, with a touch screen device its ok but some of the apps are hard to exit from and return to the opening menu. I find myself on the desktop a lot killing apps via task manager.

I have a friend who pre ordered as surface and he loves it, said it’s brilliant, mine will be here in 3 weeks so I will wait and see.

I think with Windows 8 there is new ways of doing things, unlike previous OS that have tried to move people in this direction, but failed as all the old ways of doing things was still in place, Windows 8 pushes you more without options.

Problem is not everyone wants or needs what Windows 8 is offering. I will use it but not on my gaming PC.

From personal family experience this can be true, my parents have an IPad and use it far more than the PC. In fact my mother never used the PC, but Skype’s me now from the Ipad.

I have heard the same thing from people at work who have bought an IPad and found that their wife’s who wouldn’t use the PC won’t put it down. In some cases they have bought another one.

I think it's a real shame they're forcing the new UI on everyone because everything I hear about how well Win8 actually performs is glowing so if they'd let you choose the UI you wanted (or, perhaps, automatically switch it on only when installed on a touchscreen device) I'd totally upgrade as I'm more than happy to support MS for churning out genuinely good, fast, stable stuff like Windows 7 is. Their apparent inability to admit that the Metro stuff is pretty horrible as an interface for mouse users though is a total fucking deal breaker for me which is disappointing mostly because it all seems to needless.

As Ive noted before, if they tried to force the new ui on everyone, theyve failed.
Many third party tools are available that pretty much make metro never appear.

The same was true of the new start menu and stuff in XP though, of course. I comfortably predict that lots of people will avoid metro as much as they can at launch. Within 2 years, everyone will be using it.

Not quite, the newer style Start Menu could very easily be switched off in the settings in XP; which I always did purely because the old one works much better with keyboard shortcuts, putting utility over design is the easiest way to make people not want to adopt your new shit. With Metro they're not giving the option though which signals a different intent entirely on MS' part. Obviously it's not all that well hidden if third-party tools can already reliably resurrect it but relying on such things to get your preferred UI back isn't ideal.

I remember the amount of folks that used to run xp in classic mode.

I still do at work because I can launch programs with it easier than the newer one. Give me something that actually works better and I'll adopt it. Remove utility from me for the sake of a UI reshuffle and I won't though. I'm easy in that respect!

I mean I'm happy with the Win7 Start Menu because of the excellent search stuff that's integrated which not only replaces but genuinely improves on the XP functionality. Anything else though can GTFF.

newer one xp is not new it has not been new for over 5 years

Good job Win8 improves the search stuff then! It's how I use Win8, in fact.

I don't understand your post.

He's saying that a feature that has been around for 5 years isn't new (I would suggest that it's been around for closer to 9 years)

Malc

Just saying XP is not new... so the xp menus are not new

Well, yeah, but I was replying directly to your comment about XP and people running it in Classic mode so I kind of assumed that, in that context, it would be obvious what I meant. Also, to be fair, I never said "new", I only ever said "newer" so I was even the best kind of correct into the bargain!

So much for a 3 week delivery for the MS Surface, mine turned up after 3 days.

The order I placed for 2 online went through twice so I have 4 of them!

It looks nice, better that the tablet. Problem I have at work is that our wireless is either dished out by group policy , which is nice and fast but for domain PC's only. Or its a really shit ADSL conection thats less that 2MB. I'm on the latter with the surface so the app updates are taking for ever.

So I will play with it at home were I have a much better line. Also getting Infinity installed in our workshop next month.

The upgrade version was £25. It may well still be. For that price and being on Vista SP3 it was a no brainer.

It is very fast. You get used to metro interface (and no I don't have a touch screen). I am spending less and less time in desktop mode.

It's £25 until the end of January if you buy it digitally direct from MS, £50 for a DVD. Or £15 if you bought a computer after June.