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Author Topic: Windows 8  (Read 24456 times)

broadstairs

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #15 on: November 23, 2012, 12:37:27 PM »

You can install a 3rd-party start menu though to retain your sanity - I have.  :angel:

It comes to something if you have to do this on an OS to retain your sanity  :o

Now if I can only get my weather software working reliably in Linux I can ditch M$ altogether  :P

Stuart
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Black Sheep

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #16 on: November 23, 2012, 02:51:28 PM »

Quote
I know tiles is all about touch screens, but I think M$ missed a trick by not offering an alternative for all the traditional PC users.

I know nothing about Windows of course, but yesterday I was speaking to a friend who's just installed Windows 8, and he said that it has an application called 'Desktop' which displays a conventional desktop complete with a menu.

Yes, mine (and other engineers) have the desktop application. Accessed by clicking on a tile.
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kitz

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #17 on: November 26, 2012, 01:25:39 AM »

Gawd...   just trying to get to grips with it on a Laptop.   

My Dad's not going to stand a cat in hells chance and I may just have to install a 3rd party start menu for my sanity nvm dad's.   Any particular suggestion please HP?


I can see how it would work great on a touch screen, but when using a laptop  mouse pad its a bit of a nightmare.
 
The charms menu is doing my head in and I keep accidentally calling it up.   At first I couldn't understand why, but Ive now sussed out whats causing it.   Its the mousepad (win 8 compatible) which has a feature that sweep in on the RH side of the pad and it will bring up the charms.    Downside of this, its soooooooo very easy when typing, for the fleshy pad under your thumb to swipe over the mousepad triggering the charms menu :(

ATM Im a bit of a n00b and theres a few niggles (need to stop the persistent nag to sign up to a Microsoft account).   
I'll bear with it a bit longer, because atm whilst  there are niggles, which is most likely to be down to the learning curve..  at least I don't (or haven't as yet) got that horrible hate feeling that I got with Vista.  Unfortunately it has taken me much longer than anticipated to try and find my way around the o/s.

Although this lappy isn't mine, Im keeping it for a few days to try get myself acclimatised to Win8 before passing it over to its new owner.  I can then see lots of phone calls for help :(
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kitz

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #18 on: November 26, 2012, 01:41:20 AM »

d'oh....  further to the above Ive just this minute found out that the mousepad on this laptop acts in exactly the same way as a touchscreen device and will also do things like pinch and other multi finger gestures.    I like that  :)...  Im now just going to have to learn to be more careful not to swipe the mousepad whilst typing, and not be so lazy by resting my palm on the pad.  :-[
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HPsauce

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #19 on: November 26, 2012, 08:46:14 AM »

Kitz, regarding mousepads I now tend to disable them for my "more mature" customers.
They hate the things anyway and, as you've discovered, casually resting your hand on them has unintended consequences.

As for W8 menus I tried a fair few and decided Classic Shell was nicest (for me). http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
« Last Edit: November 26, 2012, 08:52:03 AM by HPsauce »
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kitz

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #20 on: November 26, 2012, 12:28:35 PM »

Thank you so much for that link to Classic Shell.   Nice little app with several configurable options.
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Quasimoto

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #21 on: December 01, 2012, 12:19:40 PM »

How do you feel about it now, kitz?
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CappySpectrum

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #22 on: December 01, 2012, 09:33:03 PM »

Unfortunately the laptop wasnt mine and I just had it for a short while to set up for someone (eg remove all the branded stuff like Norton etc and put their own progs on), but on the whole once Id installed classic shell I kinda got used to it.   Also the mousepad by default sensitivity was set to the highest setting, and once that was adjusted charms wasnt as annoying. In fact after a while I didnt seem to notice much different, so I guess I soon got used to it.

Next week I envisage I will be spending more time on a win8 machine on a home set-up and trfing data etc, so more may come to light then...  but so far, although it has a few quirks I dont seem to find it as annoying as I did when Vista came out.

Ive also recommended classic shell to quite a few people who seem to like it.   From what Ive seen most complaints seem to be centered around the lack of the start button.
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HPsauce

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #23 on: December 01, 2012, 11:16:12 PM »

From what Ive seen most complaints seem to be centered around the lack of the start button.
Certainly my view.  :lol:

I've almost convinced myself to upgrade SWMBO from her old XP system to W8 with Classic shell as I have a fairly good (built for Vista) box to put it on. At £25 it's "almost" a no-brainer.  :-X
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SecTSys

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #24 on: December 15, 2012, 09:18:22 AM »

having been on windows 8 now for some time, dual booting with ubuntui must say that windows 8 isn't as bad as it seems,

you moan about the start menu - have you yet discovered this?

1. Right click when you hover over "start" instead of selecting start?
2. the fact that it is still called "The Start Menu"

Lol - tbh i got the windows 8 upgrade for £25 as i thought it was a no brainer - but upgrading my copy of windows 7 to windows 8 was a pain so i hunted about various sources and discovered that even with the upgrade key you can install windows 8 from a clean installation... this dramatically improved the performance and the whole os BECAME A LOT LESS BUGGY!

and the method is simple!
after finding yourself a copy of windows 8 retail disk and then installing from that - you will be in a "trial" of windows 8 and you need to then

    Open regedit
    Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
    Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
    Run Command Prompt as administrator.
    Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.
    Reboot Windows now.
    Run the activation utility afterwards, enter your upgrade key to activate Windows.

personally I would not install windows 8 any other way!

other things you may or may not be aware of.

Hyper-V Terminal is native in the Pro and Enterprise versions, - go to windows programs and features to install it.
though why you would want to i don't know!

and I have become very familiar with it very quickly,- Don't get me wrong when i Contridict everyone by saying this but.

Actually a lot of the changes they have made are rather practical when you know where they are it makes a lot of sense. - though i still say that they have a fair way to go.

And they have got multiple taskbars on windows 8 - and desktop backgrounds for those with more than one monitor are not the same on all screens if you have a selection of pictures it will display different ones on every screen and at that screens native resolution too.

but i will suggest that as soon as you start windows for the first time you change the Text size in the screen resolution menu same as it is in 7 right click desktop then look for the blue link.

They Set the Default text size to 125% ??? Why ???
« Last Edit: December 15, 2012, 09:22:58 AM by SecTSys »
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kitz

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #25 on: December 15, 2012, 12:06:05 PM »

>> I have become very familiar with it very quickly,- Don't get me wrong when i Contridict everyone by saying this but.

Same here once I got the hang of it... quite a smooth transition when compared to other o/s (ie Vista) and I did eventually suss the hover over where the start menu normally is. 

But as HP has also said, the elderly seem to have much more difficulty with this and like the 'button' there as a permanent feature.
In fact.. Im getting old.. because even though now Im much more used to the default config, its still re-assuring seeing it there  ;D

Thanks for the other tips and info :)
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sheddyian

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #26 on: January 12, 2013, 12:15:47 AM »

Via a search that I've now forgotten, and several "related..." links, I ended up on this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=WTYet-qf1jo

I'd be interested in opinions as to whether this guy is right or not, as I've only used the earlier trial version, and not for very long.

I've got a PC with no installed memory, but a valid Vista licence, that could be resurrected to take advantage of the Microsoft upgrade offer of Windows 8 that finishes at the end of January.  But do I really want to?

Ian (typing this on a Windows XP system)
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burakkucat

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #27 on: January 12, 2013, 01:04:14 AM »

I must confess that I ended up laughing out loud when the reviewer got to mentioning 'Goblin farts' . . .  :lol:
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SecTSys

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #28 on: January 24, 2013, 08:55:25 AM »

jesus christ - 4 minutes in and i am in stitches already!

and this is only by the time he has said that the design is less user friendly than dos!!!
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broadstairs

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Re: Windows 8
« Reply #29 on: January 24, 2013, 10:00:37 AM »

I think that although this is extremely funny it does raise a serious issue which I notice that quite a few people who commented either miss or chose to ignore. That is why should an OS be so different from the previous one that it has a learning curve. To my mind the initial way a new OS or new version of an OS presents itself to the end user should not require several hours of delving into it to find out how things work. A computer is a tool and as such you should be able to pick up an upgrade and use it pretty much as you di the previous release to accomplish the tasks you need to do. Once that is working then fine you can spend time finding out about the new features and facilities and how you can improve your workflow by using them.

I get this problem all the time from my wife, we get something new like a phone and what does she want to do - make a phone call, nothing else not listen to music or surf the net or send a text or make a shopping list (that's what a piece of paper is for ::) ) but in order to make a call there are usually 100 hoops to jump through before you can make a call.

Stuart
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