Too early for Windows 8 ?

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Too early for Windows 8 ?

webfish

35 posts

Geek

#112012 22-Nov-2012 17:15

A not too tech savvy friend asked me if she should buy a new laptop (Dell) with Windows 7 or 8. My first response was that it was too early for Win 8 which would possibly be buggy as hell for a while. Perhaps I'm being unfair.

Does anyone have any advice here as I'm mostly a Mac user and probably not the right person to ask.

1 | 2

4621 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#721457 22-Nov-2012 17:22

Go for windows 8 dude... NO reason to stay with windows 7 especially if she is buying a new computer.

Pluralsight

Learn cloud, mobile, security, data and web technologies with Pluralsight (affiliate link).

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#721466 22-Nov-2012 17:33

I wouldn't bother with upgrading an existing Windows 7 PC to Windows 8. There's really not much in it, and a lot of people I know who've done this have had no end of stability problems, probably due to drivers etc. not being built for Windows 8.

If it's new hardware on the other hand, then there's probably no choice in the matter, and can't see any reason not to.

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#721471 22-Nov-2012 17:42

Windows 8 has had a significant amount of testing and is not buggy as hell, really just a better version of Windows 7

there was 16 million installs of the pre-release version of Windows 8 and 1.24 billion hours of Windows 8 testing by developers and beta testers

FWIW...

ajobbins

5050 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#721491 22-Nov-2012 18:18

Depends what you want. I would not run Windows 8 on any PC because I think the Metro interface is intrusive and counter productive for multitasking.

Sure you can get to the desktop, but Windows 7 is a fantastic OS and there is nothing that Windows 8 can do that I am missing from Windows 7.

Twitter: ajobbins

webfish

35 posts

Geek

#721495 22-Nov-2012 18:41

I use Macs at home but Win XP and Win 7 at work. I've been very happy with Win 7 - it's really good - but got burned by Vista a while back so am perhaps a little cautious ...

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#721523 22-Nov-2012 20:12

8 uses less RAM than 7, 8 boots up in 4 seconds from cold on modern Windows 8 certified hardware, 8 is 7+1 not another Vista

CYaBro

4084 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#721534 22-Nov-2012 21:10

nathan: 8 uses less RAM than 7, 8 boots up in 4 seconds from cold on modern Windows 8 certified hardware, 8 is 7+1 not another Vista

4 seconds??!!

My i5 Asus laptop with 8GB DDR3 RAM and an SSD drive takes about 40 seconds.
It sits on the Please wait screen for most of that before I can log in.

mattwnz

19378 posts

Uber Geek

#721541 22-Nov-2012 21:49

I didn't find the boot up times from a cold start much different with 7 and 8. I would recommend 8 if you are getting a touch screen, and 7 if not. If you get a pc with windows 7, you can get a $20 upgrade to 8 to upgrade it in the future, so I think it is a no brainer. If you are using the desktop environment a lot and use things like flip 3d and widgets, both of which I use, windows 8 is missing that.

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#721547 22-Nov-2012 22:05

nakedmolerat: Go for windows 8 dude... NO reason to stay with windows 7 especially if she is buying a new computer.

I installed win8 onto one of my spare desktops and find it annoyingly schizophrenic.

Guess thats one reason.

If you buy with win8, can you swap freely between win7/win8? That might be the best option if possible.

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#721554 22-Nov-2012 22:12

nathan: Windows 8 has had a significant amount of testing and is not buggy as hell, really just a better version of Windows 7

there was 16 million installs of the pre-release version of Windows 8 and 1.24 billion hours of Windows 8 testing by developers and beta testers

FWIW...

I upgraded one of my desktops as a 'trial' of win8.

I've had some issues. eg, I cannot resize win8 mail columns -- annoying -- any idea how to do that?

And I keep getting stuck in metro apps without knowing how to close them. Sometimes the metro app gets squashed to the side of the screen and I get stuck in the interface. It is not intuitive using a mouse/keyboard.

I like win8 at the desktop level.But, the metro is too unintuitive for me.

Maybe I'm just getting too old :) I've heard some people rave about win8 but it doesn't really improve productivity over win7 (at least for me).

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#721575 22-Nov-2012 22:45

mattwnz: I didn't find the boot up times from a cold start much different with 7 and 8. I would recommend 8 if you are getting a touch screen, and 7 if not. If you get a pc with windows 7, you can get a $20 upgrade to 8 to upgrade it in the future, so I think it is a no brainer. If you are using the desktop environment a lot and use things like flip 3d and widgets, both of which I use, windows 8 is missing that.

Im surprised you don't see any speed up on cold boot, my older systems are getting 40% faster startup when booting from cold with the new hibernated kernel in Windows 8

Its true that Windows 8 doesn't include gadgets as they're a massive security attack vector, nor Flip 3d which yes looks nice but personally I've never really seen a compelling scenario for it besides eye candy.

mattwnz

19378 posts

Uber Geek

#721579 22-Nov-2012 22:53

nathan:
mattwnz: I didn't find the boot up times from a cold start much different with 7 and 8. I would recommend 8 if you are getting a touch screen, and 7 if not. If you get a pc with windows 7, you can get a $20 upgrade to 8 to upgrade it in the future, so I think it is a no brainer. If you are using the desktop environment a lot and use things like flip 3d and widgets, both of which I use, windows 8 is missing that.

Im surprised you don't see any speed up on cold boot, my older systems are getting 40% faster startup when booting from cold with the new hibernated kernel in Windows 8

Its true that Windows 8 doesn't include gadgets as they're a massive security attack vector, nor Flip 3d which yes looks nice but personally I've never really seen a compelling scenario for it besides eye candy.

I was comparing with a clean install of both windows 7 and windows 8. Albeit it was on a netbook, which wasn't the most powerful computer, and too low res for metro apps to work on the screen

Malboo

57 posts

Master Geek

#721624 23-Nov-2012 00:20

I upgraded to Win 8 over Win 7
Win 8 is pretty cool like anything new you just have to get used to it I get win 8 and if i want to I can use what you would call Win 7 desktop so best of both worlds just have to download and install Classic Start Menu

Also have bought win 7.5 cell phone basic Nokia 610 model pretty slick and once again learning curve but I love it connects with Zune on the computer i don't need the greatest and latest just text call a few games for my daughter of course and will use the internet when i get round to setting up
so yeah I would upgrade it's cheap enough but Win 8 is definitely a touch system so if you want to use your mouse do so keyboard do so touch do so it's all there I haven't a touch screen laptop but if you do upgrade , as I said its all there
I remember after installing Win 7,great system but still had to figure out where some stuff was or located if you arn't sure I just google it simple

MikeB4

18125 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#721641 23-Nov-2012 07:03

I use Win8 on my laptop, it is very stable and performs very well.

netspanner

332 posts

Ultimate Geek

#721681 23-Nov-2012 09:15

Using it on work desktop and home laptop. Apart from issues with the network drivers not working, which is an update problem, I bypassed it by buying a nano network adapter that plugs in the back, its great.

I found my new laptop, Acer timeline has new touchpad features that seem to work great with W8, such as opening the charm bar by dragging right to left from the edge, or scrolling webpages with two fingers drag and switching applications with 4 finger drag.

I love the way the new start page can be customized into groups with headings. From a straw poll of people using it 8 - none would go back and love it.

my recommendation, go for it, and don't look back. After a couple of weeks it will feel natural.

1 | 2