Windows 7 vs. Windows 8 - my po' XP is getting murdered

[stubhead]

I love the way they force this stuff upon us.... I could always get XP to do what I needed it to, not being a gamer or space-ship launcher. So 7 is more stable, but they'll likely murder it sooner than 8, huh. Opines?

 

[bagman67]

I find 7 is a lot more like XP than it is like 8 - learning the Win8 O/S has been a pain in the ass for the month or so I've been ascending the learning curve.  FOr that reason alone, I'd go with 7, but yeah, they'll no doubt kill it before they do 8.  *sigh*.  Good luck.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

7

 

[stratamania]

Win 7 has worked fine for me. I bought a new laptop with it on when it came out in October 2009, it's still going strong and it's the first windows version that I have not had to reinstall.  Also had it on work machines with similar good experiences.

But Win 8, it's a mess if you ask me. I don't want a PC that looks like a phone and so on. Recently a company I am doing some work for gave me a laptop with Win 8 on and despite trying to get along with it I have had Win 7 put on.

I really wonder what Redmond was thinking with Win 8, it wouldn't be so bad if you could have the option to run it without the incredible technicolor tiled kitchen, but no that's too much choice it would seem.

Now when i do replace the laptop I got in Oct 2009, I wonder which direction I will go possibly to OSX or Linux.  If I was just using it for mail and internet and didn't have various windows based applications (not apps) it would be an easy choice.

 

[AutoBat]

current win8.1 finally lets you use traditional desktop instead of the demon-tiles.

 

[Cagey]

I use Linux Mint on everything, but I understand that some may not be attuned to it. Thing is, I started on computers back before Microsoft was even in business, so I have a different perspective on how things should work. I'm more of a computer guy than an OS guy. My first machines were hand-wired, and then S-100 bus based. Pretty primitive stuff that had to be programmed in machine code just to do the simplest things. When I finally got an Altair, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven...

You wanna talk about a bitch to program? Those things took hours just to get started. Not because they were slow (although they were), but because it you had to enter addresses and data in by hand using switches. No fun at all, really. Pretty tedious. But, you had to do it. It was magic when it worked.

Not pertinent here, so I'll shut up.

Windows has always been a cruel joke. There are ways to eliminate parts of it so it behaves itself, but it's a lotta work that I'm not willing to do. I just don't trust that company any more and don't want anything to do with their products.

 

[stratamania]

current win8.1 finally lets you use traditional desktop instead of the demon-tiles.

True, but as far as I know you still can't disable it altogether.

Stardock has a couple of products, start8 which will give back a traditional start menu, and
Modern mix which allows the metro type apps to run in a normal window. I didn't get round to trying them out, but I believe parallels bundles these into their virtualisation package for OSX so that might be an option in the future if I need to run windows at all in a virtual machine.

Been using Linux and Unix more on servers for years too.  I helped to build the internet and other networks and now I feel like the old guy  :laughing7:  what happened.

 

[stubhead]

I'm maybe not quite as old/grizzled hoary "We used to have to enter each pixel - WITH A CROWBAR!" as some - I do still think that WordPerfect 6 running in DOS was the most effective, not-annoying word-processor going, i HATE cute little "For Dummies"-type cartoons trying to help me.... but then I don't want to have to spend TIME on being a rebellious, free-spirited Appellite or Free-Sourcer. And asshat Windows KNOWS it, and every time you go off the rez they make it into time-consuming, adaptive flimflam; and the fact that you'd have to add another layer on top of 8 to make it act more like 7... jeez, the next step may be a cave & a dobro & a Euell Gibbons cookbook. I DON'T WANT TO BE A PROGRAMMER. I may be the last of the breed, just WORK U DAM THING.

I'm probably going to have to dump my old HP printer too, it uses "HP45" cartridges which are now obsolete and they want me to buy ink cartridges 1/3 the size. I think it's called "going green?" :icon_scratch:

(For you kids, Euell Gibbons was Billy Gibbons' weird old uncle, lived on pine cones till he Marfammed out, the resin finally misfolded his fibrillin-1.)

 

[sixstringsamurai]

I have been running 7 since it came out no issues, 8 on my phone for quite some time.

The  tiles work great in a phone setting, and the Surface.

I guess the transition has been easier because of using a window phone.

See I despise Apple, always have, always will, moreover now since they're nothing more than a POS status symbol.

 

[stratamania]

8.2 Redmond in reverse perhaps, the start menu could be back as an option.

http://m.winsupersite.com/windows-8/further-changes-coming-windows-threshold

On the positive side of Win8 when I tried it out, it was performing quite speedily etc.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

It is back with the 8.3 update I believe.

 

[drewski]

7 is rock solid I love it. at work I finally bit the bullet and installed 8.1 on my primary workstation. 8.1 allows you to install hyper-v as a role on the local machine (nerd alert) so I run some virtual machines locally as needed. The metro tile interface sucks hard but I found you can right click and remove most of the crap on the primary "start menu" and put your own icons there which makes things much more manageable. And in win 8/8.1 they included this really nice context menu if you right click on the start button....has lots of shortcuts to important things us IT monkeys need quick access to.

 

[stratamania]

It is back with the 8.3 update I believe.

Is that the old file name convention ?

But 8.2 is not out yet so time will tell. I think they will do themselves a huge favour to make the tiles an option and give folks the start menu back.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Use 7, unless.... er..... yeah, just use 7. It's the nicest OS I've used.

i HATE cute little "For Dummies"-type cartoons trying to help me

You mean this guy?

Yeah, don't worry. That was turned off by default in 2001 and removed completely in 2007. So he hasn't really been an issue for 13 years.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Oh yeah - I have Start8 and ModernMix and they work great, and I never see the tiles. However, that's not been my biggest problem with 8 at all. The problem is a huge lack of drivers. It defaults to generic drivers for lots of the hardware in the two Windows 8 PCs I have, and there is no update available from the manufacturer. In practice what this means is massive, massive performance problems. Like, you want to do something, well fine, just wait 2 minutes. Where "something" might be "bring up Task Manager". It's absolutely awful and makes the machines near enough unusable. They're both getting formatted and put back to W7 as soon as I have time.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Just got a new Toshiba Sattelite laptop yesterday, I think it's 8 that is on it, all apps based, which is taking some time to navigate since I use XP on everything else but my iPad.

I do like how fast it runs though, replacing a Dell Dimension 8200 series that is over 10 years old.

 

[6stringer]

As the Director of IT for a clinic, I deployed 7 company-wide two years ago. Pretty much every new computer in the last year I've had to deal with comes with 8, but I use our deployment server to put 7 on them right away. 8 IS a little faster under the hood (they've stripped out a lot of legacy features to trim it down, and added a lot more threading and multicore support) but the interface is so unbelievably abysmal, I don't wish it on my worst enemy. The 8.1 update makes it only slightly more tolerable, but nothing is where it used to be or should be.

Like Cagey, I've been programming old-school computers since the early 80s (although I think he beats me by a few years with the Altair, my first machines were the Apple ][, Sinclair ZX81 and ZX82). And like Cagey, I run either Ubuntu or Linux Mint on my personal, non-work machines.

For most users though, I would either run 7, or wait for 9 to come out.

 

[MikeW]

8.2 Redmond in reverse perhaps, the start menu could be back as an option.

http://m.winsupersite.com/windows-8/further-changes-coming-windows-threshold

This.

We're using Vista on the existing instrument platform and for the new instrument we're considering Win8. It was a no-go until we found out that we could switch back to the Task Bar-Start Button interface and have some semblance of control over AD user security and desktop settings.

As was said above too, if you're using hardware that may have compatability issues, skip Win8 and stick with Win7. We write our own drivers for the instruments so it's not such an issue for us to interface with Win8, but all our printer, touchscreen and keyboard drivers are wonky on Win8.

For what it's worth, I got the Finance Department a Surface 2 with Win8 for Xmas this year. She's using it for homework and notes in her classes and really loves it. Easier for her to keep it organized with the tiles than having menus and folders on the desktop. YMMV, of course.

Stub, I'm sure you've probably thought of this already, but there are a ton of decent Win7 laptops out on CraigsList for remarkably cheap prices compared with what you'd pay new. Sounds like that might be the best way to go if you're not into Win8.

 

[Dan025]

my advice for windows 8 is to learn the keyboard.. all the alt+tab windows+d, window+r, windows+f stuff... ect ect.... when you get used to it you will find adapting between windows and mac to be easier because a mac has a differnt default window behavior as well as the drop down menus being dependant on the active window so you have to be conscious of that (just sub "alt" with "command" for mac, in most cases the commands are similar) you'll also notice that the keyboard is often faster even on windows xp and 7. i never learned the keyboard untill i had to and now i see why my brother used it for everything.

forget touch screens, maybe a touch pad, and familiarity with a keyboard make windows 8 pretty painless. the built in search helps for things that are in unfamiliar locations that you haven't created shortcuts to. (windows +f)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/20-pc-shortcuts

if you have a completely modern computer you might want to use windows 8 and learn just a little. with some older hardware you might be stuck with generic drivers. in that case you might have better performance with windows xp or 7.

 

[stratamania]

I know the keyboard shortcuts and I still don't like Win 8 as it stands today. Without them I can't imagine how anyone would manage.

Good tip nonetheless whatever OS you use.