Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Bizman on November 30, 2012, 02:03:09 PM
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The other day one client asked me to check that his laptop was decently configured for his needs. Nothing new in that, been doing that among other things business-wise for 8 years. So far I've been able to manage with new Windows versions quite easily. Actually, there hasn't been major changes after Win95, which was the first version I've owned and started to study after paying a couple of times for reinstall due to having messed it up all by myself...
So, the new laptop, a PackardBell, was running Win8. The guy had already finished the installation procedure and had stuck into a situation which, according to him, wanted him to create a Facebook account. Oh wow! I woke the computer up and saw the "tiles" view. Uh-huh... well, there's Internet Explorer, Photos, Facebook and many others, plus the one that said "Desktop" when hovered over. Click! Finally something familiar!
The first thing was to get rid of some demo programs, like Norton Antivirus and Norton Online Backup. Wait! There's no Start Orb! Fortunately there were two (!) Help icons on the desktop. The first one (worked with F1, too) led me to some login program's help, the other was the regular Windows Help. So, how to uninstall programs? Answer: Click Programs and Features link, followed with a 101 about what to do there. "Sweep from right to left, or if you're still using a mouse, place the cursor in the upper right corner of the screen" to access a menu bar on the right side of the screen. There's some links, among them Settings, under which there's the familiar Control Panel. Now, how many cheap laptops do you know with a touch screen? Neither do I...
I managed to uninstall the demos and download and install the newest version the paid-for antivirus served by his operator. I also could make some basic tweaking (not too much to maintain the plain vanilla experience for advice given by someone else than me) and put some icons on his Desktop. Can you imagine, the Help advised to use Windows Explorer to find the (my) Documents and other personal folders? Honestly, how many of your wives or parents who have been using a computer lately, really do know how to find their profile starting from My Computer? Not to mention finding My Computer without an icon, via a keyboard shortcut?
The last task was trying to find the "All Programs" menu that's normally in the Start menu/Orb. I scrolled back and forth the Tiles screens, rearranged some of them and finally by chance right clicked on the empty area. Bingo! A grayish bar appeared to the bottom of the screen, on the right edge of which there was a single small icon "All programs". That brought a somewhat arranged set of smaller tiles or icons on the screen. It still seemed to lack some of the functions of older Windows versions, but it showed what was installed.
Oh, and last but not least: The only way I could find to shut down the computer was on the Desktop: The people of PackardBell had been kind enough to create a PB Shutdown icon into the TaskBar. That sounds like Windows itself doesn't have such a simple feature, at least not in an easy place to find.
Conclusion: If I had a tablet or a smart phone and didn't know anything about previous Windows versions, Win8 might serve quite well. Could it be that future versions of Word and other programs could use a netcam to register finger spelling? For now I'd rather stick to Windows7 and hope that #9 would follow the "only every second Windows version is totally crap" -rule
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"if you're still using a mouse" :rofl
Nothing wrong with a tablet operating system on a phone or a tablet. Big problem with it on a laptop or a desktop.
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The other day one client asked me to check that his laptop was decently configured for his needs. Nothing new in that, been doing that among other things business-wise for 8 years. So far I've been able to manage with new Windows versions quite easily. Actually, there hasn't been major changes after Win95, which was the first version I've owned and started to study after paying a couple of times for reinstall due to having messed it up all by myself...
So, the new laptop, a PackardBell, was running Win8. The guy had already finished the installation procedure and had stuck into a situation which, according to him, wanted him to create a Facebook account. Oh wow! I woke the computer up and saw the "tiles" view. Uh-huh... well, there's Internet Explorer, Photos, Facebook and many others, plus the one that said "Desktop" when hovered over. Click! Finally something familiar!
The first thing was to get rid of some demo programs, like Norton Antivirus and Norton Online Backup. Wait! There's no Start Orb! Fortunately there were two (!) Help icons on the desktop. The first one (worked with F1, too) led me to some login program's help, the other was the regular Windows Help. So, how to uninstall programs? Answer: Click Programs and Features link, followed with a 101 about what to do there. "Sweep from right to left, or if you're still using a mouse, place the cursor in the upper right corner of the screen" to access a menu bar on the right side of the screen. There's some links, among them Settings, under which there's the familiar Control Panel. Now, how many cheap laptops do you know with a touch screen? Neither do I...
I managed to uninstall the demos and download and install the newest version the paid-for antivirus served by his operator. I also could make some basic tweaking (not too much to maintain the plain vanilla experience for advice given by someone else than me) and put some icons on his Desktop. Can you imagine, the Help advised to use Windows Explorer to find the (my) Documents and other personal folders? Honestly, how many of your wives or parents who have been using a computer lately, really do know how to find their profile starting from My Computer? Not to mention finding My Computer without an icon, via a keyboard shortcut?
The last task was trying to find the "All Programs" menu that's normally in the Start menu/Orb. I scrolled back and forth the Tiles screens, rearranged some of them and finally by chance right clicked on the empty area. Bingo! A grayish bar appeared to the bottom of the screen, on the right edge of which there was a single small icon "All programs". That brought a somewhat arranged set of smaller tiles or icons on the screen. It still seemed to lack some of the functions of older Windows versions, but it showed what was installed.
Oh, and last but not least: The only way I could find to shut down the computer was on the Desktop: The people of PackardBell had been kind enough to create a PB Shutdown icon into the TaskBar. That sounds like Windows itself doesn't have such a simple feature, at least not in an easy place to find.
Conclusion: If I had a tablet or a smart phone and didn't know anything about previous Windows versions, Win8 might serve quite well. Could it be that future versions of Word and other programs could use a netcam to register finger spelling? For now I'd rather stick to Windows7 and hope that #9 would follow the "only every second Windows version is totally crap" -rule
The shutdown button is found in the charms bar and 'power' section. Charms bar opens by hovering the mouse on the lower right corner of the screen.
If you take the mouse to the lower left corner and use right click, you get a menu with all sorts of familiar and useful functions such as control panel, run etc. Windows 8 works quite well for gaming once you get used to the annoying new UI. I play BF3 on a Windows8 preview machine that has a C2D 4500 + Radeon 4870 combo and it works once both are overclocked and eyecandy dropped.
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My wife needs a new laptop for video rendering but they seem to have Win 8 now. She'll be disappointed if she can't have a desktop literally filled with icons and links to projects/programs. Is there a desktop hidden under that ugly UI somewhere and can you boot directly into it?
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My wife needs a new laptop for video rendering but they seem to have Win 8 now. She'll be disappointed if she can't have a desktop literally filled with icons and links to projects/programs. Is there a desktop hidden under that ugly UI somewhere and can you boot directly into it?
There is a normal desktop and you can find many addons that brings the old start menu back such as start8, startisback etc. Some free, some paid. I hear the paid version is the best.
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I like how reading the title thread and seeing the "thumbs down" told me all I needed to know before even reading the post, hah.
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I like how reading the title thread and seeing the "thumbs down" told me all I needed to know before even reading the post, hah.
Despite of many people bashing Win8 for several (and sometimes accurate) reasons, it does include many improvements also. Tests have shown that it's as fast or even faster (by less stuttering) than Windows7 on similar hardware. It boots up much faster, consumes less memory than 7 etc. Overall if you forget the horrible mistake of a GUI and dark prospects of a closed proprietary OS environment, it's Windows7 underneath with some good improvements.
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Classic Shell is supposed to be out for Windows 8.
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I just suffered the installation of Windows 7 on my computer at home. I hate it. You need additional 'clicks' to do anything at all. No benefit to that, just a waste of time.
Dual booting to Windows XP is going to keep me from losing my mind. At least with XP I can customize everything the way I want it done.
On my new computer, XP boots to the desktop in less than 4 seconds from the time the cylon eye starts. It does not complete one pass and boom! Really like that.
Windows 8 is an abomination for a desktop OS.
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I like how reading the title thread and seeing the "thumbs down" told me all I needed to know before even reading the post, hah.
I thought so, reading the full story is mostly for those who have time to kill.
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I just suffered the installation of Windows 7 on my computer at home. I hate it. You need additional 'clicks' to do anything at all. No benefit to that, just a waste of time.
That's the advanced future Skuzzy! Just wait untill you 'get' to use the awesome ribbon interface too! :x
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That's the advanced future Skuzzy! Just wait untill you 'get' to use the awesome ribbon interface too! :x
Is that where it takes 10 finger swipes, 20 mouse clicks, rotate the video display, then it will finally ask you if you are sure you want to change the color of the background?
This is the last Microsoft OS I will ever own. Thankfully I know enough about alternative operating systems and applications I do not have to suffer the nonsense Microsoft is delivering.
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I just suffered the installation of Windows 7 on my computer at home. I hate it. You need additional 'clicks' to do anything at all. No benefit to that, just a waste of time.
Dual booting to Windows XP is going to keep me from losing my mind. At least with XP I can customize everything the way I want it done.
On my new computer, XP boots to the desktop in less than 4 seconds from the time the cylon eye starts. It does not complete one pass and boom! Really like that.
Windows 8 is an abomination for a desktop OS.
On that first line, you meant to type "Windows 8", didn't you?
MH
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On that first line, you meant to type "Windows 8", didn't you?
MH
No, I was talking about Windows 7. Windows 8 will never find its way to any of my computers.
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No, I was talking about Windows 7. Windows 8 will never find its way to any of my computers.
that is weird skuzzy. I liked windows xp. but It would take me about 2 hours to finish installing and downloading drivers whenever I did a fresh install. windows 7 took about 20 minutes and drivers where installed automatically, the only drivers I changed was for my video card. of course both windows xp and windows 7 then needed about a zillion hours of updates but that is another story.
I found windows 7 to be simpler to install that xp. then again I didnt do the amount of "tinkering" that you do with your systems. mine was the 5 minute check to blackviper.com for unneeded processes.
midway
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Windows 7 still needs drivers. It is one of the things I have found most often wrong with most computers, I see today. Most people are letting the default drivers run, which work, but do not allow all the features of the hardware to be used. In some cases there are stability issues until the motherboard drivers are installed.
I just built a new system will all the latest hardware and had to install all the drivers (video, motherboard, sound, and even the Intel Ethernet controller), just like I would for XP. I found it odd that Windows 7 w/SP1 still needed over 100 updates. Seems to be too many for such a new OS.
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Windows 7 still needs drivers. It is one of the things I have found most often wrong with most computers, I see today. Most people are letting the default drivers run, which work, but do not allow all the features of the hardware to be used. In some cases there are stability issues until the motherboard drivers are installed.
I just built a new system will all the latest hardware and had to install all the drivers (video, motherboard, sound, and even the Intel Ethernet controller), just like I would for XP. I found it odd that Windows 7 w/SP1 still needed over 100 updates. Seems to be too many for such a new OS.
Ubuntu gets 100 updates quite fast after release too so it's nothing unique.
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Ubuntu gets 100 updates quite fast after release too so it's nothing unique.
Oh I know they get updated, but they are always a bit behind Microsoft updates. Rightfully so.
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At least Win 8 is more intuitive than the new MacBook Wheel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA)
I mean.. sheesh what was Apple thinking?!? :O
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There is no such thing as an intuitive operating system!!!!
I really detest the use of that word as a means to describe the difficulty of any operating system.
No one is born with the knowledge of how to use a computer operating system. Everyone has to learn how to use one. The ease, or difficulty, of which will vary from person to person.
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There is no such thing as an intuitive operating system!!!!
I really detest the use of that word as a means to describe the difficulty of any operating system.
No one is born with the knowledge of how to use a computer operating system. Everyone has to learn how to use one. The ease, or difficulty, of which will vary from person to person.
+1 :salute
"Intuitive", when speaking about operating systems: Some wise guy has changed the access method to a known function. You know by experience that it must be somewhere there and try every trick you've learned through your computing years. If you find the way on the second trial, it's intuitive. If you don't, you're plain stupid according to the evangelists of said operating system :furious
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+1 :salute
"Intuitive", when speaking about operating systems: Some wise guy has changed the access method to a known function. You know by experience that it must be somewhere there and try every trick you've learned through your computing years. If you find the way on the second trial, it's intuitive. If you don't, you're plain stupid according to the evangelists of said operating system :furious
On the other hand one must give them credit for iOS. Even a baby will (and have) learn it easily.
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On the other hand one must give them credit for iOS. Even a baby will (and have) learn it easily.
:rofl
I guess that is why my Wife's entire company dumped Apple. Too easy? Sure, that is it.
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:rofl
I guess that is why my Wife's entire company dumped Apple. Too easy? Sure, that is it.
I see kids under 10 working iPads and iPhones almost everyday walking through the city. I can't imagine it's that hard.
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:rofl
I guess that is why my Wife's entire company dumped Apple. Too easy? Sure, that is it.
Jellybean counters probably looked at the hardware cost and decision was done based on that. Easy as that. Our company has saved the hardware cost back in saved labour many times after ditching windows laptops and moving 100% Apple. Hardware breakdowns and OS reinstalls just virtually disappeared.
I have to say I hated to use Apple at first, now I kinda like it after getting used to it. I especially like the user interfaces of the many applications - very smooth and easy to use. Windows looks like it's lagging 10 years behind especially on the application interface front.
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Actually, everyone was complaining, which caused the mass exodus. They installed Windows 7 on all the Mac hardware to appease the users. Even the system admins hated it.
Personally, I do not care for iOS/OSX or Windows 7. Both miss the mark in ease of use and flexibility, compared to what they could be.
Windows 8 is just an abomination, which cannot be fixed.
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Actually, everyone was complaining, which caused the mass exodus. They installed Windows 7 on all the Mac hardware to appease the users. Even the system admins hated it.
Personally, I do not care for iOS or Windows 7. Both miss the mark in ease of use and flexibility, compared to what they could be.
Windows 8 is just an abomination, which cannot be fixed.
I was complaining too untill I got unstuck from the windows 'experience'. Now I use OSX 90% of the time and windows only when I absolutely must and that's for gaming and handling our own software which is running on windows/linux.
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I was complaining too untill I got unstuck from the windows 'experience'. Now I use OSX 90% of the time and windows only when I absolutely must and that's for gaming and handling our own software which is running on windows/linux.
In her business, any down time costs the company enormous amounts of money, short term and long term. They had no choice but to go back. Three days of zero productivity ends up costing them more than they would ever get back from an operating system switch.
It was an expensive lesson.
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In her business, any down time costs the company enormous amounts of money, short term and long term. They had no choice but to go back. Three days of zero productivity ends up costing them more than they would ever get back from an operating system switch.
It was an expensive lesson.
I'd say they made their preparations very poorly if they managed to get 3 days of downtime on OSX. Was it the printing problem or what?
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Oh sweet lord, Apple vs Microsoft again.
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At least Win 8 is more intuitive than the new MacBook Wheel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA)
I mean.. sheesh what was Apple thinking?!? :O
I guess no one bothered to click on my link.. it's a shame being that you'd have gotten a good laugh about it!
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I guess no one bothered to click on my link.. it's a shame being that you'd have gotten a good laugh about it!
I did, but I didn't know you were so anxious to get some response. Otherwise I would have announced myself earlier. :t
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I just read the funniest comment about windows 8:
"windows 8 will bring world peace because nobody can launch anything on it.."
midway
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Today I had experience #2 with Win8. Thanks for all who have shared their knowledge, I could find things easier now. Even the Shutdown button which intuitively has been put under Settings, which naturally pops up by mousing in the right corners. Think about people having had lots of laughs when Windows was shut down by clicking "Start".
This, too, was a PackardBell with a dedicated shutdown button in the TaskBar. Unfortunately this time the icon was in the lower left corner, easily causing error clickings with the Tiles popup link in the same location. I tried to arrange an empty slot there, but couldn't.
Well, it seems people will learn to use them. In the meantime I should be glad I won't be unemployed for a long time: As you know, average people have no idea where their folders are physically, and with a missing Start menu with direct links to their profile folder and its subfolders I guess I'll have a fulltime job in making appropriate icons on their Desktops :aok