Also, need to clear your cache to stop the double-line-break-me-do.
Hmm, Luddites is a different one when talking about a touch-screen interface on a desktop PC, but I digress. The search one I should have worded better I suppose. What I meant was that the control panel no longer shows up in the default list of search results - which it doesn't. You can't search for the name of a Control Panel applet and just hit "Enter" like you can in Windows 7.
Fair enough about easier, however searching is harder in Windows 7 (IMO), shutting down is harder, working with multiple programs (if any of them are TIFKAM) is harder. For the desktop user, Windows 8 does seem to have been designed to be harder to use than Windows 7 IMO, and that's a bad thing.
Regarding TIFKAM snapping, not useless no. But next-to-useless if you're actually planning on using TIFKAM apps on a PC whilst being anywhere near as productive as you can be with Windows 7.
As for Vista, well we'll have to agree to disagree about it. I thought it was a shite OS personally - yet one that could have been so much better if it had been properly tested originally and if it's UI had been designed properly.
As for being a flop, the highest Vista's market share managed to get (according to W3C's statistics) was just 18.6% after nearly 3 years as MS's main OS. Windows 7 in comparison reached the same market share in just 8 months and in the time it took for Vista to hit 18.6%, Windows 7 managed 53.8% market share. If you instead look at Windows XP, well after just under 3 years of being available, that had 52.5% market share.
No matter how you look at it, Vista was widely hated, fairly widely avoided, and managed a pitiful market share in comparision to both its predecessor and successor. I'd call that a flop myself - even if you personally happened to like it!
And "yay" for my line breaks working correctly again, although right-clicking in the quick-reply box doesn't seem to be working :-(
For right click you have to hold Ctrl otherwise you get the mock-context menu thing for pasting in to CKEditor.
But back to Windows 8. Shutting down is only harder if you go via the Start Screen. Maybe I've become too overly optimised, but I tend to just hit the power button on my PC if I want it to actually shutdown or leave it and let it go to sleep otherwise. I've been doing that for a long long time now, even back when I was using Windows XP.
Speaking of shutdown, Windows 8 doesn't actually power off your machine any more, it's somewhere between powered off and Windows 7's hybrid sleep. A hybrid shutdown if you will. This is partly what makes Windows 8 so quick to boot. You can spot the difference if you "shutdown" vs. if you do a proper restart.
One of the nice things I like about Windows 8. When it BSODs (damn you ATI AMD and your Catalyst drivers), you get a sad smilie and some text saying "Oops, something went wrong" (or words to that effect). The other cool thing is, which I'm guessing is related to the improved persistent state-ness / hybrid shutdown thing, when restarting after a BSOD Windows restores your apps and documents right where you were moments before the crash.
The W3C are hardly the best place to look for statistics on OS usage. They only collect stats from visitors to their own W3Schools website, which is going to be a very specific target audience. However, I would actually see 18% as very good market share! Those are numbers Apple Linux can only dream of.
Vista was widely hated by the tech community. But don't you think it's weird how hated Vista is / was compared to the praise heaped on Windows 7 when the two of them have much more in common (flaws included - I can think of a fair few that are still present in Windows 7 that people moan about in Vista) than either of them do to XP?
I'm with you on this. I'm in the process of restoring my 7 backup.
I should say I agree about 8 on desktop. I would imagine on touch its kick ass. I went out last night looking for a surface to play with but couldn't find any.
That's the thing. Windows 7 to me is what Vista should have been. All the improvements of Vista but with all the flaws fixed. So UAC is actually bearable, the "Shut down" option works properly, the UIs of many of the control panel applets received the desperate makeover that they needed etc. Then on top of that, they added features which were genuinely useful, like snapping Windows to the side, the newer task bar, etc. Windows 7 isn't perfect, that awful folder-jumping bug in Windows Explorer for instance is a notable example, but it fixed a lot of Vista's flaws, hence why it's been a generally well-liked OS.
As for Windows 8, I agree that there's lot to like. Including the new task manager for instance. Unfortunately, there's also plenty to hate as well. Hence why I reckon it'll struggle overall to be accepted. Still, we'll see. It'll either be a great success that will change PC computing, or a huge flop. Time will only tell which way people will ultimately view it.
Some would say it's the ultimate in monopoly abuse. Microsoft taking advantage of their dominant desktop position to push an OS that they *know* is badly suited to the desktop, just to help plug and push their tablet and phone offerings.
"Back to the Mac" (AKA forcing iOS over a proper OS) anyone?
Overall, I'm quite pleased with it, and pleased I upgraded. Perhaps it was the 7 pound price tag :-D
I think on its own, the Start Screen works quite well - and equally, the desktop environment works well too, and has some nice, if subtle & mostly cosmetic changes.
Where I think it struggles, is mixing the two environments - it just doesn't flow right, like Alt+tabbing between apps when in Start gives Metro Apps + Desktop, but not desktop apps - etc. Same with opening files within Metro, launching desktop apps - it just doesn't quite flow very well.
I think it would have made more sense for you to be able to choose which environment you're working in - but guess they wouldn't be able to climatise users to the 'touch' interface that way!
My wife loves it though - when I told her I was spending my weekend upgrading Windows, I got the usual 'you've lost me already' look - but once she saw it, had a play, and explained it was much like her phone with a 'store' and 'apps' - she was sold and wanted it herself.
Up until now I've pretty much completely ignored it based on what people have said but I'm getting a small urge (no John (I was very tempted to say that on Talk Ford when I said I had a fiddle
:D )) to try it out now. Don't know if I could be bothered to reinstall 7 if I hate it though, even though it would be nice to reinstall and have my boot drive back to C.
EDITED: 30 Oct 2012 18:12 by CHRISSS
I bought it last night, though not installed yet. You can get it for £15 by saying you bought a PC in the last year or something! Excellent!
That's almost tempting to have my first legal OS (on a main computer) since Win95.
There's a review on Engadget, I haven't anything but the wrap up, which says it should be used with multitouch gestures, even if it's just a multitouch trackpad on a normal PC.