Windoze 8

Solemn promise:

I'll try to keep the Windows 8 bashing to a minimum (I was going to promise to stop it, but, come on!)

Still, I've been mulling my options and I still don't like either.

Here's the situation:

My main PC at home is an aging Vista machine. It's too feeble to run Win7, and downgrading it to XP is no longer an option.

I've an old XP I haven't used for years. I tried to sell it in 2007, but didn't find any takers. It runs well, except the video card used to fail whenever I tried any intensive graphics.

And I inherited a laptop running Vista, too. This one may run Win 7, but it's old and a laptop wouldn't take my pace without burning out in short order.

So in other words, I need to buy a new one, though I'll keep the laptop for when I travel.

My options:

1) Obtain a new(ish) Win 7 PC. Dell, at least, still sold them in April. Then I'd partition the HD and install some version of Linux I can learn to like, or at least to live with.

2) Obtain a new Win 8 (UGH!) PC and run a shell program to make it pass for a real PC. Thats' easily done. But I'm not sure I can partition and install Linux, or anything else. I've heard contradictory information about that.

3) Do nothing for one year, hope the old Vista lasts that long, and await developments. In the meantime run Linux in the laptop in order to learn to live with it.

Given options 1 and 2, why the insitence on Linux? one might wonder. Well, as I've ranted before, and based on past experience, chances are Windows will just keep getting worse. Conceivably the next version will come without a desktop at all. It's possible I could learn to like the "modern" UI; it's also possible I'll win the lottery (this is ranting to a minimum, BTW). So I figure I'd best learn Linux now while I'm not too old to be able to.

Anyway, I'm leaning most to option 2, regardless of my feelings about the new so-called OS. Why? Because it's the cheapest and easiest option. assuming, that is, a Linux partition can be implemented. And assuming Windows 8.1 "Blue" doesn't FUBAR the third-party shells I would so sorely need. In any case I can hold out until November easily, and most likely February of next year.

But I still very much resent Microsoft for making things so dammned difficult. I swear if they'd let the desktop alone I wouldn't have complained (much).

The big news today is <drumroll> Win 8.1 will allow users to shut down with the start button!

Gee, I recall doing that with Windows 95 (and 98, and Me, and XP, and...)

On a completely unrelated matter, Windows 8 must be destroyed (I will miss this motto after I adopt the new one tomorrow).

I've really been ranting in a manner that is unbecoming about this subject. But that's not all. I've also been paying way too much attention and time to news, editorials and other developments concerning Windows 8. All this has even gotten in the way of my work (my real work, not my job). And all this is not good for me. it's not healthy, either, psychologically speaking.

The thing is the whole Win8 debacle makes me angry. I don't mean I'm annoyed or bothered, but rather furious. When I see the Win8 start screen I feel disgust. When I read an opinion piece praising the modern interface, I get mad. When I read a piece praising other aspects and overlooking the crippled desktop, I also get mad.

The point is that I should stop this. Now.

There are alternatives, after all, and it may prove that a Start Menu replacement will quiet all my gripes. So why keep harping on it like a spoiled brat? (yes, I know what impression I give).

Beyond that, any valid criticism gets lost int he ranting, the name-calling, the fake "quotes," and even the clever denigrating jokes. So I get to hurt my own cause as well, even though venting does make me feel momentarily better. I'll even drop the "must be destroyed" bit.

As announced, MS unveiled Windows 8.1. There was nothing new past what had been leaked to the tech press in the apst 8 weeks or so. And so I'm still not happy with Win8.1 at all.

I want to read Ballmer's keynote speech and see what he has to say, but I don't expect anything good.

What I'll do now is wait and see whether the start menu replacement shells work well or not with Win8.1. That's where I'll concentrate my tech reading from now on. It should be a more useful use of less fo my time.

http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-7000016222/?ttag=zdnet_outbrain_OperatingSystems

You writing for a tech website, Nareed? I saw that headline...must be a Nareed review, I thought. ; )

Quote: rxwine

http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-7000016222/?ttag=zdnet_outbrain_OperatingSystems

You writing for a tech website, Nareed? I saw that headline...must be a Nareed review, I thought. ; )

Did you read two posts above yours?

The new Windows start button sends you to the all apps screen. MS, and some tech writers, claim this is enough for desktop users.

I don't see it that way. If you have a Windows XP or higher (or Vista) PC, click the start button. You get:

Pinned programs and most recently used programs on the left side, along with the option to enter the all programs menu.
Shortcuts to "My Documents," My PC, Control Pannel, Printers, and other things, plus the invaluable Recent Documents (or Recent Files; my Windows is in Spanish) command. This is extraordinarily useful when you can't recall the name of a file you recently opened or downloaded.
The shut down/restart options

Now in Win8 you get only one of the things that used to be in the start menu.

And that's why it isn't enough.

Sure, the toher thigns which used to be in the start menu are still on Win8, elsewhere. You have to learn where they went and how to get to them now. Beyond that, you'll never have them grouped together ever again. Unless you install one of the many shell utilities to replace the lost start menu.

While MS has not released the number of actual Win8 installs (licenses sold is not the same thing) actually in use, the company naturally does know it. I wonder if they know, or can determine, how many of the Win8s in use ahve either switched to Win7 (an option widely available for extra money) or installed a start menu replacement shell. Stardock alone has claimed 5 million sales of their $5 Start8 utility.

I read comments on Ballmer's speech.

There's a word in Mexican Spanish which means "to say nothing at all while using a great many words." The term is "Cantinflear," and it comes from the late, great, comic actor Mario Moreno "Cantinflas." At that, Cantinflas was funny when talking endlessly while conveying no meaning whatsoever. Ballmer wasn't even funny.

I went to look at new PCs over the weekend. There are a few likely candidates with decent enough rpices, but I'm still goign to wait until Windows 8.1 has a good shakedown. So likely I won't have a new PC until next March or April. early reports indicate Start8 and Classic shell still kind of work, and Start8 at least is developing a version for 8.1 specifically.

But I've seen the future, and it looks like Linux Mint.

Quote: Nareed

If you have a Windows XP or higher (or Vista) PC

I C wat U did thar.

Best of luck with your options.

Quote: AcesAndEights

I C wat U did thar.

Id the alternate spelling a side effect of long-term Linux exopsure? It wouldn't be a deal breaker, but I'd have to guard agaisnt it :)

Quote:

Best of luck with your options.

Thanks.

It's too late to travel back in time, find out what MS was planning, spend a few weeks saying "What are they smoking over at redmond?" and buying a new PC with Win7 on it.

Come to think of it, I'd rather go back to 2010 and show the MS board of directors stories comparing Win8 unfavorably with Vista. I esstimate the response would involve unfortunate consequences for one Mr. Sinofsky.

I'll tell you where exactly I keep losing it: Why the hell did they remove the start menu? I swear that begins and ends my problem, loathing, dislike, hatred, etc with windows 8. I mean, the whole Metro/Modern/Whatever (M/M/W) interface is a bad joke that makes ZERO sense on a desktop PC, touchscreen or not, and I wouldn't touch it with whatever it is one uses when a ten-foot pole is not long enough. But that's ok, because one can easily ignore it. it's not like there is any reason to use it, right?

But then the Softies in their wisdom go and cripple the desktop in a way that forces you to use the M/M/W interface. Further they go and claim "Oh, we did this because our telemetry shows hardly anyone uses the start menu anymore. Poeple prefer to cram quick-launch icons on the taskbar." This is wrong for two reasons: 1) the need to go to the M/M/W interface while using the desktop is time-wasting and disruptive, but 2) in the first place it ignores millions of people who still use the start menu.

Obviously, then, the desktop was crippled to further force a move to the M/M/W interface. The double-down on it on Win8.1 is furhter proof of this, and also of the intention to do away with the desktop entirely by the next version of Windows.

And that's what really makes me mad. Because now I'm caught between two unpleasant options: 1) change the way I work and learn a new OS in order to use Windows from now on, or 2) change the way I work, though less so, and learn a new OS in order to use Linux from now on.

Given that 2 is a vastly superior OS which actually does work and does NOT try to sell me more MS products, guess which one I'm going with?

But I'm still furious.