Posted on 01/22/2014 9:52:38 PM PST by This Just In
So our child finally received that Asus notebook as a gift from a loved one-as some of you already know from a previous post (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3110216/posts).
After reading all of the comments, and visiting various sites concerning Windows 8, we finally got to experience the OS for ourselves.
The box was delivered just in time for school. Spring college courses, as many of your know, have started. We were edger to get started with the notebook. Encouraging the kid to start familiarizing himself with the tool. I was especially curious to see for myself whether or not all the talk/bemoaning about Windows 8 was all it was cracked up to be.
Frankly, I was hoping the naysayers were all prone to exaggeration, and that this notebook would be a breeze to work with (namely, Windows 8). We own a MacBook Pro as well as a Dell with Windows XP. A cinch to use right out of the box. Why would I want my child to have to deal with an OS that is so counter-intuitive, so moronically bass ackwardly unsimple (is that a word? If not, it should be for this very reason)? So there I was, secretly hoping that the bemoaners were just chronic, nitpicky complainers.
Well, I've just joined the Chronic-Nitpicky-Exaggerating-Naysayers-Anti-Windows 8-Club.
For goodness sakes. You mean to tell me that some genius designed! that OS?! Honestly...
For the last several days these are the sounds/reactions I've been hearing from the college kid while "working" on the notebook:
"Sigh. Why is it so slow?" "This is taking forever" "What does this mean?"
Just yesterday, after hearing about our new notebook-without any prompting, a coworker calmly and flatly stated, "If you can't figure out how to turn it off, it's a Windows 8".
That brief statement was on the money. Why should it take a magnifying glass, blood hound, a world atlas, and Stephen Hawking to figure out how to turn off the friggin machine?!
So, in closing, I would like to say hello to my new friends in this not-so-exclusvie-club of Window 8ters. I can now officially commiserate with you.
If any of you have any advice, recommendations, or Windows 8 experiences that you wish to share with the rest of us, please do.
Microsoft’s big mistake was forcing people to use the new interface rather than making it easy to use the desktop mode (It is easier with 8.1). So Microsoft did give 8 a bad reputation, but a better version of Windows 7 is underneath the new stuff and easy to access if you try.
How to boot to desktop mode in Windows 8.1 | PCWorld http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043243/how-to-boot-to-desktop-mode-in-windows-8-1.html
Thank you, smokingfrog. Deeply appreciate it.
1. Do a clean install of Windows 7 Pro x64 and be done with Windows 8 forever.
2. Alternatively, and far simpler, download and install Classic Shell, to bypass Metro and install a real Start Menu. Whatever you do, DO NOT “upgrade” to 8.1 if it’s not already 8.1. Such an upgrade has a very high probability of going REALLY bad, and it installs some very nastily, tightly integrated Microsoft proprietary products like SkyDrive, integrated PC/web/cloud Bing search, etc.
Tip of the hat to you, and thank you. The notebook does not have Windows 8.1.
Windows 8.1 is much better than xp.
I downloaded Classic shell, but before I got around to installing it on day 2, I had already figured out almost all the little tweaks I wanted in 8.1.
This is much easier and better, I boot straight to desktop with no sign in and use the start page only to store what amount to icons for my programs.
Anything that you want to change, move, or turn off, just google it for the answer.
You see everything, all it does is bring back the start button..on the desktop you can have My Computer, My Documents, Recycle bin, anything you want..and with startisback you can have it so that when the PC boots up it goes straight to the desktop..I dont have to see those annoying as hell tiles anymore
http://www.startisback.com/
that’s the link check it out..works with windows 8.1 and 8
Well, we’ve used XP for quite a number of years and so I completely disagree with you. Basically, you have to redecorate your Windows 8.1 house in order to use it without going mad. Not so with the XP.
We noticed that the tiles featuring news stories all had this rather specific “theme”. We were motivated to change that in a hurry.
The second I got my PC I put in the start button and said adios to the tiles..best thing I ever did I would never have purchased a PC with windows 8 without it..when I had issues with my PC a week ago and Dell had to do the remote service, the guy was like “Hey how did you get the start button” LOL
for later
Exactly where M$ went wrong. Why should we need to work at making their stuff 'work' the way we the consumer want it to? Why would they even think that something designed for a touch screen device would even be thought of for install on a desktop? Win ATE poynte WON is only a cosmetic smoke 'n mirrors thingie, that gives you a sort of pacifier instead of correcting the flawed logic behind the thing.
Maybe a unified touch screen interface is fine for all the versions of Win ATE installed on touch screen devices, but they should have left the desktop and laptop user interfaces alone.
But then we know they smoke dope out there on the left coast...
I'm not buying anything that has Win ATE on it, and I have two XP laptops that I need to decide what to do with in the next couple of months. One is old enough that finding Win7 drivers may be hard, so it most likely will become a Linux box of some flavor (been playing with Mint which I mostly like..)
The other one came out in the time frame when users were rejecting Vista and manufacturers would still sell you an XP box, so Vista drivers - which for the most part work on Win7 - are available which makes it hopeful that a Win7 re-braining of it will be mostly hassle-free.
What’s a VCR? :^)
Slow? Nobody says that. It’s actually much lighter than 7 is. I get the GUY complaints.. but honestly to me it is much faster..especially if you are a touch typist.
“...the guy was like “Hey how did you get the start button” LOL”
Gotta love it
Nothing could be worse than a Mac. I was forced to work on the awful thing for two years. Finally the company went all PC to save on IT cost.
:)
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