Opinion: Windows 8 Is Unusable

4saken said:
Shrug. I just dont get the ignorance surrounding windows 8. Use it more than a couple days and it becomes as natural as windows 7 or any other OS for that matter. It doesnt hinder me one bit and all of my workstations, aside from any Mac i own run windows 8 at this point. I can't think of one thing thats been a showstopper to me.
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Same here. After a few days of using Windows 8 Pro, I've gotten used to it already.

My only gripes were that some things take a few extra steps to do like shutting down the computer. However, give it time, and the OS is not that much different than Windows 7 except in UI, memory and process management.

I have my commonly used programs pinned to the taskbar. Anything else, I click on the Start8 button and just type in the program I want to launch. It's simple, fast and uncomplicated. Don't make things look more difficult than it actually is.

The biggest seller for me for Windows 8 was the better memory usage and management. It also feels a little faster than Windows 7 for me.
 
...video makes me worried about any of my non-technical friends and family upgrading to Win8... They are used to the desktop at this point, and I don't have the time or desire to teach them a new interface. Almost thinking of installing Linux on their machines. Works just fine for the basic stuff they do.

Glad I purchased a sale copy of Win7 Pro for my new build this year.
 
Dolor said:
...video makes me worried about any of my non-technical friends and family upgrading to Win8... They are used to the desktop at this point, and I don't have the time or desire to teach them a new interface. Almost thinking of installing Linux on their machines. Works just fine for the basic stuff they do.

Glad I purchased a sale copy of Win7 Pro for my new build this year.
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If you do install Linux on their computers, I highly recommend Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com).

I have it installed on another partition on my desktop computer and it's probably the best distribution I've used so far that's easy to use and for basic computing tasks. Plus, it runs Steam for Linux pretty well.

Both of my laptops have been using Mint since version 9. They're up to version 14 now. I found it to run more efficiently and faster than trying to run Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium under 1GB (netbook) or 2GB (the slow Dell laptop) of RAM.
 
almost stopped watching @ its unusable ....

unintuative how you close stuff if you ve used a desktop all your life , but i m sure alot of phone users are used to slidding stuff to close things. Once you ve learned to close things by dragging em down it gets easier, maybe microsoft should ve done a better tuttorial when u first start it.

installed w8 upgrade... gave me the option to do an iso file or bootable usb stick...

on desktop, right click on the bottom bar... tool bar ,desktop.
Now u got an easy way to get to the control panel quickly.

you use an os for 30 day and get stumped and all you do is struggle like a fish out of water...
when you got the net where you can access articles that will show u how to use it in 30 min or less..

jump on the windows (h)8 bandwagon much
 
I had to learn W8 after the big wigs at my company decided to get some new toys that had it installed. While I obviously picked it up pretty quick, and maybe resulted in 1 google search to figure out how to do something, my first and continued reaction is "wtf? why? whats the point of this?" I originally expected everything to be reskinned in the metro interface. But no, all W8 is is a single desktop UI dropped on top of the existing desktop ui which inexplicably has a few of it's original items removed, presumably to force people to use the metro desktop. It took me no longer than 6 seconds before I was rummaging around through all the typical windows 7 style configuration pages. In fact half the time I forgot about metro entirely, before it invasively returned to my eyes and I was like "what? uh? Oh ok, metro again, let me see, wheres the option I'm looking for now..... ah ok now I'm back to W7 style windows".

Since the first day I saw metro in screenshots years ago I always had a feeling that it was nothing more than the red-headed stepchild of iOS/Android. A feeble attempt to come up with their own mobile interface. A sort of "hey guys, we need to get on this whole mobile bandwagon thing before we become irrelevant! Lets just whip something together real quick here". You can sort of feel how every step of the way microsoft simply hacked something together to accomplish what apple/google were already doing. It's like their goal was to just make everything different enough so as to avoid patent litigation. And it is because of this total lack of creativity/ingenuity that we get windows 8, which is nothing more than windows 7 with a metro desktop slapped on the front, because they had nowhere to go with this os and they had no plan. The goal was to just produce another version of something to stay relevant.
 
That was my thinking too.
I ran it for 30 min to 1 hour and could not take it anymore. I wiped the drive and never thought of installing again.
 
octoberasian said:
If you do install Linux on their computers, I highly recommend Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com).

I have it installed on another partition on my desktop computer and it's probably the best distribution I've used so far that's easy to use and for basic computing tasks. Plus, it runs Steam for Linux pretty well.

Both of my laptops have been using Mint since version 9. They're up to version 14 now. I found it to run more efficiently and faster than trying to run Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium under 1GB (netbook) or 2GB (the slow Dell laptop) of RAM.
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I've yet to see a Mint distribution without weird problems. I always preferred Xubuntu instead. Very easy to configure to act and look much like good old XP.
 
Windows 8 is far from unusable.

Early Vista (I remember Windows 95 being similar :) ) was unusable on many platforms, and those who tried know.

Windows 8 sucks in multi monitor period.

For a laptop or single screen HTPC it makes a pretty good OS.
The surface interface works very well with a remote.

I can handle the dual personality of Win8.
My 6 year old son can as well. My tech inept mother can...

Alt+F4 is your friend for shutting down the OS and closing surface/metro/whatever apps.
Windows + X is the way to access the quasi "Start bar".

Strangely enough these shortcut keys have become a part of my Window 7, Server 2k8 R2 usage as well.

Single screen Windows 8 (it is cheap right now for an "upgrade" ;) ).

Multi screen Windows 7 PERIOD. Windows 7 is one of the best OS I have used over my 25 years of computing (though I do love DOS and the ever present C64 prompt). It should still be sold, on this I agree with the reviewer

The "Store" has an upside and a downside. My son and family like the fun small apps & games and the easy access is nice (though how to search for apps in the store interface alludes me). I am praying for a full Xbox live integration before or upon the death (when will that happen?) of the Xbox 360. I want reciprocity of apps across the two platforms. It is time, if you are going to attempt to integrate the OS with a game platform and tablets or at least imitate each other; do it right. This is a pie in the sky prayer. I know.

What were they thinking is a fair question though... Is Windows 8 is an after thought? No. Is it the disaster of Windows ME or early Vista? No. Is it a mistake? Yes. My gut tells me this was a company wide test, an experiment if you will, but not in OS... in control. Windows 8 is a test to see if Microsoft can close it's openness and out micro sale Apple, or at least emulate Apple. Strangely enough, compared to Apple, MS has been a "champion of freedom" (I use this loosely - until 8), whereas Apple has become "The Man" in the 1984ish commercial Apple is known for.

The rest is a little tongue on cheek (but as Chauncer said - many a truths are spoken in jest).

MS don't be IBM, even google (do no SEEN evil should be their mantra) knows better than Apple.

It is time for Ballmer to go (and sell used cars and pursue his true love: weird facial expressions).

Get someone who is human (I vote Gabe Newell - he is a little cocky but lord nothing compared to Ballmer - and he is customer oriented and realistic for the most part) as CEO and have Woz (he is zany, with all due respect - for which I have much - but he will tell this you this sucks) as a "normal person" consultant with VETO power. Be innovative for the user; not for the company.

And don't make bad Xbox 720's/whatevers that overheat...

And don't use Nvidia in any future consoles. Nvidia seems innovate better when they are being snubbed.

X
 
octoberasian said:
However, give it time, and the OS is not that much different than Windows 7 except in UI, memory and process management.
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Right, and at least for me, the Win 7 UI just makes sense. Therefore, I see absolutely no reason to use Win 8. And with all of the programs out there that make Win 8 look like Win 7, clearly a lot of people feel the same way.
 
I tried Win8, didn't see the point of changing, and returned to Win7.
 
This was a fun to listen to rant.

Seems like everyone agrees Win 8 would be great if it looked and behaved exactly like Win7. :)
 
My wife needed a new laptop and she was interested in the ones that could convert into a tablet, so you could get the best of both worlds.

The laptop is folded over like a tablet most of the time, and if you want to browse the internet or watch a video, you just pick it up and go. Really nice I think.

When my wife wants to do actual work, she flips it around and it becomes a normal laptop, and she is at the desktop screen. Again really nice.

I think Windows 8 excels on that sort of device.

I will add that I initially set it up for her by getting it on our wifi, etc. I did have to google several things to find out how to reboot it, etc. I found the initial setup pretty frustrating actually. Once I figured out all of Windows 8's quirks, it was fine, however.

I have no real desire to install it on my desktop, however. Other than the task manager, I didn't see anything that made me want to use it with a mouse and keyboard.
 
Good lord, so many microsoft apologist and fanbois.

W8 works? yes, but it is indeed a badly designed UI.

As someone posted "you NEED to learn how to use it", man, talk about not giving yourself a choice to use what you want, not what you are forced to use.

Anyway, the author does have plenty of good points and yes, it is unusable on a corporate world.

Flame away fanbois....
 
*Good lord, so many Linux apologist and fanbois.

Gee, see what I did there? Flame away yourself...... I find that I know what I prefer and what works. Most of the complaints directed against those who like/love Windows 8 is simply based upon the fact that we do not agree with you.

Now, I am not locked into anything at all when it comes to OS's. I can use anything I want since it is my machines. However, I prefer Windows 8 and the author of that video is clueless since he clearly has problems with proper troubleshooting. (Did not correct himself even after he found out the problem was him and not Windows 8. But hey, he would not get the hits if he were honest.)
 
XeenSD said:
And don't use Nvidia in any future consoles. Nvidia seems innovate better when they are being snubbed.
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Um, wat???
NVIDIA is so far ahead of AMD that it will make your head spin.

NVIDIA's GTX680 is like middle-teir for their actual offerings.
You should see their latest Tesla GPU.

I hope that they are indeed in future consoles, especially with their "cloud" GPU features.
If anything, NVIDIA has been the most innovative when it comes to the GPU front.

The hell has AMD done that has been innovative on a whole?
I really like AMD on both the CPU and GPU front, but outside of gaming, I have little reason to buy their GPUs for anything else.
 
XeenSD said:
The "Store" has an upside and a downside. My son and family like the fun small apps & games and the easy access is nice (though how to search for apps in the store interface alludes me).
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Like almost all Modern UI apps you search from Search in the Charms Bar.
 
I see lots of people commenting on all the shortcut keys they have established to get things done. "W8 is easy, all you gotta do is this... or that... and boom you're done". But you're missing the point. The point is something the author nailed on the head, conveyance. W8 is not intuitive. There is no logical roadmap from point A to point B. None of these things are self-explanitory, nor can they be learned by accident. You will never accidentally hit alf+f4 to turn off your pc one day, or alt+x or any of the other alt commands. You will literally have to look up every single shortcut by hand to figure out if any exist. This is not an example of smart design. Smart design dictates all these events are hidden, but can be learned by chance, or by logical conjecture, i.e. it stands to reason that gesture x could include gesture y.

It's sort of like a video game whereby you learn the tricks of the trade, key combos, patterns etc. There are no discernible patterns in W8. Everything is just hardcoded to serve a specific function and you either know it or you dont.
 
kac77 said:
It's like stepping into a time machine. So far I've seen the following reasons why Windows 8 doesn't suck. I've decided to give their Linux counterparts for context reasons.

Windows Supporters:
How could you possibly figure out an OS in 30 minutes?

Linux Supporters:
Of course it's different. It's not Windows. You just need to actually use it.

Windows Supporters:
Well you can install Start8 or Startisback.

Linux supporters:
Just go to to terminal/Synaptic/yum and install ....

Windows Supporters:
Definitely some pebkac going on....

Linux Supporters:
You're just too stupid.
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You know, I'm not a "Windows supporter" by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I've been the only one on this entire thread who has said anything about Start8 as a solution.
I think you have your two users mixed up, especially with that last statement being made by heatlesssun over and over via subtext. ;)


I'm not a fan of Unity, but at least it's consistent. Gnome-Shell probably does the overlay thing the best, while KDE has mimicked the typical Windows paradigm quite well. It's bizarre that all of the alternatives out there seem to work more like Windows than Windows 8 itself does.
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Unity is locked down and horrible.
If it weren't for the fact that GNU/Linux in general can run multiple GUIs, I would have abandoned the thought of Ubuntu 12.04 ages ago.

Ubuntu 12.04 under XFCE is actually quite nice, however.

Unity does not represent the Linux community and is Canonical's piss-poor choice at appeasing the masses used to Windows and OS X in order to gain more market share.
Honestly it's an insult to true Linux users, but since there are only like 20 of us left, who cares! :D
 
heatlesssun said:
Like almost all Modern UI apps you search from Search in the Charms Bar.
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I've seen you, and others, say 'modern.' What exactly is meant by that? The formerly metro screen tiles are rather dull and monochrome looking to me. And big deal, you can swippy do-da all you want but iOS and Android have been doing that for 2+ years. What's so 'modern' about it. I personally like Aero much more. Too bad they dumped a metric ton of cash developing Aero just to throw it away.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I've seen you, and others, say 'modern.' What exactly is meant by that? The formerly metro screen tiles are rather dull and monochrome looking to me. And big deal, you can swippy do-da all you want but iOS and Android have been doing that for 2+ years. What's so 'modern' about it. I personally like Aero much more. Too bad they dumped a metric ton of cash developing Aero just to throw it away.
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I'm pretty sure "Modern UI" is the term Microsoft prefers people to use rather than "Metro." And yes, it can be confusing.
 
Red Falcon said:
Unity does not represent the Linux community and is Canonical's piss-poor choice at appeasing the masses used to Windows and OS X in order to gain more market share. Honestly it's an insult to true Linux users, but since there are only like 20 of us left, who cares! :D
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And the number one reason Linux still doesn't get enough attention (minus Android)

...

...wait for it...

Small market share.

You should be thankful that Canonical is advertising Linux and showing it can make money (via ads) and making headlines. I want to be able to rid myself of Windows for good, and the only way to do that is to show it can be "dumb enough" for the average user and can still rake in cash.

Honestly, I tuck Unity away and it only shows itself when I'm opening an application - and it's still wayyyy less intrusive than Metro. This whole issue of configurability is blown out of proportion too, given that there's a whole myriad of applications in the software center that allow you to tweak Unity's shell to your heart's content. The point of not bundling those with the OS itself is to avoid the average noobie from fucking it all up.

And, btw, can you point to a single more friendly feature to the enthusiast and desktop crowd than HUD? When's the last time any distro went out and thought, "Hey, let's make it so you can do everything via the keyboard."

I've used Linux for years now and I see these dumbass arguments all over the place yet they all stem from elitism. Plain and simple. Yet when you look at Linux as a whole and the biggest issue that's facing it, it too is simple: Elitism and the douchebag behavior of Linuxtards.

So for the sake of all of us with a level head on our shoulders who would actually like developers, game studios and big software companies to give a shit about Linux, shut the hell up and support Canonical if only for the fact that they're the closest we'll possibly get to being considered a viable alternative to the other big two.
 
octoberasian said:
If you do install Linux on their computers, I highly recommend Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com).

I have it installed on another partition on my desktop computer and it's probably the best distribution I've used so far that's easy to use and for basic computing tasks. Plus, it runs Steam for Linux pretty well.

Both of my laptops have been using Mint since version 9. They're up to version 14 now. I found it to run more efficiently and faster than trying to run Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium under 1GB (netbook) or 2GB (the slow Dell laptop) of RAM.
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+1 to all this. Mint is an excellent distro and is downright huggable with Cinnamon UI (you can decide between Mate and Cinnamon UI variants when you download the current version's ISO)

It runs very well on older hardware. On boot, I see my Pentium M Sony Vaio using a little less than 200 MB of RAM. The deb version of the Steam client is pretty much problem free. Coming from Slackware and a few lightweight distros like TinyCore and Puppy, I'm very happy with it and the transition between Windows 7 and Mint isn't at all as drastic as the transition between Windows 7 and 8. Familiar keyboard shortcuts work and the basics like LibreOffice, GIMP, applications to play media, watch DVD movies and whatnot are all bundled. The install exists happily in less than half the storage required by Windows 8 so it's very friendly about limited disk capacity.

Skribbels everywhere give Mint two paws and one tail up.
 
Red Falcon said:
You know, I'm not a "Windows supporter" by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I've been the only one on this entire thread who has said anything about Start8 as a solution.
I think you have your two users mixed up, especially with that last statement being made by heatlesssun over and over via subtext. ;)



Unity is locked down and horrible.
If it weren't for the fact that GNU/Linux in general can run multiple GUIs, I would have abandoned the thought of Ubuntu 12.04 ages ago.

Ubuntu 12.04 under XFCE is actually quite nice, however.

Unity does not represent the Linux community and is Canonical's piss-poor choice at appeasing the masses used to Windows and OS X in order to gain more market share.
Honestly it's an insult to true Linux users, but since there are only like 20 of us left, who cares! :D
Click to expand...

I think you're discrediting Ubuntu/Canonical and being harsh way too much. They've done a lot for the Linux ecosystem on the desktop. Whether one agrees with their desktop environment or not, we need a commercialized entity. I'm not a fan of Unity (I despise docks because I love textual cues; CLI user here) either, but the Dashboard/HUD are one of the best concepts out there of all DEs. It's hybrid/multi-platform approach and philosophy, Desktop/web/cloud integration (This is awesome for developers( and user experience is consistent and makes sense. It's far from a piss-poor choice.

They're the only catalyst and hope we have for wide adoption of the GNU/Linux platform and free software in general on the desktop. Otherwise, people shouldn't complain about the lack of software, game, and hardware support; it's hypocrisy at it's best. Racking in support requires market awareness (promotion), and adoption. And no, RedHat couldn't give two shits about the desktop so fedora ain't an option either.

Honestly, the hate is really unwarranted given you have freedom of alternatives. I think Unity is very good for the average masses who actually want an easy experience. To the elitist who complain about it "being dumbed down"... think about the masses, not just yourself. CLI/Bash, and all of it's essentials are still there, as an option.
 
AngelicPenguin said:
My wife needed a new laptop and she was interested in the ones that could convert into a tablet, so you could get the best of both worlds.

The laptop is folded over like a tablet most of the time, and if you want to browse the internet or watch a video, you just pick it up and go. Really nice I think.

When my wife wants to do actual work, she flips it around and it becomes a normal laptop, and she is at the desktop screen. Again really nice.

I think Windows 8 excels on that sort of device.

I will add that I initially set it up for her by getting it on our wifi, etc. I did have to google several things to find out how to reboot it, etc. I found the initial setup pretty frustrating actually. Once I figured out all of Windows 8's quirks, it was fine, however.

I have no real desire to install it on my desktop, however. Other than the task manager, I didn't see anything that made me want to use it with a mouse and keyboard.
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Hybrid operation is the main point of Windows 8 and when used in that manner is when it shows its true capabilities. Windows 8 is much more about new hardware than any previous version of Windows, new hardware that's focused on battery life and mobility and touch and not so much top line performance.
 
AngelicPenguin said:
I'm pretty sure "Modern UI" is the term Microsoft prefers people to use rather than "Metro." And yes, it can be confusing.
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Exactly this. And not confusing at all, it will only ever be called Metro by everyone except Microsoft.
 
el gonso said:
I think they ran into some legal thing over the Metro name being in use.
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Don't the French call their subway in Pears the Metro? I think other cities also do the same thing so it was probably an urban center or a nation that was all like, "Gimme monies for stealing our name," to Microsoft.
 
eh

Derp.__800_600_q50.jpg
 
nOrVow said:
I think you're discrediting Ubuntu/Canonical and being harsh way too much. They've done a lot for the Linux ecosystem on the desktop. Whether one agrees with their desktop environment or not, we need a commercialized entity. I'm not a fan of Unity (I despise docks because I love textual cues; CLI user here) either, but the Dashboard/HUD are one of the best concepts out there of all DEs. It's hybrid/multi-platform approach and philosophy, Desktop/web/cloud integration (This is awesome for developers( and user experience is consistent and makes sense. It's far from a piss-poor choice.

They're the only catalyst and hope we have for wide adoption of the GNU/Linux platform and free software in general on the desktop. Otherwise, people shouldn't complain about the lack of software, game, and hardware support; it's hypocrisy at it's best. Racking in support requires market awareness (promotion), and adoption. And no, RedHat couldn't give two shits about the desktop so fedora ain't an option either.

Honestly, the hate is really unwarranted given you have freedom of alternatives. I think Unity is very good for the average masses who actually want an easy experience. To the elitist who complain about it "being dumbed down"... think about the masses, not just yourself. CLI/Bash, and all of it's essentials are still there, as an option.
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All right, I'll give it to you. :cool:
Except for Unity, it sux so hardcore.

But not as much as the Modern UI! ;)
 
All he is talking about is mouse gestures that he's too stupid to disable... Disable the mouse gestures, and all the points he is making are gone.
 
And its not even the OS, it's Synaptics that is causing the problems he talks about for the first 10 minutes.
 
Sooooo true, cannot tell how how I felt when my nephews brought over there Windows 8 Laptops... and asked to fix it... it was like going from windows 95 to Windows 7...
 
So Netflix doesn't work on Windows 8 due to some DRM error if you're using an older Radeon 4xxx card with updated drivers, so you have to revert to the original drivers that came with Windows 8 to actually make Netflix and other streaming apps to work.

Then there's Skydrive, a nightmare to work with.

All this Metro shit is a complete disaster on a desktop, wish it didn't even exist. Either that or since it was forced onto everyone in the first place, we should have been given touch screen monitors to go along with it.

Fucking Microsoft. Jesus
 
grtitan said:
Good lord, so many microsoft apologist and fanbois.

W8 works? yes, but it is indeed a badly designed UI.

As someone posted "you NEED to learn how to use it", man, talk about not giving yourself a choice to use what you want, not what you are forced to use.

Anyway, the author does have plenty of good points and yes, it is unusable on a corporate world.

Flame away fanbois....
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You arent forced to use anything. The only people i see saying this are people who installed Win8, looked at the UI and just uninstalled w/o any genuine looking into the system.

what do you have to learn? Cmd-D and Ctrl-X to get anywhere you want to? Yeah real tough.
 
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