Brand new laptop!!!!

[deilaitha]

Yeeeeeheeeee!

I just got a brand new laptop. My poor abused 4 year old netbook with 1 GB of ram was just dying on me. I am not overly impressed with Windows 8 (I actually loved Windows 7...but after vista, who wouldn't), but it isn't as horrible as I have heard it is. I feel like they tried to make it fancier and easier, but for those used to the previous windows style of setup, all it makes me think of is a sad apple-esque facade that doesn't increase usability.

I'm always threatening to learn open source and switch to linux...but that's way more work than I need.

Anyway, fast new laptop = happy writer. Now I don't have to wait 10 minutes for my 90k documents to load.

 

[GeekDavid]

Yeeeeeheeeee!

I just got a brand new laptop. My poor abused 4 year old netbook with 1 GB of ram was just dying on me. I am not overly impressed with Windows 8 (I actually loved Windows 7...but after vista, who wouldn't), but it isn't as horrible as I have heard it is. I feel like they tried to make it fancier and easier, but for those used to the previous windows style of setup, all it makes me think of is a sad apple-esque facade that doesn't increase usability.

I have heard that there is a setting that makes it look more like Win7, but I can't remember what it's called or where to find it. Perhaps someone else knows what it is.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Congratulations

 

[Penpilot]

Congrats on the new toy. Here's a little tip that may keep your machine running fast. It's just anecdotal evidence on my part, but any way, I have a year old laptop that was lightning fast when I got it, but has begun to show signs of slowing down. I couldn't understand why because outside of a handful of writing programs, I hadn't installed anything. I have 6 gigs of ram. Compare that to my 8 year old vista machine with only 2 gigs of ram which still boots twice as fast as my new one, I compared what I was doing different. My new machine, I was keeping everything up to date by downloading every windows update, while with my vista machine I wasn't because it wasn't hooked up to the net so I didn't see the point.

 

[GeekDavid]

By the way, a security tip... do not use an Admin account for your primary account. Set up an Admin account, assign it the strongest password you can remember, then set up a different User account for daily use.

This keeps malware from getting directly into Admin permissions.

 

[Rinzei]

A few tips for the Windows 8 Upgrader:

1) Your Start Menu doesn't have to be gone forever - there's an open-source program called Classic Start that will will mimic XP or Win7 style menus. It's free and open-source. A few of our developers at work that have been forced to get new laptops use it.

2) Windows 8 does take getting used to - it's been optimised for touchscreen use, in my opinion, so it can be a bit cumbersome without touch - but learning some of the shortcuts can make things easier. Like on the lock screen, rather than having to click and drag the picture, use the arrow keys (it's up or down - can't remember which).

Other things is like Windows + C bringing up the right-hand Charms menu (rather than hovering of the top-right corner with the mouse), Windows + Tab still cycles through open programs, Alt+F4 closes programs (yes, it just closes - it doesn't restart the whole PC anymore, according to Windows' website).

3) If you're able to (not sure how, but a quick Google will probably help), I'd create an icon for Windows Shutdown outside the built-in way, because it's just a clicking-pain to get to now! I can't stand where it is - Open the Charm Menu, click on Settings, Click Power, Click Shutdown...That's 4-steps, where it used to be 2. It's just annoying, at least to me.


It does take some getting used to, but after a few habit-changers, it's not that bad. I still wish they'd have optimised it more for mouse users though, rather than only thinking of touch-users.

 

[GeekDavid]

A few tips for the Windows 8 Upgrader:

1) Your Start Menu doesn't have to be gone forever - there's an open-source program called Classic Start that will will mimic XP or Win7 style menus. It's free and open-source. A few of our developers at work that have been forced to get new laptops use it.

2) Windows 8 does take getting used to - it's been optimised for touchscreen use, in my opinion, so it can be a bit cumbersome without touch - but learning some of the shortcuts can make things easier. Like on the lock screen, rather than having to click and drag the picture, use the arrow keys (it's up or down - can't remember which).

Other things is like Windows + C bringing up the right-hand Charms menu (rather than hovering of the top-right corner with the mouse), Windows + Tab still cycles through open programs, Alt+F4 closes programs (yes, it just closes - it doesn't restart the whole PC anymore, according to Windows' website).

3) If you're able to (not sure how, but a quick Google will probably help), I'd create an icon for Windows Shutdown outside the built-in way, because it's just a clicking-pain to get to now! I can't stand where it is - Open the Charm Menu, click on Settings, Click Power, Click Shutdown...That's 4-steps, where it used to be 2. It's just annoying, at least to me.

It does take some getting used to, but after a few habit-changers, it's not that bad. I still wish they'd have optimised it more for mouse users though, rather than only thinking of touch-users.

How much ya wanna bet Win8 SP1 will include fixes for those things?

 

[Rinzei]

How much ya wanna bet Win8 SP1 will include fixes for those things?

Knowing Microsoft, they'll either do that, or never acknowledge there's an issue and it will never be fixed.

 

[GeekDavid]

Knowing Microsoft, they'll either do that, or never acknowledge there's an issue and it will never be fixed.

Or both... deny the issue but fix it anyway.

 

[Rinzei]

Or both... deny the issue but fix it anyway.

But the bug fix creates a conflict with another Microsoft product, which are meant to work together seamlessly. (This one HAS happened. In a business environment. On business-critical software. Yeah.)

 

[GeekDavid]

But the bug fix creates a conflict with another Microsoft product, which are meant to work together seamlessly. (This one HAS happened. In a business environment. On business-critical software. Yeah.)

I know. I worked for Symantec (makers of the Norton Utilities) during the MS-DOS 6.0 debacle.

The story we eventually got was that the disc compression software would catastrophically fail if it encountered a filename with a ~ in it. And MS Word routinely creates temp files starting with ~.

All they did to fix it was add a batch file to the start of the routine that took care of those files (whether they renamed them or deleted them I don't know).

 

[Rinzei]

I know. I worked for Symantec (makers of the Norton Utilities) during the MS-DOS 6.0 debacle.

The story we eventually got was that the disc compression software would catastrophically fail if it encountered a filename with a ~ in it. And MS Word routinely creates temp files starting with ~.

All they did to fix it was add a batch file to the start of the routine that took care of those files (whether they renamed them or deleted them I don't know).

Oooh, nice. We use Microsoft Dynamics CRM at work, which is accessed through a web portal and must be run on IE - except for IE10. They didn't think about that, apparently...add in the AUTO update of everyone to IE10 and let chaos ensue! Business non-functional for a day while we went through troubleshooting it, finding out what it was and uninstalling the update from everyone's computer. Not a catastrophic failure, but just plain stupid since it should have been completely prevented by Microsoft.

 

[GeekDavid]

Oooh, nice. We use Microsoft Dynamics CRM at work, which is accessed through a web portal and must be run on IE - except for IE10. They didn't think about that, apparently...add in the AUTO update of everyone to IE10 and let chaos ensue! Business non-functional for a day while we went through troubleshooting it, finding out what it was and uninstalling the update from everyone's computer. Not a catastrophic failure, but just plain stupid since it should have been completely prevented by Microsoft.

Microsoft never seems to consider possible failure. They seem to think everything they ship will work perfectly out of the box.

The long history of service packs testifies to how false that belief is.