Goodbye Windows 8, hello Windows 8.1

ZDNet ^ | 07/30/2013 | Mary Branscombe

[HonorInPa]

I really like Win 8 also. Every Windows articles unleashes the Pavlovian responses about how terrible all things MS, and Win 8 in particular, are.

[stylin19a]

Win 95 had at least 8 “official” versions to include service packs. Guess Windows 8 will go down that path until they give the OS a new major number to Windows

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I think Windows 8 is great. I don’t get all the whiners.

1) They want the START button back to launch the programs they’re familiar with. Well, Windows 8.1 does just that.

2) They don’t want to learn a new user interface, having been so familiar with the old interface, which they’ve been using for over a decade.

[Revolting cat!]

BACK TO COMMAND LINE!

[Las Vegas Ron]

System freezes, when, as I mentioned, a browser waits for a response from a website are unacceptable in multi-processor, multi-thread systmes. Etc, etc.

How can you blame the OS or the browser for slow server response?

I use Win 7 with IE 11 and FR is now one of the fastest loading/connecting sites I visit. Drudge on the other hand is getting increasingly slower.

Point is, it depends on the server and it's ability to handle traffic, not necessarily the machine you are using to connect.

[Las Vegas Ron]

PS...I have the I7 quad core.

[Revolting cat!]

I blame the OS for system freezes when a remote server having nothing to do with the system that the OS runs and then freezes is slow to respond, D’UH! A big D’UH!

[bestintxas]

Windows 8 sucks.

I prefer going back to Windows 7

[Revolting cat!]

PS When a remote website does not respond to a request from my browser, I want to be able to open up another window and kill that connection and nothing more. Instead, Windows freezes my entire hardware/software system.

[ArrogantBustard]

1) I want the Start button because it works. Pages and pages of tiles are a pain in the neck.

2) I want a user interface that's optimized for a desktop arrangement with a mouse or trackball, and a very large monitor that is more than arm's length away. Pages and pages of tiles designed to be operated by touch are a pain in the neck.

3) All the world isn't a tablet. All the world isn't web-browsing and facebook

4) It's called "Windows" for a reason. The Win8 "desktop" is a pale shadow of Win7.

5) Windows 8 is the reason I installed this on one of my computers (and Win 7 Pro 64 on all the others). I'm not a linux geek ... never seriously used it before. Have used every desktop version of Windows ever, except WinMe. Beware, MS: you're alienating loyal customers.

That's a little chunk of reality, FRiend. Call it whining if you like. I call it "The customer is always right."

[mikrofon]

Windows 7 == Star Trek 2009

Windows 8 == Star Trek Into Darkness

[discostu]

People have been saying all those things about MS for 20 years. Yet somehow they still own 80% of the desktop space and make more money than any of their competition.

[varmintman]

I'll upgrade, no problem.

Here's the good news... MicroCenter is giving computers away and the computers being given away are much stronger and faster than even two years ago. I just bought an HP refurb which appears new, 6GB ram, a tb disk, and an I3 processor running at 2.6 gz with Win 8 for $300, which is basically crazy. The computer is much faster than the one it replaced, and Win 8, so far, hasn't been hard to learn to work around.

[McGruff]

What was that stat? 93% of computers use Windows. Can’t be that bad.

[Revelation 911]

They are in the business for business.

then what are they doing marketing to end users?

[ArrogantBustard]

Yet somehow they still own 80% of the desktop space and make more money than any of their competition.

And they apparently listen to their customers. Win8 annoyed a lot of people for specific reasons. If Win8.1 addresses those complaints, the customers will continue to be satisfied.

[discostu]

Only time I ever get a system freeze related to the browser is when Flash is deciding to crash. Don’t know why it takes Flash so long to crash and why it needs all the resources while it does so, but once if finally gets around to crashing all is well again.

[Las Vegas Ron]

Well, with respect, perhaps you have another issue beside the OS? Maybe some routine maintenance is in order? How often do you do disk clean up and clear history, defrags etc.?

[KC Burke]

My wife’s real nice Dell that is about four years old came with Vista. It is a locking-up bogged down, POS that can’t load its upgrades, can’t take its proper browser and now I am stuck with having to change her to 8 and 8.1 which will be a disgusting culture shock. She will hate it.

I needed a new home laptop of my own. I use 7 at work and its fine but my old at-home machine was a five year old $340 net book using XP. It had a hard drive crash after five years and I decided I would go over to the dark side.

Bought a new 13” Mac Air. In a weekend, I figured out most of the change over issues although the amount of items on the screen versis small buttons and icons is hard on us old timers that are nominally far-sighted. I think I can get my wife to use one as well and never look back at MS for home use. They keep having trouble with browsers and changes to OS GUI that are so extensive that they PO customers that have used their product for a decade.

[varmintman]

The Opera browser will fix at least some of whatever browser problems you’re having.