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Windows 8: What's The Big Deal?
January 22, 2014 | This Just In

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: microsoft; windows; windows8
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To: This Just In
But, my delicate constitution has trouble accepting rejection:(LOL. W8 is not nice to its' users.
81 posted on 01/22/2014 11:59:44 PM PST by crazyhorse691 (Obama is just the symptom of what is destroying the U.S.)
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To: This Just In

Did you install ClasscShell as said.

Read thru here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2983661/posts


82 posted on 01/23/2014 12:44:09 AM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212; This Just In
Using Classic Shell , with right click extender


83 posted on 01/23/2014 12:53:28 AM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Sarah Barracuda
That's what I did, but using “Start Menu 8”. The only problem with it is when I upgraded to 8.1, the Start Menu 8 update program changed to a white color that is much harder to read. But it will definitely give you the Windows 7 look.

I have to reboot Windows 8 a lot more than Windows 7. It seems to be a problem with Internet Explorer though.

84 posted on 01/23/2014 1:01:06 AM PST by FR_addict
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To: Jeff Chandler
You can always turn off your applications with Task Manager.

More time most people don't have. (It adds up.)

85 posted on 01/23/2014 1:42:00 AM PST by Paul R. (We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)
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To: 867V309
I knew a woman (liberal) who used a pc regularly for 3 years and never grasped the concept of Windows Explorer.

Maybe if Microsoft kept the name, "File Manager" she'd have an idea.

86 posted on 01/23/2014 2:05:51 AM PST by Age of Reason
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To: This Just In

Windows 8 is the New Coke of the computer world.


87 posted on 01/23/2014 2:34:41 AM PST by eaglescout1998
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To: Jeff Chandler

advanced task killer free

i do luv me all the free android apps


88 posted on 01/23/2014 2:58:56 AM PST by Principled
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To: This Just In

I can not express the anger I have toward MS and all the tech media who cravenly said windows 8 was good or ok or not really so bad. Like the mainstream media the tech media is also compromised by money and access. Pick ANY known tech person from Chris Pirillo to people at Tech Syndicate and all their sites and blogs - they ALL were suck ups. Windows 8 is probably the WORST OS revision MS has ever done bar none and now 18 months later the only place you hear the truth of it being a complete disaster is from personal conversations. I won’t even go into MS cripling and removing features with windows 8 that were an integral part of all past windows OS’s or the use of uefi bios on tablets and laptops, with intel’s hardware assistance, to prevent any other OS being installed or even live booted. The tech media is as worthless as the mainstream media.


89 posted on 01/23/2014 4:08:18 AM PST by Duke of Milan
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To: Moonman62

Exactly the thinking of a bureaucracy—as Microsoft has become.


90 posted on 01/23/2014 4:23:08 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Duke of Milan

I agree—it was a worse disaster than Vista.

I’ll admit to liking the touch screen on my Windows 8 laptop, but it’s really not worth all the quirks, hassles and problems that come with it.


91 posted on 01/23/2014 4:24:43 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: This Just In
It takes 7 minutes to start my 2.4ghz HP desktop with MS Windows.

It takes about 5 seconds for our Ipad to be useful.

Unlike the HP, the Ipad is fast & dependable, it doesn't lock up mysteriously as the HP does. The Ipad, apparently, doesn't have thousands of folders, files, & programs on it that are a complete mystery to me. Programs that are made for the Ipad don't have driver & compatibility issues. I don't worry about graphics card issues, viruses, & hackers (maybe I should). If Apple software was a bit more intuitive it would be near perfect.

FYI, I have been a Windows fan for decades, but that is quickly changing. I need a new laptop yet I can't quite justify another Windows machine.

92 posted on 01/23/2014 4:54:11 AM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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To: This Just In; rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; Salo; JosephW; Only1choice____Freedom; amigatec; ...

93 posted on 01/23/2014 4:57:01 AM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: This Just In

I like it on my daughter’s touch screen laptop. We also have Vista and 7. Doesn’t matter that much to me.

I take the objections of the IT people seriously, even if I don’t know what they’re talking about.

But I hate HP. Never again.


94 posted on 01/23/2014 4:59:11 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: This Just In

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?!

When there isn’t a lot of competition you get a lot of latitude in ‘ease of use’.


95 posted on 01/23/2014 5:09:21 AM PST by TalBlack
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To: Nervous Tick
The biggest problem I have with ALL of the “tablet” or “smartphone” devices is this: “How the F do you QUIT!!! an APPLICATION??!?” I just want to make the dxmn thing GO AWAY and I often can’t figure out how to accomplish that.

On iOS devices, double-click the Home button to bring up recently used apps and scroll to find the one you want to force-quit. After that the method depends on whether you're using iOS7 or something earlier:

* in iOS7, swipe up on the screenshot of the app you want to close

* in previous versions, press and hold an icon in the recently-used bar until they start shaking, then tap on the "-" sign on the icon to close the app; tap the Home button to stop the shaking

The iOS7 change was probably largely inspired by the fact that the previous versions' method was too confusingly similar to deleting an app altogether.

96 posted on 01/23/2014 5:12:23 AM PST by kevkrom (I'm not an unreasonable man... well, actually, I am. But hear me out anyway.)
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To: smokingfrog

Thanks. I’ve got 8.1 but didn’t know how to do that.


97 posted on 01/23/2014 5:21:39 AM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (This is not just stupid, we're talking Democrat stupid here.)
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To: Jeff Chandler; kevkrom

Yeah, there’s *always* a way — but one shouldn’t have to google to figure it out!

I’m a firmware programmer by trade (but a horribly late adopter of new gadgets — you should see my ten year old cell phone). People who know that I “work with computers” — typically older folks with new pads/phones their kids bought ‘em — often thrust their toy into my hands and say “can you make it work”? Very often my first question is “how do you make this app you’re in go away??!?” They often don’t know. It’s comical sometimes.


98 posted on 01/23/2014 5:22:43 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Without GOD, men get what they deserve.)
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To: Nervous Tick
but one shouldn’t have to google to figure it out!

As for iOS7, it was specified in Apple's overview of the new OS (scroll down to "Multitasking"). It's fair to expect people to read the equivalent of release notes, I would think.

99 posted on 01/23/2014 5:30:14 AM PST by kevkrom (I'm not an unreasonable man... well, actually, I am. But hear me out anyway.)
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To: kevkrom

>> it was specified in Apple’s overview of the new OS (scroll down to “Multitasking”).

OF COURSE! Scroll down to multitasking! (slaps forehead).

THAT is certainly intuitive to one who has never seen the device before! :-)


100 posted on 01/23/2014 5:32:44 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Without GOD, men get what they deserve.)
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