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Thread: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

  1. #1
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    So with all the comments flying around about windows 8, I figured I do a quick experiment, and load it on my mothers laptop.

    My mom has a laptop thats quite old, can't remember the spec exactly, but her last one died when I was visiting at the weekend, RAM failure, so I just decided to buy her a new one, from Cornwall's only in stock option it seemed, Argos. I spent £480 on it. This was 3 years ago.

    So its not exactly great hardware, its got no touch screen, and my mother, bless her, isn't the most technical user.

    So Windows 8, with its noddy Metro UI seems perfect right?

    Well not quite, first off, logon. So I set it up with a Microsoft Account (whatever they call .Net passport nowadays) for my mum. This is an internet account, so has a very long good password.

    Now she has to enter that everytime.... Oh that nice image logon you can do, its crap with a mouse, about as dumb as the slide the image up with a mouse. So control userpasswords2 and set it to auto log her on. Fixed, but no way the average joe will know to do that.

    Then comes the metro UI bit, she simply loves it, she suffered a stroke a few years back so her eye sight isn't top, but the whole email, messaging (still waiting on skype metro app), web browsing and games, brilliant. So far so good.

    Enter the photos app. You can not, as yet, print from it. Oh dear, back to the desktop for that. I didn't want her to be spending as much time on the desktop. The jaring nature between the workflow is awful.

    The whole Charms menu (moving mouse to top right corner in a metro app) she took to very well, the only oddity was printing from IE, she had to learn that a printer is a "device".

    So this is now day 3. I'll post back whenever anything interesting happens, but so far, so good, considering she didn't like the ipad idea at all, I'm thinking a windows RT 'ultrabook' (must have rigid keyboard so can be used on lap easily) thats nice and lightweight with a touch interface might be her Christmas gift at this rate.
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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    Nice real world write up from a real world user scenario.

    When my mums PC dies, there i no way she is getting a new one. It'll be a laptop/tablet hybrid thing with a networked printer.

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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    Very interesting! It echos my experience when I showed it to the wife on our laptop (which isn't high spec) and she pretty much took to it right away (which I honestly didn't expect).

    A small point - she doesn't need to use a long password everytime to logon - you can setup a simple pin code instead or use picture logon (which will work well with touch). I use a PIN all the time now on my work PC it's a neat feature. Hit any key to get rid of the lockscreen (or just click the mouse).

    Apps will improve before launch (some of them already have) and yes I agree some lack some features as yet.
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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    I'm dreading windows 8 being launched. I fear it's going to be another windows vista and lose me clients.

    I hope I'm wrong, but I give it 50/50 either way at the moment.

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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    Well it does seem to be far more focused on mobile devices rather than desktops and it's supposed to be able to run on lower spec (but new low spec, not old which is now low spec) hardware, heck it's got ARM support not just x86 which is probably the biggest change I can see.

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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    Excellent post, its nice to see someone elses opinion/experience with Windows 8 as I am currently contemplating whether or not to shove it on my dads laptop (he is computer literate but not full on power user anymore).

    I found that in my use that Windows 8 as a whole is brilliant but its the few small niggles here and there that are quite simply pee easy to fix and should never have been present, my main gripe is the useless power settings like turn of/standby/restart, you have to do windows key + i then power then click it, it is stupid! And another is the required to login on startup, my windows live account has a long password as its used online but im using this as a computer login when I shouldnt have to, I know they have the setting for stopping this requirement when you come out of standby but why not when you boot? Its so simple and they do support it, I believe ive fixed it by running netplwiz and turning off this requirement in the tickbox but it took me awhile to get to this point when it should be in control panel or settings, thats another gripe WHY OH FLIPPING WHY do they have two settings? You have control panel the key part of windows settings as always and now they have this right handside change pc settings (at the bottom) which is all phone/metro like which I dont mind at all but why is it in two different places, please change it to one or the other or simply both .

    Oh and I managed to find someone who has sorted the power issue that I hate... look here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1706114 I installed that and now have 3 'tiles' with shutdown restart and standby, so fing simple and should have been done at the start since Microsoft has gone all out on tiles (which I think is good!) why didnt they include the power, now i just hit windows key and click a large button which is actually better than 7 that included clicking a smaller button and waiting for the expanded power options if i wanted to reboot.

    Sort out the above and its a flawless OS, so many improvements here and there that people really dont notice like a change from xp to vista but its much larger than windows vista to 7. The pricing is great at £15 /£25 yet its had Microsoft working on it for 3 whole years, look at Apple which charge the same for a yearly release!.
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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: A quick Pre-Launch Windows 8 experiment

    Day 4.

    One text message:

    From Dad
    Mummies having problems with the mail application not syncing.
    Me
    Have you tried turning the wireless access point off and on again?
    Dad
    Oh its working now.

    Damnit windows 8, you should be warning about things like this. I wonder if people would buy an app that monitored (via NDIS or winsock hooks for the nerds) internet access requests, and intelligently, notified you if the internet is down, say for instance if your in the Mail app and the Mail app is trying to use the internet, but there is no access, put up a big notification telling people its not working and letting them start the troubleshooter? Would you pay $1 for that?
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