windows 8

[Larry]

Okay, I have seen nothing but complaints and negative reviews about Windows
8. I have even heard that it may be recalled...

My Vista computer has been giving me fits lately. It is almost 5 years old,
so I am considering a new one. Trouble it, do I want Windows 8?

You can still buy new computers that have Windows 7 on them and likely the
Microsoft support for it would last as long as a new computer.

Still, Windows 8 is the new one and surely it has improved features over
Windows 7, but are they enough to outweigh its negatives?

The main thing that I look at is, of course, is Windows 8 TSEPRO compatible?
:)

As for the computer, I cannot see well enough to dig into the hardware like
I used to, so I am looking at the Hewlette-Packard All In One computers.
Recommendations would be appreciated. :)

[Leeming, Jonathan]

Hi,

I'm not going to say anything nice about windows 8 except that I too have heard rumors that MS is going to back-track a bit and revive the start button as well as booting to the desktop.  I was at a conference last October where a Microsoft software engineer was the keynote speaker unveiling Win 8 but I felt sorry for the presenter as even she did not seem to be convinced that it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Here is a link to MS support details for Win 7... http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?c2=14019

As for hardware... I believe that HP make great servers but aside from that I am not a fan of their workstation / notebook computers.  I would suggest considering something from Toshiba's line up as an alternate.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Leeming
VP, Information Services

[knud van eeden]

> I have another of their
> programs installed on each of my modern computers (Windows XP, 7, 8)
> called "Fences"

 

Runs already for years on one of the computers.

 

No icons at all visible (back at the click of the mouse if needed).

 

Simple.

 

===

 

Discovered from this interesting list

 

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottHanselmans2011UltimateDeveloperAndPowerUsersToolListForWindows.aspx

 

from Scott Hanselman (his review also brought to my attention 'Maxivista' to control up to 4 monitors

with only one keyboard and mouse. 

Additional monitors are powered using extra PCs and controlled via the network)

 

http://www.maxivista.com/multi-monitor-software.htm

 

 

with friendly greetings,

Knud van Eeden

 

From: Dwayne Reid <dwa...@planet.eon.net>
To: tse...@freelists.org
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2013 5:41 PM
Subject: [TSEPro] Re: windows 8

Windows 8 is, for all intents and purposes, Windows 7 with a bunch of
enhancements added in.  Microsoft also, unfortunately, destroyed the
conventional user interface.

I'm forcing myself to learn how to use the new Win 8 user interface
so that I can adequately support my circle of family and
friends.  But I'm about to add in a pair of programs that mitigate
most of the user interface problems.  These programs are from
<www.stardock.com> and they are: Start8 and Modern Mix.

Start8 brings back the normal Windows start button and all of its
functionality.  Modern Mix allows "Modern Apps" to be treated just
like normal Windows programs.  Modern Apps want to take over the
entire display screen - Modern Mix allows those apps to be resized
and moved about on the Windows display just like ordinary Windows programs.

Each of those programs sells for US $4.99 individually but Stardock
offers the pair of programs together for US $7.99 - a two dollars savings.

I very much like Stardock as a company - I have another of their
programs installed on each of my modern computers (Windows XP, 7, 8)
called "Fences" - Fences allows you to create regions of the Windows
desktop that organize your various icons into whatever categories
that you desire.  Each of these 'corrals' can be moved and resized
wherever you want and all the icons contained within each corral
remain inside, positioned just how you wanted them.  Its so very useful!

I use the free version of Fences 1.0 in all of my machines but I have
purchased licenses for Fences 2.0 to allow me to use it at work - its
just that compelling.  Fences 2.0 also costs US $4.99 as well.

I've got only one computer running Windows 8 Pro right now but I can
tell you that any program that runs on Windows 7 has run without any
problems whatsoever on my Win 8 machine.  I'm sure that there are
exceptions but I haven't run into them yet.

dwayne

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Dwayne Reid  <dwa...@planet.eon.net>
Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd    Edmonton, AB, CANADA
(780) 489-3199 voice          (780) 487-6397 fax
www.trinity-electronics.com
Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing

[Howard Kapustein]

>The main thing that I look at is, of course, is Windows 8 TSEPRO compatible? :)

Yes.

I've used TSE for years (and back through its predecessors Qedit/2 and Qedit :-) and I've personally run TSE on many builds of Windows. I can definitively state I've seen TSE run on many builds of Windows since Win7 <g> and never had a problem.

If I were to sum up Win8's key differences vs Win7 it's a short list:

a. Snappier -- Win8 runs in less cpu+memory than Win7. Some things are only slightly better (would you notice a 10% difference?) but some much more so

b. Battery life -- power management was tightened up too, so laptop batteries last longer

c. New shell -- the Start Menu's replaced with the Start Screen.

d. New application model -- the Metro^H^H^H^H^HWindows store application thing.

There's other small changes -- Win8 has TRIM support (good for SSDs), Explorer's copy dialog is more informative, and more. But the above are what I'd consider the big kahunas.

For a+b you can read plenty of reviews and benchmarks on the web.

For d there's some ~40,000 apps available today, though I doubt this is a draw today. Many are limited or young, or just new iterations of existing apps; nothing significant you'd miss vs Win7. This likely will change over time as more apps appear, but short-term I'd consider d a non-issue if you're trying to decide between 7 vs 8.

The shell changes tend to draw out the most visceral responses. Go trawl the web. There's plenty of ink on it.

If you have a new laptop with a touch screen, then Win8's likely worth it over Win7.

If you have a laptop w/o a touch screen, the perf and battery gains are nice. It's really a question if the new shell bothers you that much (and if things like Start8, ClassicShell etc don't mitigate the pain).

Likewise if you have a desktop, though minus the power management perks to sway you.

I've been running Win8 on my home machine for almost 6 months now, replacing my old XP. I've used Win7 and Vista on multiple machines (and Macs, RedHat, Ubuntu, Kindles, iPads and more) so I'm familiar with the differences. I mostly don't notice the new shell at home, since mostly I run the same dozen apps, and mostly they're icons on my desktop, pinned on my tray for the uber popular ones, or launched from Steam :-) Once you learn tapping the Win key toggles between start screen and desktop and Win-D always bring you to the desktop, it feels a lot like Win7 (I don't see the new shell much). Explorer is still Explorer for file management (it's got a ribbon, but I never used the old toolbar much either and I've got a big 24" monitor running at 1920x1080 so I don't really notice the difference). Most common reason I see the new Start menu is to launch Word - Win key, type 'Word' and Enter and search finding and launching Word is equivalent to Win7.

   - Howard

P.S. I had reasons to install Win8, but perf was actually a non-issue for me. My rig's new - i7, 8GB RAM, SSD, nVidia 660 Ti, yadda yadda. I will say it's an amazing leap over my older Core 2 Duo -- for instance, VS is so snappy using C# or C++ feels like using Python :-) The qualitative difference in productivity is pretty stunning.

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[Joe Souza]

To add on to what Howard says, one keystroke that I find very handy in Windows 8 Pro is Win-X.  This will display a small menu in the lower left corner of the screen with entries to allow one to quickly open a command prompt or Control Panel, etc.  I find it indispensable.

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From: Howard Kapustein <howard.k...@gmail.com>
To: sem...@googlegroups.com
Cc: "tse...@freelists.org" <tse...@freelists.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2013 9:17 PM
Subject: [TSEPro] Re: [TSE] Re: Re: windows 8

[Howard Kapustein]

Good one. I'd forgotten about that.

Another thing I find handy...CONTROL.EXE

Win-R, type CONTROL, <ENTER>

Command line program that brings up the (classic) Control Panel. Been shipping with Windows for a while (since Win7 at least).

For the things I usually do, they're never in Settings, always Control Panel. Maybe that'll change in Windows 8.1