<p>My computer died the day before we went on vacation, luckily we’d been warned and the replacement was on it’s way. I’ve spent the last week just trying to get used to Windows 7, the new version of Office, the new version of Adobe Photoshop (I had a truly ancient one). It’s driving me crazy. Luckily nearly everything was backed up, I just seem to have lost the files I did on the last day of work - of which there were unfortunately quite a few. I miss the days when I could ask my son how to do things, but he’s one of those Linux guys.</p>
<p>I waited long enough to get new computers to avoid Vista, and now I hope to wait long enough to skip Windows 8. I hate it. We recently had an office laptop infected with a virus. When it was wiped clean, the IT people installed Windows 8. All our other computers are 7. He installed a program (or do you call it an App now?) to make it act like Windows 7, but I can’t find the download folder. I haven’t had the patience yet to figure it out. Hate it.</p>
<p>I have Windows 8 and I like it. I honestly don’t notice too much of a difference between it and the XP I upgraded from other than the start screen and the charms. I’ve had it for 8 months now and it hasn’t crashed once. I just don’t understand why people find it so difficult to use. </p>
<p>I like Win8 WAY more than Mac. I absolutely DESPISE Macs and refuse to ever buy one. The UI on them is just terrible imho and the proces are ridiculous. $1000 piece of junk - that’s all a Mac is.</p>
<p>Two main issues.
- Most people don’t have touch screens, and the Modern interface is clearly designed for touch.
- In the Modern interface, you can only have full screen “apps.” I bought a computer damn it, not a tablet to play Angry Birds. I want to have three windows open at same time running Excel, PowerPoint, and Chrome. And I want to resize them to the size I want, not the size Microsoft’s second rate replacement for Bill Gates wants. Sure I can do it in Windows 8, but then I have go to the desktop, which of course defeats the point of Windows 8 and begs the question: can’t I just start on the normal desktop. Microsoft says no. </p>
<p>Our main desktop needed a pretty significant overhaul, so we bought Win8 just as it came out thinking it would be an improvement. Boy were we in for a surprise. When the time came to buy a laptop for college, I opted, reluctantly, for a Mac. It’s been a change, and u certainly don’t like all of the Mac’s traits, but I can honestly say that Mac OSX is more like Windows 7 than Windows 8 is.
Wow, that was long!</p>
<p>I really don’t mind Windows 8. I was hesitant to purchase it last November shortly after it came out and I’ll be honest it took me a good 10 minutes to figure out how to get to the desktop! But I’ve had few issues since…</p>
<p>“holding the power button to turn your PC off is bad, you could be corrupting things and breaking your computer. Do a proper shut down and save yourself a headache later.”</p>
<p>What’s wrong with shutting down a PC that way?</p>
<p>Google it.</p>
<p>When you do a proper shut down the data in your cache is written to the hard drive. If you just turn it off you risk corrupting those files because there was unwritten data in the cache. Basically it can screw up your operating system. May be fine 99 percent of the time or may screw everything up. My dad turns his computer off that way and they are always having issues.</p>
<p>I’m guessing if you like windows 8 and shut down this way you aren’t a “power” user that cares about this kind of geeky stuff so do as you wish… (could be wrong in my assumption but I work in tech and don’t know anyone who likes eight or shuts down like that)</p>
<p>The 8.1 version will be out 10-18.</p>
<p>Last night, I installed the Win 8.1 Beta downloadable from Microsoft on a spare tower for kicks. </p>
<p>Can’t say there’s much improvement so far beyond better color schemes. </p>
<p>Played with the “Start button” and found it just as annoying as not having the button. </p>
<p>Why can’t they include the option for folks to go back to the Win 7/XP style menu system? </p>
<p>Metro UI is fine for tablets and touchscreen machines. However, it is a major headache for corporate/institutional workers who just want to get things done efficiently on workstations using keyboard and mouse. Really funny how Microsoft is turning off one of their main customer constituencies…especially one which provides a lion share of their profits.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed. There is a way to set the power button in such a way that pressing it briefly will initiate the proper shutdown sequence. However, that comes with its own can of worms…especially if the power button is prone to being accidentally pressed at the most inopportune times.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One older uncle did this with several computers and had serious problems. Ended up getting a few nice free towers from him as a result when they “got too slow” or “broke”.</p>
<p>Refuses to take them back when I successfully backed up his data, reformatted, and reinstalled his OSes. He was nice enough to insist on paying me for my computer services and send me off with a nice dinner. :)</p>
<p>Prefers to buy new computers where it is rinse and repeat for him.</p>
<p>I’ve heard a bit of speculation that Windows 8 wasn’t expected to be a winner, but it’s instead seen as a sort of beta-test for their “next generation” type of OS which will bridge across mobile and desktop applications. I personally don’t think MS is that forward thinking, and this is instead just a giant flub.</p>
<p>How many people like the new styling of MS Office versus the traditional version? I was trying to put custom-defined x and y error bars on a plot in Excel, and it probably took me about eight clicks to finally get to it. They did some stuff right redesigning it around widescreen monitors (having the right side of the screen dedicated to changing the properties of whatever you click on), but they definitely made a number of things more cumbersome at the same time.</p>
<p>Cobrat, my parents usually wind up with a new one every two years. 
</p>
<p>they also burnt out two power supplies. Not sure if that was related or not.</p>
<p>Racin, which version of office?</p>
<p>I didn’t like 07 or 10 but am liking 13 so far.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If that’s the case, the power supplies were most likely crappy to begin with and/or your parents’ home has some serious electrical wiring/power issues which need to be looked at by a licensed electrician. </p>
<p>With the exception of 2 crappy ones I’ve encountered, every power supply I’ve had are still running strong after 8+ years of sometimes 24/7 usage as makeshift servers/distributed computing platforms(i.e. Seti, worldcommunity grid, etc). </p>
<p>One in one of my uncle’s towers’ PSUs died after a total of 8 years…with the last 3 years being heavy use with me. Turns out the PSU included inside had an issue with crappy capacitors which affected the entire computer industry at the time it was produced(early to late '00s). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Didn’t care for 07, am fine with 10. Haven’t had a chance to try 13 yet though I may get that chance soon.</p>
<p>Both of theirs were crappy HP so I wouldn’t put it past bad equipment. </p>
<p>actually now that I think about it, they didn’t burnt out… They just stopped working correctly. The PC would loose power and reboot itself, things like that. I actually had that happen to a power supply in an old Sony too.</p>
<p>13 is closer to 10. I can actually find what I want in there.</p>
<p>Another thing that gets me about eight is that its completely not good for businesses.</p>
<p>I’m actually working on a corporate project right now where we are upgrading 25000 users from windows XP and office 03 to windows 7 and office10.</p>
<p>I can only imagine if we had to get our applications to work in windows 8. I honestly don’t think they would.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>HP…agg. The last good HP machine I have is an old corporate notebook from 2005 that’s still going strong. </p>
<p>However, every subsequent HP my friends have had had serious issues whether it’s wonky/dead power supplies, wonky/dead motherboards, etc. </p>
<p>Incidentally, the scrapbox I am using to run the Win 8.1 beta was an HP box someone dumped in my neighborhood. When I tested it, it would turn on for 2 seconds, shutoff for 2 seconds, repeat adfinitem. While I suspected the powersupply, symptoms continued even when HP’s PSU was replaced with a good spare Antec PSU. </p>
<p>Turned out that model is known for having a high motherboard failure rate and upon swapping out that motherboard for a spare one gotten free off CL, works like a charm and is now running Win 8.1 Beta fine so far. Kept case, power supply, AMD processor, PCI-X Wireless card, and DVD drive. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I tend to not recommend Sonys as I feel they are pretty flimsy for what you’re paying…even if they can be aesthetically pleasing. Now if one gets them for free…that’s another matter though I’d be reluctant to rely on their notebooks considering the experiences of several friends and dozens of clients.</p>
<p>My Sony desktop ran me 800 in 2006.I think the power supply broke in 08. Didn’t last long at all.</p>
<p>That being said, I still have that desktop and it works fine. Slow, but fine. I put it in my exercise room and we use it to stream music and exercise videos. Built myself a new PC a few months ago and it’s amazing how much faster it is.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I still run some machines from 2000-2003(Pentium III/IV and AMD Athlon 1800+). Even installed Mac OSX(Tiger to Snow Leopard) on some of the P4s (SSE2 instruction set required).</p>
<p>If one has at least 768 MB RAM and decent video cards, you can even run Win 7 and run youtube videos(Not at 720/1080p). </p>
<p>The older machines can be more usable if one installs a distribution of Linux…especially Anti-X linux(Min requirement is 128 MB RAM though you can get away with 96 MB as I did on a PII).</p>
<p>Yeah I agree. I still use a 2003 laptop. It’s big and clunky but gets the job done. Perfect for guest use. I’ve often thought about formatting it and instilling Linux but it has quite a few pieces of software on it that I don’t have elsewhere and can’t find the discs for.</p>
<p>fendergirl, mostly since they changed to the ribbon format. I’ll never figure out why the graph tool is under Insert in Excel (instead of, say, Data). I still haven’t found any real compelling reason to use that style versus the traditional dropdown menus with a few toolbars you can turn on and off. I do like some of the updating they’ve done to colors. Graphs look considerably better by default, but it still lacks any sort of strong ability to put any sort of Greek alphabet or sub/superscript into it comfortably. Winds up with me using Matlab or Origin to do plotting of data that I can, honestly, analyze just as easily in Excel.</p>
<p>I actually just recently put office on my PC because I got a good deal from work. Prior to that I’ve been using open office. Which works pretty well with the exception of some formatting things when you open them in office.</p>