Windows 8 on my desktop, or not?
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Have a look at Start8[^] Start8 brings the "Start" menu back to Windows 8
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
A third-party OS mod for an OS that's only in beta? Why have I got chills down my spine?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Just tried it, awesome!!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
I've used their Object Desktop for a couple of years on XP - appears they know a thing or two :-D
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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A third-party OS mod for an OS that's only in beta? Why have I got chills down my spine?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
Why have I got chills down my spine?
Because you haven't turned off the aircondition? In my experience Stardock is pretty good at what they are doing ...
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
Super Lloyd wrote:
I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!)
Assuming Windows 8 doesn't wipe your drive (Windows 7 doesn't, no reason to suspect 8 does), then you just have to reinstall the Steam client and point it to your existing downloaded games. It should be able to reinstall them without having to download them again.
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On work PC hey? "lucky" you?! ;P
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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I've used their Object Desktop for a couple of years on XP - appears they know a thing or two :-D
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
Espen Harlinn wrote:
I've used their Object Desktop
Haven't used that one, but I'm stuck with Object Dock, and it's a charm for lazy people like me
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater. Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater. Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
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Espen Harlinn wrote:
I've used their Object Desktop
Haven't used that one, but I'm stuck with Object Dock, and it's a charm for lazy people like me
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater. Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater. Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
Andrei Straut wrote:
Haven't used that one
It's just a bundle[^] containing several of their utilities.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Super Lloyd wrote:
I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!)
Assuming Windows 8 doesn't wipe your drive (Windows 7 doesn't, no reason to suspect 8 does), then you just have to reinstall the Steam client and point it to your existing downloaded games. It should be able to reinstall them without having to download them again.
HO.. how cool! ^^
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
Super Lloyd wrote:
I will have to reinstall all my steam games...
#1 You can install/move Steam on another partition and you won't have to reinstall it ever again when you reinstall Windows.
Super Lloyd wrote:
(a couple of days of download!!!)
#2 Steam has option to make backup of your game(s) so you won't have to download again. It event has nice option to split installation in multiple files of desired size.
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
I built up a Windows 8 Tablet (from a Dell Duo) and upgraded my HP laptop to Windows 8. I've been using them both quite a lot over the last 3 weeks. Windows 8 works pretty well as a Tablet. It has a handful of usability issues: 1) The Bing Tile does a good job of searching BUT once you select a search item and get a webpage, back doesn't take you back to the Bing app. This sounds small, but it's really annoying. 2) Several of the built in apps were clearly designed, built and tested by folks under 40. They have tiny fonts and no options to change the font size. I'm seriously considering ordering a custom set of prescription glasses for the Windows 8 tablet. 3) You can only close apps with the mouse. Yes, really. This one just boggles my mind. 4) Some apps don't run correctly on the Duo (Pinball Fx for example). I suspect this is a driver issue with the Duo. 5) The Kindle app is unbelievably slow. Turning pages takes forever. I realize this is beta-ish software and that I'm using an atom processor on my Tablet. But this configuration is similar to the RT class tablets, so it leaves me wondering how well the Kindle app will work on an RT. None of these issues are a deal killer, just really annoying. As a laptop, Windows 8 is okay. I thought it would be terrible, but it's about the same productivity as Windows 7. The learning curve is small and it sort of makes sense. I tried several of the apps that create a start menu on the desktop. They are unbelievably bad. Don't expect one of those apps to make Windows 8 just like Windows 7. One thing that's clear from using the laptop and a tablet, is that some configuration and settings are awkward to get to from a mouse. A windows 8 laptop would be much easier to use with a touchscreen. Other than that, I have no objections to Window 8. It seems like Microsoft made some fairly reasonable design decisions. But it clearly needs a little bit of tweaking to be less annoying.
Keith Rule
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I built up a Windows 8 Tablet (from a Dell Duo) and upgraded my HP laptop to Windows 8. I've been using them both quite a lot over the last 3 weeks. Windows 8 works pretty well as a Tablet. It has a handful of usability issues: 1) The Bing Tile does a good job of searching BUT once you select a search item and get a webpage, back doesn't take you back to the Bing app. This sounds small, but it's really annoying. 2) Several of the built in apps were clearly designed, built and tested by folks under 40. They have tiny fonts and no options to change the font size. I'm seriously considering ordering a custom set of prescription glasses for the Windows 8 tablet. 3) You can only close apps with the mouse. Yes, really. This one just boggles my mind. 4) Some apps don't run correctly on the Duo (Pinball Fx for example). I suspect this is a driver issue with the Duo. 5) The Kindle app is unbelievably slow. Turning pages takes forever. I realize this is beta-ish software and that I'm using an atom processor on my Tablet. But this configuration is similar to the RT class tablets, so it leaves me wondering how well the Kindle app will work on an RT. None of these issues are a deal killer, just really annoying. As a laptop, Windows 8 is okay. I thought it would be terrible, but it's about the same productivity as Windows 7. The learning curve is small and it sort of makes sense. I tried several of the apps that create a start menu on the desktop. They are unbelievably bad. Don't expect one of those apps to make Windows 8 just like Windows 7. One thing that's clear from using the laptop and a tablet, is that some configuration and settings are awkward to get to from a mouse. A windows 8 laptop would be much easier to use with a touchscreen. Other than that, I have no objections to Window 8. It seems like Microsoft made some fairly reasonable design decisions. But it clearly needs a little bit of tweaking to be less annoying.
Keith Rule
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
As someone who stuck with the classic start menu until it was finally lost in windows 7 I thought the windows 8 was going to be a tough one to get used to. I had it a few weeks now and after the first shock I think it is great. Once I set the start screen up into groups for dev, games, office etc it has became very quick and easy to start up programs. I found my desktop almost empty of icons now. I like my keyboard shortcuts and windows 8 has a few great additions. Win X is one to remember. Everything feels a lot faster but whether it really is or not I am not sure. May just be an illusion of the new look. I have done my usual development and gaming and have seen nothing bad. My desktop usage feels just the same as windows 7. File explorer ribbon works great as well. I would recommend it but give it time. Learn the key shortcuts and what you can do. There is a lot of cool stuff in there.
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
This touches on something that I think is very frustrating on Microsoft's part. What you are describing is actually a violation of the Microsoft MSDN licensing agreement; unless I am misreading their licensing document. Here is what is says about MSDN OS usage: Many MSDN subscribers use a computer for mixed use—both design, development, testing, and demonstration of your programs (the use allowed under the MSDN subscription license) and some other use. Using the software in any other way, such as for doing email, playing games, or editing a document is another use and is not covered by the MSDN subscription license. When this happens, the underlying operating system must also be licensed normally by purchasing a regular copy of Windows such as the one that came with a new OEM PC. That is just insane! We pay thousands of dollars a year for this stuff and yet still have to pay for our main OS!
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
I've just installed win 8 trial and O don't think that it is that much different than 7. There's no menu start, but I didn't use it much so that's not big thing for me. You can find little tweaks like better task manager and file copy progress window. It runs dramatically faster, but probably because I've also upgraded my 8 years old hdd to raid0 ssds. My only hardware that is troublesome is logitech F710 gamepad, I'll try install microsoft drivers for xbox 360 gamepad. I've also just copied Guild Wars 2 from old system and it just works so probably installing steam and copying all gamefiles will work as it used to in win 7. I think that if you are ok with no start menu you should give it a try.
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I've just installed win 8 trial and O don't think that it is that much different than 7. There's no menu start, but I didn't use it much so that's not big thing for me. You can find little tweaks like better task manager and file copy progress window. It runs dramatically faster, but probably because I've also upgraded my 8 years old hdd to raid0 ssds. My only hardware that is troublesome is logitech F710 gamepad, I'll try install microsoft drivers for xbox 360 gamepad. I've also just copied Guild Wars 2 from old system and it just works so probably installing steam and copying all gamefiles will work as it used to in win 7. I think that if you are ok with no start menu you should give it a try.
The start screen is just annoying! Granted it's not that big a loss in productivity.. + I make my own shortcut toolbar (problem solved)... mm.. I have some holiday now, will probably install it! ^^ And start8 by stardock!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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This touches on something that I think is very frustrating on Microsoft's part. What you are describing is actually a violation of the Microsoft MSDN licensing agreement; unless I am misreading their licensing document. Here is what is says about MSDN OS usage: Many MSDN subscribers use a computer for mixed use—both design, development, testing, and demonstration of your programs (the use allowed under the MSDN subscription license) and some other use. Using the software in any other way, such as for doing email, playing games, or editing a document is another use and is not covered by the MSDN subscription license. When this happens, the underlying operating system must also be licensed normally by purchasing a regular copy of Windows such as the one that came with a new OEM PC. That is just insane! We pay thousands of dollars a year for this stuff and yet still have to pay for our main OS!
Ho well, I haven't read this part, are you making that up!?! :rolleyes: Seriously for the price of Windows 8 I'll be willing to pay anyway, but you just can't buy it now!!! :-\
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
If you are a developer I'd go ahead and make the jump so that you aren't so far behind when the next version of Windows comes around. Saw this alot when people stuck with XP and Vista came out (I know it wasn't great). Some developers ignored Vista, then when Win7 came out they were way behind in getting their programs up to speed (especially concerning security), where the jump form Vista to 7 was small. Even if you don't like Win8, there will be people using your software that will use Win8, will your software be ready?
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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I am wondering about installing Windows 8 on my desktop... I'm so undecided that I'm asking other people's opinions!!!! (And yes I got a licence of it, thanks to an MSDN subscription coming with my job! ;P ) On one hand, everytime the OS jumps on the metro UI I get cranky.. :/ + I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!) and other apps.. :/ On the other hand I can setup my system to skip it (the start screen) most time!! (using the taskbar + taskbar's toolbar, as I do on my Win7!!) (Using it on my old laptop now) And, this way, I could develop / play with Metro app on my desktop instead of having 2 keyboards to juggle with (old laptop + desktop) mmm.. wondering if I can cope with the annoying metro effect... I guess once I will get used to it on the laptop, I'll upgrade the desktop... [Edit] One strong pro, I'd rather use my powerful desktop instead of my old laptop to... Play, mix and match DirectX11 (in C++) and XAML (in C#), which WinRT and Windows 8 is the best at!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
Super Lloyd wrote:
I will have to reinstall all my steam games... (a couple of days of download!!!)
You don't need to re-download all your steam games. Backup your Steam directory to another disk, copy it back again once you've installed 'Weight' Run the Steam exe and install to the same directory that you copied your backup back to.
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I'm using it on my home computer instead of gentoo to give it a fair shake. Works pretty good so far. Only thing I don't like is that I don't know the short cuts to navigate around, but I'm learning those quickly. I have it on my work computer as well.
If it moves, compile it
Shortcuts? Why you need them?, it's a touch OS. :laugh:
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...