windows 8?

[bartsimmo]

Just deciding whether to bite the bullet and upgrade a Vista laptop to Win 8 at the moment. If I do this via the MS website and go for the download only version, can I wipe and re-install just Windows 8 at a later date or do I have to install Vista first and then Windows 8 upgrade?

[6677]

From within windows 8 you can create a backup/reinstall DVD.

[zeffania]

From within windows 8 you can create a backup/reinstall DVD.

I need to do this just in case. Will have a look for that later

[Guest]

Well, this thread is getting a bit old now, but thought I'd chime is again! I'm changing my job, still part-time but working much more in I.T. and away from engine development altogether. The rub is I need to have a Windows operating system on my main home study computer. For me this is bad news. I left MS products behind me many years ago in favour of Linux based systems and have never had any regrets. I even had a Linux network running an LTS version of Ubuntu at one of the colleges where I have been working. It's been great! No problems. Now I find this dilemma of whether to go for W8 or W7? I've read this thread right through and agree with much of what has been said about '8'. It's different and no doubt good too. I had the evaluation edition for 3months and the development version also at work and didn't really like '8' at all and worse, found I wasn't taking to it over time. Anyhoo, to cut to the chase, I just bought a copy of Windows 7 and dual booted it with Linux Ubuntu 12.04LTS. Works great! It's fast and runs all my hardware ok. I found '8' was having trouble with my high end Asus AMD based machine with some difficulty in loading drivers. '7' surprisingly has no such trouble. In short, if you have to have an MS OS then you can't go far wrong with '7' with support all the way to 2020 too. Hopefully, by then MS will have a successor to '8' and it'll be really much better than '7'!

[JohnMcL7]

I'm surprised Windows 7 worked better with your hardware than Windows 8 as I find that's one area where 8 is much better simply because it's newer, on my X79 SB-E based workstation-class machine Windows 7 didn't manage to get a single driver itself (not even the sata controller) whereas 8 picked up everything automatically plus it has a rather nifty feature where each hardware device gets its own driver event log which shows exactly what driver was loaded and when. I thought it would be a bit of a gamble loading it on the desktop machine as its hardware is fairly exotic but no issues at all (although I stuck with legacy rather than UEFI booting), I decided to leave the Sony Z series though on 7 as that machine is incredibly fussy about its operating systems particularly as its hybrid graphics system (one integrated graphics card, one discrete graphics card) is non-standard.

Like most people I didn't like Windows 8 when I first used it on a test machine but once I started using it as one of my main machines I quickly began to appreciate the many improvements over Windows 7 (much faster particularly on ULV hardware, vastly improved task manager, much better file transfer interface, quicker power user menu in place of start menu, properly handles ultra high resolution displays, auto-sync between W8 machines, works well on touch systems) and that despite it looking quite different, it's actually easy to use it the same way as Windows 7 on non-touch systems. Initially I ignored the new start screen on the non-touch systems but I'm now finding it quite handy as well, once the touch applications and live tiles are removed it's a useful one click interface to most of your applications unlike the old start menu which would need several clicks to move through the structure. It makes Windows 7 feel a bit clunky in some areas as I've quickly got used to the improvements

One thing that does bug me that I haven't found a quick solution for is the default file association with the touch version of the applications rather than the desktop versions, I have no interest in using the touch interface mode on my non-touch systems so I need to manually re-associate applications back to their desktop versions. The ordering system was/is extremely irritating as well having that stupid download assistant rather than just being able to buy serial keys without paying double price.

John

Edited 16 February, 2013 by JohnMcL7

[Guest]

Indeed it's strange how these things go. '8' just couldn't manage to run some of my hardware and it was driver issues that I never managed to really get properly solved. MS were helpful but also could not provide answers. Our MS rep was telling me they are still getting some issues with some hardware, even some mainstream stuff for some reason. I guess that I've just been unlucky, but I'm one of several people in my own little world that has had that trouble, and like me, some others have bought '7' in preference. '8' will get sorted soon enough but it reminded me of some of the reasons I left MS products behind. So, '7' being a safe bet seemed the logical choice for me as I knew it loaded ok on my own desktop (I've had it loaded prevously for just a couple of days and it went well) and will allow me to do all the stuff I need to do for my new job. Glad you are getting on ok with it John.

[zei20t]

you couldn't use the windows 7 driver for the devices you were having problems with? windows 7 and 8 are pretty much the same OS.

the machine im using right now needed a few win7 drivers for optimum speed. yes it worked fine without them, but Im particular about how my machines run.

my other laptop needed about 4 win7 drivers for it to work where I was happy using it.

perhaps its as simple as that?

check with the manufacturer of the hardware, they may have win8 drivers.

[Guest]

Hi zei20t, yes...I checked my manufacturers site for new drivers that had been certified for '8'. Unfortunately, some of my motherboard drivers just would not load and I had to revert to using '7' drivers which loaded ok. But eventually, I shoved '8' out the window as it just was too fussy on my machine. But I don't normally run '7' either. That's only just been acquired for my work and runs beautifully on my hardware. The overwhelming majority of my clients will be using '7' at the moment anyway and to suppor them it's best I have '7' too. I'll put '8' on as well a bit later. Like you I am very fussy about how my machine runs and I have to be able to use everything, including stuff like faxing direct from my screen for my work (I have to do that a lot and have always used Linux Ubuntu for that no problem). But do you think I could get any fax modem to work in '8'?? Not a chance! Spent days and even bought new fax modems to make it go, tried every driver but no workie... All worked ok in Linux though, and it's normally a bit harder to get Linux faxing going, not the other way around. It's one of those slightly mistifying conundrums at the moment. I would add that I always build all my own puters and use only the best mainstream stuff so I didn't expect to get any problems. But there we go! Thanks for the tips anyway.

[zei20t]

fair enough! its a shame you couldn't get it running right. IMO it runs really well on everything ive installed it on

who faxes these days?? :p come into the 21st century and email PDFs around

[Guest]

Yeah...I know. But I'll get it working eventually when I next load it. The reason I have to fax so much is the security thing. Email in my line of work would just not be acceptable for legal and security reasons. Faxing in my work industry goes straight to a persons fax on their desk or their computer for instant recognition. We also use an encryption process for the faxing. That's how secure it is and of course so instant. Faxing is not as unpopular as you might think in many industries, in fact it's the only way for many document transfers. It certainly has been deemed the most secure method of the moment, and yes I know about all the email encryption and all that stuff. Fax still rocks!

[DionJ]

I have Windows 8 on the work laptop. Found a program called Start8 which puts the start button and start menu back.

So far, other than the interface has been de-aero'd everything is working fine. Essentially it's Win 7 with the interface messed around to appeal to mobile users.

Nothing exciting to see. Stick with 7.

It's good that there is no aero in it, that just makes things too fancy with no real advantage!

[zei20t]

lets be honest, aero looks way better and we all turned it on :p

I miss it, but ive forgotten it exists now so its not a big deal.