Microsoft aims to simplify with Windows 8.1 - Page 2

**cs123** · 31-05-2013, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au3xr6

apple is too tightly ties down with restrictions

What are these restrictions? I've owned apple computers for a fair while and have never come across any restrictions on what software I can run on my machine.

Matter of fact Apple give you free of charge the complete SDK that enables you to make whatever software you want on your Apple machine. I can run unix (X11) apps natively, I can run VNC or even remote desktop if I want to interact with Windows or *nix servers. I can connect to any Apple machine in my house seamlessly. I can rip DVDs, I can manage any music or video library in my house. I can stream music. I VPN into work.

If I need software I can download and run it free.

I want for nothing that Windows can do. I use my machine for work ( as a IT professional) and home use. The company I work for happily support a user base on Windows, OSx, SunOS, linux. No problems there from a compatibility perspective.

I will not claim that you cannot get a virus on OSX but I have never had one on any of my machines in the last 7 years. I don't run any anti virus. I have never had to rebuild my machines due to poor performance. When I have upgraded my machines for major releases I go and buy it for about $40 and do the upgrade. No wipe and fresh install. Cheap as chips too.

I seriously do not understand where people come up with these "restrictions" for 99% of the people out there they would not exist.

The only thing they are not great for is gaming. I could care less about that.

I should add that this thread is about metrosexuals of whatever you call the Windows UI now. Sorry, carry on....

Velociraptor82 · 01-06-2013, 12:53 AM

I think that Microsoft were so focused on the new market of tablets when designing Win8, that they completely forgot about those in the office environment. Of which makes up a very large portion of Microsoft's market share.

Performance wise, Win8 is very good with getting the best out of the latest hardware on the market, for eg, those using DDR2 ram are not going to see as much benefit as those running DDR3 ram (I'm still running DDR2 btw). Win8 is also firing up much faster than previous winX due to the fact that it goes straight into the full screen start menu and does not load up the desktop until you click the menu to go there.

Usability wise however if you do not have a touch sceen it is very difficult to navigate. The traditional "x" button in the top right corner of the screen has gone from most pre-loaded apps and as yet I have not found how to close any of those apps without using alt+f4. Something, i'm guessing the average user may not know.

The menu can become very cumbersome if you have a lot of applications installed, and personally I can't be bothered in taking the time to go through 100+ folders, deciding which icons I want by adding and removing them via pinning them to the start menu. Under such circumstances you might find yourself using the desktop "bing" search function. Personally I don't like it as it turns up too many "similar" results.

I also don't like how Microsoft have tried to introduce a new type of media library to replace windows media player. The new version is very focused on the xbox store and has little in the way of a library. Infact what really annoyed me was that I was unable to search network locations for media. Fortunatally the old wmp is still in there and I just pinned the icon to the start menu.

Games is a usless item in the start menu. why does it allow you to buy mostly xbox games? THIS IS NOT AN XBOX!!

Of course, any time a new operating system is released, much of the existing software out there is not compatible and as such you should always wait until at least sp1 is released and expect to be buying a new internet security suite and possibly other software.

Myself, I use my pc in a home theatre environment mostly playing games, but occasionally watching movies and listening to music. In such an environment the win8 shell is no good. TV's are not touch screen nor, do I want to get out of my chair and be putting finger prints all over my TV. (I wonder how it would work with one of the those new smart TV's that read your hand signals?).

I am using win8, however I have stripped it down and have replaced the default shell of "explorer.exe" with steam firing up in big picture mode. This works fine and I love the presentation of it (tho steam could improve their way of navigating large numbers of games a little). However this setup stops my anti-virus from running and makes it difficult to do anything else but play games. Going to task manager and firing up the exe of the programs I want is a bit of a pain, so I'm really hoping that Steam will introduce a video/music library into steam in the near future.

I have considered creating a batch file to run in the shell to fire up the anti-virus and then steam, however I have not experimented with this just yet. It may be that windows does not recognise a batch file as a valid shell.

It will be interesting to see the changes that MS implement into Win8.1 but I have not got my hopes up as I think the entire shell needs a redesign not a patch. Well that's my opinion anyway.

2011G6E · 01-06-2013, 01:28 AM

Apparently they stuffed up by misreading what the public wanted...they formulated Windows 8 to work fine on a touch screen tablet with a 10 to 12" screen, but the public has been moving towards cheaper tablets with 7 to 9" screens, and the interface is harder to use on a smaller screen...that's what the free upgrade "Windows 8.1" is going to address as part of it's changes.

**Burnout** · 01-06-2013, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

True historically. All the linux distros were really server OS and lacked desktop niceties. I haven't run it but Ubuntu is supposed to be pretty good. OSX is the answer for them anyway, BSD with a nice GUI.

True, ran Linux years ago on a test box - too much stuffing around for a busy life.
I chose Ubuntu 13.4 after test bedding it against Mint on an old lap top I use to test stuff. plenty of stuff you can use grattis & some which costs very small $, I've yet to see anything that costs more than $18 - $20, most less than $5-$10.

grandpa_spec_F6 · 01-06-2013, 02:18 PM

One thing I will say for the Win 8 tablets is that they are a billion times easier to manager from an infrastructure and security point of view than iPads... consumer targeted devices are a pain in my backside as is BYOD.

FAT245 · 01-06-2013, 02:38 PM

we do not allow any iPads / iPhones on our customers infrastructure.
There is blanket Mac address ban which one of the other engineers worked out,
Only apple products which are allowed are the Desktops and laptops.

This being said, i don't deal much with the desktop users,
I mainly focus on the physical and virtual infrastructure, but there are some small niggly bugs that have to be worked out with the network design to allow apple machines to correctly work on a multi vlan network with authentication based switching.

cobramania · 01-06-2013, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

What are these restrictions? I've owned apple computers for a fair while and have never come across any restrictions on what software I can run on my machine.

Matter of fact Apple give you free of charge the complete SDK that enables you to make whatever software you want on your Apple machine. I can run unix (X11) apps natively, I can run VNC or even remote desktop if I want to interact with Windows or *nix servers. I can connect to any Apple machine in my house seamlessly. I can rip DVDs, I can manage any music or video library in my house. I can stream music. I VPN into work.

If I need software I can download and run it free.

I want for nothing that Windows can do. I use my machine for work ( as a IT professional) and home use. The company I work for happily support a user base on Windows, OSx, SunOS, linux. No problems there from a compatibility perspective.

I will not claim that you cannot get a virus on OSX but I have never had one on any of my machines in the last 7 years. I don't run any anti virus. I have never had to rebuild my machines due to poor performance. When I have upgraded my machines for major releases I go and buy it for about $40 and do the upgrade. No wipe and fresh install. Cheap as chips too.

I seriously do not understand where people come up with these "restrictions" for 99% of the people out there they would not exist.

The only thing they are not great for is gaming. I could care less about that.

I should add that this thread is about metrosexuals of whatever you call the Windows UI now. Sorry, carry on....

I'm not an IT Professional, but totally agree with every comment you've made.
I'd say most people who make comments about Apple OSX/Macs & restrictions, have never used one.

I was a quite experienced Windows user before I jumped ship, & despite OSX being totally different to a Windows experience, I'd picked it up & was confidently using OSX on a MAC within 24 hours.

If you're in the music, graphical arts business (design, sign-writing, photography, etc), then you'll find it's Windows machines have all the restrictions OSX blows Windows away then.

I haven't had any issue with my latest MAC in the last 2 years of owning it, yet I'm at my parents house every second week, fixing something not working right on their Windows 7 PC or Laptop.

Microsoft is chasing Apple OSX, iOS & Android, with Windows 8.

sgt_doofey · 02-06-2013, 09:11 AM

Just remember that OSX is just a pretty UI running on top of a Unix kernel

Linux distros are fine for running on a desktop. I was exclusively running Ubuntu on my laptop but finally had to relent to the wife's demands of wanting Windows back as that's what she was used to. I still run Ubuntu on my media PC which is an old Pentium 4 3Ghz. Runs fine for what it's job is.

The laptop now runs Windows 8. I probably won't swap to the new desktop as a default as you might as well get used to what's coming in from MS.
The laptop is a few years old now running an Intel Core Duo II 2.4Ghz processor and the boot times for Windows 8 on this is quite impressive. It's pretty quick to load up. Looks like MS did a lot of work in that regard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cobramania

yet I'm at my parents house every second week, fixing something not working right on their Windows 7 PC or Laptop

You must be doing it wrong then as I never really have any issues with my MS installs from XP to Vista and now Windows 8. That is, until they slow down so much that you need to do a format and reinstall

**cs123** · 02-06-2013, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Just remember that OSX is just a pretty UI running on top of a Unix kernel

And that's one of the reasons I love it.....rock solid

satria · 02-06-2013, 07:47 PM

Why is everyone whinging about the UI? It is essentially just the "start menu". Click the bottom left corner of the screen and you have your old-school style desktop which works just like the old one, only quicker!

Windows 8 gets the thumbs up from me.

BPXR6T · 02-06-2013, 11:35 PM

I work with windows server 2012 every day, same thing. Can't say I love or hate the new ui. Once you know the keyboard short cuts its easy to use. Can't think of a single new feature that I particularly like though. There are some definite bugs though that kill the ui altogether when adding new features. Anyone else working with server products noticing Microsoft quality is getting pretty ordinary. E.g. BizTalk server 2013 goes RTM then about a month later comes an update with a heap of really obvious bug fixes. The beta was evil.

FAT245 · 03-06-2013, 12:42 AM

their new update plans for Exchange 2013 can be a pain a as well.

zilo · 05-06-2013, 08:47 PM

I like windows cause most sw is free.

Apple you just pay and pay.

**cs123** · 05-06-2013, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilo

I like windows cause most sw is free.

Apple you just pay and pay.

Can you give some examples of Sw that is free on Windows but costs money on OSX

BPXR6T · 05-06-2013, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

Can you give some examples of Sw that is free on Windows but costs money on OSX

VMware fusion vs VMware player...

**cs123** · 06-06-2013, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPXR6T

VMware fusion vs VMware player...

Virtualbox is free for OSX.

zilo · 06-06-2013, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

Can you give some examples of Sw that is free on Windows but costs money on OSX

Autocad

**cs123** · 06-06-2013, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilo

Autocad

When did Autocad become free?

zilo · 06-06-2013, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

When did Autocad become free?

Free for me....I just download the torrent.

(and anything else that takes my fancy)

Try doing that with your Mac?

**cs123** · 06-06-2013, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilo

Free for me....I just download the torrent.

(and anything else that takes my fancy)

Try doing that with your Mac?

ok, so just to be clear. Autocad is available for both the Mac and Windows but you choose to steal it so it's free for you. What a winner.