Windows8....awful or is it me?

[Fresia]

Hi folks- Just Fresia here asking if anyone can give me some input about Windows8. What happened was this- I unplugged my computer to clean behind it and when I reconnected it it wouldn't work. I mean literally nothing appeared on the screen except the HP logo. I was unable to reboot or restore to a date when the computer did work. I bought a Windows8 and installed it. The computer works but it has a lot of quirks now. By quirks I mean the whole look is different and hard to navigate as well as lacking some basic functions. For example, there are no buttons or tabs to close out pages. I find myself going back to the Start in the lower left corner in order to close out the current page. I have no tab or dropdown list for favorites. I don't know how to put the computer to sleep as there is no option anywhere. Plus, I've lost everything that I had in my files. No photos. No documents. When I typed in the information for my banking online website (www.blahblahbank.com (http://www.blahblahbank.com)) the website came up and all my info was saved and ditto for this website. Can I retrieve all my photos and documents? Can I uninstall this awful version of windows and go back to Windows7? Is there anything I can do? (Even as I type this the computer will not allow me to make paragraphs! This has never been a problem before.) Thanks for any help. Fresia

[betterbimorning]

awful!

[elian]

Windows 8 is terrible IMO. It's like someone said, "Gee this windows phone thingy really isn't selling, don't want to waste all the R&D money - let's do something else with it" and so they made a desktop OS out of Windows Phone. What they aren't telling you is that MS intended many PC vendors to make and sell "touchscreen PC's" to go along with WIndows 8 but few vendors took them up on the offer because no one wants to buy an $800-$1000 all in one touch screen desktop PC.

So some apps work in "Metro" and some work on the classic desktop, and the thing seems somewhat schizophrenic because the two interfaces look drastically different. I thought Windows 8 would work well for my grandparents because the interface looked so simple, but metro only confuses them, and it REALLY confuses them when the interface switches back and forth between metro and classic automatically.

Not only that but my grandfather watches the Finnish news, which is streamed with silverlight - but the silverlight plug-in for IE only works in desktop mode, not metro mode..so I had to give him special instructions for that. The Email client is dead simple, but it also doesn't render HTML pages properly. You would think that in 25 years MS would know how to write an Email client by now. In most screens since the menu bar is gone you end up bumping the mouse cursor randomly up against the sides of the screen and doing a lot of right and left clicking just to see if any magical icons will fall out of the sides of the screen and allow you to do what used to take about 5 seconds..

Unfortunately it seems like every other version of Windows that Microsoft releases is sort of like a beta test version - a lot of features are half baked and then become somewhat solid in the next release. I don't know if there is an easy way to "downgrade" back to Windows 7 or not..

[12voltman59]

I am still running a computer with Windows 7--but the word is that Windows 8 is so bad---it might actually be hastening the death knell of the PC world as we have known it--I know that for a number of reasons--when I finally get myself a new computer here very soon--I am finally making the switch over to Apple----getting myself a Mac Mini with a quad core chip and the ability to handle the task of doing HD video editing and other similar operations.

I know that it will take some adjustment to make the switch to Apple--but I think its finally time and well worth doing.

[Mr. Suck]

I am still running a computer with Windows 7--but the word is that Windows 8 is so bad---it might actually be hastening the death knell of the PC world as we have known it--I know that for a number of reasons--when I finally get myself a new computer here very soon--I am finally making the switch over to Apple----getting myself a Mac Mini with a quad core chip and the ability to handle the task of doing HD video editing and other similar operations. I know that it will take some adjustment to make the switch to Apple--but I think its finally time and well worth doing. Don't get a mac they are not good computers and if you want to do video editing you can easily do that on a non-mac computer. I'm surprised Macs are still around since the software sucks, they are way overpriced, they're made with slave labor in China, and you can do much more on a non-mac computer, and a lot of software is not even coded or written for macs at all. Just have them install windows 7 on the next computer you get or just wait until a non-touch screen version of windows comes out that's not windows 8. I knew for a long time that windows 8 would be better for a touch screen phone than a computer so I made sure to buy a laptop that had windows 7 on it and I never will upgrade to windows 8. No windows 8 is not going to do anything to hasten the death of the PC world as we have known it.

[jem_is_bi]

Microsoft has created a few versions of Windows that should have been sent directly to the recycle bin.
I use Windows 7 and that works relatively well after some customization by me (task bar at the bottom does not pop-up in my way & i see file details not icons).
It boots fast and hibernates so I can resume work easy. I do calculations that take a quad-core many hours and sometimes days and can not complain because it does them fast.
Windows 8? I am waiting for the replacement of that cell phone/tablet operating system.

[OverNeath]

After the clusterfuck that was Vista, I rid myself of Microsoft as much as I could. I went to Apple and never looked back. I do however have to use MS at work,but, as we phase older computers out,they will be replaced with Apple computers. Microsoft is de devil!

[void()]

Windows 8 is terrible IMO. It's like someone said, "Gee this windows phone thingy really isn't selling, don't want to waste all the R&D money - let's do something else with it" and so they made a desktop OS out of Windows Phone. What they aren't telling you is that MS intended many PC vendors to make and sell "touchscreen PC's" to go along with WIndows 8 but few vendors took them up on the offer because no one wants to buy an $800-$1000 all in one touch screen desktop PC.

So some apps work in "Metro" and some work on the classic desktop, and the thing seems somewhat schizophrenic because the two interfaces look drastically different. I thought Windows 8 would work well for my grandparents because the interface looked so simple, but metro only confuses them, and it REALLY confuses them when the interface switches back and forth between metro and classic automatically.

Not only that but my grandfather watches the Finnish news, which is streamed with silverlight - but the silverlight plug-in for IE only works in desktop mode, not metro mode..so I had to give him special instructions for that. The Email client is dead simple, but it also doesn't render HTML pages properly. You would think that in 25 years MS would know how to write an Email client by now. In most screens since the menu bar is gone you end up bumping the mouse cursor randomly up against the sides of the screen and doing a lot of right and left clicking just to see if any magical icons will fall out of the sides of the screen and allow you to do what used to take about 5 seconds..

Unfortunately it seems like every other version of Windows that Microsoft releases is sort of like a beta test version - a lot of features are half baked and then become somewhat solid in the next release. I don't know if there is an easy way to "downgrade" back to Windows 7 or not..

From what little advertising of Windows 8, your description here, it seems Windows 8 is following suit of Ubuntu's Unity interface and Gnome 3. I strongly dislike both interfaces, Unity & Gnome 3. I use Debian Squeeze with a few back ports of some applications. I use XFCE 4+, KDE 4+, Lxde, Icewm, *box(Fluxbox, Blackbox, Hackbox, OpenBox) interfaces, as well as the console and terminal at times. I am glad to have many office type of programs freely available.

Open Office, Libre Office are nice but rather robust at times. Abiword often suffices to write up rich text files, pdf, TeX, Doc files(compatible with Microsoft Office). There are also many address book type of programs and calendar or scheduling applications. I like Osomo, which combines a calendar, task list, address book and notes in one simple application. Kde's Kontact is okay but I'm often a bit intimidated by Desktop Environment built in applications. It is clear I may need to use another environment at times, or switch out wholly. Being tied to one system then, seems untenable.

I've used Microsoft Windows perhaps twice in the past decade. You hooked me on Ubuntu, C, hooked me on Debian and both at around the same time. I'm sure I could use Lubuntu, or other variants than Gnome 3 or Unity. It seems though Ubuntu's parenting company has ideas toward forging into smart phones more. I can understand that to a degree. It does not mean though you forget the desktop user base, which is what Ubuntu seems to be doing. Don't like the direction one distribution of Linux is going, try another. :)

Debian stable is sluggish in newer software. But that is outweighed by it being rock solid. As far as Windows 8, sorry I'm not bothered to go back to Microsoft software any time soon. There are too many issues, interface and beyond that make using Microsoft unsuitable for me. It's the same with my reasons for going vegan, many and sound reasons. I'll stay with Linux for the same.

[Fresia]

Thanx for replying to my thread. Most of the replies are too technical for me to understand.
What I do understand is Windows8 is not popular. Now I know it's not just me.
DirkDiggler, is there any insight you have as to why my computer crashed to begin with?

[Annika L]

I can't believe people still do this. I mean, ok, if you just bought a new computer and it had Windows8 on it, I can pity you.

But if you were running Windows7, I gotta ask...just what about Windows7 did you dislike so much that you decided you needed a new operating system?

Microsoft has a longstanding pattern of introducing buggy OS's, then refining them through several iterations before stabilizing in something decent...and then starting over with a new piece of crap. The original 1.0 was kindasorta ok. But each version that came out got a little worse until about 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups), which seemed perfectly fine...like they finally figured out how to do the whole Windows thing that Apple had introduced years before. Then Windows95 hit the scene, and *everyone* gobbled it up for whatever reason...and nearly vomited. Then they tried several things that didn't quite work until they finally hit on 98, which was ok. Then 2000 and Millennium, which by all accounts sucked again, before hitting on XP, which was awesome by comparison to all previous versions. Could they stop there and just improve on what they finally had? *cough Vista* Nightmare...so bad they offered to switch people back to XP, for Pete's sake. How worse a failure can you have in the OS industry? So when Windows7 came out, and I heard good things about it, I resolved 2 things: (1) wait at least 2 years before believing it; and (2) NOT buy whatever piece of garbage came out next.

Annika's prediction: the next version of Windows released will also suck, but the one after that might well be ok.
Annika's advice: Get on the ok wave, and keep riding it...don't buy something new just because it's new; buy something new because you've heard from reputable sources that it's an improvement, and you need a new computer (don't install a new OS on an old computer, if the old OS works fine).

That was Annika's :2cents::tongue:

[jem_is_bi]

From what little advertising of Windows 8, your description here, it seems Windows 8 is following suit of Ubuntu's Unity interface and Gnome 3. I strongly dislike both interfaces, Unity & Gnome 3. I use Debian Squeeze with a few back ports of some applications. I use XFCE 4+, KDE 4+, Lxde, Icewm, *box(Fluxbox, Blackbox, Hackbox, OpenBox) interfaces, as well as the console and terminal at times. I am glad to have many office type of programs freely available.

Open Office, Libre Office are nice but rather robust at times. Abiword often suffices to write up rich text files, pdf, TeX, Doc files(compatible with Microsoft Office). There are also many address book type of programs and calendar or scheduling applications. I like Osomo, which combines a calendar, task list, address book and notes in one simple application. Kde's Kontact is okay but I'm often a bit intimidated by Desktop Environment built in applications. It is clear I may need to use another environment at times, or switch out wholly. Being tied to one system then, seems untenable.

I've used Microsoft Windows perhaps twice in the past decade. You hooked me on Ubuntu, C, hooked me on Debian and both at around the same time. I'm sure I could use Lubuntu, or other variants than Gnome 3 or Unity. It seems though Ubuntu's parenting company has ideas toward forging into smart phones more. I can understand that to a degree. It does not mean though you forget the desktop user base, which is what Ubuntu seems to be doing. Don't like the direction one distribution of Linux is going, try another. :)

Debian stable is sluggish in newer software. But that is outweighed by it being rock solid. As far as Windows 8, sorry I'm not bothered to go back to Microsoft software any time soon. There are too many issues, interface and beyond that make using Microsoft unsuitable for me. It's the same with my reasons for going vegan, many and sound reasons. I'll stay with Linux for the same.

Humm. Are you sure that is a workable solution or just a lot of work?

[bradf52]

At this point Win 8 is more for the mobile devices. I beta tested it, it sucked then and it sucks worse now! I would suggest going to Win 7 or a flavor of Linux. Only problem with Linux though not all software will run on it,unless you can find a Linux alternative! There are also a lot of different flavors/versions out there. The best one I think is Ubuntu! I probably just started something! Oh that's right this is a Bisexual forum!!!!!:yikes2: :bigrin:

[itsnormy]

Perhaps one of the functions of Bisexual.com is to facilitate in getting fucked....and Windows 8 fits in that Windows has done it again....

[void()]

Humm. Are you sure that is a workable solution or just a lot of work?

It's quite a workable solution. You can type Alternate To into any search engine and find Linux alternates to most Windows software.
Setting up most basic Linux systems can now be done graphically and take roughly only a half hour. Most everything 'just works', too. Granted I use a variety of software, others may not. Linux is not difficult to learn to use either.

[Mr. Suck]

There are bigger issues here than Windows 8. The fact that your HP computer basically took a dump explains much of the issues you're having. I agree the original poster should get her computer checked out or call tech support.