Anyone here using windows 8 that acutally likes it?

I played around with one today, was NOT impressed. felt to much like an apple product. When the time comes for me to buy a new computer, i'll instantly downgrade it back to 7.

windows seems to leap frog with OS's.
me-bad
xp- good
vista-bad
7-good
8-bad

I do.

Like it? Nope,
Loving it... Big YES
Best windows yet, by far

And pairing my Android with it for endless possibilities couldn't be easier...definitely nothing like apple.

I'm using it part time - I'm not hating it. It certainly performs, being built to run well on tablets and whatnot.

It's slowly growing on me, once the initial learning curves and teething issues are dealt with.

And I agree - it's nothing like Apple - but which is "better" is very subjective.

They have the same end goal, with two very different approaches.

Apple are trying to tie your digital like together with iCloud. You have discrete devices that all share information via the Internet. The end result is all data on all devices all the time.

Microsoft are shooting for the same experience, but on LITERALLY the same device. You have your tablet that you take with you, then get home and dock it and it serves as your home PC too. The end result (all your data all the time) but the methods very different.

Which one works for you? That's the one you should buy.

As for the OP thinking it feels like an Apple product - I'm not sure which Apple products he's been using recently!

(Full disclosure, I own a Win7 desktop, MacBook dual booting MacOS and Win8, iPad, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, iPhone and Galaxy Tab 7. I am not in any way biased to one platform, I acknowledge the pros and cons of each!)

Well, it appears you're alone in this one Frigid.

Desktop user here. Waiting for Windows 9.

Like it on the Tablet.
Hate it on the Desktop PC.

I tried Windows Eight for four days in January 2013.

Got it home, and immediately applied a few tweaks:

1) Restored classic Desktop
2) Restored classic Explorer (GUI and shell)

Faster and smoother than Windows 7, if possible, and with the GUI and Desktop tweaks, simply flies.

The "Make Windows 8 Bearable" Must Do Tweaks

1) Classic Shell <--link

Cost: Free (really, truly...no adware, no spyware...the good stuff!)

2) This is a placeholder...I can't remember the second program I used but will edit/replace this once I remember

I still like Windows XP because I feel like I have more granular control...like the computer does not try to outsmart or outthink me and do ten million things in the background. I feel like it does what I want only when I want it to.

However, I truly enjoyed playing with Windows 8 with Classic Shell and the other program I cannot now recall installed.

bedazzLED said:

Like it on the Tablet.
Hate it on the Desktop PC.

Click to expand...

Spot on. I haven't used it on a "touch first" device, but on a regular desktop PC (well... in a virtual machine on a regular desktop PC) - it drove me crazy until I installed Classic Shell and enabled the Boot To Desktop function.

One small thing that annoyed me about it was discovering that in the Desktop - the user can no longer customize the fonts the OS uses - you can't even adjust the SIZE of a particular sort of UI text by itself; you can only increase or decrease the display size of all text everywhere. I have certain fonts I find particularly readable and/or pleasing to my eye that I prefer to use - and can't, under Win8. (I even tried copying over the relevant control panel from Win7 - but that doesn't work.)

I found it appalling how many control elements in "Metro" or whatever MS calls it now that were not clearly explained or documented; I had to go online and search for how to close a Metro application. (Grab the top of the screen and drag down until the screen minimizes, indicating you're about to "throw it away".) Would it have killed them to provide "training wheels" - a mode that shows those items ghosted that the user can turn off once they've gotten the hang of it?

So on anything that isn't touch-first, I'm with Frijid; not having tried it on a touch device, I can't say whether or not I would like interacting with it in that way.

I use it with Start8 to restore the desktop ($5). Overall okay with it but don't like all the software incompatibilities.

got a laptop with win8, can't complain in general, there is a small bug, when on this site, typing posts, can't use enter key to move cursor on next line, none of the keys moves cursor to the next line, neither does the mouse. other sites no problems.

I love it, whole family wanted to upgrade which I have done now. The major drag is our HP P1006 printer still won't work with it and I am losing hope that HP will ever release a driver, but otherwise I think it's awesome. Startup is super fast, love playing Wordament and some other games that came with it, find the start menu (screen) a lot nicer than the old way. I use W7 at work and it's ok but I adore W8.

I am just now getting use to XP, why would I want to change

I can't stand Windows 8. It's like they took Windows 7, replaced the Start menu with a tablet operating system, and tweaked the regular OS so it's less friendly to people who use a keyboard and mouse. They completely forgot that a computer with a large, high-res monitor (or two) and a keyboard and mouse doesn't work very well with software designed for a handheld device with a touchscreen. All the UI touches developed over the last 25 years of computer use are out the window for no good reason. Windows 8 should be an installable option for people who need it.

It's not just Microsoft that's guilty of this. Starting a couple years ago, companies making software for desktop computers saw how popular tablets were getting and decided to model their UIs after them. And websites are going along with this and starting to resembled the Japanese web (a majority of people over there use cell phones for their internet access) more and more, which isn't a good thing.

You should try using Windows Server 2012! I thought the server software might be safe from this interface, but NO, you have to fight with the touch oriented interface on a server. AARRGH!

As for the desktop version, it grates, but then again so did Vista and I love Windows 7 which is really a grown up Vista. At this point I'm not sure if I just need to adjust and get used to it, or if I want Windows 9 to come out.

First impressions on non-touch device are very poor and requires a lot of re-learning how to get to things. If you have a 'Surface' and only browse the internet it is probably great.

It should have a big warning sticker saying 'NOT FOR BUSINESS USE'.

bought new laptop for friend was forced to buy 8, played with it for 8 hours, 5 of which was making it so that stupid metro screen never rears its face again,

classic shell and a couple other tweaks pretty much make it run like 7, she didn't even know it was 8 till i showed her the metro screen which i hid

great for tablets absolutely horrible for power users

even looked on toshiba's site there is no win 7 drivers, thus no down grade

Arm and Leg said:

Well, it appears you're alone in this one Frigid.

Click to expand...

His topic asked for people who liked it, not people who think it's the least intuitive OS short of a command line interface, which completely fails to improve upon windows 7 as a desktop operating system gui.

My Computer Guy wanted me to upgrade, says he loves 8, but as I said I just now got comfortable with the old stuff. When one gets old we don't want change... I purchased a small notebook to play around with and it has 7 and I get so mad at it sometimes.

Windows 8 is passable with the addition of the Start8 program by StarDock. They also make a program that allows Windows 8 Apps to run in windows instead of full-screen. But while those workarounds are good, the simple fact is, Microsoft shouldn't have thrown away the user interface that made their product so successful in the first place. All those pretty colored tiles on the Windows 8 Start Panel are very pretty, but they also waste a ton of space and reduce the usability of the product.

LittleBill said:

even looked on toshiba's site there is no win 7 drivers, thus no down grade

Click to expand...

i'll just buy a disk of 7 and start from scratch, no way will ANYONE see me using an 8. i looked around the stores here and some stores here are still selling laptops and desktops with 7