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Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

zdnet.com

31–40 of 53 posts

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#31
post #9

Says a group of people, 20% of which, are on a 12 year old operating system. Is the problem that Windows 8 sucks or that these users are extremely adverse to change?

Are you trying to say this is not representative of Windows users?

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#32
post #18

I have been using Win8 as a main OS for the past 4 months. I can't seem to find anything I need that was there in Win7 and missing in the new version. I love the new keyboard shortcuts (esp. Win+X, A). Metro is by no means a requirement - the old desktop is still there and all programs (even games) run the same. I guess it's just easier to bash MS than to really see that Win8 is not just Metro/Modern, at least on the…

How do you open an application quickly? For instance, in windows 7 I click start, start typing the name of the app I want, press return, and it opens. I thought the start menu in Windows 8 loaded the Metro UI. How do I use that to launch my app quickly?

All the time it takes for the full screen metro UI to animate into and out of view, is time I could be searching for something.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#33

My take on Windows 8 is simple, as a desktop OS - you can't take core features and remove them without a viable alternative. My biggest beef is the removal of the start menu and the search bar on it - I could do/find anything from there. My other beef is that the Metro UI gives you all these "fullscreen" applications, but no way to window them. Windows provided me with a train of thought, but when you make everything…

>> "My biggest beef is the removal of the start menu and the search bar on it - I could do/find anything from there" This is still there is a different form. WIN+F brings up the search interface in Metro (even from the desktop). Also, you can kind of window with the snap mode (grab a metro window at the top of the screen and drag it to the side. Not ideal obviously though.

Just so you know, Win+F is file search. Win+Q is app search. Win+W is settings search. I don't really understand how these particular keys were chosen, but that's what they are.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#34
I installed Windows 8 last week. After hearing all the noise, I was excited to try something so radical. I ended up a little bit disappointed that things were so similar to Windows 7. But it sounds like there are lots of ways to do things. (10 years ago, that was my primary complaint about Windows.)

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#35
post #32
post #18

I have been using Win8 as a main OS for the past 4 months. I can't seem to find anything I need that was there in Win7 and missing in the new version. I love the new keyboard shortcuts (esp. Win+X, A). Metro is by no means a requirement - the old desktop is still there and all programs (even games) run the same. I guess it's just easier to bash MS than to really see that Win8 is not just Metro/Modern, at least on the…

How do you open an application quickly? For instance, in windows 7 I click start, start typing the name of the app I want, press return, and it opens. I thought the start menu in Windows 8 loaded the Metro UI. How do I use that to launch my app quickly? All the time it takes for the full screen metro UI to animate into and out of view, is time I could be searching for something.

1. Click start

2. Start typing the name of the app you want

3. Press return

4. It opens

Same exact flow as Windows 7. Typing while on the Start Screen will perform an app search.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#36
post #32
post #18

I have been using Win8 as a main OS for the past 4 months. I can't seem to find anything I need that was there in Win7 and missing in the new version. I love the new keyboard shortcuts (esp. Win+X, A). Metro is by no means a requirement - the old desktop is still there and all programs (even games) run the same. I guess it's just easier to bash MS than to really see that Win8 is not just Metro/Modern, at least on the…

How do you open an application quickly? For instance, in windows 7 I click start, start typing the name of the app I want, press return, and it opens. I thought the start menu in Windows 8 loaded the Metro UI. How do I use that to launch my app quickly? All the time it takes for the full screen metro UI to animate into and out of view, is time I could be searching for something.

You can do the same thing - pressing the Start key does bring up the Metro UI, but if you just start typing there it does the same sort of search for apps/files/etc. that Windows 7 does.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#37
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 had the perfect balance. It made significant improvements in many areas that XP was insufficient at and Vista sucked at, while keeping the fundamentals the same. Windows 8 though... I haven't used it myself, but from what I'm hearing, it sounds like it's slated to be a bigger disaster than Vista.

I only had to read "I haven't used it myself" to understand why you have the sentiment you do. Try it. It's quite good and not all that different from Windows 7. Seriously.

Oh for sure. I'll try it when it comes out in October.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Windows XP and Windows 7. If you don't recall the abortion that was Windows ME, then you are lucky. Windows 98 was so clunky compared to Windows XP. All the little improvements and features were fantastic. Then came Vista and that was another train wreck. But Windows 7 was a dream. It magically found drivers, everything "just worked."

I think you can gauge the success of future OS by the enthusiasts (early adopter) reaction. Windows XP and Windows 7 had lots of love pre-release. The Windows 8 reception is mixed (as was that for Vista). Some people are going to love it. I am using it on two machines (a dekstop and an HTPC). Here's they point though. I _won't_ be installing it on the computers of family/friends (I'm the family tech support). Watchin…

I'm not sure early adopters are the easiest people to please... thinking of "antennagate" from iphone4 and now "scuffgate" from iphone5 I would say early adopters (who I suppose are generally experts - or at least technology-orientated) are more likely to pick up and report on things that

a) get viewership (i.e. complaining) and b) are so subtle the eventual mainstream user wouldn't even notice without it being pointed out to them.

I don't have any hard science to back my claim either way ;-)

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#39

Has there ever been an OS release where (at first) people prefer the new one? Windows 7 might be the exception only because the previous incarnation was so awful. Ubuntu with Unity? we want the old desktop! IOS6? we want IOS5 and our maps! OSX Mountain Lion? We want Lion! Change is always hard and almost never goes down well - this is not a new phenomenon and occurs naturally at the beginning of most major software v…

> Has there ever been an OS release where (at first) people prefer the new one?

Every Linux distro with the possible exception of Red Hat 7 (when they bumped up gcc version and broke some binaries) and the ones that replaced the Gnome 2 desktop with Unity and Gnome 3. Every MacOS version with the exception, perhaps, of 7.5 and 10.0.

Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

#40
post #9

Says a group of people, 20% of which, are on a 12 year old operating system. Is the problem that Windows 8 sucks or that these users are extremely adverse to change?

> Is the problem that Windows 8 sucks or that these users are extremely adverse to change?

Or both, perhaps.

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