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Normally I wouldn't waste the time it takes to write a review but I feel compelled to inform anyone thinking of spending good money on Windows 8.
A friend was stupid enough to spend money on this, since he had never done an install of an operating system he asked me if I could help him, I was happy to help. The install was a clean install on a separate drive, it was fairly easy then we hit a snag. This OS wants you to sign up for a microsoft account so it can save all your settings somewhere in cyberspace so you can use the same setting and personal info between your microsoft devices (Tablet, Smartphone, other W8 CPU's), there is an option to continue without a microsoft account which we opted for the time being. Install continued and we had no problems with any of his hardware, was a dual core AMD system 8gb ram Nvidia GTX 460 video card and windows 8 ran fine on his system.
Once the install was complete and it booted for the first time we were impressed with the look of the new system. The second we started to use it that is where the excitement ended as we soon found out that almost everything changed from the traditional windows. Navigating the new OS is a nightmare, you are constantly moving your mouse to the upper or lower right side of the screen wait for the side menu then clicking on start to get back to the metro desktop to open something else. Everything opens full screen and trying to run 2 apps side by side is a pain in the ass, you have to drag a bar to switch between the two apps (one app occupies 3/4 of the screen while the second app occupies 1/4 of the screen) and there is no resizing the app window. There is nothing that shows you what apps are open on the metro desktop unless you move the mouse over to the left somewhere and if you get the right spot a side menu will come up showing you what apps are open.
Installing apps was fun because all the stuff apps use to put in nice neat folders is now splattered across the metro desktop so if you install lets say adobe creation suite which installs a lot of icons you will find all of them on your desktop then you get to spend the next 20 minutes trying to find a place to put them or delete them forever. Since all apps open full screen try playing your favorite game in windowed mode, some really weird shit started to happen and we got our first blue screen of death (atleast they changed it with a nice little message and some 12year old cell phone jargon : ( BTW that is what is on the BSOD : ( So after the reboot we opened internet explorer for the first time. Holy shit, now everything is at the bottom of the screen and you have very very limited options on what you can do (forward, back, type in a URL) had to move the mouse somewhere to find the favorites and we never figured out how to change them.
We decided to change the wallpaper, he wanted the family photo for the background. Forget it, it ain't happening sort of. You now have two desktops to conduct business from. The new metro desktop or the traditional desktop which is accessed from a tile on the metro desktop. You can change the background for the traditional desktop but not for the metro desktop. For metro your stuck with some funky looking microsoft crap. Another nice feature (sarcasm) is the nice pretty tiles on the desktop, to use most of them you have to sign up for a microsoft account. calendar, photos, videos, mail, thats right the mail tile will not let you use anything except a microsft account.
Sorry if it seemed random, I just dumped a wasted day of my life onto the screen and haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what a nightmare windows 8 is, that was just the highlights. In the end Windows 8 got deleted and my buddy was thoroughly pissed off. He wanted to return it and get a refund but I told him once you open it you own it, can't return it. So he said he would sell it well when I told him good luck since who ever buys it will have to re activate it which means they have to not only purchase it from you but purchase it from microsoft to get it activated he lost it. Well DVD's make pretty lights for a few seconds when you nuke them in a microwave.
Microsoft designed this hunk of shit to work on a tablet which it may do fine but if you spent thousands building a hardcore gaming machine, a techie that likes to tinker with the looks of an OS, or your just an average user that doesn't want to completely relearn how to perform basic task on your PC then windows 8 is not for you. Windows 8 is a new animal and it completely removes the power of the traditional windows desktop, it would be easier to learn a Linux distribution like Opensuse, Fedora, or Ubuntu than learning windows 8 and thats saying something.
A friend was stupid enough to spend money on this, since he had never done an install of an operating system he asked me if I could help him, I was happy to help. The install was a clean install on a separate drive, it was fairly easy then we hit a snag. This OS wants you to sign up for a microsoft account so it can save all your settings somewhere in cyberspace so you can use the same setting and personal info between your microsoft devices (Tablet, Smartphone, other W8 CPU's), there is an option to continue without a microsoft account which we opted for the time being. Install continued and we had no problems with any of his hardware, was a dual core AMD system 8gb ram Nvidia GTX 460 video card and windows 8 ran fine on his system.
Once the install was complete and it booted for the first time we were impressed with the look of the new system. The second we started to use it that is where the excitement ended as we soon found out that almost everything changed from the traditional windows. Navigating the new OS is a nightmare, you are constantly moving your mouse to the upper or lower right side of the screen wait for the side menu then clicking on start to get back to the metro desktop to open something else. Everything opens full screen and trying to run 2 apps side by side is a pain in the ass, you have to drag a bar to switch between the two apps (one app occupies 3/4 of the screen while the second app occupies 1/4 of the screen) and there is no resizing the app window. There is nothing that shows you what apps are open on the metro desktop unless you move the mouse over to the left somewhere and if you get the right spot a side menu will come up showing you what apps are open.
Installing apps was fun because all the stuff apps use to put in nice neat folders is now splattered across the metro desktop so if you install lets say adobe creation suite which installs a lot of icons you will find all of them on your desktop then you get to spend the next 20 minutes trying to find a place to put them or delete them forever. Since all apps open full screen try playing your favorite game in windowed mode, some really weird shit started to happen and we got our first blue screen of death (atleast they changed it with a nice little message and some 12year old cell phone jargon : ( BTW that is what is on the BSOD : ( So after the reboot we opened internet explorer for the first time. Holy shit, now everything is at the bottom of the screen and you have very very limited options on what you can do (forward, back, type in a URL) had to move the mouse somewhere to find the favorites and we never figured out how to change them.
We decided to change the wallpaper, he wanted the family photo for the background. Forget it, it ain't happening sort of. You now have two desktops to conduct business from. The new metro desktop or the traditional desktop which is accessed from a tile on the metro desktop. You can change the background for the traditional desktop but not for the metro desktop. For metro your stuck with some funky looking microsoft crap. Another nice feature (sarcasm) is the nice pretty tiles on the desktop, to use most of them you have to sign up for a microsoft account. calendar, photos, videos, mail, thats right the mail tile will not let you use anything except a microsft account.
Sorry if it seemed random, I just dumped a wasted day of my life onto the screen and haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what a nightmare windows 8 is, that was just the highlights. In the end Windows 8 got deleted and my buddy was thoroughly pissed off. He wanted to return it and get a refund but I told him once you open it you own it, can't return it. So he said he would sell it well when I told him good luck since who ever buys it will have to re activate it which means they have to not only purchase it from you but purchase it from microsoft to get it activated he lost it. Well DVD's make pretty lights for a few seconds when you nuke them in a microwave.
Microsoft designed this hunk of shit to work on a tablet which it may do fine but if you spent thousands building a hardcore gaming machine, a techie that likes to tinker with the looks of an OS, or your just an average user that doesn't want to completely relearn how to perform basic task on your PC then windows 8 is not for you. Windows 8 is a new animal and it completely removes the power of the traditional windows desktop, it would be easier to learn a Linux distribution like Opensuse, Fedora, or Ubuntu than learning windows 8 and thats saying something.
