New Laptop, trying to learn windoze 8

[kb2crk]

Well I finally broke down and got a new laptop. Now I am trying to make the adjustment from XP Pro to windoze 8. I have heard that smart phone users tend to like it but I am finding it to be a pain in my butt. I have got to get use to the lack of a start menu and using Tablet type selections. I dont like tablets and I dont have a smart phone so I am lost with this stuff. The computer flies compared to my old one. (Dell Latitude c-840). I got an Asus K55N with a 1.9ghz Quad Core AMD processor. A lot better than the old 2.4ghz P4.

[K7SGJ]

We had the same issues on my wifes Win8 LT. I put Classic Shell on it, and it acts like a Win 7 or if you want, I think you can have it emulate the XP start screen. Win 8 might be okay for a tablet, but for a non touch screen application it really sucks.

[kb2crk]

Classic shell? Is that one of the apps? I have a windows 7 desktop and have no problems with the way it works. I had Vista for a while and hated it. All of my old laptops (almost all) run XP Pro as it was the best they could run with

[K7SGJ]

Yes, it's a free app. Try Google, but I think it was classicshell.com, but not positive. You can toggle between the win7 and Win8 screens by using the Windows key on the lower left of the keyboard. There are several different shell programs around, but I found that one to work and it's a freebee, although I did cough up a few bucks since it made life so much easier for the XYL.



ETA The caps went out on Pony Express today. You should see them in a few days.

[kb2crk]

Thanks again Eddie. BTW those cap pics were done with an old Fuji s700....

[K7SGJ]

Thanks again Eddie. BTW those cap pics were done with an old Fuji s700....

I was jerking your chain thinking it was the Canon. How's it been working out for you guys?

[kb2crk]

She loves it. Been taking some great pictures with it. Picked up 2 more lenses for it and a macro spacer for some close ups.

[kb2crk]

Classic shell is installed and in XP mode... Woo Hoo

[K7SGJ]

Do you like it?

[kb2crk]

I like the start menu. I hate the menu that keeps popping in on the left when I try to move my cursor. But that is part of windoze 8

[K7SGJ]

Yeah, I think that has to do with the way you drag from the left side of the mouse pad. Try just keeping your finger away from that extreme side of the mouse pad. My wife has the hang of it now, but I sure as hell don't, and keep doing the same thing you are. Also, if you haven't made the discovery yet, to get to the shut down or control panel or settings options, drag the mouse to the far right side kinda of toward the top and it will appear along the right side. There may be other and/better shell programs out there, but this one works fine for the wife and I didn't want to make a career of trying all of them and potentially having so much crap on the machine that it would get FUBARed. I did try a couple of others, but this seemed to be the best, at least for her.

[kb2crk]

Working me for now. My wife also got a new laptop but she has the touch screen and loves 8 so far. but she also has a tablet and a smart phone so she is quite use to the look of the stuff

[kb2crk]

I need to stay away from that side of the mouse pad. It will drive me insane.

[K7SGJ]

I need to stay away from that side of the mouse pad. It will drive me insane.

Now you know why I am, the way I am, I am.

[kb2crk]

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n404/kb2crk/beeflying_zpsa3bb4696.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/user/kb2crk/media/beeflying_zpsa3bb4696.jpg.html)
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n404/kb2crk/beeinyard_zps1db244b1.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/user/kb2crk/media/beeinyard_zps1db244b1.jpg.html)
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n404/kb2crk/morebee_zpsc655ad3c.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/user/kb2crk/media/morebee_zpsc655ad3c.jpg.html)

Just a few Pics of bees in the yard. I dont know what the settings were on the camera but it was with the 5mm Macro extension and the ef 75-300mm lens.

[kb2crk]

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n404/kb2crk/lighthousebird_zps48dc14d1.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/user/kb2crk/media/lighthousebird_zps48dc14d1.jpg.html)

A bird flew in the way of the lighthouse. LOL

[K7SGJ]

Pretty cool. I like the bee pix.

I always had fun with that camera, and I'm glad it's working out okay for you, too..

[N1LAF]

Classic shell is installed and in XP mode... Woo Hoo

You like?

[KJ3N]

Windoze 8: Just Say No. :hand: :disagree:

[K7SGJ]

Windoze 8: Just Say No. :hand: :disagree:

While I agree whole heartedly, if your machine comes pre-loaded with 8, you may be taking a chance trying to dump it and load win7 or xp. The issue I have is if the drivers are downward compatible. I see a potential for a major FUBAR. I for damn sure would not upgrade any machine to win8 because it sucks, in my opinion.

[KJ3N]

While I agree whole heartedly, if your machine comes pre-loaded with 8, you may be taking a chance trying to dump it and load win7 or xp. The issue I have is if the drivers are downward compatable. I see a potential for a major FUBAR.

Since I build all of my desktops, this will not be a problem. A laptop will be a different story.

My current laptop has Win 7 on it and is about 3 years old. Looks like I'll be holding on to it for quite a while, given what a Cluster Fuck Win 8 seems to be.

[kb2crk]

My current desktop is running 7 and will continue to until I replace it. That may be 5 years from now.....LOL

[WN9HJW]

Deleted

[WØTKX]

I like the tiles on my Windows Phone, but I passed on the upgrade to 8 so far. Microsoft should concentrate more on what's under the hood. Too many people have become used the the current desktop "metaphors". Tablets and smartphones are different, so it makes more sense there.

Apple did not make this mistake. Tablets and smartphone "GUIs" are different animals. So far.

[kb2crk]

I like the tiles on my Windows Phone, but I passed on the upgrade to 8 so far. Microsoft should concentrate more on what's under the hood. Too many people have become used the the current desktop "metaphors". Tablets and smartphones are different, so it makes more sense there.

Apple did not make this mistake. Tablets and smartphone "GUIs" are different animals. So far.

As they should be.... I don't have a tablet or a smartphone and don't like using either. I like my old stuff.

[WØTKX]

Folks ran Wins 95 for a very long time after XP came out. Surprised that MicroSquish didn't learn something from that. When I tested the pre-release version of Win8 on my main shack computer, all of my hammy stuff ran fine. Older programs could be "walled off" better than in Win7, but it wasn't a true "sandbox". Seemed to manage memory issues a little better, but the tiles "got in the way" to the point I investigated getting two new monitors that did the touch screen thing. Too much money.

I decided not to bother for now. But the next laptop will probably be Win8 with a touch screen. Not sure I want to give up the keyboard.

Guessing this fall or so, we'll see some major price drops on the Slate tablets. I tried those, and like them, but not the "RT" versions. At this time they are too much money. The top of the line Win8 tablets are stunningly nice, but are right in there with the iPad prices. Yike$.

Acer has a new Win8 tablet that is more reasonable. Haven't tried it yet.

[koØm]

My first "PC" was a custom built job with a i486DX-2 processor and 16 MB of RAM. The operating system was Windows 3.1 (loaded from 6 floppy diskettes) - the year was 1995. Also in 1995 Microsoft released Windows 95 on a CD-ROM which meant that I had to "Upgrade" to a CD-ROM drive. IMHO, Windows 95 was just Windows 3.1 with an improved GUI. My first "Portable Computer" was a SPARCbook with a SUN OS.

I pissed and moaned for weeks on end when Win98 was released because it wasn't as "Transparent" as Win95. Then came Millenium and Windows 2000 and the Love-Hate relationship between myself and Microsoft became a "Hate-Hate" marriage of convience. By this time (circa late 2000), I was running a P-III overclocked to a blazing 400 MHz. I ran THE bootlegged copy of XP that everybody had until MS decided to impliment the COA's with teeth; I could no longer use the same copy on 50 machines.

I refused to play catch-up with Microsoft and the newest OS released so, I am still running XP on one Laptop, Vista Ultimate on my TV server and Vista business on all my other PC's. Sometime within this cooming week, I am going to put Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro using VMware.

Windows 8 is what we in the neighborhood here refer to as "Butt", it is so much "BUTT" that Microsoft has to release a new version of it called "Blue", it should be called "Windows Blew-it" (http://www.zdnet.com/with-windows-blue-microsoft-may-finally-do-the-right-thing-7000015237/).

.

[PA5COR]

Running my Acer travelmate 7220G dual core and 4 gig memory here since 4 or 5 years have to find the reciept and now slowly falling apart, lid won't close well, so i just leave it open and close the puter in sleepmode.
XP-Pro and W7 on it dual boot just use it to mail and surf the net and forums.

No need to get anything faster or newer, but if it fails then a new 17" lappie will come and personally put Xp-Pro and W 7 back on it whatever system they sell it with.
Have the original serialnumbers here so f*ck them.

Since the lappie is used as fixed puter i don't care how heavy it is or how thick just need a 17" screen, lots of memory, no need for a gazillion terrabyte H.D, 500 Gb will do fine, i still have my USB H.D.'s here for backup and spare room if need be.

Can't have a desktop here, not enough space where i sit next to the radio etc in the living room.
I can put the lappie on thhe armrest of my leather bench and type away all day easy.

This one is on 12 to 14 hours a day 365 days a year, kept itsself well.

[N1LAF]

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Microsoft Corp. MSFT +0.29% admits the failure of its Windows 8 operating system and is preparing to change key elements this year, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The tech firm's head of marketing and finance, Tami Reller, said in an interview with the newspaper that "key aspects" of the operating system will be changed when Microsoft reveals an updated version of the operating system later this year. Analysts compared the U-turn to Coca-Cola Co.'s KO +0.18% New Coke fiasco almost 30 years ago, the report said

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-admits-failure-on-windows-8-2013-05-07?link=MW_latest_news

Microsoft admits Windows 8's failure, the code-named Blue implies
Windows Vista has universally been acknowledged as a failure, but it still actually had significantly better adoption numbers than Windows 8, said ZDNet.
At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%, said ZDNet. Users are reportedly complaining as they find the new tile-based User Interface more of a curse on non-touch-screen machines. Microsoft is for the first time confirming that it is making changes to the software to address some of the problems people have when using it. Marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago, says Financial Times, Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/349763

Worse than Vista?!?! Ouch!

[n6hcm]

the problem with windows 8 is that you can't use it effectively unless you can dance like the people in their tv ads.

[NQ6U]

the problem with windows 8 is that you can't use it effectively unless you can dance like the people in their tv ads.

If that's true, then all I can say is that it's a good thing I'm a Mac user. I dance like a white guy.

[kb2crk]

At least you can Dance Pope Carlo....LOL

[kb2crk]

Well I was trying to learn windoze 8 and now twice in the last two weeks the laptop has crashed. The first time I was able to use the recovery partition. the second time I could not even get the bios screen to come up. I am running Ubuntu off a cdrom on the laptop right now and was hoping I might be able to recover the piece of crap 8 to get my pictures and music back. It is odd that 2 wed. mornings in a row that windows 8 crashed. Back to looking for the partitions on the hard drive...

[N1LAF]

If you have the Windows 8 Disk, stick it in the CDROM drive and let the computer boot from the CDROM disk (or DVD these days), and do a 'Recovery'. When I created an image of Windows 7 using Acronis 2013, and restored the image on another HD, I had to use the 'Recovery' option to fix whatever problem it was having. The 'Recovery' did not affect the other programs (in other words, safe to use.)

I use VMware player with older OS's to keep my older programs running.

[kb2crk]

No such luck with a recovery dvd. Its recovery disc is a partition on the hard drive that is does not see...