Today’s the big day. Microsoft’s Surface tablet should already be on doorsteps, and retail shelves across the country. The virtual Windows Store is officially open for business. We’re about to be awash in laptop-tablet convertibles, and somewhere, Steve Ballmer is smiling.
Windows 8 is finally here.
Few operating systems have sparked as much divisiveness as Windows 8 and its shift to a mobile-first focus, however. I’ve spent a year playing with Windows 8 in its various preview iterations, and the final release. Is it perfect? Nope. Is it an absolute terror? Far from it. As is always the case, the true answer lies somewhere in the middle, and your level of pleasure directly relates to the type of machine you’re using.
Sticking with that yin and yang approach, here are five things I love about Windows 8, balanced out by five Windows 8 quirks that drive me absolutely bonkers. Momma always said sweet comes before sour, so let’s start with the good news first.
5 things I love about Windows 8
1. Blink and you’ll miss it boot times. There’s a lengthy technical explanation detailing why Windows 8 hits the floor running faster than an over-caffeinated recruit at boot camp, but the nuts-and-bolts don’t really matter; the important part is this thing is fast. Windows 8 starts twice as fast as Windows 7 on my laptop, which has a mechanical hard drive.
Slap this puppy on a solid state drive and it really shines. I’ve been playing with a Dell XPS 12 convertible Ultrabook with an SSD and it only takes 7 seconds to hit the login screen from complete shutdown. Shut down and wake times are virtually instantaneous. It’s amazing, and it’s excruciating to log on to a pokey Windows 7 PC after you’re used to it.
2. Syncing in the rain. Microsoft’s shift to a unified, cloud-touched Windows Account login was a stroke of genius. It’s wonderful signing into a completely new Windows 8 PC and finding your desktop, contacts, email accounts and SkyDrive contents sitting there waiting for you, identical to the setup on your home computer.
3. Improved multi-monitor support. Okay, most people might not care about this, but for geeks like me, the vastly improved multi-monitor support in Windows 8 is nothing short of heaven. Taskbars everywhere, simple multi-screen picture spanning, and the ability to run separate Modern-style apps and desktop programs on side-by-side displays? Yes, please!
4. Type to search. I still wish Windows 8′s desktop mode had a proper Start button, but Windows 8′s new search function has grown into one of my favorite parts of the operating system. It’s superbly simple: Head to the Start screen and just start typing the name of the file you’re looking for. No extra button pushes; no superfluous Live Tile selections. Just start typing. Windows 8′s automatic filter handles the rest.
5. True PC power in portable tablet form. I’ve never been a big tablet guy, partly because I already spend a lot of time on my phone and my laptop, and partly because tablets just never had enough oomph for me. Even top-of-the-line tablets with quad-core mobile CPUs seem to chug when I push them hard enough. Windows 8 devices bring true Intel Core processor to the tablet form factor, and the extra horsepower shows. Check out this impressive speed test clip at Maximum PC, which shows an Acer Windows tablet running a lowly Intel Atom processor. Upper-end convertibles bring even beefier Core i5 and i7 CPUs to the table, albeit for a truckload of cash.
5 Things I hate about Windows 8
Unfortunately, I can’t keep babbling on about Windows 8′s baked-in security features and the awesome additions in the file manager, version histories, virtualized storage and more. It’s time to talk some smack.
1. No Start button. Really, Microsoft? Protip for PC users: in Desktop mode, slide the cursor down into the lower-left corner. A picture of the Modern Start screen will pop up. Ignore it, and right-click instead to bring up a big list of desktop options, including Run and Control Panel options that help you avoid the Modern Start screen as much as possible. It’s no Start button replacement, but it’ll get you by.
2. Jarring Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde interface. Despite my extensive Windows 8 use I’m still not completely comfortable with its “two operating systems in one” interface. Classic-style Windows programs run in desktop mode; new apps stick to the Modern interface. Swapping between the two depending on which app you’re using just kinda makes your brain hurt, though the ache slowly starts to dull after time. It’s so… inelegant, compounded by the fact that Windows 8 apps and Desktop apps sport totally different control schemes. More annoyingly, Windows 8 treats the Desktop as a singular entity, no matter how many programs you have open inside of it, and classic programs don’t enjoy the same auto-update feature offered for Windows 8 apps.
3. Windows 8 sucks with a mouse. This is a big one. Navigating around Windows 8 with a mouse flat-out sucks, and it’s compounded by the operating system’s less-than-streamlined design. The far-ranging Live Tiles on the Start screen require much more scrolling than Windows 7′s neat and compact Start button (See: Number 1). Right-click options suck too, appearing at the bottom of Windows 8 apps rather than where you’ve clicked. Closing an app requires clicking at its top, then dragging it down to the bottom of the screen; easy on a tablet, an annoyance with a mouse. I could go on.
Using a touchscreen or a multi-touch touchpad makes some of those qualms go away, but it’s irritating that Windows 8′s mouse controls and gesture controls are slightly different; finger finaglers can swipe in the Charm bar from anywhere along the right edge, while mouse jockeys need to hit what feels like a specific pixel in the lower-right hand corner. The poor mouse controls alone pretty much ensure I won’t upgrade my desktop to Windows 8 anytime soon. Keyboard commands work well, though.
4. Crappy multitasking. Android and iPad owners will love Windows 8′s Snap feature, which docks a Windows 8 app to one side of the screen and allows you to run a second app in the remaining 75 percent of the display. Computer users engrained in having a half-dozen windows open at once will hate it. Fortunately, you can still resized open windows to your heart’s content in desktop mode.
5. Where are the apps? Microsoft bet the farm on its move to a mobile-friendly interface, and all of it — snapping apps, Live Tiles, the Modern interface — critically depends on having a robust Windows 8 app ecosystem. That ecosystem just isn’t there yet. The Windows Store only has around 5,000 apps available. A few standouts aside, the vast majority of those apps are trivial time wasters or Web apps shoehorned into a Windows app shell. Microsoft’s working hard to lure developers to their walled Windows Store garden, but as it stands, Windows 8 is the virtual equivalent of a Kardashian: beautiful, but with no value beneath the pretty veneer.
The lack of apps forces you to mainly stay in desktop mode, which feels a lot like Windows 7, missing Start button aside. But that begs the billion dollar question for Microsoft: If desktop users spend most of their time trying to get Windows 8 to behave like Windows 7, why shouldn’t they just stick with Windows 7?
Final tally
I tried to keep the pros and cons balanced here, but equal numbers alone don’t tell the whole tale: for traditional desktop users, those five cons vastly outweigh the multiple pros Windows 8 brings to the table. The nuts-and-bolts improvements are a pleasure, to be sure, but there just isn’t a compelling reason for most PC users to upgrade from Windows 7.
Mobile mavens need to look long and deep at Microsoft’s new operating system, on the other hand; the speed enhancements and powerful account syncing makes Windows 8 a much more intriguing proposition for on-the-go computing, especially if you’re already tied into Microsoft’s ecosystem.
For what it’s worth, I plan on picking up a touchscreen convertible and upgrading my multi-touch enabled notebooks to Windows 8 ASAP — but my desktop’s staying Windows 7 for the foreseeable future.
I’ve got to agree that Windows 8 is a less-than-elegant desktop PC solution. Touchscreens on anything other than mobile devices don’t make sense from an ergonomic perspective. Windows 8 is so heavily optimized for touch-screens that it painted itself into a mobile corner. That seems like a counter-intuitive move, since Microsoft’s success in the desktop PC market far outweighs its mobile presence. I don’t think trying to tie desktops into its mobile ecosystem is a wise way to try to breathe new life into its phones and new tablets.
Yes you can have the start button and Windows 7/XP start menu on Windows 8. just install Classic Shell or Start Menu 7 and you will have it back.
classic Shell also works on Windows 8 Pro and so does the other start menu software.
Andrea Borman.
Here’s something else I recently discovered about Windoze H8 (see what I did there? Good ain’t it?).
Obviously without a mouse, you’re screwed. Get stocked on the keyboard shortcuts (which thankfully I know plenty about). It stinks on the start screen. Laptop users using a touchpad will find themselves at a disadvantage having to use the scrollbar to navigate the start screen, which is a painful process depending on mouse cursor settings. Too sensitive and you’ll miss a load of tiles at a blink, to the other extreme on the other hand, it’ll be like a mini-marathon in touchpad gestures to scroll across.
My biggest loathing at the moment is the firewall. No “Don’t ask me again” for a particular program, it just seems to be rather choosy about when it wants to keep asking you. Test Drive Unlimited 2 for instance, I’ve opted to block it, but it still runs the updates and other stuff when I’d rather just be playing the game. The last time that happened, I ended up waiting for a gig of data to download before even being able to play the game.
Secondly, unless you really go through the settings app with a fine tooth comb, you’ll be missing out on simple things like the animations – which even though it says they’re not necessary, they certainly are if you want aesthetics maxed when viewing live tiles, closing apps, switching to and from the desktop etc etc. Without those animations, Windows 8 looks simply clunky – so I’d say they were necessary.
As each day passes with my using of this OS, I find more to dislike about it than to like about it. Way to go Microsoft. See how much further you can push your luck – I’m just glad the RP was free!
Think I’ll wait for Windows 9…
So do you think they’ll go back to the Windows 7 look? Or is that a statement in hope of a more stable and more pleasing environment in which to use the OS regardless of whether or not it looks like an earlier predecessor?
maybe a functional hybrid hopefully … looks like 8 sucks for anything that doesn’t have touch screen capabilities…
Having read your statement, and having recently watched a video “starring” a certain Mr Gates, and having used Windows 8 RP for the last couple of weeks, I have to say you are absolutely frikkin’ right. Windows 8 does look AWFUL on anything that lacks touch screen. I’m slightly annoyed – as usually has been the case since the early 90s – with Mr Gate’s enthusiasm which seems to be largely misguided or misinformed. He seems to think that everyone is going to love Windows 8, well…categorically I’d love to tell him he’s just so wrong. People aren’t going to love it, they’ll get used to it or switch to another OS provider. Linux. Ubuntu maybe. Mac. Who knows. I can’t outright flame against Windows 8 for being totally awful, there are a few things to like about it, but unfortunately they really don’t outweigh the dislikes at all for me. The start button being revamped into that godawful blue horrid thing on the charm bar for one thing.The snap feature being all shot to hell to accommodate for the new OS layout and functionality is quite another. They would call it revolutionary, I would call it a bloody mess.
Ubuntu? Might be a possibility…Trickster I’m still using XP(given a death sentence by MS for being too good)…would upgrade but why fix what isn’t broke…now if laptops would have touchscreens($500-$800 range) that would be a horse of a different color…Nerds @ MS more than likely use smartphones & could care less about the functionality of the programs they churn out for PCs…time for something fresh…MS is a dinosaur that is on its way to fossilization… :)
Well I’m pretty disappointed with MS. As of Vista I’ve been disappointed with MS. Since XP it looked like they were making strides to a better direction, Vista was a mess initially, 7 was the better effort they should have produced in Vista when they knew they had the means with which to do so. It seems increasingly obvious to me that one OS is going to be the better effort of what they should have done beforehand when they knew they could have done that in the first place. Vista lead to 7 built on the Vista platform, now 9 is either going to be the improved version of this complete balls up, or they’re going to go back to the drawing board – which if they know what’s good for them (which would be a miracle) – they should do the second they stop messing about with this ridiculous getup.
That right click tip is also handy with Windows Explorer. It’s a feature that is in Windows 7 that allows you to pin used folders to the taskbar icon. It’s not perfect but it was helpful when I used the Windows 8 Beta.
I HATE Windows 8 ! Terrible, wish I had bought new unit before Windows 8 was released.