Is Windows 8 worth the wait? - Fromrum Friday

Hello all my dear readers! I hope you all are doing just great! :D



I installed the Windows 8 Release Preview(finally and reluctantly!) this Monday and using it for almost 5 days, I am in a position to throw some light on it. The following post includes my own experiences and I have shared at the end some good ones I read on the Internet. I hope you people like it and do get an overview of the Windows 8! :)

So, Windows 8, the much awaited Windows all because Microsoft released it's Developer and Release Preview, I guess for the first time Microsoft did that, else nothing else than Windows Vista was it's dream project and much awaited by the world. Anyways, Windows Vista was crap as the people say. but I say Windows Vista was the best Windows released by Microsoft. no, I am not out of my minds, neither I am becoming paranoid or sleepless or something that is hallucinating me! LOL! I'm fine and saying that in all my senses. Well actually, why I say Windows Vista was the best is because of the tonnes of features Microsoft released in that Windows. I agree they were all full of bugs and the Windows Vista crashed much often, but the features were so amazing that hey are still not present in Windows 8, I mean atleast not in the Release Preview! And Windows 7? well that's the worst one! Why? Why? Why? Well, Microsoft just suppressed the buggy features of Vista and released Windows 7! How foolishly we welcomed it! >_< Anyways, we were to discuss Windows 8 and not Vista or 7! :P Coming back to the topic, Windows 8. I installed it's release preview on Monday, July 2nd, 2012. In five days what my experience suggests is, well, I love Windows 7 now! >_< Windows 8, not that irritating, but enough to be completely rubbished by me atleast! It has big turn-offs and only some rare turn-ons!

Where the hell is my Start Menu?! >_<

The Start Button and the Start Menu that gave Microsoft the "almost" Monopoly in the Computer Market in terms of Operating System for last 16 years(I think so! :O) is shattered! is no more. is gone. is Vanquished. Is O_O NOWHERE!!! And the start menu that is now in it's new Metro Interface is soo irritating that I felt like my once superb PC is nothing more than some kind of Lumia 700 >_< There are no folders inside the Start Menu or whatever it should be called, it is not start menu, it is Start-Page! huh! Everything I installed, all the files that came inside the start menu in some folders upto Windows 7, were now openly ling in my so called start menu. Though they were bundled together and not scattered, but that doesn't means I am gonna thank Microsoft for that!! >_< Whatever, I hated the new Start Menu.

I found a little tweak to revive a simple, but yet approximate Start Menu on a website. The link goes here

1. From the desktop, right-click the taskbar, point to Toolbars and select “New toolbar.”
2. Type or copy and paste the following path into the Choose a folder window:
   

   %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

3. Click the “Select Folder” button and you’ll get a Programs menu on your taskbar.
4. Right-click the taskbar and uncheck “Lock the taskbar” if you want to move the new Programs menu around.
5. Drag and drop the grip at the left side of the toolbar to place it somewhere else on the taskbar, like at its left side — the Start menu’s traditional location.
6. Right-click the “Programs” text if you want to change or hide its name. After you’re finished, right-click the taskbar again and select “Lock the taskbar.”
   
   There’s one catch with this method — it won’t actually show all your programs. The Start menu actually grabs shortcuts from two different places. In addition to the system-wide ProgramData location, there’s a per-user Programs folder at the following location:
   

   %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Backward Compatibility? LOL! You are kidding me damn-it!!

I remember, much before it was released, they said that Windows 8 will be having backward compatibility that means the programs of all Windows Versions from Windows 3.x to Windows 8 will run on Windows 8 which was completely lacking in the Release Preview. What happened was that, do you guys/girls remember that Windows Vista and 7 had problems running some games like GTA San Andreas, Hitman 2 - Silent Assassin, etc.? The problems I thought would be eradicated, were rather much more magnified in Windows 8. The games crash much more often rather they crash more than the times they run properly and moreover, all the problems that one could encounter in those games due to Operating System compatibility issues were multifold! Apart from that, Adobe Pagemaker 7.0, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, etc. all either crash while working else in no case would they close properly!!

Easy on resources? Come again! To hell!!

Don't you dare tell me that it is light on resources and easy on your processor! My Corei5 760 @ 2.80GHz was being used around 51% constantly when I was running nothing on my system but Windows 8 alone! Not a single app!! Though the memory was much free but my processor is so badly eaten up that I cannot multitask! oh yes! Multitasking, I will take on this one separately! >_<

Boots lightening fast!

Okay one thing I loved about Windows 8 was that it boots real fast, atleast 1.5-2 times faster than Windows 7. Unlike Windows 7 whose boot time kept increasing as the day passed by, Windows 8 till date boots at almost the same pace! That was awesome to see that my PC starts up and shuts down quite fast. This is one thing that I loved about Windows 8.

The pre-loaded Apps are amazing

Now this time, I have a pre-installed PDF Viewer on my system that came with nothing but Windows 8 and the Photo Preview is real cool too. Both apps are quite fast but with limited functionality, but for read operation, I would say they are quite nice! :)

Multitasking? GTFO!

This Windows 8 is completely tablet/mobile oriented version of Windows. Not a bit for the Desktop users I must say! It doesn't say "Click" anywhere, everywhere you'll see, "tap" >_< And when you run more than one software simultaneously, that is you multitask, doesn't matters if you have a damn-amazing processor, Windows 8 would rubbish it all!! YOU CANNOT MULTITASK PROPERLY AND EASILY AS MUCH YOU DID IN XP OR 7.

Metro interface v/s the original Windows GUI

It no doubt looks good but not for a Desktop or Laptop, that is, not for a PC! It looks good, but is irritating for any PC user. Super-Big icons and all the apps running full-screen and hey! there is no Chrome-Bar, I mean no "Minimize"/"Maximize"/"Close" Buttons, or Title bar! For closing any app that ran full screen and came installed with Windows 8, I had to press Alt+F4 to get it closed, there was no other way!! Thank God! that Windows Explorer is not in Metro Interface as yet, else it would have been a complete disaster!

Improved Task Manager, Copy-Move Processes

A good thing about the Windows 8 was the Task Manager. It is quite good-looking and also shows good deal of details and groupings of similar tasks/services. The Copy or move processes can be paused, a new thing and real awesome to see. Moreover, when you copy/move, you can see the speed graph too! :)

Internet Explorer 10

Well what else can I say more than that it's "Microsoft Internet Explorer" ? LOL! It looks good, no doubt, does seem promising when released full-fledged, but I don't think it would be any better than Internet Explorer 9 other than it's looks! Since it's release preview certain websites don't work like Yahoo! Mail shows huge amount of errors running on IE 10. Maybe the no-tracking policy is to be blamed, but I'm not sure. Whatever, it's just another Internet Explorer which looks better, but is irritating like it's predecessors!

My this review is totally based on the release preview, if the actual Windows turns out to be something else, then it's a different case! And don't think why this might happen. Microsoft is such a big company that even if it would do this, people won't be startled! >_< You may refer to some reviews in the following links:

Guardian

Telegraph

Engadget

Thanks all for your time that you spent reading this article. I hope to see you all soon again. All comments and suggestions are welcomed like always! :) Have a great Friday and an awesome weekend up ahead! :D