Question About Windows 8?

[Centrix]

I was just curious, did they change enough to warrant a switch from Windows 7 to Windows 8?

 

[jonthedit]

Currently, no.
Unless you're dying for DirectX 11.1 & Ultra Fast Boot (BIOS SETTING on most UEFI boards) you're not missing much.
You can always just wait for the other build of win 8 without metro that is supposedly coming out.

 

[Joe88]

nope, wait till windows 9 and they get rid of the metro interface

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Currently, no.
Unless you're dying for DirectX 11.1 & Ultra Fast Boot (BIOS SETTING on most UEFI boards) you're not missing much.
You can always just wait for the other build of win 8 without metro that is supposedly coming out.

There is no other build without metro. If anything, the next version coming out ( gooogle "windows blue") has more metro... But the thing is, you don't have to use metro, you can use the desktop perfectly fine and never even see it if you don't want to.

As to the OP: It depends. It is faster then Win 7, but it has a different focus... And if you are a "power user" it will probably annoy you for a few hours until you tweak it and get use to it. After that though, it can be a lot more useful. But if you are perfectly happy with what Win 7 does, then there certainly isn't a "need" to upgrade.

 

[FireGrey]

They have optimised it for SSDs and you know, made the OS faster than Windows 7.
Everyone seems to assume it's a tablet OS but I control it way faster with keyboard + mouse than I ever would on a touch screen.

 

[YayMii]

Anybody complaining about it being "harder to use" on desktops/laptops haven't been using Windows 8 enough to get used to how it works. Personally, I find Windows 8 more convenient and easier to use compared to Windows 7, but there are small behind-the-scenes things that I miss from previous versions (such as how increasing the polling rate on mice that don't support the option, but they probably disabled that because of the risk of frying your mouse).

 

[Joe88]

from all the win 8.1 rumors going around
the start menu and booting straight to desktop is coming back (wont see metro at all)

 

[sentinel5000]

from all the win 8.1 rumors going around
the start menu and booting straight to desktop is coming back (wont see metro at all)

You can already boot straight to desktop with Stardock's Start8, its not even an expensive program...

 

[Wombo Combo]

You can already boot straight to desktop with Stardock's Start8, its not even an expensive program...

You can use http://www.classicshell.net/ which is free.

 

[Centrix]

Thing that I don't seem to understand if your going to be using Windows 8 than why install the start menu the whole point of 8 was to get rid of the start menu for the Metro UI! I think for ppl that have switched to windows 8 that want to keep the start menu should stay with 7, but hey thats just me thanks for the feed back guys I appreciate it allot

 

[mysticwaterfall]

from all the win 8.1 rumors going around
the start menu and booting straight to desktop is coming back (wont see metro at all)

The start menu isn't really coming back. It's just a link to the metro start screen exactly like start 8 does.

 

[RchUncleSkeleton]

Not having the start menu was a horrible, horrible idea for a desktop OS. Now you must either switch screens each time you want to boot up a program or you must clutter your desktop with shortcuts of each program you have. How the hell do you even get to My Computer without opening a folder and then clicking back to get the the drive level? I'm still on XP and I honestly can't stand Windows 8. Windows 7 isn't bad but if they continue to take away functionality to try and make it "More user friendly" then I don't think I'll ever move passed Windows 7, if I ever get there.

 

[Centrix]

I usually just leave the Libraries folder on the taskbar it sits where the start orb would be it makes it super easy to get to where I want to go