Went from Windows 8.1 back to 7, some thoughts

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I like 8.1 a lot in laptop format. It's basically faster and prettier W7 and on hybrids it's pretty damn awesome.

My desktop Windows7 installation is acting up now and I will soon have to reinstall and I'm not sure if I will dust off W7 disc for it or just go for 8.1, despite the PC now having a touch screen.
 
I love how someone ends up really liking 8/.1, and people come in this thread bashing his head on a wall screaming "ARE YOU STUPID!?"

Like, really.

I couldn't go back to 7 if I wanted to. Win+X took care of that for me. And I use the Start Screen 100x more than I ever did the Start Menu. Hitting the Win key in 7 just meant a slightly faster CMD prompt to me.

EDIT: Okay paying attention to who's who, it looks like it was just 2 people bashing the poor guy.
 
epmode said:
I know you Windows 8 guys are drawn to threads like these but I just want to put this out there from the comparatively silent majority:

Windows 8 and/or 8.1 may be marginally better than 7 in a few minor ways but it is in no way worth the price of an upgrade. The UI confusion/split is the absolute worst. And if I'm to ignore Metro (which is harder than it sounds), then what's the point?

I'm forced to use a few Windows 8 machines at work and they still make me want to die. So many of the big changes are stupidly unnecessary. Because tablets? The OS reeks of desperation.
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Agreed (I have a Win 8.1 and Win 7 and Linux Mint machine)
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
I love how someone ends up really liking 8/.1, and people come in this thread bashing his head on a wall screaming "ARE YOU STUPID!?"
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I don't think there are many doing that. They can justifiably call MS stupid though. Windows 8 would have been accepted more if Metro was an OPTION. Heck I think you could argue Metro would be more accepted(on the desktop space) if it was an option you could turn on and off with ease. Giving you the opportunity to see if it grows on you with time or you simply don't want anything to do with it.

pants said:
Agreed (I have a Win 8.1 and Win 7 and Linux Mint machine)
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Ha, same here. I'm currently using BURG loader for pretty shinies but I just may go back to grub since BURG gets glitchy sometimes. And damned Mint 16 came out like a week after installing 15 for my new fresh install :(
 
I would love to go back to 7, but I don't have the drivers for 7. : ( 8.1 is great, once you configure it to your liking's, but I prefer 7 much more.
 
I can't use USB 3.0 on my External Harddrive because Windows 8.1 will force it to "suspend" randomly. Known issue with it.

Ugh.
 
Agkel said:
I don't think there are many doing that. They can justifiably call MS stupid though. Windows 8 would have been accepted more if Metro was an OPTION. Heck I think you could argue Metro would be more accepted(on the desktop space) if it was an option you could turn on and off with ease. Giving you the opportunity to see if it grows on you with time or you simply don't want anything to do with it.
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I went back and editted my post, I noticed that it was just two repeat posters. And I always viewed Windows + D as that option. Metro only pops up a little bit when you're on the desktop, so it made things pretty easy for me.

Reallink said:
Gonna be a lopsided thread cause people with 8.1 can't get on the internet.
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Only issues I've ever had with Wifi on my two devices (a hand built PC and a Surface Pro) have both been related to power states. My Surface at launch had an issue with connecting to networks when waking from sleep, though that was fixed. My desktop I need to gank the USB adapter out if BF4 hard resets my computer for it to be recognized. So unless I play BF4, I have no current issues right now...
 
Divvy said:
What the fuck hellspawn thread is this filled with classic theme on modern windows?
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It's called stripping out all luxury, convenience, and pleasure to make sure they don't use a single iota of anything they don't need to be.
If they played games, they'd play them at 640x480 at bottom settings just to know they were going at 570fps instead of 540.
I don't get it either.
 
H3XAntiStyle said:
It's called stripping out all luxury, convenience, and pleasure to make sure they don't use a single iota of anything they don't need to be.
If they played games, they'd play them at 640x480 at bottom settings just to know they were going at 570fps instead of 540.
I don't get it either.
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Pretty much. I mean wow.
 
TheSeks said:
Yes, easily. And I say this as a ClassicShell Win8.0 user. If I could make that taskbar smaller (something Win8 doesn't do nor 8.1 in either official/classicshell/start8) like that Win7/9x classic shot, I would for the sake of more screen real-estate.
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You can make the taskbar smaller in Windows 8.
 
I have 8.1 but use StartIsBack because I don't really like the metro interface. Very happy with it.
 
megarockexe said:
Isn't that hideous old classic theme done using Direct Draw or by some other obsolete software drawing method that is actually slower than the hardware-accelerated newer themes? And also, isn't it functionally worse since the classic buttons would have extremely tight active regions to compensate for the low resolutions and slow mice of the day?
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javac said:
Yeah that's one of the things. I'm sure aero is a lot smoother and faster because the ui is all done by the GPU.
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Wow and I thought I was the only one who noticed the slight slowdown of the classic theme in Windows 7!

I read that it's because Microsoft did not provide any sort of acceleration whatsoever in Vista/7 for the classic theme but only hardware-accelerated Aero, which was interesting because they sure did provide acceleration back in XP for both Luna and classic!

But anyways, OP you should use Classic Shell! It's free, open-source and best of all it is highly customizable so you can configure it to your liking. I have my start menu from the Windows 2000 days. Classic start menu for life!
 
I would stick to Modern UI if Windows 8.1 was more consistent with its presentation and functionality. I still have to do things in Desktop mode and it sucks.
 
TheSeks said:
Yes, easily. And I say this as a ClassicShell Win8.0 user. If I could make that taskbar smaller (something Win8 doesn't do nor 8.1 in either official/classicshell/start8) like that Win7/9x classic shot, I would for the sake of more screen real-estate.

I will give Metro props for being tablet-usable. I used a Win8 tablet this past weekend and was impressed with Windows responsiveness, but at the end of the day I still had to use that tablet in "Desktop" mode for applications that aren't Metro, so really... what is the point? Might as well just have made a tablet edition/desktop edition without that GUI bloat/difference for crazies like me and called it a day.
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You don't count, you hate everything. :D
 
Cipherr said:
Yeah, you are right. There's been like.... no push back against Win8 at all. None. Its been the most widely vocally accepted, and least criticized Windows OS release in years.
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It's criticized 80% of the time by people who've never used it, read some shit on the internet and now base everything off of that. Like the metro thing people always bring up. I've gone days without ever seeing it, sometimes I forget it's even there. If people would use it for themselves they might learn it's not as bad they think. But I forgot, if the internet says it's shit, it must be shit, sight unseen.
 
Jibbed said:
Windows 8.1 > 7 >>>>>>>>>>>>> 8
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pretty much. win 8 is unfortunately a damaged brand now in the eyes of many. I think it's going to be the vista of win and win 9 is gonna come along and make improvements that everyone will call jesus. it was the necessary evil version.

Win 7 was an outstanding OS and everyone thinks 'thank god it wasn't like that vista piece of shit' however, it basically IS a fully service packed version of vista.
 
Cerity said:
I hate accessing things on desktop, especially whenever I have any number of windows open. You can pop in and out of the start menu/screen without ruining how your workspace is currently setup.
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You can do that on Windows 7 too, you know...
 
This is a great blog post by Steven Sinofsky that closely relates to the general opinion of Windows 8: http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/10/29/thoughts-on-reviewing-tech-products/

Sinofsky's final recommendation:
But most of all, give it time. It often takes 4-8 weeks to really adjust to a new system and the more expert you are the more time it takes. I’ve been using Macs on and off since before the product was released to the public, but even today it has taken me the better part of six months to feel “native”. It took me about 3 months of Android usage before I stopped thinking like an iPhone user. You might say I am wired too much or you might conclude it really does take a long time to appreciate a design for what it is supposed to do. I chuckle at the things that used to frustrate me and think about how silly my concerns were at day 0, day 7, and even day 30–where the volume button was, the charger orientation, the way the PIN worked, going backwards, and more.
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I think people often tend to judge changes too quickly and don't really try to immerse themselves in the new system. With Windows 8 there's just sooo much criticism of issues with people's Windows 7 workflow. I think a lot of that criticism would disappear if they really used Windows 8 for a long time and tried to adapt to the new ways to do things.
 
DarkFlow said:
It's criticized 80% of the time by people who've never used it, read some shit on the internet and now base everything off of that. Like the metro thing people always bring up. I've gone days without ever seeing it, sometimes I forget it's even there. If people would use it for themselves they might learn it's not as bad they think. But I forgot, if the internet says it's shit, it must be shit, sight unseen.
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80% of stats are pulled from arses to 'prove' an unprovable opinion.

maeh2k said:
I think people often tend to judge changes too quickly and don't really try to immerse themselves in the new system. With Windows 8 there's just sooo much criticism of issues with people's Windows 7 workflow. I think a lot of that criticism would disappear if they really used Windows 8 for a long time and tried to adapt to the new ways to do things.
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This has been my experience with Win 8. I almost formatted the drive and was about to import a copy of Win 7 for an exorbitant sum, but Christmas made me rethink spending 200 bucks on an OS. There are definitely some annoyances and all and all I preferred Win 7, but once you strip away all the fucking nonsense that Win 8 starts with, it's not THAT bad. It will get better once companies continue to update drivers and all that, but A) if you have Win 7 there is literally no reason to upgrade and B) Some people want an OS to be unobtrusive, and Win 8 definitely is not that. Once you get the hang of it and disable all sorts of shit, it's not cancer causing.
 
maeh2k said:
This is a great blog post by Steven Sinofsky that closely relates to the general opinion of Windows 8: http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/10/29/thoughts-on-reviewing-tech-products/

Sinofsky's final recommendation:


I think people often tend to judge changes too quickly and don't really try to immerse themselves in the new system. With Windows 8 there's just sooo much criticism of issues with people's Windows 7 workflow. I think a lot of that criticism would disappear if they really used Windows 8 for a long time and tried to adapt to the new ways to do things.
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Why should folks HAVE to adapt if they don't wish to? Why should they have something completely new shoved down their throat? For some folks Win8 is great, for others, it's pointless.
 
alstein said:
Why should folks HAVE to adapt if they don't wish to? Why should they have something completely new shoved down their throat? For some folks Win8 is great, for others, it's pointless.
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Then why try anything new, we should have all stuck with Windows 3.1 with that line of thought.
 
javac said:
One thing I really like about Windows 8 over previous iterations is the improved Task Manager. Am I weird?
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That and the improved interface for moving files are the best things about W8. And to be honest, the only real significant upgrades from W7.
 
I couldn't go back to Windows 7.
My XPS 15 went from a 1:30 minute load to :28 seconds with Windows 8 on a HDD.

Windows 8 is beautiful after you take out the Metro stuff, I tell you what.
 
Aero is technically and theoreticlly more responsive than non-Aero for Win7. But still, whatever difference it spells can't ever be perceived by humans. It's as silly as going for 2166 RAM because it's faster by a few decimal microseconds. Whatever you feel is just a placebo effect.

Those are some really fugly screens I see here. You also lose out on Aero Peek. It drives me nuts when I lose it whenever an old game or program has to turn it off for compatibility. Does non-Aero still have the progress bar on the window icons?

I suppose there's some appeal in ghetto GUI.
 
I can't wait until SDDs are big and affordable enough to use it as the only drive for a PC. The dual SDD/HDD in my laptop made me a believer on those things
 
terrisus said:
That's my point with that issue though - I don't care about it being attractive, I care about it being functional for me. And it definitely is. I don't need "a new start screen" to do that when I can do that just fine in Windows 7 already.
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You seem to be more of a guy stuck in the past with older versions of Windows than one who truly doesnt care about it being attractive, because then why would you bother changing the themes to the old classic rather than keeping the default?
 
DarkFlow said:
It's criticized 80% of the time by people who've never used it
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This bullshit excuse worked before release. It does not work 17 or so months after release. We have used it. We didn't like it.

I'm not sure why thats so hard for you to wrap your head around, but you have had a year and a half now to soak it in.

Seriously....
 
javac said:
Yeah my laptop boots up and shuts down in seconds. It doesn't even have an SSD :$
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Same here, W8 was slow as hell when I shut down and turning on but 8.1 boots my laptop in under 5 seconds, was impressed this morning when I noticed it.
 
Druz said:
Windows 8.1 is the most enjoyable OS I've ever used. Its more annoying repairing computers whose OS is fucked, but thats because learning the new ways is actually effective.

I'm going to point out that the same people sticking with the older cause "its better" sound a lot fucking like the 50+ crowd terrified of change and learning something new and better. Older isn't better, sorry. Windows 7 was amazing but 8 is clean as shit.
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Yep I agree. I haven't had a single crash even with 8.1. Only thing I noticed was that PDF files ran by the built in reader runs amazingly slow with Asian type font
 
terrisus said:
The Aero stuff always looked horrible. Removing it was always one of the first things that I did with a new computer.

Just for an example, this is a picture of my Windows 7 laptop from a couple of months ago

laptop.jpg


And, that's much less covered than my desktop usually is too. Didn't take a new one of my current laptop since it's just a temporary setup until I can get a SSD and a couple of new hard drives and reload this with Windows 7.
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When you have such a cluttered and messy desktop, I don't think you're qualified to say whether something looks horrible or not.

Not into Windows 8 (I find it annoying to use for too many reasons), but I'll never understand the Windows 95 purists.
 
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