Windows 8

[MuffinMan]

Also, install Classic Shell or something similar.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah.  With Classic Shell tweaked properly you'll feel like you're on a zippy Win 7 install.

[Khaldun]

Just got a new machine that was 8.1. Took me about two hours to get it so it was basically 7 and to get some non-MS bloatware off. Not bad. Runs fine now. The first twenty minutes were utter bullshit, though. I've never had that viscerally negative a reaction to an OS interface. I think I'd hate it on a tablet too if I were using Surface or whatever.

[Numtini]

It took me a few hours of abuse, but I finally figured out the way to do anything relatively quickly is to hit the windows key and type the program name and hit enter rather than playing hunt the pixel for the tile that has control panel or whatever obscure thing I'm looking for. So really, Windows 8.x ends up not a tablet interface, but as a text interface.

[Thrawn]

It took me a few hours of abuse, but I finally figured out the way to do anything relatively quickly is to hit the windows key and type the program name and hit enter rather than playing hunt the pixel for the tile that has control panel or whatever obscure thing I'm looking for. So really, Windows 8.x ends up not a tablet interface, but as a text interface.

I prefer this method over desktop shortcuts or the start menu when I use machines with 7 now too.

[MahrinSkel]

After 20 years, UI is back to the command line?

 

[Ingmar]

No. It's search, not a command line.

[Simond]

Functionally what's the difference between typing "new game.exe" into a DOS window & pressing return,  and typing "newgame" into a search window and pressing return?

[Hawkbit]

The leaked Win9 screens are fairly damning against Win8.  They look a lot like Win7's desktop, but with the metro interface integrated in the opened Start menu.  It's a good match of old and new, visually.

[Ingmar]

Functionally what's the difference between typing "new game.exe" into a DOS window & pressing return,  and typing "newgame" into a search window and pressing return?

The functional differences are enormous. Two exercises to demonstrate it:

Type "mkdir \help\IdontknowwhatImdoing" into your search field and see what happens.

Conversely, open a command prompt and type "World of Warcraft" and see what happens.

They're not at all close in functionality, except both involve typing something.

[schild]

Windows 9 looks great.

[Ironwood]

 

[Yegolev]

Windows 7 also looks great.

[Wizgar]

The leaked Win9 screens are fairly damning against Win8.  They look a lot like Win7's desktop, but with the metro interface integrated in the opened Start menu.  It's a good match of old and new, visually.

Does it still have those giant colored panels that look ridiculous on anything that isn't a touchscreen?

[calapine]

The leaked Win9 screens are fairly damning against Win8.  They look a lot like Win7's desktop, but with the metro interface integrated in the opened Start menu.  It's a good match of old and new, visually.

Does it still have those giant colored panels that look ridiculous on anything that isn't a touchscreen?

[Yegolev]

I like the little green xbox controller icon.

[Rendakor]

Isn't that still Win 8?

[Salamok]

I like the little green xbox controller icon.

This is relevant considering you need an xbox live account to play freecell now.

[Trippy]

Isn't that still Win 8?

No, even though it's labeled as 8.1 Pro the uip_dev part in the build number apparently means it's a User Interface & Platform build (the team working on the UI changes) for Windows 9.

http://www.myce.com/news/new-threshold-screenshots-show-start-menu-and-windowed-apps-72259/

[eldaec]

I like the little green xbox controller icon.

This is relevant considering you need an xbox live account to play freecell now.

Is an xbox live account the same thing as a hotmail/msn/gfwl account?

[eldaec]

After 20 years, UI is back to the command line?

I don't care how long it took, it is a good thing.

[Rendakor]

Isn't that still Win 8?

No, even though it's labeled as 8.1 Pro the uip_dev part in the build number apparently means it's a User Interface & Platform build (the team working on the UI changes) for Windows 9.

http://www.myce.com/news/new-threshold-screenshots-show-start-menu-and-windowed-apps-72259/

Oh. Well, it still looks hideous. Guess I'm keeping 7.

[shiznitz]

I went for the wipe and install of Windows 7.  Microsoft makes this hard because the format type in Windows 8.1 is not compatible with Windows 7.  I had to go to C:> (not easy to find in Win 8) and run DISKPART to reformat all partitions to NTFS.   It was a royal pain in the ass but it was doable.  Then I had to go driver hunting. Took half a day.

[Lantyssa]

On bootup with a a Win 7 install disk you can choose one of the advanced options and nuke all the drives.

[Yegolev]

I like the little green xbox controller icon.

This is relevant considering you need an xbox live account to play freecell now.

Is an xbox live account the same thing as a hotmail/msn/gfwl account?

Actually, yes.  Or maybe just single-sign-on, it's been a while but my XBL login is the same as all my other Microsoft logins.

[luckton]

Good to see MS keeping with the tradition of "avoid every other Windows release". 9 should be a worthy upgrade, and I hear that with 9, they're changing to the Apple way of OS upgrades. No more "grand revision" every 3-4 years, but a milestone release every 1-2 years that patches into whatever you got and semi-cheap ($10-$30 instead of $100-$200)

[MahrinSkel]

Functionally what's the difference between typing "new game.exe" into a DOS window & pressing return,  and typing "newgame" into a search window and pressing return?

The functional differences are enormous. Two exercises to demonstrate it:

Type "mkdir \help\IdontknowwhatImdoing" into your search field and see what happens.

Conversely, open a command prompt and type "World of Warcraft" and see what happens.

They're not at all close in functionality, except both involve typing something.

If your GUI OS is not usable without typing, it fails as a GUI.  Making it so typing something is crippled compared to a command prompt is not a plus that offsets your original failure, instead it means it fails as an OS.

--Dave

[Lantyssa]

I had to do a script in powershell and did an 'rm' when I meant to do a 'del' and it worked.  Then I found out it has all the basic unix commands I tried.  I'm suddenly not so down on it anymore, at least for basic command line stuff.

[Ingmar]

Functionally what's the difference between typing "new game.exe" into a DOS window & pressing return,  and typing "newgame" into a search window and pressing return?

The functional differences are enormous. Two exercises to demonstrate it:

Type "mkdir \help\IdontknowwhatImdoing" into your search field and see what happens.

Conversely, open a command prompt and type "World of Warcraft" and see what happens.

They're not at all close in functionality, except both involve typing something.

If your GUI OS is not usable without typing, it fails as a GUI.  Making it so typing something is crippled compared to a command prompt is not a plus that offsets your original failure, instead it means it fails as an OS.

--Dave

This has what exactly to do with what I was saying? Windows 8 does not lack a CLI.

[Yegolev]

I had to do a script in powershell and did an 'rm' when I meant to do a 'del' and it worked.  Then I found out it has all the basic unix commands I tried.  I'm suddenly not so down on it anymore, at least for basic command line stuff.

Powershell is POSIX-compliant.  If that means anything.

[shiznitz]

On bootup with a a Win 7 install disk you can choose one of the advanced options and nuke all the drives.

Advanced options weren't something I could find before I was informed the file type was incompatible.  Maybe my OEM disk was a bit different or my google-fu wasn't up to it.  I spent quite of bit of internet digging on this issue.  There are lots of people asking the question but few people giving clear and concise answers.

[Chimpy]

When you are at the disk selection phase, you just click all if the volumes there and delete them one by one then create a new one. This is of course using the custom option not the upgrade option at the beginning.

[Lantyssa]

Powershell is POSIX-compliant.  If that means anything.

It does.

It's just the first positive interaction I've had with powershell.  Usually I've only gone into it because windows decided not to include a GUI function I needed for maintenance.  So it surprised me.

I believe past NT command lines claimed to be POSIX-compliant, but they didn't include common unix commands.  I remember making batch files to duplicate them since I often forgot which OS I was in at the command line.

[Ironwood]

Powershell is great.

Which is fortunate, because that's usually the only fucking way to do shit these days.

[Chimpy]

Well, since now everything in the GUI for configuration (with like 2 or 3 exceptions across the whole OS) is just a graphical wrapper that runs PowerShell commands in the background it makes sense.

I really need to dive back into learning PowerShell for work. Just have not been able to find the time with the whole transitioning jobs and exploding appendix thing.