Windows 8 Impressions…and why I went back to Windows 7

Windows 8 Installation and Overall Impression Notes:

Installation:

• 1544- Insert DVD
  • Bought the physical Win8 Pro DVD at MicroCenter for $38.88 +tax. Used an external DVD drive to do the install.
• Two uninstalls required
  • Intel PROSet Wireless- Uninstal
  • DisplayLink Core Software
• 1634- Windows 8 Logo Appears and starts processing
• 1644- Moving settings
• 1648- Welcome movie playing
• 1712- At setup screen

First Impressions/Notes:

• Metro/Modern interface very clean
• Definitely a learning curve from classic windows enviornment
• Apps all moved over and seemed to be working (upgrade from Win 7 Home Premium)
  • even Xcelsius 2008 managed to open and render a SWF (no connectivity)
• Office 2010 opened fine
• new mail app is nice.  very clean and seems to sync well with gmail
• had to use my hotmail account to get the full functionality…was only using that for Xbox…not sure if I am 100% thrilled about that
• Google chrome in Modern seems to be a different browser than in ‘desktop mode’
• ‘older’ apps don’t run in Modern, heads over to the desktop
• Evernote has a ‘modern app’ but seems to be read only, can’t build new notes on it
• wakes up quicker from sleep (open lid), but takes longer to get to password prompt than win7
• Sprint 4G adapter seems to work fine, but there’s no easy way to turn the wifi back on without the intel proset wireless drivers
• no easy mouse over to see the date and time from the Modern interface…can use Win+C keyboard shortcut to see the clock and wifi status, amoungst other things the Charm bar gives you
• social integration seems pretty good so far…facebook and twitter now appearing on my live tiles
• had to change some multimedia settings in power options to ensure that the PC went to sleep when i closed the lid.  worked and then it didn’t

One Week+ Later Impressions/Notes:

• Lid still doesn’t put laptop to sleep every time, only sporadically.  Button push works 99% of the time.
• First BSOD. Put up a frowny face, collected information and counted up to 100%.  Then restarted and once logged in, prompted to send crash information back to MSFT.
• Like the full screen Metro version of Chrome.  If I click a link in Tweetdeck (desktop), it opens the Desktop version of Chrome- not the Metro.
• Haven’t tested IE10 Metro, as it doesn’t load if another browser (in my case, Chrome) is set as the default.
• Tweetdeck still scrolls in big blocks via the touchpad two-finger scroll.  <need to check regular mouse>
  • but the Chrome app scrolls just fine- i’ll just switch back to that one
• NO Metro app/integration for Dropbox…boo!
• Same for Evernote- current Metro App is a downer.  No Rich Text editing? Really?  I know we’re trying to be all ‘Metro’, but come on!
• On a SAP note- Xcelsius 2008 opened fine. LOL
• Office 2010 works fine via the desktop, but then again- this particular PC only really does light office work and mainly PPTs
• Windows.old taking up 24GB of space.  Thinking about copying it to an external USB drive and blowing it away.
• Definitely keeps the fan spinning less than Win7, though.
• seems to still be averaging 3-4 hours per battery charge.  Wireless on, 25% brightness.
• Wireless connection does NOT seem to connect as fast when waking from sleep as Win7
• Can’t set an ‘alias’ or ‘send as’ email via the Metro Mail App (which I actually DO like- surprisingly)
• ‘ease of use’ features are too easy to accidentally engage. narrator turned on while typing blog and had to reboot to shut it off
• can’t use the Snipping Tool on the Metro side of the house, only the classic Desktop side of the house
• Random blue screens- more prevalent than under Win7
• 1/9/13: dropbox metro app finally available
• 1/9/13: evernote metro app is OK, but rich text formatting was still lacking.  sticking with the classic desktop version for now
• 1/19/13: Metro Chrome won’t play Amazon cloud player when focus moved to desktop or any other app.  only way to play music throughout the computer (including using metro apps) is to use IE10 on the desktop side.