Help, Windows 8!

[Keith]

When I bought a laptop a year ago I had to reduce my choices because nearly everything had windows 8 installed with the package. Windows 7 is not perfect but I can certainly get along with it but when this computer gets replaced in a year or so I'll be going Apple I suspect!

To me Windows 8 appears to be an abomination geared more for social networking than any previous OS.

 

[thegman]

My wife has Windows 8 on her PC. They should have at least left the option of having a "Start" button. I hate it. Windows 8 without a touchscreen is a horrible, horrible thing.

The free upgrade to Windows 8.1 will put a Start button back, but it just opens the Start screen, not a Start menu, however...

You could just 'pin' the apps you use the most to the taskbar, I do that, and hardly ever use the Start screen.

Get used to the Start screen, it's just the same as the menu was really, just bigger.

Download one of the Start menu alternatives:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/9-windows-start-menus-windows-8-208963

I used to use one of these menus, but in the end I just got used to the screen, and now probably prefer it to the menu. If you organize it the way you want it, it works nicely, plus you have stuff like your alarms, weather, world clock, and all that stuff.

 

[cosmonaut]

I know this is no help but I saw and tried to use Windows 8 now I own a MacBook.

 

[Stuart John]

My 9 year old daughter can use windows 8 but I can't 🙂 I never thought the day would come when I would struggle with a PC. I went from win XP to a Mac so I've never had to learn win 7 or 8.

 

[Dwig]

The free upgrade to Windows 8.1 will put a Start button back, but it just opens the Start screen, not a Start menu, however...

You could just 'pin' the apps you use the most to the taskbar, I do that, and hardly ever use the Start screen.

...

I do that also.

I found the original Windows 8.0 rather annoying. After the Win8.1 upgrade things are much much better. The start screen now allows smaller icons and works better in general.

As a general rule, I avoid all of the "apps" that install by default and any of the "apps" offered by other vendors (e.g. Dropbox). I use the full Windows versions from the Desktop instead. In a few cases I've found that software vendors (e.g. Amazon Kindle & Dropbox) offer only "apps" for Windows8/8.1 and only list their full desktop applications for Windows 7. In every case I've found that the Win7 desktop application runs perfectly well on Win8/8.1.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Windows 8 is indeed a mess, the work my way or the highway OS. I feel your pain because I have to use it daily. The OS itself is OK quite solid and not a resource hog but whoever decided to ditch all the shortcuts you were used to and force the 'win 8 way' on users was a fool. Shutdown is now a 4-5 click operation that is oblique to the user.

I can get you a start menu of sorts from the taskbar at the bottom with these steps.

First make sure show hidden files has been enabled. (In folder options)

Then right-click on the Taskbar and click Toolbars and then New toolbar.

Browse to C:\Program Data\Microsoft\Windows and select Start Menu and choose Select Folder

As good as it gets for win 8, if you lose anything type it in search is another good tip.

 

[maddoc]

Windows 8 is indeed a mess, the work my way or the highway OS. I feel your pain because I have to use it daily. The OS itself is OK quite solid and not a resource hog but whoever decided to ditch all the shortcuts you were used to and force the 'win 8 way' on users was a fool. Shutdown is now a 4-5 click operation that is oblique to the user.

I can get you a start menu of sorts from the taskbar at the bottom with these steps.

First make sure show hidden files has been enabled. (In folder options)

Then right-click on the Taskbar and click Toolbars and then New toolbar.

Browse to C:\Program Data\Microsoft\Windows and select Start Menu and choose Select Folder

As good as it gets for win 8, if you lose anything type it in search is another good tip.

Good tip ! 🙂

 

[Bingley]

Firefox forever!

Erik.

Ta-Da! Problem solved, and welcome to the Firefox club, Erik!

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Ta-Da! Problem solved, and welcome to the Firefox club, Erik!

Am I the only person who thinks that there's a Linux mole in Microsoft management? It's the only explanation I can think of for Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 11.

😉

 

[thegman]

Windows 8 is indeed a mess, the work my way or the highway OS. I feel your pain because I have to use it daily. The OS itself is OK quite solid and not a resource hog but whoever decided to ditch all the shortcuts you were used to and force the 'win 8 way' on users was a fool. Shutdown is now a 4-5 click operation that is oblique to the user.

It's a 3 click operation, but I completely agree that it's totally hidden and oblique to the user. You sweep over to the right, click 'Settings' and it's there under 'Power', mind-boggling stupid, I totally agree.

On balance, I actually quite like Windows 8, and prefer it to Windows 7. However, there are a lot of user interface aspects which make no sense at all.

 

[Brian Atherton]

Have used Windows since the mid-nineties up to Windows 7, recently tried for an extended period, Windows 8. Hated it with a passion. Bought a MacBook. 😉

 

[Photo_Smith]

Yes you're right 3 clicks. In my defence my machine has a bug if I mouse>settings>power and then ask it to turn off or right click re-start it logs me off; so a couple more to actually shut down.
Apparently a bug in v8.0 fixed in 8.1. Problem is for me 8.1 is in the Windows store which is verboten by my admin, updates are from WSUS weekly but 8.1 isn't available through WSUS if it is it will have to be tested built into an image a rolled out.
But as one of only three Win 8 users in a College with 903 PC's I'm very low on the priority list.

My Laptop is a Mac.... (thank heavens)

 

[Dwig]

It's a 3 click operation, but I completely agree that it's totally hidden and oblique to the user. ...

It is only 2 plus some menu navigating in Win8.1 though the method is another "secret club handshake". Simply right-click on the new Windows icons at the left of the Taskbar, mouse up to the bottom entry on the menu, pause and then mouse over to your shutdown, sleep, restart, ... choice and click.

Again, its a case of way way too much "tablet think" and too little consideration for the desktop user. MS seems to think that users will all want to use the Power and Sleep buttons on their tablets or notebooks that than using mouse actions. Personally, I use the Sleep button on my keyboard most of the time and the menu access to Restart on the few occasions when I need it.

 

[zauhar]

Am I the only person who thinks that there's a Linux mole in Microsoft management? It's the only explanation I can think of for Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 11.

😉

As someone said, don't ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.

As a developer, I have always felt Apple's had an advantage when they were limited to a good, (relatively) small corps of engineers, which meant that each dish had fewer cooks (less 'management', fewer meetings, fewer arguments). Microsoft has always had a huge and cumbersome development operation.

Now that Apple is getting bigger, I start to encounter some 'Microsoft moments' when using their products. Like when my kid uses my Apple ID to buy an album on iTunes using her computer at home, and suddenly the bookmarks on Safari on my university office computer are all replaced by links to cosmetic and fashion sites. ;-(

Randy

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

As someone said, don't ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.

You're quite right. I wrote system utilities on Unix for a while. It is quite sobering when you start to look at all the holes there can be in as little as a couple of hundred lines of working code. So you start adding defensive code and before long it's a couple of thousand lines and still growing. Then the project manager starts dropping by your desk twice a day, asking when you'll honour the schedule he created (generally, out of thin air). So you pass it to the testers and wait for the loud bang. 🙄

For anything involving a GUI, multiply the above by a minimum of ten. 🙁

 

[willie_901]

Am I the only person who thinks that there's a Linux mole in Microsoft management? It's the only explanation I can think of for Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 11.

😉

There's a reason the E.U. fined Microsoft $732 million 10 months ago for " failing to respect an antitrust settlement". Microsoft's DNA requires it to engage in anti-trust activities.

The overriding culture at Microsoft for decades was to increase and retain market share. Nothing else mattered. If you can sell a corporate customer into IE and Windows then the customer develops all their internal and external web-based apps using within the Microsoft ecosystem. It turns out this ecosystem does not play well with others because Microsoft wants to hold the corporate customers hostage. The incompatibility of IE 11 is not due to subterfuge or incompetence, it is fundamental to Microsoft's "keep the customer hostage" game plan. Windows 8 is another matter. Windows 8 has to be all things to all customers. This is an insurmountable problem. Why would a company with the Microsoft's resources not just start from scratch and build something completely new and amazing?

 

[sevo]

Again, its a case of way way too much "tablet think" and too little consideration for the desktop user.

Yep. The issue with Windows 8 is that Microsoft wanted to change the computer paradigm - but shipping a OS tuned to tablet/notebook hybrids to billions of desktop computers (where touchscreens are no reasonable interface given the size of modern monitors and the arm length of humans) is bound to fail. If they had marketed it as the luxury convertible edition of their phone/tablet OS, people would have been excited...

 

[Oren Grad]

It is only 2 plus some menu navigating in Win8.1 though the method is another "secret club handshake".

In Windows 8, if one doesn't insist on using only mouse clicks, Alt-F4 > OK from the desktop does it.

EDIT: To be clear, the first time you need to scroll down to the "Shut down" menu option. But Windows remembers the last use, so if you don't use the other options the dialog box will open directly to "Shut down".