win8 Poll: Windows 8 Experience (How do you like it?)

[Tal Greywolf]

I have given Windows 8 the benefit of the doubt, but as of today I have taken it off of my system completely. Don't get me wrong here, the underlying system is stable, there are some good improvements compared to Windows 7, but the UI continues to be, in my opinion, the most horrid UI ever developed.

But the real reason for taking it off was network usage. No one has commented about how on a desktop that Windows 8 is constantly updating all those "Live Tiles" and sucking down your bandwidth (not to mention pushing the limits of your usage caps). And there does not seem to be any way to a) disable the live tiles completely or b) limit the network usage for those live tiles on a wired connection. This makes me think that there will be a number of users who'll be discovering in the next month or so that Windows 8 isn't so great after that letter from their ISP advising them that they've exceeded their data cap comes in.

So no, Windows 8 isn't the greatest OS to come from Microsoft, it's not better than sliced bread, and it's not going to be the OS that saves Microsoft. And until Microsoft fixes the network issue on a wired connection, I will keep Windows 8 off of my system for now.

[]SK[]

Right click, turn off live tile?

[Tal Greywolf]

SK[' timestamp=1356706367' post='595419662]

Right click, turn off live tile?

No good. That works only with wireless connections. On a wired link, you do not have that option, by design.

[Dot Matrix]

No good. That works only with wireless connections. On a wired link, you do not have that option, by design.

Funny. I'm on a wired connection, and I just turned off a few live tiles on my PC...

[linsook]

I have given Windows 8 the benefit of the doubt, but as of today I have taken it off of my system completely. Don't get me wrong here, the underlying system is stable, there are some good improvements compared to Windows 7, but the UI continues to be, in my opinion, the most horrid UI ever developed.

But the real reason for taking it off was network usage. No one has commented about how on a desktop that Windows 8 is constantly updating all those "Live Tiles" and sucking down your bandwidth (not to mention pushing the limits of your usage caps). And there does not seem to be any way to a) disable the live tiles completely or b) limit the network usage for those live tiles on a wired connection. This makes me think that there will be a number of users who'll be discovering in the next month or so that Windows 8 isn't so great after that letter from their ISP advising them that they've exceeded their data cap comes in.

So no, Windows 8 isn't the greatest OS to come from Microsoft, it's not better than sliced bread, and it's not going to be the OS that saves Microsoft. And until Microsoft fixes the network issue on a wired connection, I will keep Windows 8 off of my system for now.

save microsoft from what? go over data cap from live tiles, wtf?? who is forcing you to use the live tiles? unpin or disable live tile. don't know how to do it, use google. utterly clueless....

[Tal Greywolf]

save microsoft from what? go over data cap from live tiles, wtf?? who is forcing you to use the live tiles? unpin or disable live tile. don't know how to do it, use google. utterly clueless....

I have googled it, and I still see network traffic for Store, Bing and others.

So come up with something constructive that counters my experience, or just keep doing the name calling. I do tech support for a living, and probably have far more experience than you in a wider variety of OSes here.

[Orange Battery]

I think its important that we keep file explorer accessible through the desktop right now. Im all for innovation but right now 'Metro' apps are basic and not something I would consider to be an actual application worthy of getting things done.

The apps are great, if I was using a tablet then they would be all I need but the main difference here is Im using a desktop. Im using a desktop as most people do, as the detailed interface to their tablet device for backups and file management.

Right now, I cant see a touch screen giving me so much control over my systems and applications - the hub of my digital world.

MS shouldn't pull things until they have proved themselves with something else.

One last thing - Im using 8 but omg Im having to move my mouse round the screen so much to get things done and why do photos and other items from the desktop open in the new metro picture viewer, its so limited and takes too many clicks to get back!!!! Ive changed the default program but feel for those who dont realise it can be done.

[linsook]

I have googled it, and I still see network traffic for Store, Bing and others.

So come up with something constructive that counters my experience, or just keep doing the name calling. I do tech support for a living, and probably have far more experience than you in a wider variety of OSes here.

right... with all your experience you're telling everyone that live tiles will bust your cap. don't want to see store traffic? turn off updates. turn off windows updates while you at it. please tell us which apps are still using traffic if you turned off their live tiles. take a screen shot of whatever program you're using to show us the network traffic and what processes.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

right... with all your experience you're telling everyone that live tiles will bust your cap. don't want to see store traffic? turn off updates. turn off windows updates while you at it. please tell us which apps are still using traffic if you turned off their live tiles. take a screen shot of whatever program you're using to show us the network traffic and what processes.

Well any background traffic runs the risk of busting a data cap. Data caps aren't universal around the world and to assume that they are all huge would be a very big mistake.

Any background traffic can be a problem. It all depends on the user's usage, the cap, and the overage penalties.

You can instruct the user on how to limit the background data use by the OS, but to chastise him as if there is no risk of a live tile, or other background tasks, pushing him over a cap is illogical. Especially since any data use runs the risk of causing a user to exceed a cap and live tiles and background tasks may ever well transmit and/or receive data.

Almost every cap I've seen, and I haven't seen them all, will charge you for an extra GB, at whatever that rate is, even if your overage is only 1KB.

[Dot Matrix]

Again, turn off the lives tiles. I can do it on my wired PC, so can you.

[linsook]

Well any background traffic runs the risk of busting a data cap. Data caps aren't universal around the world and to assume that they are all huge would be a very big mistake.

Any background traffic can be a problem. It all depends on the user's usage, the cap, and the overage penalties.

You can instruct the user on how to limit the background data use by the OS, but to chastise him as if there is no risk of a live tile, or other background tasks, pushing him over a cap is illogical. Especially since any data use runs the risk of causing a user to exceed a cap and live tiles and background tasks may ever well transmit and/or receive data.

Almost every cap I've seen, and I haven't seen them all, will charge you for an extra GB, at whatever that rate is, even if your overage is only 1KB.

we'll i think we are in agreement, live tiles alone will not bust anybodys cap.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

we'll i think we are in agreement, live tiles alone will not bust anybodys cap.

Yes, I would find it hard that live tiles alone would push a user over their cap, unless it is so small to not be worth considering.

[]SK[]

No good. That works only with wireless connections. On a wired link, you do not have that option, by design.

Eh? What a random thing to suggest. Odd that you find it's "by design" too.

[Aergan]

During installation on a Dell XPS L702X I have to physically remove the 2x500GB SATA drives or it will not install on my 128GB SSD "unable to create or locate primary partition". Something about a dislike of GPT formatted HDD's + an SSD from what I have read and supposedly affected Windows 7 although I can install Windows 7 x64 without this issue.

[Phacoid]

It's probably done for a reason. I don't quite understand why you formatted them as GPT. From what I have read it is only necessary for drives bigger than 2TB (because MBR is limited that way) but offers no real other advantages in way of performance or usable features. Can you enlighten me on this?

[Aergan]

It's probably done for a reason. I don't quite understand why you formatted them as GPT. From what I have read it is only necessary for drives bigger than 2TB (because MBR is limited that way) but offers no real other advantages in way of performance or usable features. Can you enlighten me on this?

GPT is necessary to create a Windows NT 6.1+ based software RAID. I have the two 500GB SATA disks in RAID 0.

[jebus197]

Windows 8 sucks. I intalled it, but do not like it at all. It seems to not be able to make up it's mind whether it's a desktop OS, or a tablet OS and ends up doing neither particularly well.

[ArialBlue]

Windows 8 requires its Firewall service running in order to install / update metro applications - to spit in the face of users who use router firewall or software firewall.

And the metro applications are mostly useless, still.

[BavonWW]

The experience was great, but sadly I'm already using Start Menu 8.

I'm also fed up royal with inane slogans blaring out at me every time I venture onto the Windows 8 site. Do they ever consult users before designing a new OS?

Pastel colours, toy town graphics and, of course; carefully posed models. Please get them to stop it!

What does,

'Get Windows 8 apps

The more you have, the more you can do'

actually mean?

Otherwise a good effort all round .....

[HawkMan]

Windows 8 requires its Firewall service running in order to install / update metro applications - to spit in the face of users who use router firewall or software firewall.

And the metro applications are mostly useless, still.

Thing is W8 is future proofed, how is your router going to help you when you have IPv6 enabled or IPv6 tunneling on. or when your UPnP lets something in ? that's right, it doesn't.

[Noir Angel]

Ugh...

Problems with media centre (it would randomly just stop accepting input from my remote). Then for absolutely no reason (made no configuration changes) the USB 3.0 ports on my motherboard started to malfunction and it wouldn't pick up my wifi adapter or any USB storage devices I plugged in (the annoying thing is I didn't even make any configuration changes to prompt it). Tried disabling the USB 3.0 ports and falling back to USB 2.0, but after a couple of boots those started malfunctioning in the same way. Tried every tip I saw on the Internet to get them working and none of those worked either. So I put all the settings back the way they were with the aim of booting back into the OS to back up my data and reinstall 7 and hey presto the OS won't boot either, just sticks on a black screen and won't even boot into safe mode. Managed to recover the files I wanted with Acronis, and after restoring my Windows 7 image everything is working properly again.

I've given Windows 8 2 cracks of the whip now and it's failed me both times. It's a buggy, unstable, and frustrating piece of crap.

[HawkMan]

The problem is that you never installed the USB filter drivers on your windows 8 install . so the only bug there is user/installer error.

[Noir Angel]

Completely wrong, I installed them... for both chipsets. In fact it took a week before the devices even started to malfunction. Did you even bother to read my post before jumping to a stupid conclusion?

[zeke009]

I have yet to find one thing to make me want to reinstall Windows 7. I pretty much live in the desktop fulltime and have little reason to go to the modern start menu unless I choose to.

Sure, I had to set Media Player & Desktop picture viewer as default and install Adobe Reader. I made some tiles with Obly Tile, but rarely use them since I'm rarely use the Start menu.

[HawkMan]

Completely wrong, I installed them... for both chipsets. In fact it took a week before the devices even started to malfunction. Did you even bother to read my post before jumping to a stupid conclusion?

I did, and I still don't think you installed the filter drivers, because the error you describe, down to the delayed effect, fits perfectly with missing or faulty filter driver. Never mind the fact you never said you installed the filter driver in your post.