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The Windows 8 Experience

I’ve decided to fully adopt the new version of Windows; Windows 8. I popped in an SSD into my laptop, slapped Windows 8 Pro on it, and put my old hard drive into storage, in case Win8 proved to be the next ME. I’m delighted to tell you that it isn’t. In fact I’m actually happy and excited with my experiences so far with Win8, but it hasn’t been without complication and some slight confusion. I’ve come to an understanding with Windows 8, but let’s start with the basics. This is my 1 week usage report.

My Setup

I’ve converted my Envy 17t-1100 CTO Windows 7 laptop to Windows 8. This laptop rocks a Core i5 2.67Ghz Processor, 6 Gigs of ram, and a 1gig dedicated graphics card. The hard drive for this test is a Verbatim 256G SSD. The laptop isn’t designed for Windows 8, and as such, all of the drivers I’ve used have been Win7 Drivers only.

Startup

While the SSD probably plays a fairly large role in the boot time of my new OS Installation, it is still extremely fast; faster than Windows 7 by leagues. The time it takes from me to get from a cold boot to being able to load programs and apps is probably anywhere from 6-10 seconds. I don’t know about you, but I’m way okay with that.

The setup phase is very self-explanatory, and holds your hand (in a good way) in completely setting up your desktop for the first use. It doesn’t take a technician or geek to figure this part out. Click the colors you like, select the picture (if you want), select a password or choose the option to use your .NET login (Hotmail, Live, Outlook) Email address as your username and password. I suggest the .NET Login.

Using a .net login allows you to sync personal settings, apps, and other things like your sky drive whenever you log into your desktop, laptop, or Win8 Tablet. They’ll all look and feel the same – and that’s a very good thing for you. There’s a whole list of benefits of using a .net login (Including password restoration), and as long as you have a secure email password (And you should), it’ll be more than sufficient.

Interface

The first thing you may notice is the new tiles start menu. Keep in mind this IS NOT your only desktop. There still is an actual desktop experience that you’ll use when you use actual programs you’ve installed that you’ll be right at home with. The tiles (Codename Metro) interface is your start menu. When you click in the bottom left hand corner (Or press the windows key) you’ll be met with a very easy to use, dynamic, and customizable interface that won’t even confuse your grandmother.

While you can’t change the style of the square icons or the linear arrangement out of the box, I almost guarantee with an interface like this, that those options will arise sooner or later in either patches or apps. Not that I want to, mind you. I like being able to arrange my single or double square icons in the order that I choose, and excluding things I know I’ll never use.

The desktop experience is very familiar. Click on a program, it sits open in your taskbar. It’ll feel a lot like Win7 in this screen. The first thing you may notice, however, is how boring it looks opposed to the Aero experience those who have used Win7 have grown used to. Win8 Desktop isn’t pretty. Maybe one day it will be, but for now it’s honestly pretty boring, albeit functional.

I hyped the usability and customization of the start menu screen, but it isn’t without its faults. Without a question, Windows 8 feels like a tablet experience, and while you can use a mouse to navigate the system pretty easily, it is clearly intended for you to use a mouse or pen to whizz around the interface.

Apps vs Programs

I don’t know what sparked the fusion of the app world and the program world, but both of them live natively in Windows8. Phone and Surface RT users will be very familiar with their apps, and thanks to the .net login, all their apps will be on all of their Windows8 devices. However desktop, laptop, (and one day Surface Pro) users will notice they can also install and use programs as they’ve always been used to. I don’t think this fusion was necessary, however. Sometimes apps or programs will use the app version over their program brother (Internet Explorer is a great example). IE10 App vs IE10 Program is a very big difference. The IE10 app was meant for the tablet, not the computer. It feels like it’s out of place, and many things don’t work because of it (Flash being a biggie). For advanced users there’s always a way to work around things, but novice to intermediate computer users may find that switching between two IE experiences that hold their own tabs and are completely isolated from each other to be cumbersome, if not downright confusing.

That isn’t to say that all apps are bad. On the contrary, I find the Netflix, Stumble, Mail, Weather, and several other apps to be much preferred to their normal website counterparts. These apps that take place of a website are a welcome addition to the win computing experience.

Oh. There are a few ways to tell an app from a program. First, an app will take up the whole screen, and a program will whisk you away to the desktop interface, and load like you’re used to. In the start menu, they’ll appear as the icon you’re familiar with, surrounded by a gray box to fit the boxy tile theme.

Overall, if you’re setting this up for a complete computer novice, you may even consider getting rid of apps all together (Removing them from the start interface), to avoid confusion for your grandmother or even a client who can barely resize a window, just to avoid confusion between like apps and programs. Who knows, maybe they’ll even be willing to learn the new way!

Search

The search function of windows seems to have drastically increased. To use it, simply press the window key (Open the Start menu) and start typing. The results and typing window will appear on the right hand side, and by selecting the category you want (Store, Apps, Settings, Files, etc) it will search either the internet or your system for what you’re typing. Want to start Minecraft and it’s not on your start menu? Window Key, type “Minecraft” and press enter (unless you have multiple Minecraft programs or apps, you’ll have to select one then press enter using arrow keys). This is one of the handiest features I’ve used in a while. I simply love this search function

Oddities

Out of the box, Windows 8 will look as though it has found every driver you could ever need for every piece of hardware in your rig. Let me tell you, it’s very misleading. While it found generic drivers for everything to function, it’s minimal functionality. Whether device manager says you have all your drivers or not: Go to your driver or manufacturer websites and make sure to download the latest drivers for all your components. I found that the functionality of my system dramatically increased after I did this. This is highly recommended. I also witnessed a few times when trying to log in that I couldn’t type. My keyboard was simply unresponsive. Putting the computer to sleep and waking it up resolved this issue, however.

Compatibility

If it runs on Windows 7, it runs on Windows 8. I can’t stress how awesome this is. Anything I’ve wanted to install has installed and ran without any complications. I don’t use a whole lot of legacy software, but I imagine if you had gotten it to work on your Windows 7 Device, it’ll work on your new windows 8 device. I’ve had no problems with any programs I’ve installed thus far.

Hyper-V

While incredibly nerdy, those nerdy people will greatly appreciate Hyper-V being a native program on Windows 8 Pro, to run all their virtual machines in a fully optimized for your system interface. I’ve used it quite a bit on Server platforms, and let me tell you, it feels great. VMs are easy to create and run, and hardware is easy to manage for those machines. Any techie will appreciate this addition.

Task Manager

The new task manager neatly and nicely organizes everything that is running on your system, how much CPU it’s using, Memory, Disk, and Data transfer for all active processes. The interface is much cleaner and understandable, and terminating programs through it is very easy. Resource monitor (Under the performance tab) is very easy to use and understand. I don’t know if it was something I did or just me being oblivious, but the Performance tab during this review was in a paused state. No idea how to get out of that. The Resource Monitor (you can open it from the bottom), Functioned great though.

Programs that start up when your computer does are clearly labeled under “Startup”, and how much of an impact they have on how long it takes your system to start up. Not all of them are required by your system, and turning some of them off won’t hurt anyone if you want an even faster boot up time.

The “Users” tab shows all users logged in to the system, and how much CPU and Memory they are taking up. Details is the tab that we’re used to when going to kill programs that are crashing or defunct. It’ll feel very familiar to anyone who’s used the Task Manager before. It even shows suspended processes. Those are Apps that are running, but not in use. Pretty nifty!

Who should get Windows 8?

This is the million dollar question (Technically it’s a $60 question). Is Windows 8 right for me? Well let’s break the answer down.

Are you a techie, who likes having the latest and greatest? Absolutely get it. There’s zero reason not to. If you’re not interested in spending money however, you won’t feel left out. It’s a very cool and easy experience that I’d like to recommend to everybody, but I know that everybody won’t benefit from it or see it as cool like I do.

Are you the average user who upgraded to Windows 7 and is happy with it? You can probably wait on this. Wait at least till they’ve worked out any bugs and put a couple service packs before adopting the new platform. I’d recommend buying it during the discount upgrade wave is still going opposed to waiting till it’s expensive to buy it. You can shelve it for now if you don’t’ want to install it now, but I’m still pretty sure you’ll like it.

Are you in the past, or have legacy equipment running Windows XP? You need to upgrade, both hardware and Windows 8. Support, including service packs, security packs, and features will no longer be available to you soon. Websites updating to new versions of HTML 5 or Flash will cease to produce updates for your computer. That means that very soon, your computer will stop functioning in the mainstream program and website world. Now is a great time to upgrade. It’s your time.

Do you have Windows 7 and have a touch-screen compliant device? Absolutely upgrade! Everything you like about Windows7 is still there, but with complete support for the touch screen world. You’ll love the improvements you’ll feel with your tablet or touch screen.

TL;DR

Pros

·        Functions great

·        Improved Touch capabilities

·        Cheap to upgrade

·        App and Program support (you’ll like this more in the future when more apps are around)

·        Easy to setup and use

·        Legacy program support

·        Lightweight

·        Better memory management

·        Native Hyper-V

Cons

·        Novice adopters may experience a heavy learning curve without help

·        App and Program support can be confusing

·        Very new, can still have bugs even if I didn’t notice or feel them.

·        Bad for those who don’t like change

·        Your grandmother may not like it at first.

When people say they have a 'main' champion. You know what my main champion is? The one that doesn't smashed into the ground by the opposing champion in my lane.

Decided to play a lot of him, because it seems that literally no one at low ELO knows how to handle him. It's great when you're on a losing streak and want to feel like a boss. Nothing like 3 shotting the enemy carry.

As an aside; if he were any easier, my 5 year old nephew could probably go 28/3 like i do as him.

..... >.>

But I've been playing a TON of Riven lately, and it works surprisingly well. Synergizes well with all her other abilities which are also PBAOE. If you build her pure damage, you'll probably hate her. Also, you're going to get focused a lot due to your need to be in the clump of their team and you're an easy target. Things like Bloodthirster, while they give you Lifesteal/Damage, will never get stacked unless your other items make you tanky.

As Kayle, 2nd to last team fight before the end. Penta'd then pushed 2 towers and an inhib. Felt so good.

Ruining the metagame of League of Legends. Follow This on ANY champion. It's interesting what you'll be able to accomplish when you build items you never thought you'd find useful for that champion. Morello's Monday Trinity Force Tuesday (Should this be replaced with Tiamat?) Warmog's Wednesday Thornmail Thursday Force of Nature Friday Spirit Visage Saturday Sunfire Sunday