Windows 8 is out and according to Microsoft it is, "Vibrant and beautiful." Well the colors are very nice and it is faster. It will work with a computer that previously ran Windows 7 and even run better and faster with less hardware requirements which is unusual for a new Operating System. It also boots much more quickly. The advertised boot time is about six seconds, but I found that mine was less than 10 seconds. That is still fantastic.
Let’s take a look at some of the new features.
Touchscreen is the latest tech feature to come along since the first iPhone rolled and now Windows 8 has it. This is slick – on a touchscreen enabled computer which you will most likely have to buy since until now very few computers had it. On the desktop "Tiles" are in and "Icons" are out. Tiles are larger and are sometimes active. The weather tile updates continuously so you can see it without opening it unless you want to.
Windows 8 has exceptional cloud integration out of the box, meaning you can immediately open and save all of your files on your Microsoft "Sky Drive" off site and not on your hard drive. This includes all of your Office files and various other types of files.
One thing I believe Microsoft should have done in several past Windows iterations is to include an anti-virus application in the operating system. Windows 8 now has Windows Defender included in the default installation. This includes anti-virus, anti-malware and other good features, at no additional charge.
Speaking about the charge…at this time MS is offering a special deal if you purchase Windows 8 before January 31, 2013. The cost is $39.99 to download it or $69.99 to order the disks. There are basically only two versions of Windows 8. They are Windows 8 and the Pro version. Prices quoted are for Windows 8 Pro. If you are going to buy it I recommend that you go for the Pro and forget the standard version.
You get Internet Explorer 10 with Windows 8 which seems to be quicker and "prettier" than the previous varieties. When you open it, as with all of the new Windows 8 enabled GUI programs it takes the entire screen and most of your menu items disappear until you right click to bring them up. This is a good thing; however, it may take some time to get used to the difference.
So if you have heard how horrible it is…well, it really is not. However, for all the good it has it has several, in my opinion, major problems.
The learning curve on it is huge. The normal user will be lost as soon as it is installed.
The new GUI is nice. However, when you use a program that was not designed for that GUI (Firefox for one) you get kicked back to a regular looking Windows 7 desktop…WHAT!? Yes, Windows 8 has the Windows 7 desktop, which you can get to fairly easily but one major thing is missing, the START button, so you have to finagle your way into programs that used to be right on the start menu.
Some Windows 8 programs can only open in the Windows 7 desktop. For instance, if you need to use Windows Explorer to copy files from one folder to another you get kicked over to the Windows 7 desktop to open Explorer to copy your files. Why not stay in the Windows 8 environment? It almost looks to me as though they did not quite finish developing part of the system.
I think it would make an excellent operating system for a tablet or a PC with touchscreen capabilities; however, if you are not ready to purchase a new computer I do not recommend switching. I will not but I will run it in a virtual environment to watch for changes and to be able to answer questions from some of you brave souls who do switch.
