Refurb Win 7 Laptop or New Win 8 Laptop w/Classic Shell?

[MrPopo]

I really don't get all the Win8 hate. Sure it looks a little different but it's still Windows and does the same stuff. Some things it actually does way better.

It's ugly, hides configuration tools, randomly hides stuff just because you haven't used it in a week, has hidden hot spots that you have to know about, then wait for something to pop up to get things done, and is terrible for getting actual work done on. I dread the day I have to walk some person on the phone who can barely use a computer through hovering over invisible shit on the screen just so they can tell me they can't see the thing I need them to do because the OS has decided to hide it.

Having spent the last 16 months using Windows 8 on my primary development machine I can confidently say that Windows 8 is no harder or easier to use than 7 for getting actual work done. I agree that modern apps would be terrible for productivity tools, which is why the desktop is still there.

[isiolia]

Some of that has been true of WIndows in general for several revisions. I think Office 2003 started hiding menu options that hadn't been picked in a while, for example. Some of it just depends on what you want to do too. Remember when XP dropped Appletalk printer support, and came out of the gate looking like it was made by Fischer-Price? Now you have to pry it out of people's cold, dead fingers...

I don't like the modern UI stuff in 8, but the vast majority of the time it can be completely ignored, and will be by the majority of people who just dump their stuff on the desktop anyway (or pin apps to the taskbar).

Besides, if you need to get to most important stuff in 8, go down to the bottom left so that the Start screen icon comes up...and right click.

[ZenErik]

No more difficult than Win7, IMO. But the dual UIs need to go ASAP. One or the other, please. Right now OS X does the whole full screen app thing a lot better.

[sonic2041]

I've found that most people that talk down on windows 8 don't know what they are talking about, and just want to join the bandwagon of hate. I've been using it since last October (whenever it went RTM), as my primary OS and have had no issues with it.

In my opinion the start screen is much faster to use than the obsolete start menu that I haven't used since windows vista. Most of the changes, if you have an open mind, are actually better believe it or not. All the options are still there, and I find them easier to access then using the old fashioned file and edit menus.

I agree that the dual OS thing is a little weird, but most of the time I work in the desktop because all the apps I use run exclusively there. Eventually (I would estimate 1 or 2 more major revisions) the desktop will be gone entirely, which won't be a big deal once all the major applications work in the new half of things. They just need to fix dual monitor support so you can have different modern apps running on different monitors.

If you do run windows 8, don't break down and install classic shell, it will prevent you from learning anything new.

[Hobie-wan]

Some of that has been true of WIndows in general for several revisions. I think Office 2003 started hiding menu options that hadn't been picked in a while, for example. Some of it just depends on what you want to do too. Remember when XP dropped Appletalk printer support, and came out of the gate looking like it was made by Fischer-Price? Now you have to pry it out of people's cold, dead fingers...

I don't like the modern UI stuff in 8, but the vast majority of the time it can be completely ignored, and will be by the majority of people who just dump their stuff on the desktop anyway (or pin apps to the taskbar).

Besides, if you need to get to most important stuff in 8, go down to the bottom left so that the Start screen icon comes up...and right click.

I hate that crap in Office too, but at least it wasn't too hard to turn it off and use full menus all the time. I actually have things organized on my start menu. I have more icons on the desktop than I used to, but still most of it is on the start menu. I like that the older start menu is one icon with tons in it where I arranged it. On the desktop means you have to close or minimize everything to get there (yes I know about WIN+D) and pinning to the task bar takes up taskbar space, making it harder to see the things I have open. At work especially I always have a ton of things open across 3 monitors and I'm usually looking at an icon and 3 or 4 letters as is. If I had crap pinned nex tto start I'd just have icons and a single letter if I was lucky.

But anyway, obviously I'm voting for W7 something as opposed to 8. I don't have anything more useful to add to give you suggestions that haven't been said already.

[Mendoza]

I think ill be going with a Win8 machine and trying to use classic shell to make it closer to what im used to.

After having really looked at the refub machines they were almost the same price and were significant downgrades in some areas.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and i'll let you guys know how it goes.

Worse comes to worse, I have 60 days to return or exchange it since I have Rewards Silver at best buy.

[isiolia]

At work especially I always have a ton of things open across 3 monitors and I'm usually looking at an icon and 3 or 4 letters as is. If I had crap pinned nex tto start I'd just have icons and a single letter if I was lucky.

Are you using a multi-monitor utility like Displayfusion already or no? One of the things I actually like a lot with 8 is the multiple monitor support. It natively will expand the taskbar to every monitor, and can be set so that the icons appear on the monitor where the app/window is open. You can also pin things to a particular monitor's taskbar.

Neither 7 or 8 have text in the taskbar buttons, a lot more OS X style in that regard.

Still, it depends on a lot on how people work. Most users I have here at work leave all their crap on the desktop anyway. I got used to pinning stuff I used a lot to quicklaunch back with Windows 2000, so expanding that to the 7 (and now 8 ) taskbar was a natural extension (and arguably more space efficient to boot). With 8, I put a few more things on there than I did with 7 - needing to take over the full screen to launch Calculator seemed excessive - but now it's rare I ever open the Start screen.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather MS have left more options in for people too. Part of it does come down to things simply being what we're used to, not necessarily being better or worse.

[Hobie-wan]

Are you using a multi-monitor utility like Displayfusion already or no? One of the things I actually like a lot with 8 is the multiple monitor support. It natively will expand the taskbar to every monitor, and can be set so that the icons appear on the monitor where the app/window is open. You can also pin things to a particular monitor's taskbar.

Neither 7 or 8 have text in the taskbar buttons, a lot more OS X style in that regard.

No, I'm still on XP FWIW. I have 2 matched monitors and 1 smaller one, taskbar is just on the 1st one. Scrolling my mouse all the way to onw side to switch to a program would annoy me if I just need to pop something up to look, but not actually interact with that window. I don't like the way W7 (and OSX) collapse into buttons where I have to click the one for the program and then the one I want if I have multiples open either. It is extra unnecessary clicks to me. The old (yeah yeah crusty, whatever) way of seeing each window down there with part of the title for browser windows works better for me as I can click directly once, and only once. Yes I'm using tabs and multiple browser windows both. I have a lot of crap I need to look at and depending on which I need to see at the same time, tabs A, B, and C go in browser window 1 and D and E go in 2 and so on.

[MrPopo]

Hobie, you realize that you can turn off the grouping behavior in Win 7 if you go to taskbar properties, right?

[Hobie-wan]

Hobie, you realize that you can turn off the grouping behavior in Win 7 if you go to taskbar properties, right?

Since I've not used a W7 machine that's 'mine' for extended periods of time, not I did not. That's helpful information for the future though. Thanks.

Unfortunately doesn't help me when dealing with customer's PCs. The only thing I'll change on them for their own good when it is annoying me is turning extensions back on.

But anyway, no more derailing. Let us know how it goes with the new PC.