Not sure what you're referring to as "basic drivers" but that involves literally thousands of chipsets, which can involve tens of thousands of devices. If you're referring to proprietary drivers for stuff like wifi and GPUs, those are pretty much the only exceptions that you usually have to go out of your way to install. If you consider that a lot, I'm not sure you're aware how many drivers are involved to make an OS functional to an end user. What Windows shows in device manager is only part of it. If you personally use something like fedora or Ubuntu, I'm really curious how you could have possibly needed to manually install more than 2 drivers. Anyway, pretty much every distro uses the same drivers that have proven stable by the kernel release. Many distros are picky about licensing, so they use open source drivers, which cover most hardware. These days finding a wifi adapter that requires closed source drivers or ndiswrapper are pretty rare. Broadcom and Ralink are pretty much the only ones who are consistenly a pain about that. In Windows, however, you STILL need to go out of your way to get proper video drivers, and for my particular setup I had to wait for Windows Update to download roughly 15 drivers for my system. With Linux, the only thing I installed was a color laser printer, because it involves closed source drivers. I'm using Arch (which is more stripped down than others like Fedora). Such devices I use that worked out-of-the-box in Linux, but not Windows, were: * RAID controller * Label printer * USB 3.0 ports * PCMCIA reader * The original xbox S controller (have fun finding drivers for that in Windows 8 64 bit) * wifi Windows will automatically download and install a lot of drivers for you, and sometimes I prefer windows update to get them because then I don't have to deal with the crappy utilities that often come with drivers. But you don't want the default video drivers it acquires and in some cases, like mine, the audio drivers it gets don't work properly (I use SPDIF which Windows for whatever reason couldn't use without the official drivers).
Everyone I know including me disables the fraking "charms" bar anyways. Not to mention everything else you have to do to get a desktop OS and never see metro again. You know Microsoft has it's collective head up it's collective ass when you have to spend a hour fixing the UI (restore the start menu, disable boot-to-metro, disable hot conrers, etc.) just so the user can actually use the OS. Perhaps now they have finally managed to pry their collective heads out of their collective ass? We've only been asking for this since Windows 8 launched: Give us a real start menu, throw out Metro, throw out the charms bar, get rid of the hot corners, and stop trying to make everyone get a "Microsoft Account" to force everyone to use their useless apps store. The underlying OS engine is great... faster boot times, more secure, better task manager, native support for more hardware, etc. But the Metro UI experience on a keyboard-and-mouse PC was like a hot mess spread on toast and offered up as if it it was fine dining. To make Windows 8 successful all they needed to do it keep the UI the same as Windows 7 while updating what is under the hood. If they must insist on being an also-ran in the tablet market then fine; launch Metro on tablets only and call it Metro or some other clever name the boys and girls in branding can come up with. But no, no they tried to force EVERYONE to use the effing Metro. FAIL!
thing with linux is it can run on anything. old machines to new machines. windows 8 was designed with new machines in mind and wont install on older machines due to processors. but this is a killer right there. forcing people to buy new machines so they can get windows 8. tsk. 8.1 worse because people with dells that are 5+years old can not run it because the video card that in it doesnt have 1.3 drivers. even though win 8.0 ran with the drivers just fine. and the stupid window media center key not working with 8.1. tried explaining to my dad that he cant activate windows 8.1 media center with the key that was used on 8.0. and he still did it anyway and deactivated the system and couldnt get the system to reactivate.:bang: why the fu** dont people listen to me? microsoft trying to get rid of their past and force everyone to do the same thing.
Actually the processors are only part of the issue. Windows 8, for example, requires AHCI too, in order to proceed. Unfortunately it isn't very explicit about that. Forcing W8 to work on certain hardware is both a good and bad thing. The bad, as you've stated, is leaves some people in the dark, unable to upgrade. But the good reason is it forces old technology to be abandoned that is holding back the PC industry. Programs shipping with only 32-bit, DX9, or take advantage of just 1 or 2 cores are a good example of the result of allowing people to use their 10-year-old computers. This is a problem - we should be able to move beyond ALL of that. People should never be forced to make any decision, but then again, if they want a computer that old, why should they care about anything newer than Vista? There's a good chance their hardware can't take advantage of it. BUT, and I'd like to make this very clear - you do not need to sacrifice efficiency in order to progress. And this is why I have such a problem with how Windows Vista to Windows 8.1 have been dealt with; MS knew that people would be required to have a new PC so, to me, they just figured "eh, we recommend people buy something new, and if they do, they should have plenty of memory. We don't really need to spend much time optimizing this."
This is untrue on many levels. Windows 8 was designed to be useable on a wide range of systems and unlike previous versions like 7 and Vista, is not targeted for only new hardware. It does better on older hardware than Win 7 does. It actually can run just as fast as XP and boot much faster on an old single core machine. I know this from personal experience with my 2005 vintage HP laptop. Linux can be much harder to get to work with old hardware which I also know from experience. Getting the wireless card working on my older laptop was a nightmare in Ubuntu and impossible in Mint. In Win 8, it just plain worked. As far as video drivers go, you just use the legacy driver or mod a newer one with the legacy and you're off and running. Don't worry about having the latest drivers for anything because they almost always won't do any better anyway. Just find ones that work (many Vista drivers work fine) but you probably won't have to because Win 8 is excellent at finding and installing drivers during it's setup.
Losing the charms bar would be fine with me if all it's functionality is useable in another way. I very rarely use it. The only times I do is when I want to set advanced boot options like safe mode or disabling driver enforcement. The only way I have found to do that is through Charms settings-change PC Settings--Update and Recovery. If they include another way to do it without the Charms bar, I'll gladly say goodbye to it.
Not sure what you mean by driver enforcement (if it's what I think it is, isn't that accessible via the "System" options in Control Panel?), but to change boot options, you can do that in Start+R and type "msconfig". The charms bar can be avoided as a whole, and at least in Windows 8.1 you can disable it without any special tricks or 3rd party software.
I installed Win8.1 then entered my Win8.0 media center key and it activated just fine.... If you're trying to enter it as the Windows product key you'll have problems. If you use it where it was intended, it works just fine. My HTPC ran Windows8.x just fine and it's harddrive was configured as IDE. In fact, ran it for almost a year that way.
Love how a news thread turned into yet another thread about people ranting about how much they miss the Start menu (which isn't really necessary) and how much the "Metro" UI sucks (which is essentially just a full-screen start menu....). Isn't irony wonderful?
I mean seriously.... people.... not every thread relating to Windows 8/8.1, or any aspect of the former, needs to turn into a thread about how much you miss that little round button in the bottom corner that you probably only really ever used for the few applications you install out of habit yet RARELY use. WE GET IT! Move on already.
You can boot into safe mode through "msconfig" but to disable driver enforcement while in Windows you have to go to the "Advance Startup" menu in "PC Settings," it requires a restart after that though before you get the option to disable it. You can go directly to the "PC settings" menu through the charms bar or by typing "PC Settings" (you only really need to type PC) while on Metro. You can see the whole process in this video here. It's easier to just type "Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON" in CMD and then restarting so you can install unsigned driver. I use a .bat file though with this command "shutdown /r /o" which takes you straight to the "Choose a option" menu, you can that with CMD as well. I actually prefer the Start Screen, all I have to do is press it and I have instant access to my pinned apps, If I need an app that I haven't pinned I just have to type it's name, you mostly only have to type the start of it.
I seen problems on forums,that if you did a clean install of 8.1 and enter the media center key, that was already activated in 8.0, in add features it would take the key and install media center and reboot and gave message saying system could not be activated because the key was activated in 8.0 and not 8.1 but then I also read that some people had no problems.
pointless? useless? really? I didn't realize shortcuts are useless. I have a lot of shortcuts on my 'start' menu. much more comfortable than switching back to my desktop, especially since my work requires me to have a lot of stuff open at the same time. apparently you prefer switching to your desktop to launch something. I know that you can also place shortcuts in w7's start menu, but you just don't have enough space on that thing. and this is just one example of what metro can do, I can't imagine going back to w7's small start menu. people like you cannot adapt, it's true even if you won't accept it. because of people like you I actually thought windows 8 is garbage. when I tried it I simply realized it's not even half as bad as you think. I supposed nowadays it's cool to bash microsoft for changing stuff over. and I'm not saying they did a great job. for example we cannot change the title color of various windows, that's ****ing insulting. windows 8 is not as bad as people make it look, but it could have been a lot better.
Really? Shortcuts on the "Start Screen" interface is your reason for liking Windows 8? Wonderf@ckingfull, now I can put a shortcut to a desktop app somewhere that's not accessible from the desktop UI. What a marvellous "innovation". It's like being told that to access your toilet paper while in the bathroom you need to go down the hall and enter the room labelled "Metro" where you will find toilet paper arranged in dispensers that, when accessed, imediately kick you back to the bathroom. Because, you know, having the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom is the "old way" of doing things and if you can't get used to that well then you're just one of those people that can't adapt to change.
I love the new interface for tablets and touch screens. I like the new copy and paste dialog box. I like the obvious improvements to under the hood performance. Reductions in overall running services is nice. Mounting ISO's is also nice. I like the space regained by removing the the ****ty skeuomorphic aero interface. I like the improvements to multi-monitor. I like the ribbon toolbar and the obvious improvements that made to exposing once hidden elements. The new task manager is awesome. I prefer the start screen's 72 pinned items with live tile information to the old start button. Overall it's been far more stable for me than windows 7, especially when recovering from GPU driver crashes. I find searches to be faster and better presented. I even find the new hotkeys pretty useful. Use the Windows D one quite often. I paid $40 for Windows 8 Pro and so far it's been more than worth it.
no offense, but that comparison made no sense whatsoever. it's EASIER to get on metro and launch something if you have a lot of stuff open because you don't have to manually reopen all of them. consider the fact that I use alt-tab a lot. it's a huge nuisance to reorder all my running programs again because I wanted to launch something from the desktop. and with the shortcuts in the metro interface, I don't even need to search for my target application. if you want a good example based on yours, consider this: you have one roll of paper in front of you and one roll of paper on your left side. the roll of paper in front of you has a stack of clothes in front of it. thus, the roll of paper on your left is an alternative. I was talking strictly about the metro interface, not windows 8 in general. windows 8 has a lot of nice new things. one example that's significant to me, my hdd based laptop (i7 2670qm + 8 gb ram) had a hard time doing regular stuff just after booting after a while using windows 7. I had to 'clean' all the unnecessary stuff in it quite often, and that includes registry cleaning. on windows 8 on the other hand, I haven't felt the need to do this nearly as often. it just doesn't mess itself up like windows 7 does. I have to admit that my ssd based pc didn't suffer from this problem that much, but there still was a noticeable difference. this is the main reason I kept windows 8. and in time I saw its advantages. also the revamped task manager is quite badass. and there are many other reasons, like the guy above me has posted.
Not arguing against the actual improvements in Windows 8 that you mention. They are good. But the Start Screen isn't an improvement, it's a disaster. You say that you don't have to reopen your programs when you use the Start Screen instead of the Start Menu. What the **** are you talking about? None of the programs you have open will close when you go to the Start Menu. They don't go away. They don't "reorder" themselves. What they do is they stay right where you left them. So, again, what the **** are you talking about? You cite the Start Screen search function, but the Start Menu HAS a search function and it works just fine. What the Start Screen does is throw you from one UX to another every time you use it. When you're on it you can't see the desktop, and when you're on the desktop you can't see the Start Screen. How is that better? You say that the Start Screen is like having "one roll in front of you and one on your left" as if you can see both at the same time. You can't. Your analogy has failed. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul. :|
Then you apparently haven't used it.... or you've used it for 2 minutes, thought "eew", and reinstalled Windows 7. I was the same at first. Installed the Release Preview's or whatever they called them... and never really bothered to use them because of the Start screen. But then they had that offer to buy the upgrade for $40, and i thought "why not?" Haven't looked back since. Windows 8's seems to work better, though. Not only finding programs or files on your computer, but able to open settings windows for different things if you search for them. Don't remember that being part of the previous Windows's start menu search.... but if it it.... my bad. Still prefer Win8's search. Ok... so how exactly is it any different? If you're using the Windows 7 start menu.... you can SEE the desktop... but you still can't do a f*cking thing with it without collapsing the start menu. You have to close the Start MENU to interact with the desktop just as much as you have to close the Start SCREEN to do the same. So your attempt at disproving and bashing him is moot.
Firstly keep the ****, **** and similar stuff to yourself. Secondly, what the hell are you talking about? I was comparing metro primarily to the regular windows desktop because it inherits its function, and even extends it. Specifically talking about alt-tab ordering when you launch something from the desktop. Launch something from the desktop -> you have to minimize everything. Thus you need to reorder. Why have a desktop on your screen and then access a start menu? When metro gives you both: the possibility to create shortcuts on it, as well as perform any function that the old start menu accomplished. Simply put metro = desktop + start menu. In short, it's like having 2 desktops, with the second one being a start menu aswell. And as ElementalDragon stated, it's the same thing. The start menu used to collapse if you clicked on the desktop. Maybe next time read my post carefully, you failed.
