Windows 8?

tailwindhome

Mrs TWH got a product code for Microsoft Office through her employer for a bargain £8, problem is that this old laptop runs Vista and Office 2013 requires Windows 7 or 8 (apparently).

I can get Windows 8 for £25 until the end of Jan.

I know nothing about these things but having read some threads on here those in the know (or those who express opinions) seem to trash Windows 8.

Can I still get Windows 7 or should I pull the trigger on Windows 8?

mudcovered

tailwindhome wrote:

I know nothing about these things but having read some threads on here those in the know (or those who express opinions) seem to trash Windows 8.

Can I still get Windows 7 or should I pull the trigger on Windows 8?

You can still buy the OEM versions of Win7 for about £65 so Win 8 will be cheaper. Whether you like Win8 or not depends on whether you can cope with your start menu swallowing the entire screen when you click on it and being full of tiles like WinPhone.

Can see why they did what they did for touch enabled systems but for non-touch systems its just a huge pain from the limited playing around I've done.

Mike

SteppenHerring

tailwindhome wrote:

...problem is that this old laptop runs Vista and Office 2013 requires Windows 7 or 8 (apparently)...

Be sure that the laptop will actually run Win7 or 8 before spending money. There should be some online compatibility test or something to save you looking for individual drivers. I've used 8 on a non-touch screen and hated it but then I run a dual monitor setup with shedloads of programs open etc.

daddy0

If you're not a techie then you will probably like Windows 8. Its got an "app store" type of affair, which makes it quite easy to find useful software. Windows 8 also runs faster than Windows 7. Might take a bit of getting used to but I'd say go for it.

mudcow007

im not a fan of 8, but like a rash im sure it will grow on me

the tiles thing bugs me, why do you need 2 desktops?

who has a touchscreen laptop/ device?

im guessing there are more non "touchy" screens about, so that renders the whole new cuddly tile thing redundant for me...

im not a fan

although it does seem faster than 7 (not hard)

alidaf

If you have a license for Windows 8 you can invoke the right to install a previous version but you will need the media. I'm not sure whether this applies to OEM licenses.

Drfabulous0

No, it's horrid.
Download Ubuntu 12.04 for free and OpenOffice, also for free. It will probably speed up your old Laptop quite a lot whereas a new OS from Microsoft will have the opposite effect.

notsoblue

Ignore all the people trashing anything new that comes out of Microsoft.

Windows 8 is fine. Theres no good reason why you should go for an older OS if you can get the newer one. Might be worth upgrading your memory to 4-6GB though if you have the budget.

vermin

Win 8's not so bad. You can install a Win7-style Start Menu and bypass the tiled home screen altogether if you like (which is what I've done), making it function pretty much as Windows 7. You can then call up the tiles at any time, giving you the option to mess around with the tiles and apps (which are great on a touchscreen - I am one of those with a convertible lappy, which I bought back in the pre-Win8 days when they didn't really make sense!). Before you install Win8 though, do make sure drivers are available for any peripherals you might plug into the computer. Plenty of stuff is still not supported, and not just old stuff.

alidaf

Drfabulous0 wrote:

Download Ubuntu 12.04 for free and OpenOffice, also for free. It will probably speed up your old Laptop quite a lot whereas a new OS from Microsoft will have the opposite effect.

While I fully support Linux and generally agree with this, I have found that a lot of people that try Linux (specifically Ubuntu) are expecting something a lot more akin to Windows and they are perturbed by the Unity interface and end up going back to familiarity. My experience with trying to roll out Linux to 20+ engineers in our office is that roughly half find it a very difficult adjustment. I have found that Xubuntu is favoured more because the interface is a little more like Windows.

Also, Libreoffice (which is a fork of Openoffice), is a highly capable office suite and I much prefer it over Microsoft Office with the only drawback being that it doesn't support Office documents that have VBA macros too well. It is available for Windows too, and is still free.

dav1

for a touch screen device it is probaly worth it otherwise there is little point at this stage. IMO though the "appstore" will become a big windows deal if win8 takes off so it may be worth it for future proofing.

if using a keyboard and mouse I think start8 is a must. It will give you a win7 style start menu in desktop mode so you can keep a familiar interface. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Roastie

notsoblue wrote:

Ignore all the people trashing anything new that comes out of Microsoft.

Windows 8 is fine. Theres no good reason why you should go for an older OS if you can get the newer one. Might be worth upgrading your memory to 4-6GB though if you have the budget.

+1

I've been using it for about 6 weeks now, as opposed to having played with it for about minutes.

It took a week or so to adjust, it was a bit of a pain to work out where things were sometimes and it took a while to adjust to the Metro interface but overall I love it (even without a touch screen). It is faster and generally easier to do stuff (compared to with Win 7), and that includes the usual Office stuff (Open Office spreadsheets, word processing and presentations), CAD and some graphics stuff.

To anyone on Win 8 who finding it frustrating, I'd suggest reading the (short) Hints and Tips on the Windows 8 site and then it will make much more sense.

Anonymous

Roastie wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

Ignore all the people trashing anything new that comes out of Microsoft.

Windows 8 is fine. Theres no good reason why you should go for an older OS if you can get the newer one. Might be worth upgrading your memory to 4-6GB though if you have the budget.

+1

I've been using it for about 6 weeks now, as opposed to having played with it for about minutes.

It took a week or so to adjust, it was a bit of a pain to work out where things were sometimes and it took a while to adjust to the Metro interface but overall I love it (even without a touch screen). It is faster and generally easier to do stuff (compared to with Win 7), and that includes the usual Office stuff (Open Office spreadsheets, word processing and presentations), CAD and some graphics stuff.

To anyone on Win 8 who finding it frustrating, I'd suggest reading the (short) Hints and Tips on the Windows 8 site and then it will make much more sense.

+1. I'm running windows 8 for about the same time. I've only used XP and MacOS prior to this so had no idea around 7 or vista.

Once you get the hang of it, its dead easy, and very fast. There are loads of tutorials if there are things you want to work out how to do. F/x the "show desktop" button is now an invisible button in the far bottom right of the screen.

Drfabulous0

notsoblue wrote:

Ignore all the people trashing anything new that comes out of Microsoft.

Windows 8 is fine. Theres no good reason why you should go for an older OS if you can get the newer one. Might be worth upgrading your memory to 4-6GB though if you have the budget.

I wasn't trashing anything new from Microsoft, but Windows 8 is just about acceptable on a phone or tablet, on a laptop it just doesn't feel right. Windows 7 is pretty good but 'upgrading' to it on an older computer just makes it very slow. Adding RAM is all well and good but the CPU will cause a bottleneck. Windows operating systems are pretty intensive on processors, but there are others available which are up to date and much more lightweight due to not being full of garbage.

dhope

Drfabulous0 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

Ignore all the people trashing anything new that comes out of Microsoft.

Windows 8 is fine. Theres no good reason why you should go for an older OS if you can get the newer one. Might be worth upgrading your memory to 4-6GB though if you have the budget.

I wasn't trashing anything new from Microsoft, but Windows 8 is just about acceptable on a phone or tablet, on a laptop it just doesn't feel right. Windows 7 is pretty good but 'upgrading' to it on an older computer just makes it very slow. Adding RAM is all well and good but the CPU will cause a bottleneck. Windows operating systems are pretty intensive on processors, but there are others available which are up to date and much more lightweight due to not being full of garbage.

Was true when going from XP-Vista, but Win8 is certainly no slower than 7 on identical hardware.
I've been using it since the day it was released to MSDN. It's fine. It's faster than Vista. The start menu annoys me if I'm trying to watch something on iPlayer because it now occupies the entire screen. Apart from that, doesn't make the blindest bit of difference.

asprilla

I like windows 8 on a laptop.

I don't have a touchscreen but I've got a multi touch pad and a touch mouse and I like it a lot. If you don't have those then the metro features aren't very useful.

However, it is quicker than 7 and it can easily be adapted to make the UI like 7 so I don't see the issue on a reasonable laptop.

For reference I'm running it on an Ivy Bridge i5 with 4GB and an SSD.

dhope

asprilla wrote:

I like windows 8 on a laptop.

I don't have a touchscreen but I've got a multi touch pad and a touch mouse and I like it a lot. If you don't have those then the metro features aren't very useful.

However, it is quicker than 7 and it can easily be adapted to make the UI like 7 so I don't see the issue on a reasonable laptop.

For reference I'm running it on an Ivy Bridge i5 with 4GB and an SSD.

Indeed. My desktop is an old Quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM and a new SSD. It's no slouch but it's not cutting edge by any stretch

vermin

dhope wrote:

Indeed. My desktop is an old Quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM and a new SSD. It's no slouch but it's not cutting edge by any stretch

Win8's hardware requirements are very basic. It's nice and slick with no lag on my 1.2GHz ULV C2D with 2GB RAM. Is this what someone once called a race to the bottom?

dhope

It's not nice and slick on my single core Thinkpad T43 1.8GHz Pentium-M
It's usable still though. Granted, the laptop is 8 years old.

itboffin

Windose *Shudder* :?

Roastie

dhope wrote:

Was true when going from XP-Vista, but Win8 is certainly no slower than 7 on identical hardware.

Yup, same here. If anything, I find 8 quicker to get up and running - but then again, I did a good cleanup when I installed 8.

Roastie

Drfabulous0 wrote:

I wasn't trashing anything new from Microsoft, but Windows 8 is just about acceptable on a phone or tablet, on a laptop it just doesn't feel right.

LOL. Really? Win 8 phone is kick-censored ; it makes iOS and Android look and feel pretty clunky IMHO.

tailwindhome

tailwindhome wrote:

I can get Windows 8 for £25 until the end of Jan.

To clarify, this is a general offer and not unique to me.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/wind ... P_FPP_Null

dhope

itboffin wrote:

Windose *Shudder* :?

C'mon Boffin, the cool kids have moved on to 'Micro$haft Loosedoze' (sic). Keep up :roll:

Reckon I'll move from the iPhone to a Windows Phone 8 next. Just can't get on with Android.

Initialised

On an older PC Windows 8 is faster. On modern hardware (i3/i5/7 or AMD A or FX) there's no real difference in performance. Basically if it ran on Vista or 7 it will run or can be made to run on 8.

Going back to 7 I miss all the key combos that make you feel like a pro on 8 pulling up stuff in seconds that has most users fumbling through menus. On 8 I used to miss the start button but the key combos have replaced it.

I'm kind of stuck, I'm running the Win8 preview but the process I used to go from Vista, through several Win 7 betas jp to the final doesn't work going to 8 from where I am now. So I need to do a full reinstall, and but I've been putting that off until SSDs got bigger and cheaper so that's £200 out of the n+1 fund because I've backed my PC into a corner.

tailwindhome

NO....it's different....I don't like different!

suzyb

Resurrecting an old thread but no point starting a new one.

The parents are complaining their vista laptops are slow, it's about time they got rid of crappy vista so I'm thinking of upgrading them to Windows 8. Do those who use windows 8 feel it is easy to use for the less technical.

Parents only really use the laptops for internet and email so I think windows 8 might be better than the "traditional" windows.

SteppenHerring

suzyb wrote:

Resurrecting an old thread but no point starting a new one.

The parents are complaining their vista laptops are slow, it's about time they got rid of crappy vista so I'm thinking of upgrading them to Windows 8. Do those who use windows 8 feel it is easy to use for the less technical.

Parents only really use the laptops for internet and email so I think windows 8 might be better than the "traditional" windows.

Again, check for driver compatibility.

I could see that windows 8 might be OK for that. But then so would XUbuntu...

DonDaddyD

I'm still trying to figure out my 32bit/64bit conumdrum...

dhope

suzyb wrote:

Resurrecting an old thread but no point starting a new one.

The parents are complaining their vista laptops are slow, it's about time they got rid of crappy vista so I'm thinking of upgrading them to Windows 8. Do those who use windows 8 feel it is easy to use for the less technical.

Parents only really use the laptops for internet and email so I think windows 8 might be better than the "traditional" windows.

Yeah, it's fine. Get them an SSD at the same time, a 64GB one is peanuts now. New OS on a new SSD will fly compared to old on old

Team4Luke

isn't W8 designed more for all the touchy feely devices and not for desktops/lap tops ?