Windows 8 Teaser (with tablet implications)

[boswd]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Yes, Windows 7 works fine (I use both Ultimate and Professional). I cannot think of any rational argument for XP over Windows 7. Let us hope that Windows 8 will be a real Windows, not another giant phone OS --- two of those are more than enough.

I love windows 7

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

I want to go back to XP myself. That was so much better!

Seriously...? The Win7 task bar, start menu, search, and window tiling is enough of a reason to move from XP to Windows 7. Of course the improved stability and security and hundreds of other system level improvements over XP are just icing on the cake.

Whenever I go back and need to use an XP machine I get frustrated very quickly.

But, your welcome to yell "get off my lawn" all you want.

BOb

[Ken Maltby]

"a high-performance computer architectural design world" in Texas, let me guess, that
would be in Austin, right?

Unfortunately, Windows Pro 7 64bit no longer supports the DirectShow SDK that I use
with a number of Video projects. My kid uses Win 7, to play his online games though,
it appears to work for that sort of thing. (I realy hate it when I have to fix things on
it though, everything is overly hard to find and work with. Just too many "helpful"
features in the way.)

Luck;
Ken

P.S.; I went with the longer running time of the Eee Transformer. Should be here within 3
working days.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

"a high-performance computer architectural design world" in Texas, let me guess, that
would be in Austin, right?

Unfortunately, Windows Pro 7 64bit no longer supports the DirectShow SDK that I use
with a number of Video projects. My kid uses Win 7, to play his online games though,
it appears to work for that sort of thing. (I realy hate it when I have to fix things on
it though, everything is overly hard to find and work with. Just too many "helpful"
features in the way.)

Luck;
Ken

P.S.; I went with the longer running time of the Eee Transformer. Should be here within 3
working days.

What's that about DirectShow? Seems to work fine for me. All of the good MKV splitters are still DirectShow (the DivX MKV splitter is a Media Foundation splitter, but it's not any good), and work just fine in w7 x64, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by emellaich

P.s. Ardeegee, next time you hit up a win7 computer try holding down the windows key and typing an e (for windows explorer). You should get a file navigation window similar to what you are used to using. The biggest problem will be that they've moved the locations of some of the folders, but they are all still there.

Yeah, I figured I could have probably tweaked the Vista system to look and act more or less how I wanted, if I spent enough time on it-- but it was someone else's computer. A non-tech person would would have been baffled by changes in appearance.

Myself, I keep my system looking as much like Windows 95 as XP will allow-- no big, round-cornered balloony things, classic start menu, control panels, folders, file extensions not hidden, system files not hidden-- I resent any OS that tries to hide the guts of the system from me. I also still use the 1997 version of Microsoft Word because I think the modern versions look like Barbie's First Word Processor.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Yeah, I figured I could have probably tweaked the Vista system to look and act more or less how I wanted, if I spent enough time on it-- but it was someone else's computer. A non-tech person would would have been baffled by changes in appearance.

Myself, I keep my system looking as much like Windows 95 as XP will allow-- no big, round-cornered balloony things, classic start menu, control panels, folders, file extensions not hidden, system files not hidden-- I resent any OS that tries to hide the guts of the system from me. I also still use the 1997 version of Microsoft Word because I think the modern versions look like Barbie's First Word Processor.

You should at least try the start menu search functionality from Vista/7. That's probably the biggest change over XP, and it's so much nicer. For example, let's say you want to uninstall a program. In XP, you can navigate through the control panel to find the "Add/Remove Programs" applet, or you can remember that the shortcut is called "appwiz.cpl" and type that from the Run prompt. In Windows 7, you can open the start menu and start typing "Uninstall" After the first letter, you'll see "Uninstall a program" in the results. After the second letter, it will bubble up to the top of the control panel items. And it works with everything. You don't need to pin stuff to the start menu anymore, or navigate 3 or 4 levels deep in the programs menu. You just start typing what you want ("Word", "Excel", "Visual Studio", whatever) and suddenly it's right there, ready for you to open it.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I also still use the 1997 version of Microsoft Word because I think the modern versions look like Barbie's First Word Processor.

The redesign of Word was not merely for show, it does take a bit of time to relearn the interface though. Now if we could just do something about this archaic keyboard layout.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by toddos

You should at least try the start menu search functionality from Vista/7. That's probably the biggest change over XP, and it's so much nicer. For example, let's say you want to uninstall a program. In XP, you can navigate through the control panel to find the "Add/Remove Programs" applet, or you can remember that the shortcut is called "appwiz.cpl" and type that from the Run prompt. In Windows 7, you can open the start menu and start typing "Uninstall" After the first letter, you'll see "Uninstall a program" in the results. After the second letter, it will bubble up to the top of the control panel items. And it works with everything. You don't need to pin stuff to the start menu anymore, or navigate 3 or 4 levels deep in the programs menu. You just start typing what you want ("Word", "Excel", "Visual Studio", whatever) and suddenly it's right there, ready for you to open it.

Is that enough to "feed the upgrade machine"?

Software should be immortal, the only reason to get rid of it is because it won't do something that you need, or there is no longer hardware that can run it. Personally, I liked WIN 2000 SP4, but you can't install it easily on non-ide CD-ROM machines. For all it's limitations, it didn't have to "call home to mama" to run it.

There's antique cars, and nobody seems to yell "get a new xxx car". There's antique furniture, ditto. What's the deal about antique computing? The deal is that lots of big players can't keep sucking money if you step off the upgrade trail...

(Proud user of Word 97!)

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by toddos

What's that about DirectShow? Seems to work fine for me. All of the good MKV splitters are still DirectShow (the DivX MKV splitter is a Media Foundation splitter, but it's not any good), and work just fine in w7 x64, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center.

Well I guess it could be the Blackmagicdesign filters, I should take another
look, but then it looks like there could be Win8 on the horizion. In any case
everything works fine with Win XP Pro x64 Edition.

Luck;
Ken

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Is that enough to "feed the upgrade machine"?

Software should be immortal, the only reason to get rid of it is because it won't do something that you need, or there is no longer hardware that can run it. Personally, I liked WIN 2000 SP4, but you can't install it easily on non-ide CD-ROM machines. For all it's limitations, it didn't have to "call home to mama" to run it.

There's antique cars, and nobody seems to yell "get a new xxx car". There's antique furniture, ditto. What's the deal about antique computing? The deal is that lots of big players can't keep sucking money if you step off the upgrade trail...

(Proud user of Word 97!)

Well, the computing landscape has changed quite a bit. Most devices are connected these days and sharing data is much more ubiquitous.

Oh, and the newest Word does have many features that make it worth while... especially for someone that lives in it day in and out. In place previews is one quick thing that comes to mind.

The main reason for the Ribbon was to make features more discoverable. The majority of Word feature requests were stuff the software could already do, but people couldn't find it on the deep hierarchical menu.

Of course, an antique car should not be your primary means of transportation. For one they release much more CO2 and noxious gases into the environment. Secondly, they are no where near as safe as todays cars. Sure, keep your antique car, but know that it is mostly to look at and take a short afternoon drive in.

BOb

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Is that enough to "feed the upgrade machine"?

Software should be immortal, the only reason to get rid of it is because it won't do something that you need, or there is no longer hardware that can run it. Personally, I liked WIN 2000 SP4, but you can't install it easily on non-ide CD-ROM machines. For all it's limitations, it didn't have to "call home to mama" to run it.

There's antique cars, and nobody seems to yell "get a new xxx car". There's antique furniture, ditto. What's the deal about antique computing? The deal is that lots of big players can't keep sucking money if you step off the upgrade trail...

(Proud user of Word 97!)

Yes, I kind of liked CP/M too!

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by wodin

Yes, I kind of liked CP/M too!

What never tried Valdocs?

Luck;
Ken

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Well, the computing landscape has changed quite a bit. Most devices are connected these days and sharing data is much more ubiquitous.

Oh, and the newest Word does have many features that make it worth while... especially for someone that lives in it day in and out. In place previews is one quick thing that comes to mind.

The main reason for the Ribbon was to make features more discoverable. The majority of Word feature requests were stuff the software could already do, but people couldn't find it on the deep hierarchical menu.

Of course, an antique car should not be your primary means of transportation. For one they release much more CO2 and noxious gases into the environment. Secondly, they are no where near as safe as todays cars. Sure, keep your antique car, but know that it is mostly to look at and take a short afternoon drive in.

BOb

<shrug> I always keep 2 machines, one sterile (no commuication attached to anything) and one dirty - Internet connected. For my sterile machine, extra communication means nothing. For the dirty one, why have two different OS's. It gets confusing. and the old one still does the job for me.

Is it better to know one interface well, or keep relearning a new one every 3 years?

As to Ribbon, I have to use it at work. I find it more confusing that the older interface. <shrug> I don't live in Word, and I don't use 98% of the feature it has. Adding a boatload of new features I'll never use isn't reason enough for me to go through the interface learning curve.

As to the car analogy, old software isn't going to kill me more that the new software, and quite frankly, the old software uses Less resources. They had to use less resources because back in the day, the computers had less resources. So I use Acer Aspire Revo 1600 Atom based machines. each one pulls less the 40 watts. And cost $200 each. And should last 10 years.

Why is frugal and familar so bad?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by wodin

Yes, I kind of liked CP/M too!

I can still run CP/M if I want. (I have no old software for that OS, so I don't). There's emulators for just about every old computer, Atari 800, Atari 2600, Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore, DOSBOX ect. (and all versions of Windows, from 1.0) If I find an old Atari game entertaining, who is to say that's bad and should be scrapped? I bought back in the day, legally, I propose to get my moneys worth!

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

the old software uses Less resources. They had to use less resources because back in the day, the computers had less resources.

Yes! CP/M ran on an 8080.