Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Tue Feb 25 12:42:03 CST 2014
Hi John: Sorry for your terrible experience. I have not taken the Windows 8 challenge as I hate to lose and look totally incompetent. A friend who is happens to be one of the senior designer for the (national) Royal Bank said that the tech staff swore that they would never install Windows 8...can you imagine what 100K of tellers and mutual fund managers would do if presented with Windows 8. The bank also have many millions of dollars invested in applications, that have been developed over 40 plus years and there is no clear upgrade path to the new Windows. This all makes the new OS a "no go". It should be noted that all the senior staff from the Windows 8 project, have left. Whether they were fired or just left or are leaving for greener pastures, is not known but this sort of major turn-over doesn't tend to give any outside observer confidence in the whole Windows 8 environment. You have had to reverse back to Windows 7 (maybe waiting for the new Windows 9 savior), while many big companies are simply refusing to move and I have slide sideways into Linux and now doubt whether I will ever come back. Aside: I have found that there is nothing I can do in Windows that I can not just as easily do in Linux...MS Access 2003 runs just fine but I have not tried other favours of Access, yet. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "John W Colby" <jwcolby at gmail.com> To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving" <accessd at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 9:23:07 AM Subject: [AccessD] Ramblings of a nutcase I bought an HP Envy 17" at Sams a few months ago. It came with Windows 8. Ugh. I tried to like it. Then I tried to endure it. I tried to modify it to get back Windows 7 like functionality. I found myself not using the laptop for actual work, though it was OK (barely) for games and internet stuff. I was pissed that I had spent a fair chunk of change on a very powerful, very nice laptop that I hated. Funny stuff here... http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/01/04/windows-8-review-the-thing-blows/ And it pretty much mirrors my experience. Even after working with it every day for a month I still had issues with things like drag and drop. How can you drag and drop files between two windows when... you can only have ONE WINDOW? And why should I be "allowed" two windows, but one of them has to be this scrunched up little slice docked to the left side while the other gets the rest of the screen? I have a 23" monitor, PLENTY of room for many different windows when I need them. But no, I am not "allowed" that. And why can't I minimize open programs to my task bar and click on them to reopen. Oh yea, I remember now, there IS NO TASK BAR. What??? And when I want to see the wireless strength I can just look at the wireless icon down in the taskbar... oh yea I forgot, THERE IS NO TASKBAR. In Windows 7 I use a handful of programs 99% of the time. I pin them to the taskbar. They stack. If I am remoted in to 5 different machines (yes, I do that every day) then I hover over the taskbar and up pops a list of the open remote desktop sessions. How do I accomplish that with Windows 8? How do you hover with a touch screen to begin with? And why am I searching for third party apps to get back functionality that I need and was FORBIDDEN to have with Windows 8? Is Microsoft my mom, telling me that I HAVE to do it this way? Even my mom no longer tells me what to do. I did discover that all of the old Windows applications look like they always did, can be windowed, and have the minimize and close button. But of course all of the "Windows 8 native" apps don't and don't and don't. And why do I have to rearrange a HUGE screen of HUGE blocks of pictures which pretty much have nothing to do with what they represent to get the ones I use most all on the screen at the same time. Menus exist because they logically group operations. In Windows 7 If I need an Office app I can go find all of the Microsoft office programs by finding the menu for that. Yes, you have to hunt and figure that out but once you do the menu allows you to see groups of programs (or operations). The "start" screen just has a bajillion HUGE blocks scrolling off to the right forever, mere and more as you add things to your computer. Wow. Try cut and paste between two apps. In the end, I discovered that I use my laptop for real work and Windows 8 makes real work hard. Even when you know how to use it, it is still hard. I often use a tablet for the internet and "social" stuff, but even that is not as easy to accomplish (I.e. that is also "real work" as on a Windows 7 computer. If I want to sit in my car or in my easy chair I will use my tablet but if I have serious research, opening a couple of instances of Chrome, with tabs, dragging tabs down to create new instances to research something... I go to my computer. My Windows 7 computer. I finally just broke down and bought Windows 7 pro and installed it. It was a MAJOR PITA to find all of the drivers for the chipset, touch screen etc. But I ended up with a fully functioning Windows 7. Given that all laptops come with 5400 rpm drives, and I was going to replace mine, I decided to buy a Samsung EVO 500 gb drive. WHOA!!! Smokin' The difference in everything I do is flat out incredible. The Windows experience is 7.8-7.9 in everything except the graphics which is a 6.7 due to Intel's sucky graphics chips. Oh to have a quad core I7 and AMD's graphics. Oh well. I now LOVE my laptop. My son has a Windows XP system, very old. He downloads a ton of crap and managed to get it so infected that I had major problems getting it sanitized. So I am building a new system. Given that XP loses the last vestiges of support in two months I decided to use Windows 7 for that as well. Which leaves me in a quandary. Do I buy a handful of copies for future proofing? Windows 7 sales (from third parties like new egg) will go away in about 6 months. On a final note to Metro bashing... Has anyone been to MSNBC lately? OMG. I no longer use that as my goto news source since I cannot find anything without paging down through page after page of pictures about crap I am not interested in. Someone bought into Metro big time. -- John W. Colby Windows 8 is what refuses to go away when you do not believe in it -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com