Windows 8 - Does it get easier?? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

Windows 8 - Does it get easier??

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm still Trying to understand what happen after windows 3.1 and where the floppy goes in this thing!!!!

Jim01 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lucky Mike wrote:
I'm still Trying to understand what happen after windows 3.1 and where the floppy goes in this thing!!!!

The 5 1/4 or the 3 1/2????

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

I upgraded to Windows 8.1 last week. Once again it all makes sense to me. My computer and I are friends again.

My opinion of Microsoft after buying a new laptop with Window 8 was not kind to Mr. Gates. For weeks I could be heard muttering, "Take Bill Gates out and flog him". I will admit that after a month or two I didn't mutter as much, but I still thought it was an awful change as proven by the need to release 8.1 so quickly.

In answer to the question, "Windows 8, does it get easier?" Just do the free upgrade to 8.1. There is no good reason to suffer with Windows 8.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Windows 8 gave us fits at first. Turns out our new Acer laptop we bought from Costco was defective. Typically we thought it was us but Costco support was awesome. Laptop was gone for a week and came back better than new. Funny, even though we are big iPad users, we rarely use the touch screen feature in Windows 8.1.

Sherry

DebbieM · RV-Dreams Family Member

I LOVE my new Acer! I'm glad my husband talked me into it. I didn't want the touchscreen at first, but I use it ALL the time, just love it! I don't care for the new operating system. Not sure if I have 8.0 or 8.1, I'll look into that. I just know that other than my go-to procedures, I'm always confused... do I swipe left, right, top, bottom? I do like the tiles, but seems they should work more like folders. If I want anything to do with pictures, music or documents, I should have sub-folders under those tiles. It takes me forever to remember how and where I access those things.

Only other complaint is I come from the keypunch days, and I like clicky keys. My spacebar isn't sensitive enough for me. Laptops just don't give me that satisfaction and I tend to use the backspace a lot

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

I just took Toshiba in to have info transferred to the new computer. I am thinking I will like the touchscreen. I do have the 8.1. And I fully understand that as soon as I feel comfortable with it the thing will be obsolete in less than two months. So today it's my old faithful Acer with the XP system.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Go Mac and you'll never go back

You used to have spend a lot more for one and while you can still get a cheaper windows box from Joe's Backyard Computer Company for cheaper if you compare apples to apples (not lower case a) and get equivalently configured laptops from a top of the line maker a Mac is usually cheaper. OS upgrades are…free. Their versions of Office like apps are…free; albeit not quite as capable as Microsoft Office is…but then most of us don't need all those features anyway.

I've been a Windows systems admin and Windows is a nice operating system if you have an IT department to keep it running or if you're a geek but for the average non geek keeping a Mac patched and virus/malware free is a whole lot easier. While we were in Fort Myers this winter a lady brought her Windows 7 laptop in and me and the other computer geek that fixed them found 12 malware packages and another 10 root kits on her machine…took us days to get rid of them all. Macs (thankfully) just don't have those sorts of problems…although like all computers they do have issues with their software but in total I have way fewer issues than I did with my Windows servers back in the day.

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

A tech friend hates Windows 8 and spends a lot of time loading Windows 7 on people's new computers.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

RVKevi wrote:
A tech friend hates Windows 8 and spends a lot of time loading Windows 7 on people's new computers.

He should just install Classic Shell, http://www.classicshell.net/, its free and makes 8 look much like 7. But he really should get used to it, it is better with 8.1 and word is that it will be better with the next service pack. I hope he is not installing 7 on machines with touchscreens, that would be a travesty.

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have no idea if he is doing that or not. He just posts on facebook about loading 7 on computers. Maybe I'll ask him about classic shell and see what he says.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

We didn't care for Windows 8 either. Got the free upgrade to 8.1 and it is a lot better. Sadly, we have to learn to adapt to each new thing as we go along. Personally, I don't think I care for the touch screen aspect of things. I have issues with the touch screen on my phone. But then, I'm old and like keys and mice. I can do so much with the mouse, and I would hate to learn how to do the same things on a touch screen.

Won't get into Apple. Plus, we've always had HP's for our computers and have had very little trouble.

Terry

Bill and Jodee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Maybe it's because I'm retired and not having to learn a new operating system and be a productive manager at the same time, but I am enjoying Windows 8.1 more than any upgrade since unloading my IBM Selectric. I opted not to get the touchscreen when I got the new Toshiba laptop and so far I find the system responds well to the keyboard. I've found that most things are intuitive although I still have challenges with a couple things. My husband the geek is not a fan and the two times he's used it have been very "exciting"

.

One thing I learned from a blogger that I didn't read in any of the "instructions" is that you can shut down with a right click on the window pane in the lower left corner - it brings up the "old" system menu. I find this simpler than the charms menu on the right.

Rotary phones, leaded gasoline, 8-track tapes, rabbit-ear antennas, console televisions, hand-written letters - now Windows 7. I suspect we will all survive.

Jodee

Oldme · RV-Dreams Community Member

A couple of links that helped with the wife W8 computer:

www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-bypass-the-windows-8-log-in-screen/

www.howtogeek.com/129021/how-to-do-a-full-shutdown-in-windows-8-without-disabling-hybrid-boot/

TRAILERKING · RV-Dreams Family Member

Commodore 64...........

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

TRAILERKING wrote:
Commodore 64...........

TRAILERKING · RV-Dreams Family Member

RVKevi wrote:
TRAILERKING wrote:
Commodore 64...........

What's so funny?? Why are you laughing??

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

I agree with Bernie. We used to have one of those too.

Terry

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yea, give me the commodore 64 back. Things gone from bad to worse since my original post.

I attempted to transfer my Carbonite back up from the Toshiba to new Dell. Results - I could no longer get online. Called the Geeks. Could not help over the phone. Took to nearest Best Buy last week - 80 miles each way. Got Dell back on Tuesday. Called Carbonite last night and they worked to restore stuff. Got notice today from Verizon that I've used 75% of this months allowance on my Verizon Hot Spot. HOW COULD THAT BE! I have 6 gb and it was just reset on the 22nd. How could I possibly use 75% in two days.

I called Carbonite. Yea. They were changing over lots of old stuff. It was only 1% complete. With the change of computers many things were duplicated, etc. I saw after I got it back from Best Buy. there were files and files of my pictures were plus other stuff. So they stopped the backup to give me time to clean up the files. Okay - tonight I see several areas of my Quicken stuff. I dump one. Well, I've lost all my years and years of financial info. Okay, I'll start over from first of this year. First I need to print copies of bank statements.

I go online to print statements. For the life of me I can't figure out how to get this thing to print.

I give up. I'm going to bed. I HATE WINDOWS 8.

Penny and Paul · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm with Bill Joyce. If you want a computer with an OS and not an "experience", you gotta get rid of all the extraneous junk. Unless you have a Windows phone and/ or a Windows tablet, there's no real need for a PC that emulates one. In addition to Classic Shell, there's other programs available to disable Metro entirely. (Metro is the application that runs on top of Win 8 and 8.1 {Can you say Windows 3.X?} and gives you all the charms and shortcut boxes and makes everything run in full screen mode.) You end up with a PC that looks and acts like Win 7 with all the performance of Win 8.1. Something to think about.

-- Edited by Penny and Paul on Friday 25th of April 2014 07:36:03 AM

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

The update to 8.1 does improve the user experience for those without touchscreens, including making the new apps being able to run splitscreen and having close buttons. I am finding it easy to handle on an old laptop that originally came with Vista.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Phyllis and Leonard,

Doesn't Carbonite work to use your data usage? Also, if any "upgrades" were done from Microsoft, those will apply to the data usage also. We are heavy users and have found we have to watch what gets used. When we upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1, that used quite a bit of data, enough so that we had to go online with Verizon and up our data plan. (At least we can do that. An upgrade in date of 2 gig costs an extra $10, while an overage of only 1 gig costs $15.)

In the past, Jo even had her work e-mail forwarding to her personal phone. After we learned that our data usage went up, she went back to work and had work provide her a phone for her e-mail. (Being IT manager requires her to be in touch.) We are currently at 16 gig, but once we retire and will not be getting work calls on her phone, we should be able to drop back to a much lower data amount.

Terry

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Online backup is a lousy idea for RVers, because it uses lots of internet data and we are limited on what we can use. Even with DSL or cable, online backup might not work well, since not all provide high speed uploads. A family member tried to use Sugarsync and learned the hard way that it was using 2 to 3 days worth of upload to deal with a weeks worth of changes with their DSL plan.

The update from 8.0 to 8.1 can be over 3GB, I did it on a family member's DSL overnight and then updated her computer the next night.

cheryls-other-half · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hey Mike, I still (or did until we cleaned out our garage) had a disk cylinder from a 8 inch hard drive pack ...

cheryls-other-half · RV-Dreams Family Member

snip...

...
bjoyce wrote:
RVKevi wrote:
A tech friend hates Windows 8 and spends a lot of time loading Windows 7 on people's new computers.
He should just install Classic Shell, http://www.classicshell.net/, its free and makes 8 look much like 7. But he really should get used to it, it is better with 8.1 and word is that it will be better with the next service pack. I hope he is not installing 7 on machines with touchscreens, that would be a travesty.
you gotta get rid of all the extraneous junk. I agree!!!

...snip...
In addition to Classic Shell, Highly recommended for those who have been forced to upgrade from winxp and windows 7...
{Can you say Windows 3.X?} YEA!!

You end up with a PC that looks and acts like Win 7 with all the performance of Win 8.1. Something to think about.

-- Edited by Penny and Paul on Friday 25th of April 2014 07:36:03 AM

Perfectly said.

Get the classic shell I recommended it to all of my non-corporate users (corporate users still usually have windows 7!!, and dont have to worry about it!)

-- Edited by cheryls-other-half on Monday 19th of May 2014 07:00:28 PM

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Mitch,

Keep it simple. Even I don't know for sure what "classic shell" is or even what it refers to, and I'm married to an IT person. Sadly, some of us aren't tuned into the "language."

Terry

cherylbrv · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry - imagine what it's like when he talks in his sleep - like that!!!! biggrin

cheryls-other-half · RV-Dreams Family Member

just edited the original..

cheryls-other-half · RV-Dreams Family Member

cherylbrv wrote:
Terry - imagine what it's like when he talks in his sleep - like that!!!!

ahum. ahum ahum..I may talk in my sleep, but I don't SNORE LIKE A BEAR@!!!!!!

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

cheryls-other-half wrote:
cherylbrv wrote:
Terry - imagine what it's like when he talks in his sleep - like that!!!!
ahum. ahum ahum..I may talk in my sleep, but I don't SNORE LIKE A BEAR@!!!!!!

OK, you two. Take a chill pill and call me in the morning.

As moderator here, I have to "occasionally" chastise some and I'm not in the mood right now for that.

And Mitch, thanks for clarifying what Classic Shell is. I'd never heard of that one.

Terry

cherylbrv · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sorry Terry. We tend to joke around a lot, but we'll keep it civil.