Some of you will know that earlier this year I had to upgrade to a new computer after my old one showed signs of hard drive failure (which subsequently happened). In fact my old PC didn't owe me anything, as it was seven years old and ran on Windows Vista.
As I wrote in this blog post, I bought a new, customized PC from a UK company named Dino PC. Among other things, they gave me a choice of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 for the operating system.
Although I'd heard bad things about the latest Windows incarnation, as mainstream support for Windows 7 is apparently ending next year I decided I had better bite the bullet and get the latest version.
I've been using Windows 8.1 for about two months now, so I thought you might be interested in my impressions.
To start with the positives, it is much faster to launch than Windows Vista (the system on my old computer), and so far anyway appears quite stable. That is about the extent of the good news as far as I'm concerned, though.
It's no secret that Windows 8 was designed primarily for tablet and other touchscreen device users. Its default Modern UI (user interface) is designed for launching full-screen apps, and it does that pretty well. If you're a desktop user, and especially one who uses your computer to multi-task, that may well be a hindrance rather than a benefit to you, though.
The trouble is that Windows 8 apps typically fill the whole screen, and there is no easy way to run multiple apps at once and/or switch between them. If you have a widescreen monitor like me, in effect it is wasted, as once you're in an app there is no taskbar for switching to other files, apps or programs. All you can really do is use that one app or close it.
I first became aware of this problem with the Windows 8 PDF reader app. In my work for clients such as More Money Review I often have to review PDF manuals. That means I am constantly switching between Word and one or more PDFs.
That's no problem in older versions of Windows, but if you're using the Windows 8 PDF app, you can forget about it. Your PDF opens all right, but it fills the whole screen, and there is no easy way to open multiple PDFs and other programs, or switch between them. Also, the PDF app has very few features. It allows you to open and read PDFs, but that's about all.
In the end I installed Foxit Reader, a free program that turned out pretty much ideal for my purposes. It's a proper program rather than a tablet app, and it can do all the things that I need and many more.
That was a native Windows 8 app, but what is even more worrying is when third-party software created for Windows 8 turns out to be an app as well. An example is the free Kindle for PC. I initially made the mistake of downloading the Windows 8 version from Amazon, but this turned out to be an app that opened in full-screen and could not be used for multi-tasking. Not a problem if you're simply using it to read an e-book on your tablet, but useless when you are reviewing e-books or using them for background research.
In the end I found a solution, although it wasn't exactly intuitive. I uninstalled the Windows 8 version of Kindle for PC and installed the older Windows 7 version instead. This worked with no problems at all and is fine for multi-tasking. I even like its icon more!
I really do hope that other software developers don't fall into the trap of thinking that all Windows 8 users want are full-screen apps.
This issue has particular implications for writers, who frequently multi-task in the course of their work, having two, three or more programs running simultaneously and switching regularly between them. The Windows 8 developers don't seem to have considered this segment of their market at all.
Admittedly, Windows 8.1 does make a few grudging concessions to desktop users and other multi-taskers. You can now set a more conventional Windows desktop with small icons as the default. This means (for the most part) you no longer have to put up with the dreaded Modern UI. There is still no proper Start button, though, and there are many irritating quirks. For example, messages occasionally come up telling you to tap the screen to perform some action. If I tried this on my monitor, all I would get is a bruised knuckle!
It seems to me that Microsoft made a serious mistake in designing this version of its operating system specifically for tablet users, only belatedly adding a few tweaks to make it marginally more usable for desktop users. They should have produced two separate versions, one for touchscreen owners who use their devices primarily for entertainment, and another one for the rest of us (especially those who work on their computers and want/need to multi-task).
Tempting though it is to uninstall the ugly and unloved Windows 8 and revert to the more popular Windows 7, I don't intend to do this. I am, however, seriously considering investing in one of the low-cost Start Menu replacements that have emerged, such as Start8. I also recommend this article that sets out a number of other modifications you can make to Windows 8 to make it a little more user-friendly.
I understand that Microsoft is planning on making further changes to Windows 8 based on the mainly negative feedback it has received, so I will await further developments with interest. In the meantime, I am just about managing to work with Windows 8 but don't find it any significant improvement on the (also widely disliked) Windows Vista, let alone Windows 7.
So that's my view of Windows 8 based on two months' experience, but what do YOU think of Microsoft's latest operating system?
Source: mywritingblog
