I am wondering. I have read a lot about how hard Windows 8 is to use on a laptop or a desktop without a touch screen. How its hard to find the things you need, the things you were or are familiar with. Yet, I have a 32-bit version on an old laptop, and after somewhat of a fight to find out how a 64-bit version on my desktop and I am finding both rather cool and certainly more functional than Windows 7.
In fact, I am wondering if those who review or write about this are just in an age group that is hindered by change. I suspect they would have complained when DOS 6.2 switched to Windows 3.11 in that they could not easily enter “cd docs” or “c:\wp\wp c:\docs\ltr12345.doc” to open their Word Perfect file with the DOS restriction of 8.3 for file names. It must have been tough, the icons were not all on the desktop and the files were not all in a known folder and quite often the executable programs, now call Apps were in a special place.
For those that are struggling with change, perhaps they should try this. Start the PC, get to the main screen with all the tiles and click on the one named “Desktop”. Once open right click and choose Personalise. Then click “Change desktop icons” and select each of the traditional icons, they will appear on the Desktop much like they did on Windows XP and Windows 7.
In fact, at this point the struggling user will realise that the only real difference between Windows 8 and Windows 7 is that Windows 8 has a Start screen rather than a Start button. If you used the “Windows Key” in Windows 7 it would be like clicking the Start button, if you use it in Windows 8 it pulls up the main screen of Tiles.
The things you have running in the background are found by sliding your mouse to top left, when selected the present opened windows will effectively minimise and the other window appear. If you want to close an App you grab the top of the screen and drag it to the bottom. If you have a mouse with a wheel you can scroll in some helpful directions on the Start screen, if not then you need to find a driver for your touchpad.
What I think is incredible, is that with my Hotmail account as the login I now have Office on my laptop, phone and desktop and whenever I log into to which every one and open an Excel spreadsheet its the same spreadsheet (or Powerpoint presentation) on all the devices. I am able to do productive work from whatever hardware I have … Outlook on Exchange, Word, Excel, PowerPoint are the killer Apps and they are connected.
If Microsoft can get their OS onto HTC, Samsung and Nokia as well as Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer and they spend some money making Corporations aware of the amazing productivity possible by an OS platform that is target hardware generic and App-nostic (like Agnostic for Apps) then they will blow past the Android and IOS arena to, as I have stated in my past blogs, repeat the past. For, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
The Gladiator50's Blog 