Shopsmith Forums

ryanbp01 wrote:I'm sticking with Windows 7. I read that Windows 8 was designed for tablets.

BPR

When I retired I promised myself to jump off the latest upgrade roller coaster. I too plan to say with 7. Come to think of it we did a total Microsoft upgrade in January. I still can't get used to all those changes. I plan to concentrate on woodworking. Jim

Ed in Tampa wrote:Damagi be sure to give us a full review of the surface.

For those on Windows 8, the new interface seems to oriented toward a touch sceen. What does it buy you if you are using a mouse and keyboard?

It also works very well with a trackpad if you get a proper driver which I just got today.

I also installed Office 2013 and that I like a lot especially on Windows 8.

So far internet explorer keeps having problems, and for all intents a purposes doesn't work. The beta firefox keeps crashing and only works in safe mode. The blu-ray player I have doesn't work any more???

The interface will need a lot of tuning, it might workout but we will have to see about that. I can't believe what it takes to do a shut down!!!! That person who came up with that must never shut their system down. Unless I don't see few features of the search program it is really almost useless. The system boots slower, shuts down slower and well it seems to have a very weak set of tools....

So far most of the programs I've got on the system seem to be working other then the ones mentioned. Still have more to test. From what I have experienced so far I think they are going to have a lot of unhappy users among the PC users.

Ed

I quit using IE. For quite a long while now I have been using Windows 7, Firefox, Autocad, Sketchup and Office 2012. The only problem I have is that I have not yet learned all the tricks with Office and Sketchup.

paulmcohen wrote:Where is the start button!!

you can get to the start screen by moving your mouse to the lower left hand corner (ie, where the start menu button used to be), by pushing the windows key on your keyboard, or by mousing to the upper left/upper right corner and then clicking the windows button that is on the slide-out menu.

fjimp wrote:When I retired I promised myself to jump off the latest upgrade roller coaster. I too plan to say with 7. Come to think of it we did a total Microsoft upgrade in January. I still can't get used to all those changes. I plan to concentrate on woodworking. Jim

Change is change, and I fully respect that many on the forum are at a point where change can be more trouble than its worth.

I think if you give the new OS a try you will find that while some things are different, on the whole its a really great improvement. It took me a couple days to get used to the start menu thing, but after that no big deal. I really like how the start screen is now "alive" and useful, same as my windows phone. The tiles give me useful information at a glance without too much distraction.

paulmcohen wrote:Been running it for a few months, and so far I HATE IT. Where is the start button!! NO drivers for my 6 month old 8-core computer, until today and I am still missing a video driver that works with my high performance graphic card, the finger print software that I loved on Windows 7 had to be removed and IE 10 is not compatible with sites I have to use on a regular basis. The only bright size is my CutList application that did not run or install on Windows 7 runs perfectly on Windows 8. I give it a BIG FAIL.

I had some issues with my graphics card on my HP touchsmart since its an all-in-one that uses a notebook graphics card. I got around the driver issue by using the modified drivers from laptop video 2 go. I had to boot in safe mode to get them to load since they are unsigned. Note - the lack of drivers in this case is HP's fault, not MSFT's or Nvidia's fault.

I work in web oriented technology, so I have first hand knowledge of IE10 issues. To be clear - IE10 certainly will have bugs (as will firefox, chrome, etc). However, one big issue that many sites have is a big switch which says "if IE do old stuff, else do new stuff". That is not a proper way to do things...cause its like saying "if from texas eat BBQ, else eat fish"...doesn't make sense. The proper way is to detect capabilities. Hopefully people will fix their sites, and certainly MSFT will work to fix things on their side as well.

What I've heard and read, it was mainly designed for those who have a monitor that has "touch screen" capabilities. I usually use my desktop because of speed, mouse convenience and a large monitor that I can see without eye strain trying to read the small print on my tablet, smart phone or laptop. This Windows upgrade doesn't appear to be "desktop friendly".

I'm gonna pass on this "upgrade" to Windows 8.

Jim in Tucson, Arizona

reible wrote: The interface will need a lot of tuning, it might workout but we will have to see about that. I can't believe what it takes to do a shut down!!!! That person who came up with that must never shut their system down. Unless I don't see few features of the search program it is really almost useless. The system boots slower, shuts down slower and well it seems to have a very weak set of tools....

Ed

I created shortcuts to Shutdown and Restart before I found out where is it. If you go to the lower right corner of the screen and select "Settings" there is a Power option, once you select it, it works just like Windows 7. If you are on the new Start Screen you can sign-out or lock by clicking on your picture in the upper right.

Search is automatic, on the Start Screen just start typing, then notice the folder list that helps you narrow down what you are looking for. Unfortunately nothing I want is ever in the default list and I always have to change folders.

There is a tool to debug startup and shutdown, the cause it mostly older apps that want to start before you can use the machine. My machine boots much faster (10-12 seconds) then with Windows 7 but sometime on reset it takes forever, this is a known BIOS issue that needs to be fixed. Now I shutdown and then power up instead of restart.

All that said I agree Windows 8 is terrible, it has a much too big a learning curve for Windows users.

curiousgeorge wrote:The only time I upgrade my OS is when I replace the computer and it comes with the new OS. At present I have my old computer with XP and my newest desktop and laptop with 7. I see no reason to spend all that money just for a few minor changes that most of the time don't even work with my existing hardware anyway. If it ain't broke...

What he said.