Comments

ddm wrote on 12/16/2012, 2:43 PM
>>> So to answer the original question: I see no reason for a "Professional" to upgrade to Windows 8 because there is no business case to support it. It will cost you more money in upgrading applications with a negative impact on productivity. There is no up-side for a business to do this; no benefit that I can see.

Ok, just to offer a slightly different opinion, as stated before... "as a professional", I find that a faster, smoother, more secure OS is an "upside" for my business. I have yet to find an app that does not run under w8 that I ran in w7. I'm a bit of a software junkie, too. I use lots of pro apps but as I type this on my laptop I have installed on this machine...

Vegas 11 and 12
DVD Architect 6
Acid Pro 7
Avid Media Composer 6.5
Adobe Creative Suite CS 6
Cakewalk Sonar x2
Reaper
Lightroom 4
Guitar Rig 5
Waves 9 Complete
Office 13 Suite (free preview)

those are the only pro apps I can think of at the moment, add to that a slew of utilities and media players and burning apps. Never did run any of those widgets so I can't speak to that. I just did a little thinking on the whole start button thing, I sure did miss it at first, but now, what can't I do without it? Can't think of anything, and as I think about it, everything I used to do with the start button can be accomplished faster without it. Go figure, maybe there was some method to Redmond's madness.

Believe me, I do understand the reasoning for NOT upgrading, and they are good reasons. W7 is an excellent platform and if everything works, indeed, why change anything. I get that. My experience with W8, which I approached carefully, installing it on a workbench pc first, nothing important on it, then onto my laptop which I use at work all day, then into my livingroom pc that everyone in the family uses to play back media etc. I'm a convert, now, for me w8 is great, I love it, it's better, faster and more fun to boot. What's not to like? (rhetorical) I have read the other posts.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/16/2012, 3:36 PM
> "Guitar Rig 5"

I still have Guitar Rig 4 and that was one of the apps that got flagged as not compatible requiring a "paid" upgrade. :(

I'm trying to figure out how to set up a dual boot with upgrade so I can play with Windows 8 a bit more. Since I just built a new Windows 7 PC, the last thing I want to do for at least another year is go back and install all of the software that I just installed and licensed. I'm thinking of making a second partition and copying my Windows 7 partition onto it so that I have two copies. Then I'll try and install Windows 8 as an upgrade in place on the new partition and hopefully have a dual book Windows 7 & Windows 8 where the Windows 8 partition has all of my software already installed. (at least that's the plan)

~jr
gbohn wrote on 12/16/2012, 3:54 PM
> I'm trying to figure out how to set up a dual boot with upgrade so I can play with Windows 8 a bit more

If you're going to just try it out, you would probably be better off running Windows 8 in a Virtiual Machine on your existing Windows 7.

If you don't have VMware Workstation, I think the free "VMware Player" would probably work. Oracles free VirtualBox might also work as well.

As I previously stated, for me I think the efficiency of workflow has been negatively impacted for 'serious work'.

Similarly to a previous poster, it feels to me like they took something more applicable to small screen touch devices (mostly used for consumption of media) and tried to shoe-horn it into a large screen, touch-less desktop environment where it's less suited.

On top of all that, I really dislike the new two-dimensional look...
ddm wrote on 12/16/2012, 9:07 PM
> I'm trying to figure out how to set up a dual boot with upgrade so I can play with Windows 8 a bit more

My favorite way to dual boot is to get a second drive, they're so cheap, and clone it with your w7 setup, now you have 2 drives with identical os's. Now, in your bios, choose to boot from the other drive, or just unplug the original drive for the moment, boot up to your w7 copy, upgrade to w8 and then plug your old drive in and reboot and, depending on your motherboard, you can f12 or whatever, and choose whichever drive you want to boot up to. I find this to be the best way to dual boot, no partition managers to confuse operating systems.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/17/2012, 4:10 PM
> "If you're going to just try it out, you would probably be better off running Windows 8 in a Virtiual Machine on your existing Windows 7. "

That's exactly how I'm using it now. Because I develop plug-ins for Vegas, I need to have XP and Vista and Windows 7 and Windows 8 with Vegas 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, & 12.0 available for testing. The only way to test all those combinations is with virtual machines. VMware ROCKS!

The reason I want to run it on my hardware is because VMware or VirtualBox don't have CUDA or OpenCL support so I really don't know how it's gonna perform. Also, since had to reluctantly buy a copy of Windows 8 for testing my plug-ins, it's kinda bugging me that I haven't installed it on real hardware to get the "full effect". (ok, I'm a geek at heart) ;-)

I wonder how much of people saying that Windows 8 seems faster is just due to every new install of Windows being faster even if you went back and installed XP or Windows 7 again it would be faster than an old XP or Windows 7 machine. Also since the interface is ugly 2D I'm sure that makes it faster too.

~jr
JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/17/2012, 4:17 PM
> "My favorite way to dual boot is to get a second drive, they're so cheap, and clone it with your w7 setup, now you have 2 drives with identical os's."

Yea, that would work too. I have an extra SSD and I was going to RAID 0 to double my existing SSD size so I'll have to see what I want to do.

~jr
ddm wrote on 12/17/2012, 5:31 PM
>>>I wonder how much of people saying that Windows 8 seems faster is just due to every new install of Windows being faster even if you went back and installed XP or Windows 7

On my workbench computer, it's a quad core 8200, I think, I have 3 drives that I boot from, one is w8, one is w7 and one is OSX 10.82 (hackintoshed), the w7 and w8 are both clean installs with essentially all the same software on them. W8 is definitely a smoother experience, it's more about how fast it switches from screen to screen that gives it the appearance of speediness, perhaps, but it is noticeable.
Bofus wrote on 12/17/2012, 5:38 PM
Seems like Win 8 goes back to 1986 interfaces where windows were basically flat.
PeterWright wrote on 12/18/2012, 8:44 PM
I've been generally happy with W8, but one thing that amazes me is that with W7 Microsoft seemed to have finally got round to simplifying the Shut Down procedure by reducing it to two clicks - Start ..... Shut Down, which is the default.

Having made this huge advance they seemed to have second thoughts with W8 and put it up to four moves again: Bottom Right Hand Corner / Settings / Power / Shut Down. I love progress.
astar wrote on 12/18/2012, 11:51 PM
The shutdown problem is always been a funny one to me. Win8 is more designed for hardware that has a physical power button. Your PC has a power button too, if you set up your power settings, you can hit the power button on your PC and have it shutdown or sleep with no clicking. You can also make a shortcut on the desktop to execute the shutdown command with one click of an icon. Both of these features have been around since NT4. Win8 hardware is designed to take advantage of app suspend and screen power management. You are not suppose to be shutting down your tablet or phone in between uses. Think instant on and less old school power down. If you are frugal with your power bill, try the power button option, its faster than the UI, even on 7.
Chienworks wrote on 12/19/2012, 7:03 AM
A friend was showing me his new Android based mini tablet recently and we were appalled to discover that there was no "power off" feature of any sort at all, neither through software or hardware. The concern was that in situations where one might face extended periods without available electricity, it's a shame to run the battery down for no use whatsoever. The only option we could come up with was to remove the battery during periods of non-use.

Seems like some of the engineers behind these things never actually use them in real world situations.
Grazie wrote on 12/19/2012, 7:22 AM
@chienworks: "Seems like some of the engineers behind these things never actually use them in real world situations."

Surely not?! How can it be possible for the spec of a piece of hardware hasn't been given a power OFF option?

G


Chienworks wrote on 12/19/2012, 7:39 AM
HP has not included a power switch on their DeskJet printers since the mid 80's. That little button may *look* like a power switch, but it isn't. Officially it's a "mode state change request interface control." You press it when you want to nicely and politely ask the printer to please turn itself on or off, and then it's up to the printer to decide if it's ready to accommodate your request or not.

I just pull the plug out of the wall socket, much to the horror of the HP engineers.
Grazie wrote on 12/19/2012, 7:57 AM
OK, you've missed my "disguised" point - my bad. Who creates/writes the spec? Engineers?

G
craftech wrote on 12/19/2012, 8:36 AM
Ahh...the never ending upgrade cycle:

Vegas 10 - 12 won't run on the most common OS out there - Windows XP so you have to "upgrade". Go buy a new computer.

Then since the newer versions of Vegas utilize the GPU as well as the CPU go buy new video card.

If that doesn't work, go buy a new computer with a new video card interface.

If that doesn't work come back and listen to others tell you - "I am not having a problem therefore you aren't either".

If that doesn't work "upgrade" your OS to the newest version and see if that works.

When you finally get it all to work go tell others that use a different editing software what a "bargain" Vegas is compared to their software.

John
DigVid wrote on 12/19/2012, 8:37 AM
"A friend was showing me his new Android based mini tablet recently and we were appalled to discover that there was no "power off" feature of any sort at all, neither through software or hardware. The concern was that in situations where one might face extended periods without available electricity, it's a shame to run the battery down for no use whatsoever. The only option we could come up with was to remove the battery during periods of non-use.

Seems like some of the engineers behind these things never actually use them in real world situations."

Least we not provide misinformation, I have a Samsung Note 10.1 which runs on Android 4 and it is easily shutdown and/or restarted, by simply holding down the power button and a menus comes up with: Shutdown, Restart and Airplane mode. It's the quickest method I've used outside iOS.
Chienworks wrote on 12/19/2012, 8:46 AM
This tablet doesn't have a power button, hence my comment, "neither hardware nor software".
DigVid wrote on 12/19/2012, 9:25 AM
What HP? Oh, that's a whole other issue... ;-)
ushere wrote on 12/20/2012, 9:15 PM
great rant, and sums up my experience perfectly....