Should You Upgrade To Windows 8?
As a computer repair shop we get asked, “Should I upgrade to Windows 8?”. It seems most people know little to nothing about the operating system. So far, I’ve told people to wait or avoid Windows 8 all together for a few reasons:
The first reason is because it’s still buggy. Most IT professionals will avoid installing a new operating system at least the first year of release or until Microsoft has released its first service pack. This is because all sorts of issues can arise. Such as blue screens, driver and software compatibility.
The second reason is the new user interface. Most people do not like change. With the lack of a start button and the new “Metro interface”, it leaves most users very confused.
The third reason, it’s more difficult to repair, this is mainly for professionals but it still affects users when they get a virus or have operating system issues. Just today I had a customer come in and I had a great deal of trouble booting into safemode or as Microsoft likes to call it “Safeboot” mode. It seems the shift+ F8 function wasn’t working. Only way I could boot into safeboot was from MSCONFIG. I was battling a new survey virus that locked up a customer’s computer. It also disabled many windows functions. Luckly I was able to quickly load MSCONFIG before the virus loaded into memory and I was able to enable safeboot mode. But I know this will give us headaches in the future, limiting our repair options.
Fourth reason, it’s not mouse and keyboard friendly. Unless your computer has a touch interface the user interface isn’t very fluid.
Fifth reason, Direct X 11.1 doesn’t add much value to gaming. As a PC gamer, there are very few games actually utilize direct X 11.1. Even then, the graphical difference isn’t really noticeable currently.
It seems Microsoft has ability to create a great operating system only after it works out the kinks from the previous one. We saw this behavior first with WIndows 95. Then they released Windows 98, which was much better. Soon after they released Windows Millennium Edition which was a horrible mess. Then in 2001, they released a gem, Windows XP. Then again it cycled and they released the headache known as Windows Vista. And finally in 2009, they released Windows 7, which in my opinion is the best option for Windows right now. In summary, Windows seems to follow this pattern of good-to-bad and Windows 8 is definitely bad.
Hopefully with the next release, Microsoft will hit a home run with what is known as Windows Blue.
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