Filed Away

The upgrade went pretty good and so long as all I was doing was browsing or playing with the included apps everything was fine. Then I tried running Netflix… Sorry, it doesn’t like my HD audio from my Radeon HD 4670. I tried something simple- Second Life. Sorry, my video drivers are either not installed or my hardware is unsupported. It went on and on like that for quite a while before I pulled the plug and reinstalled Windows 7 (no roll-back option, either).

I think my main issue is drivers (duh) and the upgrade installation. I’ll do a clean install soon and see how that unfolds. I will do a full system backup so I can restore Windows 7 when or if I want to- it never occurred to me I would not be able to roll back the upgrade. Fortunately this is my second workstation and I am used to just nuking it and reinstalling when i want to experiment.

In the mean time, some observations:

You have a Desktop Similar to Windows 7, it’s just not the default. you can cover it with shortcuts and work off it if you want… once you go through the New Interface Microsoft Does Not Want To Call Metro.

Pay attention to that tutorial video that runs when you first log on, short as it is it gives you some very important information about how to access settings and (most important to me) how to close applications opened through the New Interface Microsoft Does Not Want To Call Metro. Mostly this is to use the corners of your active screen to reveal the tools available.

I love the little search box in the Windows 7 Start menu. The search tool in Windows 8 simply blows that away. Seriously.

Speaking of the start menu… why can’t I have a start button? Please? Yes, I got used to working with the new interface once I figured out the thing about corners and the search tool, but still.. no ability to have a start button? Why?

As an IT professional I would hate to have to roll this out as an XP or Win 7 replacement. OTOH, this is the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) version and vendors still haven’t got drivers and whatnot available to the general public (Kudos to AMD- they had x64 Windows 8 drivers on their website).

More will follow once I get this installed clean, probably next weekend.