Well, I'm not really sure I can give much of an answer here.

Once I downloaded a couple of programs to tweak things, I couldn't really point out any differences. I got a program that brings back the start menu, and skips the Metro interface as well, and in terms of everyday usage, I'd be hard pressed to tell it apart from windows 7.

8 is horrible.

Get 7, you need to move on from XP since it's been discontinued recently and will now be very vulnerable.

I already have 7 But why exactly is 8 so horrible?

I'd actually quite like to know this myself.

Beyond the lack of a start button and having the Metro interface pushed on me, both fixed with a free program, and needing to disable the swipe thing that brought up the charms bar, I can't honestly say I've had any trouble with it.

I don't doubt that there are things wrong with it, but I've not experienced anything that wasn't easily dealt with.

It´s still bad that you have to do all that just to bring back the normal UI, but at least it can be done.

Ture, but it was easily fixed, and the fix is literally a one-off solution.

So it was a problem for maybe ten minutes?

Annoying, certainly, but not what I'd call horrible by any means.

There might well be things that are horrible about windows 8, but if I'm not experiencing them in day-to-day usage, then how big in real terms are those problems?

http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windo...-its-bad-200113

http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/08/microsof...ends-windows-8/

It's just bad.

All the talk about Xbox and tablets... I just want a regular PC UI

I have Windows 8 on my Surface, and from what I can see it is basically Windows 7 with a phone UI laid over the top of it. It is great for a tablet where you are using your fingers for everything. I would say pretty useless for an actual PC though. I have no problems switching from the Metro Interface to the old-fashioned Win 7 one. It is just one swipe of a finger to flip between the two. The trouble with using the Win 7 UI on the tablet is that everything is much too small, even with the stylus it is extremely hard to select things.

The thing that annoyed me most about 8 was that it did not come with a POP3 email app for the Metro Interface. I had to dig to find a user-made app (I suppose we could call it a mod... that will do POP3. But one I found that, I was set there.

So if you have a tablet I would say definitely go Windows 8, that is what it was made for. If you have a desktop or laptop, stick to 7.

Anyone good with MACs?


So, I updated my 13" MacBook Pro, and it said it had to restart to update, but it wouldn't restart, so I turned it off manually.

Well, now it's stuck on the gray screen. It has a little bar under the dark gray apple on the gray screen indicating it's putting the update into effect, but once the bar reaches the end of it's loading journey, the computer crashes and turns off.

In short, I cannot use my MacBook

Sorry to hear of your Mac issues, KOB. Something similar to that happened to me a couple of years ago. Believe me, I know that sinking feeling!

Does your MBP have an optical drive, or is it one of the new ones (Retina MBPs have no optical drive)? You do have your data backed up, do you?

You may want to try and boot up from a system CD (if the answer is yes) or from the Recovery Mode (for OS X Lion or later). If the computer boots up into the desktop from the CD or Recovery partition, then you likely have a glitch in the update process (i.e. a corrupted download).

In that case you'll want to reinstall the system from either the CD or Recovery Partition and get to to the desktop, or restore from a Time Machine backup that predates the update. Then you can try re-downloading and reinstalling the update again.

If the computer won't boot up from CD or Recovery partition, then you may have a hardware issue. That requires a visit to the nearest Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Technician.

I hope this helps! Do let me know how it goes for you.

Thanks for the advice

I hope one of those things works, I have all my Africa pics on this computer

Ouch! Hopefully we can get them back.

All the more reason to keep your computers backed up regularly and often! My Win 7 partition is set to back up daily, the Mac partition (both on my Mac Pro desktop) hourly (thanks to Time Machine), and my MacBook Pro weekly. I also keep an archive drive of all my photos. Redundancy is a computer geek's best friend (and a digital photographer's, too).

KOB, I'm off to bed. But PM me if you need more help. I do check my email often (like to keep my inbox clean, you know).

I'm an idiot so of course I didn't back up my computer lol


Thanks for the help

I hope I can figure this out

Sleep well

Sorry to hear about your MAC problems, Kobby. Can´t help you myself but I see h.e.r got you covered. Hopefully it´s not as bad as you think and it´ll be up and running again soon

So yesterday I decided to make some backups of programs on my oldest puter (Win 3.1) in case it drops. I know I shouldn´t jinx it but c´mon, I have to be able to talk about it...

I wanted to transfer them to my Millennium puter because not only do they work on it, from there I can also upload them to my flashdrive. But I can only use 3.5" disks for the first step and fortunately I found one just laying about! I should have more somewhere but one was sufficient for now. I was able to fully transfer Chip´s Challenge which was my main focus, and then I moved on to copy savegames of CyClones, Duke Nukem 3D and Wolf 3D plus some other stuff. I don´t have to bother with the rest of the games because I have those on CDs so I can just install them at any point. Next step is to copy Jezzball and Maxwell´s Maniac.

I did encounter some problems, though. Because many of these programs are not installed in their own folders, the files are scattered all over the place and it´s sometimes very hard to figure out which file belongs to which program. I wasn´t able to copy Paintbrush and some of the images I´ve made, but most of them I could transfer and I might even show them here sometime!!

What happened earlier with this puter (scroll down a bit)

Had a little trouble earlier in the week. Computer got a virus, though Norton shut it down quickly. The source? The external hard drive I use for backup No idea how it got there.

As it turned out, there were in fact four viruses lurking on that hard drive, I'm guessing in amongst the files from my old laptop. *facepalm*

My laptop does seem to be a little slower to start up since then though...

Regular virus searches is the lesson then..

Urk...I need some antivirus on both my Laptop and PC - forgot to add it since I'm finally able to get back online after a year

I have Microsoft Security Essentials. Free and works for me!

Norton does that, and I had it on my old laptop, so I'm not really sure how the viruses got there...

Still, at least I know they're dealt with.



...

You're a braver man than I, 'Rocu.

I don't trust Microsoft for anything beyond the OS, and that's only because I don't have much choice in the matter...

I´m not brave, just lazy and cheap

I should try it then. I thought they charged for it, not sure why I thought that. My favorite antivirus and firewall (when I could afford to pay) was by Trend-Micro, it was excellent right up until the month it was going to expire, then hounded me with so many dire warnings that I went with Kapersky the next year, then Norton - neither did the job Trend-Micro did - and Thorny - I did get a virus with Norton installed.

I have only extremely rarely gotten virus in my puters, with or without antivirus programs. Might as well have one that´s free. Don´t wanna pay for yet another thing

I have problems every time my husband gets on my PC.

Well, I've had no problem with Norton so far, so I figure between it and Malwarebytes my laptop's pretty well defended.

*shrugs*

Well, tell your hubby to stop visiting the pr0n sites!!

Ugh.

Trying to download Chrome, since Firefox is giving me issues.

But the damn thing's taking forever. Apparently it's going to take four hours to download

What on Midgard is it downloading?

Who knows? I have really no idea how long it should take.

Well it shouldn't take anything like that long.

Screw Chrome.

Are you on 56K?

(In best Yorkshire accent) When I were a lad, we were lucky to have 300 baud, over a rotary-dial phone in a coupler.

Aye. T´ose were the daas.

Haha.

I'm blaming it on Google. Browsing is quick as it's ever been, so it must be something on their end.

Anyway, screw them, I updated Firefox instead.

Dunno if it'll help, have to wait and see...

Well it has to fit those bumpers, wheels, mirrors, and other car parts that are made of chrome through your cable line. It's not easy squeezing all those auto parts down that small!

!

No way it should take that long unless you have a VERY slow download speed on your internet provider.

Hence blaming it on google.

On the upside, updating Firefox seems to have fixed the problem

I changed over to Google Chrome after your shocked response that I was still on IE - they couldn't load themselves on my computer quick enough as soon as I said yes they had me changed over in no time.

And now, for one of those "well, what do I do now?" moments:

Looks sort of like one of those 'Can't get there from here' moments. . . .

1. Umm. . . sever the machine's arcane link to its source of shock magic?
2. Nordic steel reboot?
3. Orcish warhammer?

Actually, I think I'd consult SubRosa before attempting option two or three. The IT side of the force is strong within her.

Yeah, I had to laugh when I saw it, then grabbed a pic. Restarting the task manager got it working, but it seems either something's up with Explorer, or something's getting in its way.

Main suspect: Startmenu8. It seems kinda glitchy, but since it bring back a proper start menu to Windows 8.1 it's not really something I can do without...

Solution: Install Windows XP.




Next question?

Or install Windows 7. I have not heard anything good about Windows 8. I have it on my Surface, and am very unimpressed.

Sometimes making progress means staying where you are.


Go ahead, Micro$oft. Some free advice right there. If you can comprehend the concept of "free" that is..

This is the best news EVAH! I am getting a new PC for Xmas - actually won't get it till the first week of January.

Here are the stats:


Intel Core i7 4790 CPU
16 GB DDR 3 Memory
240 GB SSD Drive
1 TB Standard Drive
780 GTX Video Card
DVD RW Drive
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

He upgraded the power supply from the original order, and I know he will install it - but he left it off the ticket so I can't write what it is - all I know is that it is better than the 3.3 Ghz one I had on the original order.

It only comes with a one year warranty on parts and labor, so I better be careful with it, lol.


Since I'm coming to this from an HP with an NVidia 8600 graphics card, I know it will be better than what I had - but don't know how it stacks up with today's PC's. Can anyone tell me if this system is ok?

Ok? That is the Thor of computers! Seriously, that is a very impressive box. You could barely do better.

I'm so glad you responded, was hoping you would answer because I know you absolutely know what you are talking about! That is so good to hear! I got my son one too since his PC has been crashed a year longer than mine was, so we will both have decent computers now. (whew!)

Thank you, SubRosa!

Just wait a couple of months...


I´m actually kinda lost after Nvidia´s 8600 card so I don´t have a feeling anymore how good a graphic card is and I´m not good at processors, but even I could sure tell you´re definitely getting a puter good enough for Oblivion..!


[RinryGameGame]
Happy gaming!
[/RinryGameGame]

That NVidia 8600 is the card I was using too - Oblivion at half graphics, couldn't play the Fallouts or Skyrim. My laptop is a GTX 460, which was able to play Skyrim and the Fallouts at (at least) medium graphics/some stutters after adding the official texture pack for Skyrim/crashes entering the Gibson house in Minefield Fallout 3 (because of the scaled house and trees).

My son had a basic Gateway that bogged down playing WoW and couldn't even begin to handle Oblivion.

So to both my son and me, these new PCs would be awesome if they were anywhere above what we had. I'm so excited! My son picks his up (today), I get mine the first week of January. Can't wait!!