Which Windows version?

[redderz1]

I'm building myself a pc. All parts decided upon, only thing is, which OS.

Sorry if this opens up a can of worms, but I've no idea which version of windows I might need.

I've no real prefrence for what the interface is like. I'm happy to learn all over again. I'd rather though that it was as fast as possible.

In terms of pc usage, I do some work, which is mainly spreadsheets, simple drawing programs and wp. Gaming is mainly WoW and possibly Esol.


Cheers

R

[Eroginous]

A lot of people hate Windows 8 because of UI/functionality/accessibility issues. Some companies haven't gotten their shit together when it comes to releasing Win 8 drivers for hardware.

Some people say that Win 8 uses resources more efficiently/effectively than Win 7.

Win 8 was built for tablets/PCs with touch screens, so it has a funky touch screen UI most people hate. Windows 8.1 added the old start menu and options to disable the stupid touch screen UI, making Win 8 function more like Win 7.

I haven't used Win 8 because Win 7 works perfectly fine for me, all I do is play games and consume other media entertainment, with some productivity stuff here and there.

Take anything anyone says about Win 8 with a grain of salt though, it's gotten a lot of negative criticism, much like Vista did. I'm probably going to get Win 9 when it comes out, skipping Win 8 completely. But that's just me.

[Bsod]

just get win 8 and use classic shell to let it look like windows 7
or simply get win 7 and everything works as usual

[Cyrops]

Windows 8.1 added the old start menu and options to disable the stupid touch screen UI, making Win 8 function more like Win 7.

It was added in Win 8.0, not just the 8.1. It's called Classic Shell, though people say it 'ruins' the win8 *shrug*

[redderz1]

Thanks for replies. I think I'd rather not have to "fix" Windows 8 to make it work how I want to. Also Windows 7 appears to be an average of £12 cheaper.

Cheers

[CandyCotton Marshmallows]

Had a laptop with W8 and tested RC1 W8 on my desktop ... just not interested in it in general. Some of the apps or whatever are pretty cool, but you can get that stuff outside a desktop app.

I didn't spend much time with the laptop; it could barely function. lots of ram, dual core processor, mobile gpu; but it struggled to -spectate- LoL at minimum settings and resolution turned down. A heavily modded Minecraft couldn't get more than 1-3 fps. There is a ton of stuff you can't turn off. And setting it up to run like W7 isn't intuitive. It isn't a terrible OS; it just doesn't feel right for a desktop imo, not compared to W7.

For me, W7 is one of the best OS I've used. Back in the day, I preferred my Mac OS 8.6 over the W98/ME. XP was leaps and bounds better, but I there were some features and designs in Mac OS I missed. Now, I prefer W7 much more over Mac OS 10.x on our MacBook Air ... I do like it a lot as well; and I'd take either over W8.

One of the things for me, I'm guessing, is the child-like launch/start screen. It feels like construction paper. It is bland, simplistic. There is no elegance or beauty to it. Rectangles. And on the laptop, very resource heavy and a pain in the ass because of it, when you are stuck loading shit you didn't mean to launch. Not intuitive at all.

I'll be keeping my W7 discs and using that when my wife and I build new PCs; the current ones will run one of the variations of Linux.

If they do more to W8 (yes, I did have the 8.1 update on the laptop), let me use it how I want, set it up how I want ... maybe I'd use it if I was given it for free (probably dual boot), but past that; I'll be more curious for W9 and how they adjust in a couple years. W7 was miles ahead of Vista. They seem to have a dud then a great OS pattern going imo.