A couple of weeks ago, I jumped through Microsoft’s hoops to get a license key to add Windows Media Center to Win8 Pro. M$ said, “WTG, Bubba! You’ll have that key via email in 72 hours or so,” or words to that effect. The “72 hours” was there, though. 72 hours, three days. Yeh, well, let’s knock off the weekends, because, you know, automated responses–heck! the Internet!–don’t work on weekends. So, naturally, “72 hours”. . . it wasn’t. Just got it a couple of minutes ago.
Luckily (not! PLANNING *heh*) I had requested a key under different identifiers two months ago, so I’ve already installed WMC for Win8, otherwise, Win8 would’ve been sitting pretty much unused on the HTPC.
Win 8 doesn’t really look like a step forward to me. I’ll keep waiting. Win 7 is keeping me happy right now.
I definitely dislike Win8. Oh, there are some good things. Taskmanager is finally becoming really useful (but then, it’s still not as detailed and useful as Sysinternals tools have been). The changes to Explorer are all right and may even prove useful. It does seem to handle memory better.
But things like that just aren’t enough to make up for the other crap. Oh, well, I put it on the least used (for normal computing) computer for a reason: I have it as a reference OS on real hardware, just in case I have someone ask me to help them with Win8 issues. I did configure it to boot directly to the desktop, though (since its primary–well, exclusive for now–use is as a WMC computer), so I make it a point to tool around the Tile Start page every now and then (remoting in with my laptop, more often than not). I had considered just getting the upgrade, installing a WinXP Vm and upgrading that, but I had these bits n pieces I had put in an already mostly-“there” box anyway, so. . .
At $40 for the upgrade and spare hardware just going begging, even my tightwaddish nature just couldn’t take a pass, despite my experiences with “preview” installations. I’ll hold my nose and use it. . . for now, although a “downgrade” back to Win7 is tempting.
Oh! The most bafflingly hilarious description I’ve seen applied to the clunky, kindergartenish Win8 primary interface is “elegant”. “Elegant”? Yeh, for kiddies who’ve not advanced to Legos from mud pies.