Ensuring A Smooth Future For Windows 8 We all know by now that Microsoft is betting big and shooting for the stars with Windows 8. In order to make sure that users are more willing to accept the massive changes brought with the Start Screen, they need to present the cleanest, fastest and most optimized Windows performance we’ve ever seen. How are they doing so far? Not half bad. Windows 8 is certainly an improvement to Windows 7, even if you don’t like the new UI. Is it worth a full upgrade? That’s still hard to say. With Microsoft pushing out updates like this, it is clear that real focus and commitment is going into this effort. This is not at all “another Vista” as some claim. Even in the unlikely event that 90% of the users turn to pitchforks and storm Microsoft’s headquarters demanding a start menu, it will still make its way into consumer’s hands and (absolute worst case scenario), Microsoft could always push an update that gives users an option to have the start menu- though I’m 99.9999% sure this will not happen. Windows 8 is faster and more stable than 7, so the need to ‘downgrade’ like Vista users did to XP shouldn’t be a problem. I applaud Microsoft for this last minute update, but I have a feeling that the press is going to use this as negative fuel against the OS. I can already hear the headlines, “Microsoft Windows 8 isn’t ready for consumers, they are already frantically releasing updates”. The way I look at it though, is that the Microsoft of Old would have said to themselves, “Yah, there are issues with Windows right now– but yah, let’s just wait until the first Service Pack”. Being proactive is a good sign about the future of this OS. What do you think? [ source ]]]>
I have been using Windows 8 on an 7+ year old laptop on purpose to see how this new OS performs on the lowest possible hardware. The biggest improvement to this laptop was to install Windows 8 on an SSD drive. From sleep to desktop, it’s less than 3 seconds. It’s damn near instantaneous. Most of the performance increase I attribute to the SSD drive however, the OS itself is smooth, quick, and useable. My wife is mildly tech savvy and she initially had her reservations but the more she used it, the better she found the start screen and finding apps by typing the name is “BRILLIANT”. Her Start screen is customized and organized according to her preferences. If a relative noob can figure this out, I really don’t know why people are complaining.