I don't get scorn for Windows 8...
So, a recent note on Google+ from a friend talking about Windows 8 had me posting and talking about support conditions in my corporate domain environment and defending Windows 8 against scorn and ridicule and made me want to cross-post some of the conversation here. My initial reply was stating that, contrary to anyone else I know, I actually rather like Windows 8. I contrasted this with a statement that I also understand that as a business solution Windows 7 is better and that Windows 8 Pro is essentially Windows 7 but with a fancy UI for the start menu.
People seem to want to compare Windows 8 (and Vista for that matter) to Windows Vista. Honestly? It's not that much different than Windows 7 except that
Honestly, everything from Windows 7 I've tried to use in Windows 8 has without a problem worked fine, including the shortcut/folder for "all control panel items" in W7.
Separate from that, we've found that XP in general is beginning to suck due to the following:
So even the base level CPU/Ram requirements that would make a machine circa 2003 happy would be fine IFF they had a browser released recently that ran the plugins necessary. Currently that means Windows 7 instead of WIndows XP (maybe Vista, but we upgraded all of our Vista machines to W7 to I have no sample base to compare support for Vista and "modern browsers" with). Windows 8 likewise has support for the newer browsers, but we're working to get XP out of our domain as fast as possible and staying with Windows 7 for ease of support.
People seem to want to compare Windows 8 (and Vista for that matter) to Windows Vista. Honestly? It's not that much different than Windows 7 except that
- Windows 8 is a lot of a "cosmetic only" changes to where things are (i.e. start menu, control panels, etc.
- There is a new API for metro/modern applications to run in a tablet-like environment rather than standard desktop computer OS.
Honestly, everything from Windows 7 I've tried to use in Windows 8 has without a problem worked fine, including the shortcut/folder for "all control panel items" in W7.
Separate from that, we've found that XP in general is beginning to suck due to the following:
- everything I do is web-based, but I don't need to do things outside of browse the web and use plug-ins for my browser
- my browser requires a relatively new version in order to run the plug-ins I need
- my OS has to be relatively new in order to have a version of the browser I use to be available
So even the base level CPU/Ram requirements that would make a machine circa 2003 happy would be fine IFF they had a browser released recently that ran the plugins necessary. Currently that means Windows 7 instead of WIndows XP (maybe Vista, but we upgraded all of our Vista machines to W7 to I have no sample base to compare support for Vista and "modern browsers" with). Windows 8 likewise has support for the newer browsers, but we're working to get XP out of our domain as fast as possible and staying with Windows 7 for ease of support.