[REVIEW] Windows 8/8.1

Okay, I got bored so I decided to review the operating system I'm running on.
This review is based on MY OPINION and if you read this, you'll see Windows 8/8.1 through my perspective.
Have fun reading :)



Contents:

• First Impression
• Personalization
• Ease of Access
• New Features
• Problems, Bugs, Errors and etc.
• Upgrading to Windows 8.1
• Living with Windows 8.1
• Overall Review/Wrapping-up

FIRST IMPRESSION

My current Start screen :)

When I first saw the advertisement of Windows 8 with Lenka singing "Everything at Once", I was amazed, I envied those people lucky enough to have Windows 8.

The advertisement showcased most of Windows 8's features like, snapping, the (highly controversial) Start Screen, Modern/Windows 8 apps, Picture password and the live tiles.

To be honest, I wasn't surprised with the whole “Live Tiles” thing because at that time I was already using a Windows Phone (a Nokia Lumia 900) with Live Tiles.

Anyways, fast forward to the date when I installed Windows 8 on my Windows 7 laptop.

Ah yes, I remember that day, I remember that the whole installation process was long and it was very time-consuming.

But nevertheless, when the installation screen said “Let's Start” and those 4 magnificent rows of tiles popped up, I almost cried.

The tiles were dynamic, moving, alive and just AWESOME.

It wasn't that hard navigating to the Desktop, to be honest. Since I've been using a Windows Phone, I've accustomed myself with the familiar picture-on-tile interface, or as Microsoft calls it, the Start Screen.

Not much has changed when I went to the ye-old Desktop. My programs were still there, my shortcuts were still there, my files were untouched and my shortcuts on the taskbar were still there.

I watched several videos on YouTube on how to use Windows 8 properly, making the most of Windows 8, taking a screenshot by pressing Windows key + Prt Sc, tips, tutorials and much more.

I constantly relied on Microsoft and those tutorials to help guide me across Microsoft’s latest operating system.

It wasn't that hard to use it and I eventually got used to the whole Metro/Modern UI and the Start Screen.

When I showed my Windows 8 laptop to my colleagues during a slideshow presentation, they were amazed, they were baffled, but most of all, they were impressed.

Since my laptop wasn't a touch screen device, there was a little difficulty navigating through Windows 8.

I didn't get to use all of Windows 8’s multi-touch gestures, touch commands and the whole touch-based experience. Poo.

Oh well, navigating and using Windows 8 with a mouse wasn’t so bad (or, I think it wasn’t).

Although, I stayed in that familiar Desktop-and-Window interface that everyone else got used to.

With that said, I still managed to use and make get the most out of Windows 8 using a mouse and keyboard. 

I pinned stuff on my Start Screen, launched Windows 8 apps from time to time, downloaded several Windows 8 apps, played with some of the apps and the list just goes on.

Overall, Windows 8 was a good-looking OS and I highly recommend installing it on your PC/Laptop.

PERSONALIZATION

From this

To this in 2 days.
Windows 8 /8.1 is that customizable

Windows 8/8.1 was very easy to personalize and it isn't hard to change it according to your preference.

Just go to the Settings app and to change the color, background and to configure the lock screen.

Rearranging the tiles on the Start Screen wasn't that hard either.

Just click and drag that tile and right-click on an app or program in the “Apps” list to pin it to the Start Screen.

Some of the Windows 8 apps I've tried had the ability to change the app’s background by simply choosing a picture in my laptop

As for the Desktop, not much has changed.

The old “Personalization” setting in the Control Panel was still there, although I kind of missed the “Enable transparency” option

Even though the menu bars weren't transparent, the taskbar was still transparent.

I didn't like the solid color on the menu bars that much and I’ve seemed to hate it.

Eventually I got used to it and accepted Windows 8’s new features and changes. Some (well, MOST) of the desktop (file explorer) icons hasn't changed.

In fact, the only significant icon change was the Windows 8 logo on my hard drive.

That's all they changed, I guess
Nothing more, nothing less

Everything else still looked the same from Windows Vista/7 which disappointed me a little.

Seriously Microsoft, you can’t even change the icons in File Explorer?

EASE OF ACCESS

Although the ever-so-special start button was gone, I still knew that all I had to do was press the Windows key on my keyboard to take me back to my Start Screen.

But like I said, I was mostly on the Desktop and I commonly used windowed apps most of the time, so I didn't press that Windows key that often (unless I’m taking a screenshot)

As for logging in to my laptop, I got used to swiping my finger upon the fingerprint scanner that was on my laptop.

Yes, my laptop has a fingerprint scanner.

Yes, fingerprint scanners are real.

No, I’m not an FBI agent or something.

My laptop really came with a fingerprint scanner. I’M SERIOUS.

By the way, my laptop is a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dm4-2000ex

The fingerprint scanner is on the lower-right
That little hump on the lower-right, that's the scanner

Anyways, I clicked the fingerprint icon and swiped my index finger upon the fingerprint scanner and the Start screen showed up. Simple.

NEW FEATURES

The most significant feature for me was the integration of social networking sites and online services into Windows 8.

I wasn't surprised with the whole Metro/Modern UI and the apps that were bundled with it.

Like I said, I've been using a Windows Phone for a long time and I've gotten used it.

My Nokia Lumia 900 was my primary phone, I used it every freaking day of every week, and of course I’m used to it.

I’m not like some of those newcomers who were just getting themselves acquainted with the whole Metro/Modern UI.

The Windows 8 apps were just beautiful and marvelous.

However, I wondered why some of the apps were just 100 kb, 500 kb and most of them weren't even 3 megabytes.

How is that even possible anyway?

The photos I make in Adobe Photoshop are larger in size than a Windows 8 app.
I’m not mad at some of the apps being under 1 megabyte. Truth be told, I actually preferred and liked apps under 1 MB, it made the download faster and installation faster (or so I think). 

The Wikipedia app for Windows 8

I'm just…..amazed on how developers were able to do that.

Anyways, the new Windows 8 apps were just awesome and some of the apps were able to connect with my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Those apps were the best, Windows 8 apps were truly better apps than the Mac OS X apps (sorry, Mac!)

PROBLEMS, BUGS, ERRORS AND ETC.

I didn't have a lot of problems with Windows 8

The installation went smoothly, the drivers were easy to install and most of the time nothing went wrong or crashed.

It was rarity that I got the dreaded and feared “Blue Screen of Death”

Still, it was Windows, I got the sad BSOD from time to time.

When I upgraded to the Windows 8.1 Preview and installed a lot of registry cleaners and “performance boosters” was the point where Windows got a lot of bugs and began to slow down.

I bought and installed Iobit Advanced SystemCare 6 Pro, I installed a lot of registry cleaners and tried to make my Windows 8.1 Preview faster

I’m telling you, it almost wrecked my laptop. “Advanced SystemCare” deleted A LOT of files on my laptop.

It deleted some “unused file extensions” and most of those file extensions and protocols made MOST of the Windows 8.1 apps function.

After tweaking, cleaning the registry and scanning for problems, Windows 8.1 Preview was slower than ever before.

When I clicked on a picture in the Photos app, it crashed. 2 seconds after I play a video on the Xbox video app, it also crashed.

I got BSODs more often than I should. Some of the settings were screwed up.

Files didn’t display filenames, something.exe stopped working, the screen hangs, games lag, and the list goes on!

UPGRADING TO WINDOWS 8.1

At this point, my installation of Windows 8.1 Preview was screwed.

I was almost willing to try everything, uninstalling a lot of programs was harder than it sound.

Eventually, I uninstalled every “registry cleaner” (more like “registry buster”), defragmenter, system security scanner and all of the performance-tuning program I can find.

Needless to say, it didn't fix Windows 8.1 Preview.

There was almost no hope for me to fix my current installation.

Until one day, I came across a friend who gave me a Windows 8.1 RTM iso that he burned to a CD.

He let me borrow the CD and install Windows 8.1 RTM on it for free (because we’re best friends) and I chose “Only keep files” or something like that because I knew that if I chose that option, the registry and all my settings will be restored back to default

Although, it had a cost.

I lost every single driver that was installed on my HP laptop.

After the installation, the errors and constant crashing went away.

The installation went smoothly – NOT

Some kind of stupid program changed my registry so much that when I was halfway to upgrading to Windows 8.1 RTM, my laptop would get a blue screen and Windows would go back to Windows 8.1 Preview.
My fix was, I DOWNGRADE back to Windows 8 and from there, I can upgrade to Windows 8.1 RTM

I can see the upgrade in the Windows Store, although it didn't download
It was stuck at "Downloading 0%"

I was told that you can’t upgrade to an older build of Windows.

But for some weird and miraculous reason, I managed to downgrade back to Windows 8.0
(I lost all of my programs though)

I had to install Windows 8 again. Poo.

After my downgrade, I instantly upgraded to Windows 8.1 RTM.

Luckily there were no problems upgrading to the final version of Windows 8.1 although…I had to reinstall my drivers and programs. Again. Shit.

After installing Windows 8.1 RTM, this was my Start Screen

After 1 long week of installing EVERYTHING from scratch, I got my fingerprint scanner working again, my programs were back to normal, nothing was crashing and it was smooth sailing from that point.




LIVING WITH WINDOWS 8.1

Since I got used to Windows 8 and the Windows 8.1 Preview, Windows 8.1 RTM wasn’t that hard to use for me.

I installed my day-to-day programs, installed Minecraft, and bought a few games on Steam and so on.

Eventually, I got used to Windows 8.1 and I learned how to love the whole Metro/Modern interface and everything that came with it.

Windows 8/8.1 did leave me a permanent mark though.

Whenever I press the start button on any old version of Windows (95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista or 7), I felt kind of empty.

Whenever I press the start button on an old version, I say “Where’s the start screen?”, “Huh?”, “Is that supposed to happen?”, “WHERE THE HELL IS THE START SCREEN?!?!”

Ahh...Windows 7...you don't have a Start Screen :/

As time passed by, I got more used to Windows 8/8.1 and it felt like home to me.

I savored and enjoyed using it.

Eventually Windows 8.1 became the best operating system I’ve ever used

(I’ve tried Linux Ubuntu, Mac OS X 10.8/10.9, Windows XP, Vista, 7 and I wasn’t as familiar to them as 8/8.1 did)

Installing Ubuntu 13.04 inside VMware

OVERALL REVIEW / WRAPPING UP

My current Start Screen
Wallpaper: Time Machine - So Nyeo Shi Dae

Microsoft’s latest operating got mixed reviews from everyone.

Some people were mad, confused, angry, disappointed, happy, excited and optimistic towards the latest version of Windows.

It certainly did attract a lot of people with its new features like the Start Screen, Metro/Modern UI, Windows 8 apps, Store and much more.

As for me, I’m very happy and satisfied with using Windows 8.1 in my day-to-day life.

I use the Facebook app often, used the Twitter app, started to use Bing, started to use Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer 11 is fast, to be honest) and used Windows 8.1 apps often

Some of the apps weren’t a pain in the butt (well, some of them were), but I could feel that they could be improved a little.

If you’re using Windows 7 or XP, I suggest you upgrade to Windows 8.1 because it’s certainly better than the older versions of Windows.

Although, if you’re from Windows XP or 7 and you’re thinking of upgrading to Windows 8.1, I suggest you do a little research and watch some Windows 8.1 tutorials on YouTube.

If you’re a keyboard and mouse user like me, I suggest you to stay in the familiar Desktop, but please do check out some of the Windows 8.1 apps every once in a while.

If you have a touch screen, I envy you.

Should you give Windows 8.1 a go?

Hmmm…yes, but be sure to test it first before you upgrade because there will be a steep (very steep) learning curve for those people upgrading from Windows XP or 7.

Anyways, Windows 8.1 has been an awesome ride for me and I’m planning to stick to it until Microsoft makes a new operating system.

It’ll be soon, I know it.

Hopefully, the wait will be worth it.

- Lance Anderson