Santa brought me a new Dell desktop for Christmas. It came with Windows 8. I had some kind of old Windows on my ancient desktop and Windows XP on my laptop. Most new versions of Windows are just a little bit better than the previous version with a few clunkers in the mix. I like XP and my wife has Windows 7 on her laptop. Windows 7 is cool, cooler than XP, so Windows 8 would logically be cooler than Windows 7 and way cooler than XP, right?
Wrong-o-dong-o! Windows 8 is totally different. There is no Start Menu. There are no icons, but in their place are Charms. You don't "click" on a Charm like you would do with an icon, you tap the Charm. Yum, magically delicious. To get at what somewhat resembles a start menu, the thing with the Charms you have to move the cursor along the right side of the screen and flick it out toward the middle. It takes a certain wrist motion to succeed at this and I wasn't very good at it. The computer came loaded with 3 video tutorials. The first two lasted about 90 seconds, with 30 of those seconds a loud glitzy musical introduction. The third video was longer, but was nothing more than a glorified advertisement for the vast array of apps that could be purchased.
I had this computer for a few days between Christmas and New Years while trying to master it. I readily admit I have a bit of an aversion to change, especially drastic change to things that really didn't require that drastic of a change in the first place. Its like if all U.S. auto makers began only making cars with the steering wheel and other controls on the right side and in the back seat.
My wife will vouch for my aversion toward change. She got so tired of my whizzing and moaning about Windows 8 that she was willing to trade her laptop for my desktop. She played around with Windows 8 for a few hours before announcing: "This POS is getting returned!" Good thing Santa shops at Costco. We returned the computer the next day for a full refund. When asked if anything was wrong with it, my wife replied: "Its loaded with Windows 8." The woman at the service counter just said: "Oh" followed by a more knowing: "OH!"
Costco did not sell any computers with Windows 7, either in the store or online. Same with Best Buy. I did find a Dell desktop at Dell.com with Windows 7 and that sucker had 2 terabytes of some kind of memory. A couple of weeks later I got my new computer and began setting it up. Windows 7 has a neat desktop display that includes gadgets. So I customized my desktop, downloaded all my necessary programs, music and photos. Did I mention that this computer has 2 terabytes of memory. I downloaded late into the night. When I was tired I shut down my computer. A window popped up that told me I had Windows updates from Microsoft, 39 of them and that my computer would shut itself down after the last update was downloaded and I was sleeping.
The following morning I fired up my new computer and got the blue screen of death. I did the Control/Alt/Delete thing and got the black screen of death. Called Dell, their customer service has moved back to India. I got the run around from them. All they did was read from a script and try to sell anti-virus software and other crap. Found product return info on the internet and talked to a person based in the U.S. and got a return authorization and a refund. Went out and bought a Mac Mini. The Mac is okay, much better than Windows 8, but I still like XP and 7.
My old Sony laptop is dying so I bought a new Dell laptop with Windows 7. Computers with Windows 7 are getting hard to find. I have only had this laptop a few weeks but really like it. From some of the stuff I've read about Windows 8 it seems geared more for touch screens.
Hope this little tirade was helpful for you Dave. If you would like another opinion, pm your phone number and I will have my wife call you.
