Lately, I'd been noticing that my Windows 7 install was becoming a bit slow/broken. Some things didn't work quite right, and it was running a bit slow at times. It had been 3 years since I installed 7, back when it came out.
I wanted to reinstall Windows to clean out the dead wood, and then decided: what the hell. I installed a trial of Windows 8, based on the final RTM version. Even though I knew I would probably hate it, I wanted to try it for myself rather than pre-judge it. Not to mention, I'm inevitably going to need to be familiar with it for my job, and for people who might ask me for help with it.
So I'm running Windows 8 right now. And, so far, I still think it's pretty terrible.
I can only come up with 3 positive things to say about it, at the moment.
- Once at the desktop, everything loads and responds extremely fast. It's just lightning quick. Faster than 7.
- The Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc) has been greatly improved.
- Windows Defender, which was pretty useless before, is now based on Microsoft Security Essentials. Meaning that Windows 8 now comes with a decent built-in Anti-Virus. (I'm sure companies like Norton and McAfee must be pissed.)
I hate the mish-mash of the traditional desktop interface and Metro (or whatever the hell you want to call it). Metro is ugly, and next to useless on a desktop computer. Microsoft also removed Aero (glass borders on windows), giving everything a dull and flat look.
I tested Tron 2.0 and our mod projects, to see if they work okay on 8. For the most part, everything seems fine. However, I'm getting some slightly unusual behavior from the game. With multiple mods installed, I can only successfully activate one of them from the Custom button on the game launcher. It's bizarre. Also, every time I quit the game, it consistently produces a crash. But the game starts and runs okay.
I'll have to do some more investigation and tinkering, but Tron 2.0 seems to run more or less fine on Windows 8. I think my issues are a fluke, and specific to my particular setup.
Final verdict, barring any change of heart in the near future: I strongly suggest everyone avoids Windows 8. The minor improvements are not worth it. Stick with Windows 7.