Windows 8 Upgrade Advice: 7 Reasons To Avoid Windows 8
If you have yet to decide about Windows 8, I am here to help. With Rs. 1,999 sale running out soon, I can help you in deciding whether you should go for Windows 8 or not.
Read my previous article 7 Reasons To Upgrade To Windows 8 first if you missed it where i have pointed out the reasons to upgrade but there are cons too which i will be linking up in this article.
Here are the reasons for not upgrading your windows
Cons in Windows 8:
Inconsistent UI
Windows 8 should be called Windows 4 + 4. It is half Metro and half normal desktop UI.
This can really drive you nuts sometimes. Even basic things like task switcher hasn’t been done right.
One of my common complaints with Windows 8 is the inconsistency between Alt + Tab and Windows + Tab switchers. When you do Windows + Tab, you get to switch between Metro apps only. However, Alt + Tab allows desktop and metro apps both. But weren’t they different?
In Windows 7 and Vista, Alt + Tab and Windows did same things with only a little bit of visual difference. With Windows 8, this is broken.
Apart from that, there are many other things that you will hate about Metro.
Lack of Touch Screen
If you have a laptop without touch screen, it is best to avoid Windows 8. I have been running Windows 8 on my Dell Studio and it is not a good experience with keyboard and mouse.
Metro is clearly optimised for touch screens and without them, it is just a fancy wastage of space. When I can easily click even 1 x 1 pixel area on my screen with mouse, why force me to use big 100 x 100 tiles?
Hidden Options
Many options meant for power users are hidden behind layers and layers of menus, as if all the existing layers were not confusing enough.
Windows 8 takes focus away from power users and this means that we suffer.
There are absolutely no hints to what some things do.
Everything being flat means that there is no indication whether something is clickable or not. You have to try everything to see how it works.
Broken/Less Features
Many features in Windows 8 are broken.
Take search for example. In Windows 7, all you have to do was enter some text and all your applications, settings and files were presented in one list. Click the one you want and you’re good.
With Windows 8, first problem is that there is no clear indication of how to search. You can just type when you are on Start Screen and search will start. However, there are no indications to that.
And even after the search, only apps are shown. It takes one extra click or two extra key presses to go to Files or Settings.
The backup feature from Windows 7 has been hidden and by default, backups are taken in a different way, which is faster but may not be liked by many people.
Clutter
Live tiles present the information well but with time, the Start Screen becomes can become cluttered.
The whole point of live tiles is to present the information in a clean way. But when there are 5-6 animated elements on screen, it can become hard to find what you really want.
Add the fact that you have no control over live tiles and behaviour of applications. One thing that constantly irritates me is behaviour of Bing News. Often, it will show some interesting headline on live tile but when I go to app, the headline is nowhere to be seen.
Problems With Old Hardware
If you have an old computer, stay away from Windows 8. It has some problems with hardware that worked well with Windows 7.
Several friends have noticed webcams and mics not working with Windows 8. ATI GPUs before 5000 series are not that well supported and games do not run well on them(even those which used to run well in 7)
Unnecessary Changes
Many times, it seems like Microsoft made changes to Windows just for sake of them without any point.
For example, the networking popup in Windows 7 was quite good and functional. However, in Windows 8, it summons the network popup of Metro which does not display that much information. You can not open Networking Centre from there and even in desktop mode, it is Metrofied which makes it look bad.
These were 7 reasons for not upgrading to Windows 8. Do you have anything else to add?
Some good arguments. In some ways, many of the arguments stem from the last one – unnecessary changes.
The networking popup is a great example – it is things just like this. Change for the sake of change. I get worried – how is MSoft looking at their user data to decide that some of these changes are for the best? Or does one designer just think it’s a fun idea, so they do it.
Legacy users would like more consistency please.
What is this Windows Blue update I have heard some stuff about going to bring? More difficulties like this? I hope not
I tried Windows 8 but I really didn’t like it at all. To avoid Windows 8 is a good idea, and I don’t know why Msoft messed up their OS when XP and 7 were so great.