What's so great about Windows 8?

[SYNACK]

I think that is the only sensible way to manage access to online services - I use 4 different personal devices (plus my office computer), and I'm sure there are plenty of people with more than that.

I think this is actually a way to force people onto the subscription model of 365 by removing many of the benefits of local software using the license agreement.

Re the OT; this is kind of a benefit of W8, it ties into cloud services nicely... conversely it also pushes you into the cloud like the Office 2013 stuff from above.

[sted]

It talks about Retail and OEM, so hopefully as you say, this should exclude Volume license agreements. I still think Microsoft are approaching it the wrong way. They should sell more 'family' editions to be installed on up to 5 computers. I've even heard it on the radio that Office 365 itself is for up to 5 users on any device. This makes a lot more sense.

As for managing Metro via GPO, I've not had the pleasure as yet. It's probably just as bad as being unable to manage Libraries introduce with Win 7. There are some good GPOs but still lacking some really good GPOs.

managing metro via gpo ahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!! you cant really you can disable store but thats about it and forget managing apps. best features boot time and hyperv but i do lile metro pn standalones it just is a pita in managed environments

[localzuk]

Windows 8 has better IO performance all round, be it disk access, network access or RAM access. So that's a boon - it'd help speed up machines.

However, I couldn't deploy it simply because I don't feel that the Modern UI stuff is manageable enough.

[SYNACK]

Windows 8 has better IO performance all round, be it disk access, network access or RAM access. So that's a boon - it'd help speed up machines.

However, I couldn't deploy it simply because I don't feel that the Modern UI stuff is manageable enough.

Likewise, works great in the little test deployments with one or two users (especially with efi boot) but would be completely unmanageable on a large scale. Apparently 9 is just around the corner though and their entire customer base telling them that it is not manageable in a network environment they may be getting it through their heads.

[Jamo]

I am keeping my fingers crossed that one day applications such as SIMS will peel themselves away from big players like Microsoft and get involved in OpenSource solutions like OpenOffice/LibreOffice. I do like MS Office 2010, but I REALLY dislike this idea of my documents in the cloud. I like to be in control of where things are not fling them on to the internet.

Also I live in Dorset/Somerset, the internet connection here isn't always the best, it would be incredibly frustrating if my documents suddenly became inaccessible! As for 4G? I only have the one lonely, very slow, G on my phone when I'm at home

Yep agree W8 should have been Windows 7 plus optimizations, the EFI boot and general speed of 8 are annoyingly good. The interface, though, is similar to the kiddy toys I'm looking at in Mothercare at the moment.

[Simcfc73]

They should make a Windows 8 personal and a windows 8 business... w8 business would have lots of switches to turn things on and off and allow us to lock stuff down to stop people messing.... kinda like xp but with the performance gains.

I was asked to sort a kids laptops out with w8 on, I know its my first foray into it but it was a right royal pain, I am sure with practise I would get used to it but just getting to the proxy settings was a pain... and I had to remove skype cos it didn't work.

[DrCheese]

However, I couldn't deploy it simply because I don't feel that the Modern UI stuff is manageable enough.

It's really not. You can't customise it network wide like you can the start menu. As best I can tell it ignores redirected start menu settings (o.O) & if you want to make a change to the layout, you can only do that via changing the default user profile... which is fine but users who already have a profile created on X machine will get the old layout unless you kill it off.

Honestly, if I deployed 8 I'd buy a site license of Start8 & deploy that. It has GPO support so it'll essentially be Windows 8 with the 7 start menu. All the benefits of 8 with none of the downsides.

[sted]

redirected start menus are fine they just end up in all all apps it randomly pins stuff. best solution so far for me is enable all user start menu for users but permission change stuff you dont want them accessing then network progs on redirected menu. not pretty and forget organising icons but it works.

i doubt ms will make it more business friendly they are betting the farm on byod imo

[DrCheese]

ah ok, To be honest tho I didn't spend much time trying to fix our policies to work with it. Out of the box tho all our student accounts gave me was the IE Button!

As for making it business friendly, I think they will. Vista was just as messed up from a business POV when it was released, but 7 was tons better. I just wish MS had learnt this lesson!

[sted]

ah ok, To be honest tho I didn't spend much time trying to fix our policies to work with it. Out of the box tho all our student accounts gave me was the IE Button!

As for making it business friendly, I think they will. Vista was just as messed up from a business POV when it was released, but 7 was tons better. I just wish MS had learnt this lesson!

they havnt or there would be gpos to control libraries in win7 to start with how useful would it be to assign a shared drive as a second my docs

[DrCheese]

^ This is true :P I have to set our library defaults in our default user profile (i remove the c:\public stuff) but you can't change these on the fly due to the above.

[gshaw]

It's quick, especially on slower laptops where you notice the performance benefits
The bootloader for dual boot looks pretty but reboots the machine to switch to the secondary OS

Just got a new work laptop and felt the need to install Win8 onto it, think the Stockholm Syndrome has set in I could live with the Start Screen if I could make one UI tweak, which one day I will get around to Photoshopping...

[CAM]

Windows 8 is best described as excellent under the hood with a front-end smacking of user-hostile ignorance on MS' part and their poor efforts to jump on the "got to have an app store" bandwagon. I don't think I have ever felt so torn between love and hate for any Operating System like this.

I'd rate it as near perfect if the UI was more like the Windows 8 Task Manager and less like Metro-land.

[AJWhite1970]

Love the speed of the new OS, in a like for like benchmark between Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the same hardware it flies but and it's a very big but at the moment, absolutely hate the front end and it's a million new reg keys and gpo settings to learn before it goes out on the network.

At present, 2013-14 will remain on Win7/O2K10 and 2014-15 may be Win8SP2/O2K1x

Andrew

[Michael]

Windows Blue is supposed to be released towards the end of the year. It'll be a free update to Win 8 users. Sounds like a Service Pack no? Maybe they'll at least allow admins to turn the Start Menu back on.