Computer designed for Photoprocessing?

[The Hat]

I am having more problems on my newly reinstalled Win 7 machine with my printers than I got with Win 8.1, some days some of the printers go missing and can’t print from them and the next day there’re back again working fine, then I lose the sound, Win 7 can be a callous bitch.

Win 8.1 still hasn’t got to grips with my Brother laser printer yet but all the Canon printers worked first time but I wish I could say the same for the Win 7 machine.

When I up-graded my Win 7 machine it was only natural to stay with Win 7 and not create any unnecessary software compatibility problems, I went to Win8.1 on the other machine after installing a graphics cart (GTX 980) from Vista, I figured after 7 years it was time to move on.

I am going to dig out the Vista print driver for my Brother printer and see if that will work under Win 8.1, so far no compatibility problems with Apps on Win 8.1 yet ! (Early days)

Kirov Airship?
Here is "Bad" one:

You noticed my Kirov Airships, I have a C&C desktop Pic..

 

[PeterBJ]

If the Brother printer is the HL-1240 then Windows drivers for all Windows versions since Windows 95 are available from the Brother website.

 

[The Hat]

Thanks @PeterBJ, I hadn’t given up on Windows finding it itself yet as it did with Vista, I never had to install any drivers for my printers under Vista at all, it was all done by the O/S itself..

 

[stratman]

graphics cart (GTX 980)

Nice!

 

[CakeHole]

Oh no its became a is windows 8.1 better thread, i feel my penny worth of whinge about to explode into a long diatribe

Having a home which has Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Linux Mint systems im sorry to say but of the bunch the one i least look having forward to deal with should something go wrong (that bold bit is the important bit) is Windows 8.

I guess its personal prefernece, Windows 8 assuming everything works has some nice additions, networking it up fresh out of the box so to speak is less of a faff then the others (its more plug and play, but at the same time a bigger pain to configure things like DNS and static IP). It has nice new casting of media features if you have a DLNA device like a modern TV, settop box, chromecast, mirracast etc, etc you can pretty much send media to them out of the box with no additional programmes needed if you want to.

Boot up speed is fast, HOWEVER if you whack a cheap sub £50 SSD in any of the other mentioned OS systems they boot just as quick much of the time.

All this is defeated though when you have to fix something when things go wrong.....
Case in point 1...
Accessing Administrative tools on a standard Win 8.1 install is a nightmare, finding background services which you do not want running as an example is totally unintuitive. On windows XP and 7 you just click the start button and go to Administrative tools, on Windows 8.1 without something like Classic Shell installed i defy anyone to be able to get to that as just once example in less than the 2 clicks it takes on XP/7.

Case in point 2...
Even default installed apps take longer to get running than on XP/7..... A simple couple of examples being Paint and Calculator. Windows 8.1 means a visit to the horribly cluttered mess called the tiles screen and looking for the app. (thats a click and scrolling already) XP/7 for calculator means a press of the calculator button on a wireless logitec keyboard, which would work in Windows 8.1 except it does not recognised many media keys even on modern Logitec keyboards.
Paint likewise is a simple click of start and selecting Paint from the accesories menu which is in REAL alphabetical order (unlike stuff on Windows 8.1 and tiles)

Case in point 3...
This is perhaps the biggest and funniest..... On an out of the box install of Windows 8.1 how do you get to control panel??? No im not talking about once you have put an icon on the desktop or gone through my computer/This PC. Or miraculously found it on the tiles screen after scrolling through a bunch of weather app related bloat which is not even for your area, Im talking out of the box. On the Linux machine, Windows 7 and XP i can get there and configure my monitor, mouse, get to add/remove programs, device manager to check drivers etc all in TWO yes 2 Clicks.... Can you do that on Windows 8? Whats the point in a nice sleek interface if you can not configure it without spending time wading through screens of guff and scrolling all over the place, oh and loading multiple windows as if you want to configure sound on Windows 8 thats not just a sigular icon in control panel but more tile related cack you also have to visit.

In short i love how streamlined windows 8 is, most of the time when it works i love the way all the unnecessary stuff you rarely use is not seen.....
BUT and its a big BUT when everything goes boobies up fixing it and finding what you need to fix it is a right bloody nightmare. As someone else mentioned installing Classic Shell helps massively, without that on a laptop of a person in this household i would tear my hair out each time i had to configure something and faff about finding some silly tile icon. Scrolling through screens and screens of crud and holding/moving the mouse to the right would not only drive me bonkers but also give my wrist early arthritis.

OF COURSE BEFORE SOMEONE SAYS IT, yes i could use the search function and type something like "sound" to find my way there BUT 1) why would i now want to use a mouse and press 5 keys (six including pressing enter after typing "sound") and then play about with the mouse... Oh and thats only after i wade through the dozen or so results it gives after typing "sound".

Your flashy sleek Windows 8 may look lean, load fast and feel fast but i guarantee i can configure everything on a linux or windows 7 machine (thats things like speed of your mouse pointer/scroll whell etc, volume levels <NO not just the master volume level in the task bar>, display properties and so much more in half the time it takes anyone on windows 8.1, in fact id guess id have some things done even before someone new to windows 8 even finds some of those options to alter in the first place, where as they would find them all on Win 7, Linux and XP just by a single click on the start button. Of course i may be wrong but if that is the case i guess MS wouldnt be bringing back something as intuative as the Start button in the first place.

 

[The Hat]

@CakeHole my hearts bleeds for you, but when you have run Win 8 for six or seven years you’ll then find it as easy to use as the other old O/S’s you‘ve mentioned.

My pet hate was Win 95 because I found Win 3.1 was a far better APP to use..

 

[stratman]

Oh no its became a is windows 8.1 better thread

No. You are creating a division where none existed.

What wasn't purely opinion on your part was factually wrong or easily remedied. To each his own.

 

[3dogs]

No. You are creating a division where none existed.

What wasn't purely opinion on your part was factually wrong or easily remedied. To each his own.

Each iteration of Windows seems to appeal more and more to some, and less and less to others @stratman to answer your question to me, i could not have put my difficulities better than did @CakeHole.
For me a computer is a tool, not an end in itself. When I want to install, or uninstall a programme I see no reason on earth why I cant go to control panel, oh! but first i have to work out how to find where it is buried.......to some, the process of uncluttering has been a godsend, snd long overdue. To others like me it simply creates an unfathomable barrier.

I have to say that I envy your ability to adapt and accomodate these changes. I am sure that you would be able to show me in a trice how to navigate tonwhere I needed to be. I would probably remember the steps for two days and then forget, why...........best I can come up with is mind ergonomics. For me the OS is moving more and more away from how I think. To me a mind map is quite readable, but when a third party whose logic is foreign to me, takes that mind map and abbreviates it, tucking away associations (he/she) finds "comfortable" and obvious, the mind map becomes unreadable for me.
So I guess the simplest way I can convey what it is that i am trying to describe is to say it is the organisation of the groups of associations ans their linked pathways. Also uncluttering does not really help me it has hindered.

I am NOT saying what Microsoft is doing is wrong. But what I am saying is that at the end of the day getting from a power off desktop to opening something specific is at most three steps, power on, function, go. Like an old radio...........swich on, wavelength, signal......hear what you want to hear.......Fact is despite rocket science, nerds and nongs I am simply wanting to walk next door, just hop the fence, if it exists, not have to stroll around the block because some "genius" has erected a 'turn right, one way only" sign on my nature strip beause it is "cool " having everyone in the street walking one way...looks better - more MODERN.

And YES I am that dismissive of the joke we endure called progress, but that is NOT because I want to have a go at you personally, I hoped that the debates we have had where being conducted on an interlectual plane, all be it coming from VERY different perspectives.........seems that was an erronius assumption and that saddens me somewhat as I value the insights I gather from the process, hope we recover that in time.

Cheers
Avagreat chrissy, you an' yours. Or Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Andrew

 

[3dogs]

@CakeHole my hearts bleeds for you, but when you have run Win 8 for six or seven years you’ll then find it as easy to use as the other old O/S’s you‘ve mentioned.

My pet hate was Win 95 because I found Win 3.1 was a far better APP to use..

@TheHat you have hit the nail right on the head for many it will take a lot of time effort and agony to get fully settled in as iterations progress.
My point is that better, need not, should not, require a significant investment of time, for example....... to enjoy wearing a new pair of shoes, who wants the agony of blisters, so WHY? put up with LEARNING CURVE, just because some petty, ignorant, brain dead NERD in Microsoft is so MODERN that he never heard of ...ON - SELECT - GO.

 

[CakeHole]

@CakeHole my hearts bleeds for you, but when you have run Win 8 for six or seven years you’ll then find it as easy to use as the other old O/S’s you‘ve mentioned.

My pet hate was Win 95 because I found Win 3.1 was a far better APP to use..

How long i use it for will not alter the fact it requires more user effort to achieve a task which is done in half the time on other OS's. Something trying to be 2 things at once (IE an OS and a touch device, cos thats what win 8 is) will never be better than something that concentrates on getting a single thing right.

No. You are creating a division where none existed.

What wasn't purely opinion on your part was factually wrong or easily remedied. To each his own.

I beg to differ, a couple of pages back the virtues of win 8 vs win 7 were discussed i did nothing more than give my opinion also. I also argue i was factually correct, i guarantee anything i mentioned takes more effort on win 8. Installing Classic shell as mentioned will solve alot of it however thats extra work in the first place.

Each iteration of Windows seems to appeal more and more to some, and less and less to others @stratman to answer your question to me, i could not have put my difficulities better than did @CakeHole.
For me a computer is a tool, not an end in itself. When I want to install, or uninstall a programme I see no reason on earth why I cant go to control panel, oh! but first i have to work out how to find where it is buried.......to some, the process of uncluttering has been a godsend, snd long overdue. To others like me it simply creates an unfathomable barrier.

Its worse than that, wait until some Windows 8 fan comes across something they uninstall but it leaves behind tiles in that metro interface, see how much they love it then

I have to say that I envy your ability to adapt and accomodate these changes. I am sure that you would be able to show me in a trice how to navigate tonwhere I needed to be. I would probably remember the steps for two days and then forget, why...........best I can come up with is mind ergonomics. For me the OS is moving more and more away from how I think. To me a mind map is quite readable, but when a third party whose logic is foreign to me, takes that mind map and abbreviates it, tucking away associations (he/she) finds "comfortable" and obvious, the mind map becomes unreadable for me.
So I guess the simplest way I can convey what it is that i am trying to describe is to say it is the organisation of the groups of associations ans their linked pathways. Also uncluttering does not really help me it has hindered.

Its not even a case of adapting for me, im MCSE qualified, i doubt many here even even do things like registry tweaking, messing with component services and more, thats half the issue though people want pretty rather than function. Ask even a basic office worker how much of a PITA it is to swap between a desktop task and Internet Explorer which you made the mistake of launching via a tile. If Windows 8 was a person it takes the meaning of "productivity" wipes its nose on it, and then acts like it has dementia and is all over the place when it comes to remembering anything. OH and before anyone says it NO installing chrome/Firefox is not an option in most offices, the poor workers are stuck with switching between a tiled browser and their desktop apps.

I am NOT saying what Microsoft is doing is wrong. But what I am saying is that at the end of the day getting from a power off desktop to opening something specific is at most three steps, power on, function, go. Like an old radio...........swich on, wavelength, signal......hear what you want to hear.......Fact is despite rocket science, nerds and nongs I am simply wanting to walk next door, just hop the fence, if it exists, not have to stroll around the block because some "genius" has erected a 'turn right, one way only" sign on my nature strip beause it is "cool " having everyone in the street walking one way...looks better - more MODERN.

Lets not forget when you install windows 8 how it wants you to create a MS account and by default wants your system left open to randomly upload to onedrive. Its not only an abomination to use but is a security abomination also. I wonder how many realise how many ports are left open on a win 8 system? This can be avoided by creating an offline account only then half the functionality, namely the Windows 8 app store and things like mail are rendered non-useable. And that is assuming you can be bothered to look deep enough to realise you can create an offline account when installing the fisher price of the OS world.

And YES I am that dismissive of the joke we endure called progress, but that is NOT because I want to have a go at you personally, I hoped that the debates we have had where being conducted on an interlectual plane, all be it coming from VERY different perspectives.........seems that was an erronius assumption and that saddens me somewhat as I value the insights I gather from the process, hope we recover that in time.

Windows 8 was basically a rush job, you can feel it was as metro and the OS itself does NOT work seemlessly together, it was MS playing the got to copy Apple game and bring our phone OS to the desktop and do it quick before we are left behind. Windows 10 thus far it looks like they are taking more time over to integrate properly this time. No doubt those that love windows 8 will move onto Windows 10 and just as they dismiss Windows 7 now they will then dismiss Windows 8 which they loved previously. Some will always just think new and pretty automatically equals better.

Cheers
Avagreat chrissy, you an' yours. Or Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Andrew

Merry Christmas from me to everyone also