After installing Windows 8 and having now spent 24 hours or so playing with it, I have flip flopped many times on if I like it or not.
At first I found it very confusing when switching back and forth between the Start page and the desktop that I know and love. After a little time it was becoming easier and faster and I am starting to get the hang of it.
One of the first things that i thought was strange when I opened an app, music or weather, default apps on the start page, it scrolls side to side. After some mouse changes I scroll back and forth on the touchpad scrolling side to side works great.
Customizing so far is limited on the start page. on the regular desktop you can customize all you want. You can add as many apps to the start page as you want, I added them all and then broke them into groups based on what they are and do. I liked this since I tend to keep my desktop pretty bare. The other nice thing I discovered I can shrink the the whole thing and it lets me see all of my groups and go to just the one I need.
One of the things I like about Windows 8, it is what is coming and Microsoft has given us old folks a way to move forward. They gave us the new and the old in one package. We can play with the new and experiment with how it works, try out the new Internet Explorer, it is clean and fast. Still need to get into the control panel, hit the windows key and you are back at Windows 7 type interface, folders that you can get into and get to the stuff you know. Good move Microsoft.
One of the things I do not like…Ads. I paid for the operating system and most of the apps that come preinstalled have ads. I tried to turn them off but it told me I could not. I can pick the type of ads i want to see but i can not turn them off. Bad move Microsoft.
Another thing that for me that will not really work. I live in a different Ecosystem than Microsoft, I decided about 2 years ago to be a Google Guy. I have Gmail, I use Google Docs and Google Drive to store all of my stuff, i even have an Android Phone.
I do not have a hotmail account, I do have Xbox and that is the account that I used to log into Windows 8. They want to personalize your experience and they did a pretty good job on news and weather but email was tricky since my login email is a domain email address. Everything is connected to your Microsoft account. You use your login to log into your pc, it is used to access your files and account online apps like Skydrive and or Hotmail.
I tried to connect my Facebook account but it seems i have to ask my friends to install something on their computers before it would work right, forget it.
I will post more in the coming days. Right now the jury is still out and I can not say for sure if it is worth it to upgrade and I can really see how this would be much better on a tablet over a laptop. So for those reason and more i am going to keep playing with it and do some more testing before i make a final decision.
Here is a great step by step for installing Windows 8 from a flash drive