X5 and Windows 8??

[HumbleChief]

I just upgrade another (not Chief) computer to Win 8 and here's a quick review.

I purchased online and after Windows performs a brief evaluation of your system I downloaded the needed files. You can install Windows from DVD, a flash drive or from your desktop. I decided to install from DVD so I could have a copy for later updates etc.

Burned the DVD but Win 8 would not load. It hung somewhere early in the install and I did a quick web search and found that some DVD's have (or had) a problem loading Win 8.

I had some pretty old DVD discs so I decided to load to and install from a flash drive. You have 3 choices when installing. Keep your settings and applications, keep only your applications, or keep nothing. I decided to keep my setting and applications since I had very recently done a new OS re-install of Win 7 and also because it's something I would almost never do. I almost always start from a new formatted HD but this time I thought I'd try this out.

The install took about an hour on my older Q6600 with 4g of ram - longer than I thought but Win 8 does a really thorough job of keeping all your apps and files intact and I was pretty impressed with overall install process. All my apps and settings were preserved really well.

Now to the interface. The GUI that Win 8 boots to (was Metro) is, in a word, awful. But a qualified awful. With a mouse it's really hard to get around because most of the hot spots for doing things are in the corners, and those spots are very small and hard to locate with a mouse. As a touch screen you can really see the potential and with more apps and a little time it might even be spectacular

The stock apps that come with Win 8 are, in another word, useless (for me at least). You can check on travel to Africa, the weather in London, go shopping at the Microsoft store, photos, videos, games, sports, business, dancing bunnies, and all sorts of other disturbing garbage, all requiring some registration with a new Microsoft account. Got rid of them all.

The good news is you don't have to mess with ANY of the 'awfulness.' One click on one tile and your on the desktop ready to work or set up Chief as an app tile on the Metro GUI and one click there, you're ready to go. Really easy.