Winderz Ate My Start Menu!
It's been really amusing to watch the kiddies get all bent out of shape over Windows 8. For the last fifteen years, I've heard people decree that this release of Windows is certain to be the ruin of MSFT and yet Windows, in spite of everything, is still hanging on.
Installing this beast was a bit confusing. I popped the install medium and watched it flash the new, less wavy version of the logo. It sat there for twenty minutes, saw no activity, the hard drive wasn't spinning, no progress bar, no text saying "please wait" so I assumed that something was frozen. Made sure the surface of the DVD was clean, booted up again, same story. At 25 minutes, I'd determined that the broken install was so amusing that I'd leave my system that way for all my coworkers to see: "This is the glorious craftsmanship of Microsoft!"
Five minutes later, the language selection menu appeared. Oh. I guess it was working on something and just didn't bother to tell me. For half an hour. Turns out that progress bars don't jibe with the "user experience" they have planned for me.
The usual routine of loading screen, reboot, loading screen, reboot and loading screen, reboot took place. Unlike real operating systems, Winderz uses the reboot as its signal to you that everything is okay and there is nothing to worry about.
One of the loading screens nearly induced a seizure for me. That bright tour of the color wheel was obviously a government ploy to destroy all Zarigians on Earth. Why in the world did they think that was a good idea?
Once the system was running, it was pretty much just Windows 7 with a start menu that fills the entire screen and contains inane animations. It's been long enough since I bothered to use a start menu that this didn't put me in the same state of discomfort that some have expressed (perhaps soully to amuse me).
The system would spontaneously switch keyboard layouts on me – but Windows 7 did that too and that's the main reason that I ended up deleting QWERTY as an option on any MSFT-tainted computer I had to use (to the dismay of some of my coworkers).
Trying to register the infernal thing through my company's KMS has been a headache. I think it's because the system is assuming my hardware clock is set to a specific timezone or something. I love how if the key server rejects you due to time skew, the error so helpful.
Of course, this did uncover the first detriment that was unique to version 8 of Winderz: WHERE THE SQUICK DO I SET THE SYSTEM CLOCK!? I suspect it's under the Advanced Settings thing but that requires me to boot with an install medium to change.
Seriously, somebody thought this was a good idea.
My laptop's battery life appears to be far better than it ever was on Windows 7 or Arch. Because Linus Torvalds is vehement in his belief that his kernel must have to run on servers and nothing else, it tends to treat a system's battery like the Mongols treated their enemies.
Does this version of Winderz suck? It would be quite astonishing if I the answer wasn't "yeah, sure." Does it suck remarkably more than any release that precedes it? Not by much.
That's why the youtube histrionics are so hilarious! It's like watching the guy who is hours behind everyone else in the marathon who stumbles and breaks stride a tiny bit and starts cussing up a storm, confident that this little hiccup is going to be the reason he loses.