Microsoft Windows 8 Pro Reviews

Though you could install Windows 8 on an older Win 7 system and use it solely with a mouse and keyboard, the market is filling up with touch-friendly PCs designed to be used with Win 8. These include traditional notebooks with touchscreens, as well as dockable tablets, all-in-ones with articulating displays, slider PCs and convertible laptops whose screens can twist and fold back into tablet mode. In general, we'd strongly recommend any of these over a PC that doesn't have a touchscreen. What we've learned -- and what we couldn't fully appreciate before testing some of these new devices -- is that Windows 8 is at its best when you have the option of interacting with it using your fingers. It doesn't matter so much if you have a touchscreen, a modern touchpad or an external trackpad that supports Win 8 gestures. The point is, many of Windows 8's most enchanting features (the Charms Bar, etc.) are easy to use this way, but frustrating if all you have to work with is a mouse. If you have an older system whose touchpad won't support Windows 8 gestures, you might want to stick with Win 7 until you're ready to buy a new PC -- without that touch input, many of those new features will be lost on you. For people with more touch-friendly hardware, though, Windows 8 is easier to use than you may have feared. Its tablet-style apps, multitasking features and desktop enhancements add up to a balanced mix. It's an OS you can use seamlessly on a tablet, but with features like Snap, Switcher and File Explorer you might well be more productive than you ever were on an iPad or Android slate. Just don't lose faith as you're climbing your way across that learning curve.

Windows 8 is almost here, and system makers are readying new models. Some will be touch enabled or otherwise optimized for Windows 8, while others will be similar to existing PCs. For some time, PC sales have been down, partly because everyone has been waiting to see what Windows 8 will be like on new systems. Although we’ve delved into the RTM version, and we like what we see, the success of Windows 8 will depend on how rapidly customers adopt the new user interface and the hardware to support it. Under the hood, Windows 8 offers performance improvements, a new file system, easier recovery from system problems, better cloud integration, and numerous minor enhancements. However, the Start screen seems to overshadow all the cool new stuff. Although admittedly the original Start menu created some controversy when it launched years ago, Windows 8’s Start screen seems much more polarizing. Toss in Microsoft’s overly aggressive stance in trying to sell apps and content, and some users will likely rebel. Of course, you can avoid much of that hard sell simply by using a local account rather than tying your Windows account to a Microsoft account. But in doing that, you’d miss a lot of what’s intriguing about Windows 8.

Windows 8 is a bold innovation, melding the worlds of tablets and PCs. Its excellent touch input, an app store, and better performance are compelling, but the changes will be too drastic for some and as a completely new product, a few rough edges remain.

Microsoft assumingly knew they were too late to the tablet game to come up with a dedicated tablet operating system, so "Windows everywhere" is possibly a strategy that had no second best. It's the bet the company had to make to remain relevant, leveraging their PC muscle to gain traction in other growing markets. Windows 8 is a risky sales proposition but a fine operating system at the same time.

By now, you’ve read all about my experience using Windows 8, and as a Windows 7 die-hard who was unwilling to change while the rest of the world was talking about Windows 8, I have to say that I’m impressed. Microsoft has made a lot of really smart changes with Windows 8, and very few (if any) seem frivolous. That alone is worthy of praise, especially since in the past, Microsoft has known to pack new versions of Windows with unnecessary features. True, the Start screen isn’t quite as useful on desktop as it will be on touchscreens, and Windows 8 in general is clearly geared toward to ease-of-use on tablets and laptops. To be honest, it may have been better if Microsoft had put out a version of Windows 8 that was specifically made with desktop PCs in mind, instead of releasing an operating system that tries to work on multiple levels with all sorts of different devices. I’m not saying that to undercut the advancements made with Windows 8 though, because there are certainly plenty of them. Windows 8 is beautiful, it’s fast, and most importantly, it’s easy to use (once you get through that initial rough patch of adjusting to the changes, at least). Microsoft only made changes where they would matter, and has left much of the Windows we know and love untouched. The company deserves a pat on the back for that one, because it realized that not everything about Windows needed to be completely revamped in this latest release. Some things have been entirely overhauled, there isn’t any doubt about that, but the fact that some things have been left untouched speaks volumes to the idea that Microsoft really thought this through and didn’t simply change for the sake of offering something totally different.