Windows 8 Rant

So far the only good thing about Windows 8 is that I'm not using it on any of my desktops!

I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade my old laptop (Dell XPS M1330) before I handed it over to my daughter (just turned 7).  The laptop was running Vista Ultimate (:-0), so didn't think it was fair for her to deal with that.

So off I went; downloaded the Microsoft upgrade assistant and let it rip.  It came back to say, "yeah you're good to go but will have to reinstall a bunch of programs".  No problems for me as I wanted a fresh install anyway.  So went through the buying process; smooth.

The install process was just as easy, the only thing I think it asked me was whether I wanted to keep my settings to which I said no as I wanted a clean system.  The installer downloaded a 2 GB file, booted a couple of times and it was done (after I created my account that is).

The first frustration came when I tried to create an account for my daughter.  I wanted a Microsoft tied in account so that her settings would be saved in the "cloud" (what a dreadful term).  I also wanted protection and overview of her account.  So when creating her account, I told Microsoft her correct age.  When I logged in with her account on the laptop, Microsoft picked up on that and said, "you're a minor, please get parent to sign in"...all good.  So I signed in with my account and it said to verify that you are over 18 we'll carry out a $0.50 credit card transaction; no issues.  However when it redirected me to the payment site, the site was down.  After 30 mins, the site was still down.  This was becoming frustrating now as I couldn't get her email (google) working until I tied in her account.  it then started to work, so I got my CC out...another problem....I could not change country, so the address could only be american.  The frustration got to me at this point so I created a normal account and monitor on the local computer.

Yesterday I hit another frustration, and this is the one that has really got me wound up.  The Upgrade Assistant has installed a 32-bit OS not 64-bit!  Windows recognises the system as 64-bit capable, and I told it I didn't want any settings kept, but it still installed a 32-bit OS without giving me any indication it was doing that....what the hell!  If I had known it couldn't install 64-bit I would have stpped and done it differently.  To add to the frustration, it doesn't seem very easy to install the 64-bit version: http://winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-upgrade-32bit-64bit-144649 .  Oh and this morning, my daughter pointed out that the system just shuts down completely every so often...I witnessed this myself...never happened on Vista previously.

I don't want to go into the usability aspects of windows 8 (an OS made for touch screens that is really, really non-intuitive) as that is another level of frustrations, as that would just make me cry.