Windows 8 RTM Benchmarked

jjslash writes "Microsoft's PR machine has been hard at work over the past few months, trying to explain the numerous improvements Windows 8 has received on the backend. But are there real tangible performance differences compared to Windows 7? TechSpot has grabbed the RTM version of Windows 8, measuring and testing the performance of various aspects of the operating system including: boot up and shutdown times, file copying, encoding, browsing, gaming and some synthetic benchmarks." Lots of other sites are running reviews including: Infoworld, CNET, Computerworld, and Gizmodo, with very mixed opinions.

Re:Paid for

[SerpentMage]

So I read the article and only one thought went through my mind.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

So here is the deal, I get a worse user interface, get to pay more for an operating system that offers virtually no benefit. Man I am so glad I shifting to OSX and Linux around the time Windows 8 was announced and released to devs. This is going to bite them in the ass and IMO with what I am experiencing with OSX and Linux, Microsoft really does suck!

And this is from a used to be Microsoft development author, Regional Director, and speaker.

BTW as a sidenote I actually really like Ubuntu Unity. At first disliked it, but have gotten quite accustomed to it. Now the other Linux distributions seem "old".

Benchmarks don't really tell the story...

[dhavleak]

• Steep learning curve (nothing to 'learn' obviously -- it's just a new interface -- but it's very different from Windows 7 and definitely takes some getting used to)
• Tangibly faster startup / shutdown / resume etc.
• Tangibly faster switching between apps / windows etc.
• Unfinished in terms of adopting to the new UI paradigms. Several places where you end up back in the old way of doing things, or going back to the control panel to look for settings. It's clearly still there as a catch-all.
• Some awkwardness in terms of managing processes. Clearly, it's designed for you to not think about that stuff. But windows users of old aren't used to that and want to know how to exit an app. You can kill apps quite easily, but it's part of the so-called learning curve.

Well done, but job not finished.

Re:Real use of the OS

[Scowler]

Have you actually tried to use Metro? It's very responsive and looks gorgeous, at least from the demo apps Microsoft has created. IE in Metro mode is an improvement over IE in Desktop mode. And, if you don't like it, Desktop mode is a click away, and you are safe back in Win7 style UI environment.

Re:Paid for

[cpu6502]

It looks like a step back to Windows 3.1 (which I hated). Instead of the convenience of having all your programs in a nice listing (the start menu), they are hidden in a bewildering mess of program groups & overlapping windows.

Curses.
Back then I avoided the mess that was 3.1 by sticking with my Commodore Amiga until Win98 arrived, but now that option no longer exists.

Re:Paid for

[SDrag0n]

Everybody keeps complaining about the interface. Really it's like it just opens the start menu on bootup. From there you can hang around the desktop all you want. I didn't like it at first but then once I realized that you could hit the start button and stat typing what you wanted, similar to the current start menu, who cares? PLEASE keep bitching about the same thing thinking it'll change. Thanks for your valuable input.

Re:Paid for

[Smauler]

So here is the deal, I get a worse user interface, get to pay more for an operating system that offers virtually no benefit. Man I am so glad I shifting to OSX and Linux around the time Windows 8 was announced and released to devs. This is going to bite them in the ass and IMO with what I am experiencing with OSX and Linux, Microsoft really does suck!

Don't fucking use it then as you obviously have done. Why the hell are you complaining about an OS you're not going to use?

I'm still running Vista, which was slated by just about everyone. It's stable, runs what I want, and I really can't complain about it. Dropping a few services makes performance comparable to 7, and I've got a decent system anyway that doesn't suffer from slowdown because of Vista being a hog. I've had about 6 months uptime on this system, which I use for gaming, work, surfing, etc.

If you don't want to use the software, why are you moaning about it? I'm not going to use it, either - there's no reason for me to upgrade at the moment.

Re:Window 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Two steps, 1) Click the desktop app, 2) Install Vistart, a 3rd party start menu replacement. I am not trolling, I am being serious. I can stay in desktop mode for weeks. After you wake up your computer from hibernation, type in your password, it returns you right to where you left off, in desktop mode. Default file associations might go to metro apps, but you can change those too. OK Vistart won't let me right click on anything in the start menu, but that isn't a huge deal. I don't know why that guy called me a troll. I've been using windows 8 on my home laptop for months. I am in desktop mode 99% of the time. As far as the ugly theme in desktop mode goes, no big deal. Someone will come out with a nice themeing program or hack for it at some point. I've been saying this for months. I've been using windows 8 since before they even had Metro in the leaked builds. I've had lots of time to notice the nice features.

Seriously, use windows 8 with Vistart. It's a free program. You may miss a few advanced features of the Windows 7 start menu, but you will like all the positive changes of Windows 8 more than the negative ones. Here is just one example. Windows 8 does not interrupt your presentation to remind you to reboot your computer to install an update. It gives you days worth of warning before it nags like that. Another example, if you are copying a bunch of files and one can't copy, you can just hit skip, and it will continue with everything else. You can also pause fie copying. Plus, Windows 8 doesn't have that nasty explorer refreshing bug that Windows 7 has. I haven't tested this, but I bet it doesn't have the nasty failed backups if you use a custom library bug that Windows 7 has. What is Windows 7 biggest missing feature? Native ISO mounting? Windows 8 has that. I've reinstalled Windows 8 several times over the past year, 2 or three leaked builds, then three official betas, then the RTM. I never had to install Daemon Tools or Security Essentials as part of that process, because those features are baked right in.

Plus, Internet Explorer 10 is nice. It is standards compliant. I am developing a website and targeting Chrome/Safari as the recommended browsers, but I would like it to work in IE10. It mostly works in IE9, but that required a lot of work, some features will never work in IE9. My modern HTML5/CSS3 website using canvas and FileReader API works just as well in IE10 as Chrome.

If you only mess around with Metro for a couple hours, how do you expect to notice all the changes under the hood? I have been using Windows 8 for months. Actually, I have been using Windows 8 for over a year now. I am still discovering nice new features. I've been using since you had to hack Metro into it, because it came disabled in all beta builds before developer preview.

Come on moderators, give me a few points so people can read this. Windows 8 in desktop mode with Vistart is a very nice experience. You can't review an OS in a weekend, I've been using it for a year and a half or so.

Re:Paid for

[neonKow]

GUIs may be slower than keyboards for power users, but they are far less intuitive and useable for the majority of the computing world, and honestly, if you're designing a GUI these days, you should be able to jump in without a manual and just start using it. Something that Windows 8 has failed at.

There should still always be a way to use the mouse to do something as basic as open an application.

Re:Paid for

[jellomizer]

Because the next set of PC's will have more tablet features in them. For Most People. You buy a computer and you keep your OS version for the life of the computer. If it came with Windows 7, the PC was designed to run Windows 7... You stay on Windows 7 until you want a new computer.

Now after Windows 8 comes out, you will fine more and more PC's with multi-touch screens. (I myself have a Lenovo 220t, with Windows 8 RTM on it, and the interface is really nice and I like it better then Windows 7), because windows 8 supports it it means more PC manufactures will use it. Thus Microsoft tying to make multi-touch better.

This Windows 8 Touch Screen seems like the same debate 20 years ago, when PC's started to ship with a Mouse as a common device. It started out as a toy, with only a few applications that used it. While Apple had the mouse common, the PC was mostly still Keyboard, CPU, Monitor. Then when Windows 3.1, Most PC's started to come with a mouse standard, as well the applications for Windows started to use the mouse more. There were a ton of people who hated it, and we still get the debate today. However it is a case of Software that Drives the hardware. So when you next Laptop/Tablet/PC it will probably be reconfigured to be used as a touch device.