lol ... isn't that windows for you?

Windows 8 is the worst thing ever. I hope it'll spawn another lawsuit against microsoft for anti-competitive practices.

I've viewed many reviews but the best that I've see was from Chris Pirillo's Dad. lol

Win8 is a piece of garbage. If you think Vista was re-inventing the wheel, you haven't seen Win8. I don't see another OS from Microsoft after Win7 in my future if Microsoft doesn't get a clue and keep a Win7 like OS available. I know things appear to be going tablet, but I'm far from adopting that platform for my needs and am not tethered to even my cell phone when I leave home (nor do I want to be). Today, I can't tell you how many brain dead looking folk were walking in the mall texting their friends. If only folk realize how ludicrous they look, they wouldn't do this unless they were sitting down somewhere. I especially like seeing the video of the lady that walked right into a fountain while she was texting. lol

Anyway, I'm a PC no doubt and, again, I don't see a pad in my future. The only wireless device I have is my keyboard and mouse and I'm paranoid enough to believe someone might have hacked that like every wireless protocol has already. lol

Yeah, I had put a copy of Win8 beta on a virtual machine and between the time I installed it and looked at it I deleted it even faster.

They're trying to make the OS feel like their cell phone OS which unless somebody hasn't told them yet. My PC is NOT a cell phone!

If Google came out with and OS like they have on a chromebook I'd trust that more then another M$ OS. *sigh* I'll stick with my Vista for now, only thing that really sucks on it is copying over the network. I should be getting close to the 100mb/sec on the local wired network but I'm luck if I get 5mb/sec. Go figure!

What do you guys think about the secure boot feature? I think it sounds pretty damn scary. Like, dystopian future levels of scary.

The thing with that is, that microsoft is demanding from hardware manufacturers that want to ship computers with win8 that they implement this secure boot feature, which makes it very difficult (if not impossible) to install any other operating system on the computer.

I guess this is the new strategy of microsoft - don't bother making quality os:s, just make sure you prevent competition by whatever underhanded methods possible. Oh wait no, it's the same old strategy...

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/a ... k.mod_stln

What can i say about the new secure boot feature...
You can't live with MS OS and well....you can't get rid of it either
I will stick with my 32 bit Windows XP setup thank you.

What is scarey about that is the updates! Who knows what they are forcing you to install.
Maybe it's time i cancelled auto updates period? As it is i make the computer ask me now.

I got this funny error since the last update... i get a popup window telling me drive D is getting too full...that's my backup drive... The only thing on it is the recovery file, and pcdr.ini file.
Then when i click the bubble it launches the disk cleanup utility...weird.

I had to take over 2 hours fixing a .NET issue with my XP VM recently Rod; it kept on saying updates were available and after installing them (and it indicated success) it would see that new updates again were available for .NET. I ended up hosing all .NET (using the .NET cleanup tool) and re-installing .NET (all of them) and that apparently fixed the issue. Just weirdness with XP. Still, I'm typing this now in my Sandboxed XP VM. I bet you at least 40% of users are still using XP Rod; a, for the most part, robust OS and it's been a workhorse for a decade now (hard to believe but true). Arguable, XP's the most successful and robust OS that Microsoft has released despite it's susceptability to malware attack. If you know the secret (Sandboxie) you will never have to even worry about that.

Well, I think it's morally reprehensible and abuse of their near-monopoly position. I'm never going to pay for any microsoft product ever again. I guess in the future, if you want a real computer instead of a ms-toy, you'll have to build it yourself or just make sure it doesn't come with win8....

As for XP, the updates for XP will cease in 2014 if I remember correctly... I think I'll still keep it as a backup os, but I won't use the internet on it unless absolutely necessary.

Actually they mandate non-disablable secure boot on ARM systems (which are really for smartphones and tablets)(and I wonder what the aproirate body in the EU will think about this). On plain PCs secure boot can be disabled.

I quit using Windows a long time ago.
I admit Linux is not as easy to install but you'll be free of all these tricks and shenanigans.
Gerard.

It can, maybe, but there's no unified way how the disable function will be implemented, so this is going to make installing linux a lot more harder for inexperienced users - it will be harder to write instructions on how to install linux when the way to disable secure boot varies from system to system.

I think it's clear the whole thing is a thinly disguised way for microsoft to try making switching to linux harder for the average user - they're obviously scared of the growing market share of linux systems, so they're doing what they can to stunt the competition...

I sincerely hope microsoft gets sued over this, what they're doing is just plain evil.

If this is true I see a whole bunch of class action lawsuits against them. Who are they to tell me what other OS I can put on my PC?

Well see they're not technically making it impossible, they're only demanding that any hardware manufacturer who wants to have win8 pre-installed on their computers will have to enable secure boot by default. The secure boot can be disabled, but it will still make switching over to linux much harder.

That said, I certainly think they're abusing their near-monopoly position, and they should be sued for anti-competitive practices at the least.

It's the reason I wanted to switch to Linux. I just can't stand Microsoft! Sadly I had too many problems with Fedora and had to return to XP for the time being but this has reminded me that there are other versions of Linux out there that might work for me. Might try Xubuntu again.

Just try regular Ubuntu, works great!

Yeah the latest ubuntu 12.04 has worked really well for me, the system is really stable and everything works smoothly & seamlessly. I know a lot of people dislike Unity, but I don't think it's that bad, it's kind of cool actually. This is probably the best version of Ubuntu I've tried (I've also tried 10.04 and 11.04).

On secure boot, this is what the FSF says www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/

On top of that Ubuntu has a new desktop coming out soon as well. (or at least that's what my IT guy friend says)

I like Unity too DD. I've an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit VM. I agree that Ubuntu more then likely will be my next OS when I decide to build my next beast.

Have I picked the wrong time to swap back to M$? Had been a Linux only user at home for over 5 years, and while I thoroughly enjoyed using the system, things were not as simple as they were in M$ Windows. I have to admit I was really impressed when my wife got herself a lap top with 7 on it, so much so that I finally bit the bullet and installed 7 on my machine. Must further admit to great feelings of guilt while doing the install, especially having regularly slagged M$ off. Only problem encountered on 7 is LFN's, and had to return to Linux to fix that particular issue. No doubt M$ 8 will send me packing back to Linux eventually. Computers, I hate them