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There are also settings to default Libre to save in MS formats (docx, xlsx, etc) so that those using MS products can easily open what you send them. It's a great solution for home and office.

And you can deploy it via Group Policy. I noticed Open Office was a little bit faster than LibreOffice. But they're almost the same. Ran Open Office for quite a few years before getting Microsoft Office.

Thanks, Sandeep and Bert. Putting domain name worked.

I'm getting annoyed with Win8
On two machines it insisted on rebooting to "install updates" despite my checking the "later" box -- and then went into a death spiral. Half an hour later it corrected itself, said the "update failed."

I was thinking I would have to re-install Win-7, it all happened without any warning and then the screen just went blank. Fortunately I have some experience with windows -- I just walked away and left it running, and eventually it came back.

I honestly don't see any advantage on a laptop or a desktop -- I don't use any of the "aps" and the programs are harder to get to and sometimes don't work.

AC works fine, fortunately; as does Medware.

Seems to be working okay for me. Just out of curiosity, do you do in-place upgrades or full erase upgrades? I always find stuff to be broken after inplace upgrades.

Some full erase upgrade, some "in place" (the $40 option)

This is not unique to me, and seems to be especially a problem with certain Lenovo boxes -- though apparently it's been reported with other ones.

The machine insists on upgrading, then goes through its routine, then abruptly stops mid-upgrade, reboots, and goes blank for a while, then finally after a couple of automatic re-boots, it says "upgrade failure" or something similar, and back to square one.

It doesn't seem to interfere with function of the operating system once all the fuss is over.

But I still can't see any advantage to Win8 over Win7 -- it is lots more clunky for non-touch-screen users, and control of the operating system is much more difficult. I am still learning about some shortcuts (like WnKey+x) that get you to interesting places.

Tom Duncan

Saw this, and thought of this thread.

It appears that the word is getting out into the marketplace.

Win8 has fallen behind Vista in adoption.

To be honest, this doesn't surprise me in the least.

Remember, many large enterprises are just now settling in on fresh Windows 7 rollouts. The same is true for home users as many home users have the same thing at home they use at work.

It is unrealistic to expect anyone but the enthusiast to upgrade so quickly. My company still have 7 Windows XP machines laying around that I hope to replace in the next few months - with Windows 7 - since that is what I have testing our environment against.

On the other hand, Windows Server 2012 adoption is going quite well thanks to the drastic improvements in virtualization and licensing.

JamesNT

Glad to hear that Sanjeev. I, as well, see no big reason to go to Win 8. I have been using it on my computer for a month now. There are about six or more 3rd party start menus, which basically turns your desktop into a real desktop.

After that, you can use Win 8 as if it is Win 7 and never know the Start Page is behind the desktop. It is pretty cool to use the Windows button to get to the Start Menu and then use the Enter key to get back. So, you can go back and forth in less than a second. And, when you log in, it logs into your desktop so you don't know you have the Metro UI screen. When used this way, one can always tap the Windows button and be able to use anything on the Metro UI such as the Windows store and Skydrive. The Metro UI page is where it has BLAZING speed. The "browser" or whatever opens in a split second. I do like the browser, because they are sort of like a portal. Clicking on a tile takes you to a sports story, which you can scroll horizontally, but it also has ten other squares with interesting stories, which is either good or a time waster.

I still think I will go with Win 7 for my computers and likely change this one back. I can't see any company using it. But, this may be the Vista of Win 8, and Win 9 will take it and run.

I have never seen so many Microsoft and Windows bloggers talk bad about an operating system and try to play up the good parts. Paul Thurrott's blogs tout it pretty well. If you spend a few hours or more reading these, most have a Top 10 list of how to use it better.

I read the link that James listed. I can't believe anyone would go through those steps when you can simply connect using the manual method.

Networking is the same. The one very, very weird thing that I wonder if anyone has experienced is the following:

I have Win 8 set up and I log into it with my username and password. This brings me to my account that I set up when I was installing it. If I log into any computer, I go to my account. If another user logs into this computer, it sets up an account for them. So, so far, it is the same as always. But, I can't save credentials when using RDP on my network. But, stranger than that, and very frustrating is if I remote into Win 8 from home using my username and password, it creates an entirely new account, and I can't get into my account without using the admin account or changing my password using Microsoft's code number to phone.

Windows 7 was mature when it was released. To a certain extent, it cleaned up many of the things that were broken in Vista. Now Windows 8 comes along and they want you to relearn how to use the computer. Corporate America does not want to have increased educational time. Win 7 works, why change.

With a program to bring the start button, Win 8 is like Win 7 but faster. I have upgraded a few of my XP machines, but why bother with a Win 7 machine. I did with my home theater machine and all sorts of issues cropped up. That's because I was being lazy and tried to avoid a clean install and having to put all the programs back on. I won't do that again.

In KitGuru, a computer site, we are told by Carl that some machines running Windows 8 boots up in 8 seconds, significantly faster than Windows 7. Uhhh, Carl what have you been smoking. First, just stating "some machines" is simply not scientific. Why don't you take one decked out computer install an SSD III for Win 7 and Win 8 and see. My guess is those those computers were running SSD on a PCIe card and at 12Gb/s they may get to eight seconds I doubt it. Since I don't want to power off, I generally test my going from POST to login. Win most of my Win 7s ruinning on Lenovos with SSD III OCZ with i7 2600k's, I can get anywhere from 9 to 14 seconds.

Hell, on July 1, 2012 the world adopted the little clockwise circle (not sure about the southern hemisphere) to show the machines were thinking. I suppose further back going to Win 7. But, I have to say I like the blue circle better than the white beads which circle and then appear as though they are going to stop, just before they start again and bury themselves beneath the wallpaper. But, watching one turn of the annoying sand timer replacement is at least 10 seconds. Of course, maybe it is faster on "some machines."

I would have to say that if this white clockwise circular set of fast than slow beads had been around years ago when the Wizard of Oz was made, and Steve Ballmer made the decision to use it instead of the timer, we would all be watching Scream every year instead. Come to think of it, Scream wouldn't be that bad.

I think I should start a blog.

Boot times can be pretty variable. Adding RAID controllers can significantly increase your boot time. For instance my controllers can take 30-45 seconds to load (3 of them, LSI 3208, Intel RSTe, and a Dell RAID controller) It's probably about 10 seconds after those till I get to the Windows screen. My RAID controllers take a while to initialize. Now if I didn't have that, my computer would start around that 8-10 seconds since I have RAID 0 Samsung SSDs that are pulling near 1 GB/second.

Bert,

I think Win 8 starts up faster on head to head comparisons on some machines, especially from sleep. I have an ASUS Slate EP121 touchscreen tablet (i5 CPU, SSD) that ran Win 7 Pro, upgraded to Win 8 Pro. The wake time (if the tablet has been in sleep mode) is appreciably faster, down from over 10 seconds to literally instantaneous. I don't know if this is the result of Win 8 allowing a "connected standby" mode, like a cellphone (I had only heard of this being implemented in Win 8 for ARM devices).

A cold boot is still about 15-20 seconds. This is rarely an issue with Win 8 computers however, since the concept is never to turn them off (it is even hard to find the shut down command on the new "Charms" bar).

Not withstanding the startup time, IMHO there isn't much to gain install Win 8 on a desktop, since all the productivity advantages are for touchscreens, the mouse/keyboard commands are actually not as easy to use as Win 7.

It must be the hardware. IMO, Win 7 is definitely faster than Win 8 in start up times. So far, Enter key, Start button, Restart.

Must be the hardware, I have found that win 8 starts faster in general, (even without SSD, and esp with SSD)

That's strange. SSD for me, boots way faster than SATA or SAS. That's one of the big advantages. The little ring that goes clockwise and made of white dots just takes forever.

If you add the Start8 or one of the other five or so start converters, it not only changes things, it basically gives you Win 7 on the desktop and then with the Windows key, you go right to the Start 8 Menu. So you get the best of both worlds.

Still debating on installing Win 7, and then do the above in a VM.

No, that's not quite what I meant. What I meant to say was that Win 7 with SSD is faster than Win 8 without, but Win 8 with SSD is fastest.

My experience is similar to Wendell's. On my Lenovo, Win 8 boots faster than Windows 7 on Crucial m4 SSD. The difference is miniscule though. Maybe 3 seconds.

Another review of Windows 8. "...a superimposed, muddled mishmash called Windows 8...

You're basically back to Windows 7 if you install Start8 and shutoff the Metro UI features like hot corners. I finally gave up on the metro UI on my laptop and have start8 on there as well. It's for people with touchscreens/those who like tile interfaces like Windows Phone.

The thinking was kind of backwards with Win8. I get that they were going for a consistent UI, but usually companies are trying to make phones more like computers rather than computers more like phones.

Win 8 upgrade is a great way to get "pro" version of an operating system for those WinXP and Win-7 Home boxes that lurk in our corners (and surprisingly, work quite well).
Offer ends Jan 31.
Main advantage for me (if it really is an advantage, since change confuses the staff) is that you can sign on directly to the domain in SBS Essentials.

Otherwise, I can't yet see any advantage to Win8.
Mostly I don't "consume content" -- so I don't care about pushing those little tiles around. Pretty much it is just "creating content" with keyboard and Dragon and mouse. Others obviously use their computers differently.

They took away Chess Titans, and the only FreeCell game on Win 8 is pretty sucky.

No doubt it is safer, faster, more secure -- I just don't notice.

@Sandeep, Or you can just use both. Metro and Desktop.

You could, but I haven't found to be useful in the past few months (at least for me). At least that option exists. I think they should make 3 modes. Pure Metro/Hybrid Aero Metro/Pure Aero. Shouldn't be too difficult for them esp since they can now make removable GUIs with the Server 2012 series.

In classic shell, I turn on the Windows 8 corners (off by default). I rarely, if ever use Metro, but I do sometimes use the R hand menu and if you R click on the bottom L hand corner you get quick access to many of the control panel things (including the control panel. These are very helpful.

I would appreciate an opinion from anyone who has had experience with using a tablet PC with Windows 8.

Had touch screen laptop with windows 8 - my spouse now has the laptop (she likes windows 8).
I had trouble with typing into a patient chart, my hand would brush the touch pad and I would find myself looking at the drudgereport in IE.
The problem I mentioned with using the Enlarge Textbox was even more evident in Windows 8, as it would bump me to another section with just a slight brush of touchpad with my palm.

I appreciate your response. I decided to purchase an ASUS Q200 notebook pc instead of a tablet. We carry small laptops or iPads into the exam rooms. The notebook with Windows 8 works fine for our purposes. We have found that using LogMeIn works much better than connecting directly from the laptop to the server through the network. I am sure that there are some technically savvy AC users who can explain this.

Depending on how your network is set up, especially if it is P2P, it could be that your computer is going directly to LMI's servers and back down to your server. This would bypass your direct connection to the server over your wireless. If your wireless connection is slower than your connection over your ISP, then that could explain it.

Take one computer and connect with Cat5e or Cat6 to your switch or directly to the computer (you may need a crossover cable). I would think this would be much faster. You can check the speed in Amazing Tools or whatever it is called.