Help... upgraded to Windows 8 and I want to go back to Vista...

[Rerun]

Vista was bad but holy crap... Windows 8 is awful in the "user friendly" dept.

I fell hook, line, and sinker for Microsoft's upgrade for $39 marketing campaign.

A few questions....

Is it easy (I'm a total computer novice) to re-install Vista on my laptop?

Would Windows 7 be an improvement on the Vista? If yes, can I get a deal like the $39 Windows 8 upgrade?

[Rathji]

Before you do something like reverting to Windows Vista, consider using Start8 to make your life a lot better.

It is $4.99 to purchase, plus you can try for free.

It makes Windows 8 a lot more palatable, essentially making it act much more like Windows 7 (and by extension Windows Vista).

[Sliver]

I might have to check that out, Rathji. I'm not enjoying Window 8 at all, either.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Rathji beat me too it. i had absolutely no intention of ever upgrading to Windows 8 because of that mess that is the start screen. but with Start8 bringing back the start menu just like how it should be (none of the free hacks do nearly as good of a job) and that it boots you straight into the desktop at startup, i think i may upgrade now. there are a lot of nice features in 8 that get completely overlooked because of Microsoft's ridiculous UI decisions

[TurnedTheCorner]

I like to pretend Rerun's dog wrote this thread about The Vista.

[ken0042]

I installed the Start8 program, and I like that there is a full blown 30 day trial before you have to pay the $5. It did make 8 a lot better, but I did go and put Win 7 onto my new computer.

But to answer your question if 7 is better than Vista- yes; it's a lot better.

[Hemi-Cuda]

one thing i still don't like about 8 is the ugly matte theme they're going with for everything. Aero on Win 7 looks fantastic and is easily customizable. they took a real step back with the Windows 8 theme

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by ken0042

But to answer your question if 7 is better than Vista- yes; it's a lot better.

Not a lot better, just more refined. It's the same kernel, same driver model, same filesystem, and same feature set (more or less) between the two.

What got better in-between Vista and 7 was that computers got significantly faster (we jumped from Pentium-4 class machines as state of the art to Core2 dual core and quad core systems), memory got a lot cheaper, and vendors caught up on supporting the new driver models for video cards, printers, etc.

There is very, very little different between Vista and 7, to the point where you could easily call Windows 7 "Vista R2" and be pretty accurate.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Not a lot better, just more refined. It's the same kernel, same driver model, same filesystem, and same feature set (more or less) between the two.

What got better in-between Vista and 7 was that computers got significantly faster (we jumped from Pentium-4 class machines as state of the art to Core2 dual core and quad core systems), memory got a lot cheaper, and vendors caught up on supporting the new driver models for video cards, printers, etc.

There is very, very little different between Vista and 7, to the point where you could easily call Windows 7 "Vista R2" and be pretty accurate.

except that Vista is a massive resource hog while Win 7 can be installed on almost anything

[Rathji]

I agree.

I have seen machines that die horrible deaths under Windows Vista become actual usable machines with Windows 7.

[TheGrimm]

Looks like I will be sticking with my "every other windows release" upgrade program.
Win 8 -> Bad?
Win 7 -> Good
Vista -> Bad
XP -> Good
Windows ME -> Bad
Windows 98 -> Good

[J Diddy]

I'd recommend Windows 7 over going back to Vista...heck I would recommend XP over Vista or even OSX...but Windows 8 with the tweak above could save you the hassle of having to find a copy and the cost. Your only issue after that might be the odd software or driver incompatibility with Windows 8.

I prefer to wait for a service pack before I hop on an OS...even if the price is $39 now and $120 later.

[ChuckieNZ]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

Looks like I will be sticking with my "every other windows release" upgrade program.
Win 8 -> Bad?
Win 7 -> Good
Vista -> Bad
XP -> Good
Windows ME -> Bad
Windows 98 -> Good

I'm with you on that one. Microsoft are so predictable.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

except that Vista is a massive resource hog while Win 7 can be installed on almost anything

Disagree. There really isn't that substantial a RAM or CPU consumption difference between the Win7 and Vista.

Here's a couple of a plethora of links that will demonstrate this:
http://www.sysprobs.com/windows-vist...-7-memory-test

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...eview?page=0,3

Go ahead and put Vista SP2 on a machine that would have shipped with Win 7 - you'll find it performs very, very similarly.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

Looks like I will be sticking with my "every other windows release" upgrade program.
Win 8 -> Bad?
Win 7 -> Good
Vista -> Bad
XP -> Good
Windows ME -> Bad
Windows 98 -> Good

How exactly is Win 8 bad? I have been running it for a while now and it's really solid. Zero bluescreens or issues at all really. Of course the mixture between the desktop and Metro is weird, it doesn't make Win 8 "bad". It just doesn't make it a whole lot better than 7...yet.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Disagree. There really isn't that substantial a RAM or CPU consumption difference between the Win7 and Vista.

Here's a couple of a plethora of links that will demonstrate this:
http://www.sysprobs.com/windows-vist...-7-memory-test

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...eview?page=0,3

Go ahead and put Vista SP2 on a machine that would have shipped with Win 7 - you'll find it performs very, very similarly.

Disagree to your disagree. We have upgraded hundreds of users from Vista to 7 and they all notice a significant performance boost with the exact same hardware. I have no stats to back this up, but we have seen drops in memory utilization by 25% or more.

I would find comparisons that are newer than 3 years, but I am too lazy.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Disagree. There really isn't that substantial a RAM or CPU consumption difference between the Win7 and Vista.

Here's a couple of a plethora of links that will demonstrate this:
http://www.sysprobs.com/windows-vist...-7-memory-test

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...eview?page=0,3

Go ahead and put Vista SP2 on a machine that would have shipped with Win 7 - you'll find it performs very, very similarly.

Or you can put Vista on a machine that would have shipped with XP (a P4, with 1 GB of RAM, for example), be almost unable to use it. Then put Windows 7 on that same machine and it is usable again.

From your sysprob link:

Even though test result percentages seem small amount, but it makes huge difference in performance with Windows 7. Windows 7 really works faster.

Windows Vista always runs with 33 processes when computer is doing nothing.
Windows 7 always runs with 29 processes when computer is doing nothing
Vista Average Memory usage is – 327.33MB – 31.96% of physical memory
Windows 7 Average Memory usage is – 256.78MB – 25.07% physical memory
Windows 7 running 6.45% lesser processes than Windows Vista in normal state
Windows 7 running 12.08% lesser memory usage than windows Vista in normal state.

Its not a huge thing, but on a machine that is running on the margins, it can be the difference between it running well and not.

A new machine, intended for shipment with Windows Vista or 7, I 100% agree that you shouldn't see any difference in 99% of cases.

[Burninator]

Can you just not use the Metro part? I am asking because I haven't used Windows 8. It has a desktop like Windows 7 no?

[Rathji]

It does, but the 'Metro' part, is actually the start menu.

The Start8 program I posted essentially reverts it back.

[Wood]

I don't understand all the hate for Windows 8, I think its a lot better than 7 and worlds better than Vista

Is it just because its different and people don't like change? Is it just the new start menu and lack of a start bar on the desktop? Because that's an easy fix.

I've had nothing but positive experiences so far with Windows 8 and have seen a pretty decent upgrade in performance on my laptop. Specifically start up/shutdown times and application start up time. Internet Explorer 10 is also a huge upgrade from 8 and 9, it might be the best browser I've ever used overall

It seems like most people have just had trouble since upgrading, maybe I'm in the vast minority?