Dual boot

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I've cracked it!

After lots of research and then taking several deep breaths, I've managed to set up my laptop with Vista AND Windows 8. It's all a bit geeky-techy, but you can create a separate space on the hard drive (a partition) and then install Windows 8 on that.

This is known in techie-circles as a "dual boot". If you're keen to try it, follow the excellent instructions on Mashable tech

The link itself is:
http://mashable.com/2012/11/08/dual-boot-windows-8/#1006651-Get-Windows-8

I know it talks about keeping Windows 7, but it works for Vista as well. Having said that, I found that my Vista wouldn't open the Windows 8  .iso file that I carefully downloaded and saved to a DVD disc,  but when I did it again and saved it to a memory stick (OK..."flash drive", if you insist!), it worked easily.

No, I have no idea why. I'm not a techie!

So there you are. You can have a go at Windows 8 without losing your "old" operating system. When you start your computer, you are given the choice of the two systems. It will default to Win 8 after 5 seconds, but you can change both the default system and the time delay.

I just wish I knew about this earlier! As I moaned in my last post, Windows 8 wiped out my installation of MS Office 2007 - and some other stuff. Did I say that Microsoft are getting greedier and greedier? I think I did. Very little is "bundled" with Win 8. There's not even "Microsoft Works", the free office suite that they always provided in the past. It was a simple version of Office, but good enough for most home users. (Someone told me that "Microsoft Works" was a great example of an oxymoron.....)

Back to the Start

Another moan I had about Win 8 was the absence of the Start button, leading to the Start Menu. I find the Start Menu really useful, so imagine my joy at finding a download which restores a Start Menu to Win 8. This came from a newspaper cutting which a client gave me today, after I persuaded him not to buy a new computer but to stick to his ancient IBM running XP. 

The cutting was taken from the Daily Telegraph 24th November and if you read it, you can find the link to StartMenu8

Well, there y'go! I've given you the link anyway!

Once you've downloaded this, you also get the chance to turn off the Windows 8  "Metro" Play School desktop and those  "pointy-in-the-corner-peek-a-boo" gizmos that the poor gentleman in the video on my last post failed to find! You won't need them if you've got the Start Menu. In fact you can make the whole desktop just like Windows 7.

I'm very pleased with this, as it gives me an option to offer to my more-experienced clients who have to buy Windows 8 in the future. They can still have something that looks familiar.



Colin

Windows 8

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

The Good Old Days....

When I first started this business four years ago, Windows Vista was the latest operating system from Microsoft. Anyone buying a new computer back in 2008 would have had to get to grips with Vista, and so I needed to be able to advise any clients who might be starting on a new computer. Although I'd been happy with Windows XP on my PC for the last 5 years, I invested in a laptop running Vista.

...and The Not-So-Bad Old Days

Well, by October 2009 - just a year later - Microsoft realised that the computing public were not entirely happy with Vista and so they brought out Windows 7. This was basically Vista without the annoying "gadgets". Windows 7 started up quicker than Vista, and Microsoft also made sure this time that the shut-down button on the Start Menu actually did shut the computer down.

I thought about upgrading my Vista to Win 7 but decided that it wasn't worth it. I adjusted the default "Sleep" to a genuine "shut-down" through Control Panel, turned off the "gadgets" and installed Windows Live Mail.....and near as dammit I had Windows 7. But after reading the promotional blurb about Windows 8 this Autumn I realised that this new operating system would have to be investigated. So I downloaded it and installed it over my Vista system.....

The Present Day

First, I was really surprised how cheap it was to get a new operating system upgrade from Microsoft. One should be surprised to get anything cheap from Microsoft!

£24.99 it cost me to download it. It installed very easily too, and I was left with the suspicion that Microsoft were really keen for me - and everyone else - to have Windows 8. Here's the logo that Microsoft use to promote Windows now:

After the colourful logos for preceding versions of Windows, this one looks as though it's still in draft. But that's a minor point. I'd done some preparatory reading about Windows 8 so what I saw on my screen wasn't a complete surprise to me.

I'd read that things were going to be very different.......

This is what greets you on Windows 8. Some of these tiles, anyway. Each one represents an "App" - that's "application" if like me you're comfortable with four-syllable words. You can get your "Apps" from the Microsoft App Store. Some of them are free - and others aren't! The tiles remind me of chunky Lego. As I remember, I was given Apps for Twitter, Facebook, News feeds.....but had to go to the Store to get the "Google App". One of the tiles said "Desktop" and when I clicked on it I breathed a momentary sigh of relief - there I was looking at a familiar desktop.

But.....

THERE WAS NO START MENU!

Now my preliminary research had prepared me for this, but it's only when you start exploring Windows 8 for yourself that you realise the implications of this. For years, I've made a habit of using my Start Menu for all the stuff that I use regularly.
(Microsoft put all sorts of unlikely things on the Windows 7 Start Menu but you could easily wipe those off in Control Panel/Task Bar and Start Menu and then "pin" your own preferences to the menu.)
The "old" Start Menu also contained "All Programs" so you could easily see what was on your computer.

I don't want to be labelled an old fogey - I'm going to have to face up to Windows 8 when someone gets a new computer for Christmas - or even before - and wants some help with it. After all, that's what my business is all about! I am going to have to be professionally encouraging about Windows 8 to those clients who are new to using a computer, They won't have known anything different. But anyone who's been happily  using XP, Vista or Win 7 will get a rude shock when they buy a new computer from the High Street stores. Windows 8 is designed with hand-held or "tablet" devices in mind, for people whose primary use of a computer is for "social networking". But for PC users it's going to be full of frustration.

See what this gentleman has to say about it......

I never thought I would hear myself say this, but I prefer my old Vista OS to Windows 8 and so I re-installed Vista after just two days. Perhaps I should have given Win 8 more of a chance, but I know I'll meet lots of it in the coming year. I wonder if it will last even as long as Vista did.

Incidentally, I had the complete suite of Microsoft Office 2007 on Vista. It wouldn't work in Windows 8. No doubt I would have had to buy numerous "Office Apps". My built-in microphone wouldn't work with Win 8 either, so using Skype was a frustrating experience - a mixture of text messages, exaggerated smiles and hand gestures on my part! The re-installation of Vista wiped out my Office suite completely.....and I had four days-worth of updates to install to get things back to "normal".

Grrrrrrrrrr!