From personal experience, I call it Windows H8.  As in: HATE.

And there’s a reason this sign is taped to the glass of a computer shop:

If you were thinking of purchasing a new computer — not a tablet, not a so-called “smart phone,” but an actual full-sized desktop or laptop computer — then AVOID WINDOWS 8 and also avoid ANY desktop or laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed.

Frankly, I wish I could FIND a store that would only charge me $125 to downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7 Professional, at 64-bit.

Best Buy certainly cannot do it.  I “tried,” in terms of them telling me that it couldn’t be done.  They blew me off.  And I purchased the computer there.  So much for confidence in Best Buy.

For those of you who just tuned in: DON’T BUY WINDOWS 8.

There’s only one option for you:

Because here’s the deal:

Microsoft has a habit of underdeveloping its OS, foisting it upon consumers, and then upgrading only when forced to.  It uses consumers as test beds whilst, in the meantime, collecting massive fees for its application and its mandatory usage in PCs.

There is a REASON that Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, was forced by its board to step down.  He didn’t “get it.”  And Microsoft — with no clear successor in sight — STILL doesn’t “get it.”  You want a solution to your problems, Microsoft?  Hire ME.  I “get it.”  And I’m older than Ballmer — who looks twice my age.

Here’s a remarkably telling quote:

The software company made the surprising announcement Friday after a tumultuous year in which it radically redesigned nearly all of its major products for a new computing era defined by mobile and touch-screen computing. No successor was named, a signal to analysts that Ballmer, 57, was pressured by the board to go.

And herein lies the rub. Microsoft radically “redesigned” everything.  Wrong.  Oh-so-wrong.

Let’s use, for example, Windows Vista.  It, at best, was an abortion on toast with cheese and bloody scraps.  The non-embracement of Vista resulted in Windows 7 which is, thank the gods, the most stable Windows platform I’ve yet encountered.

Further, from here:

I know the ancestry of Windows 8, as does anyone with an iPad, iPod, iPOS, iPhone, iCarp, iPiss or any manner or make of “smart phone” or tablet.  It’s an attempt to tap into the “touch” market without any regard for a computer user’s actual wish to touch a confuser screen.

Whereas, with something you hold in either a single hand — witness a smart phone — or something you may hold in two hands — as a tablet — the Apple touch system or Android system makes good use of your thumbs or the swish of a fingertip, in terms of convenience.

To think that idea would translate well into a full-sized confuser setup on, say, a huge computer screen such as mine is quite unfortunate, as to border on moronic.  I do NOT want to reach over to constantly touch my confuser screen.  Because that means I have to CLEAN my screen almost constantly, as I do not care for swirls and swishes on the screen.

Okay, let me unpack: it IS moronic.  I do NOT wish to constantly touch my large screen to get somewhere.  I do NOT want to smear my screen or constantly bend to enable said touching.  Sometimes I care to lounge in my chair with my arm resting on an extended desk shelf, hand resting on mouse.  Sometimes I wish to have the keyboard on my lap whilst I likewise kick back in said Herman Miller Aeron chair.

Further, Windows 8 is the Software Nazi.  It is telling me that I only have a certain few number of days left on pieces of software I have owned for years, and that I must re-register these pieces of software or purchase them again in their entirety.  To that I reply, kindly, to Microsoft: fuck you.  I’m not doing that nor am I going to accept your totalic rule.  I’ll rip you out by your oppressive guts before I submit.

AND SO I LOST THE REST OF THIS POST.

BECAUSE I HAD TO GO BETWEEN INTERNET EXPLORER AND MOZILLA FIREFOX.

That was THREE HOURS of writing down the drain.

This will stand because I refuse to re-write an entire post again.

BZ