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Windows 8 mostly great

Almost a year ago I downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which was a bit of a waste of time.
opinion_cybernaut1

Almost a year ago I downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which was a bit of a waste of time. The tiled, formerly called "Metro" Start screen that everybody is making such a big deal about, both good and bad, didn't work particularly well because none of the apps worked in Canada. I spent most of my time in Desktop mode, and life wasn't very different than it was with Windows 7.

Then I upgraded to the full version — the Pro version, actually, for all of $45 after tax. Two weeks later that still seems like an insanely good bargain.

My impressions of Windows 8 are generally positive. The new tiles on the start page are easy to navigate using a mouse and scroll wheel, but a little less fun when using your laptops' trackpad. The new "touch" mice on the market apparently improve the experience even more, though I personally haven't used one, and I was able to try the system on an HP touchscreen all-in-one at Future Shop last week and can honestly say that experience was incredible.

The apps that I've downloaded all work well, with a few minor issues.

For example, when I started the Weather application the first time it asked me if I wanted to use my location as the default. When I said yes, the app picked Squamish instead of Whistler. Changing it to Whistler took a few minutes to figure out — it wasn't in Settings, but the answer was found along the App Bar that pops up in any app when you press the right button. If I'd actually sat through the tutorial at the start I would have figured out the solution more or less right away, but I thought I knew Windows well enough by now to find anything.

That's where Windows 8 gets you. It takes all the Windows knowledge you've accumulated since Windows 95 and tosses a good-sized hunk of it out the window. It's a learning process, but the payoff is a unique operating system that I really enjoy and is actually easier to use in the long run.

I like my apps. I like weather, I like the mailbox app, I like music and video and the updated Minesweeper (you have to download it), the easy access to SkyDrive, TuneIn Radio, CBC News, etc. While the app selection is a bit sparse at launch, that's actually a good thing — everything you need is already there, and everything else that gets added afterwards is just a bonus.

And if you don't want to work in the app environment you can click on the Desktop tile or, if you have a Windows keyboard, quickly cycle between the Desktop and tiles by pressing the Windows key. In fact, there are so many awesome shortcuts using the Windows key that everyone should learn: Windows+X opens a shortcut to system menus like the Control Panel and updated Task Manager. Windows+F opens the Search window and Windows+! opens the in-app search. Windows+C opens the Charms bar, Windows+Z opens the App Bar, Windows+Tab cycles between open apps and your desktop, and so on.

It takes about 10 minutes to learn all the most important shortcuts and this is seriously the quickest and sometimes the best way to navigate this operating system.

There are drawbacks to Windows 8, and one of them is the lack of the Start menu on the desktop that we've all become so accustomed to. The good news is that it's incredibly easy to bring it back and at last count there were at least six different free programs out there that will do this for you. The best one in my opinion is Pokki (www.pokki.com), which adds functions that the Windows 7 Start menu should have had all along, like the ability to add apps like calculators and converters, and a notification centre that creates shortcuts to things like Gmail.

Another drawback is that I couldn't get Office 2010 to work right away. It took a few days of browsing forums and a complete reinstall before I could open a Word document. Apparently it's not a common problem, I couldn't find any references online where this happened to someone else.

Where Windows 8 really impresses is the way it just works. It found our wireless printer on the network and downloaded the driver without me doing a thing, and recognized my web cam and microphone array without any setup required. The anti-virus software is powerful, but completely embedded in the system to the point that you're never really aware that it's there. My computer starts and shuts down fast, it's stingy with memory, it's great for multimedia (unlimited music for $99 a year!), it talks to other computers in my house and to my Xbox using Share and SmartGlass, and a whole lot more.

What I wasn't able to test was the ability to sync with a Windows 8 phone, which are just starting to become available in Canada. I want to try all three models — Nokia, Samsung and HTC — before I dive in, and even then I'll probably wait a bit longer to see if there are other interesting phones on the way. I really like the supersized Samsung Galaxy Note II, for example, but I'd just rather have Windows 8 than Android purely for the $99 unlimited music deal.