Was Windows 8 THAT bad?

[@LinusTechTips]

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[@jitmadaf3082]

no I don't think I will :)

[@paulusjosef]

no.

[@dogemaaaaaan]

❤😂🎉😢😮😅😊

[@SirWhiskersThe3rd]

didn't you already do a video like this once before?

[@Sammyflopped]

I have a Windows 7 but I got it taken away even I paid for it

[@epicyoda.]

Windows 8 was ahead and behind its time simultaneously

[@jack76thegamer30]

Sensei

[@todorkatsarski7487]

I'm still using my original 8.1 installation for more than 7(8?) years already without any issues, I've never had problems with it. 7 looked better to me, but 8.1 was still nice. Of course I'm using a 3rd party start menu so it looks the same way as Win7 and this is from day 1. I have 0 complains with my installation so far. The only reason why I might update it to maybe 10 is the Linux subsystem for Windows.

[@DreamFreeFPV]

the UI honestly was GREAT i loved it.

[@SirBrucie]

I told my buddy this the other day. After my experiences with 10 perhaps I treated 8 too poorly.

[@samgray49]

I agree, it had a pretty good memory management, and things that disappeared with Windows 10 that popped up in Windows 11.

[@Fobia17]

I was actually working at Best Buy as the newly minted Microsoft Associate, got full advanced training on Win 8 and all. It was... Rough. Even proponents of 8 had these same criticisms. When we were doing pre-orders for new devices, I had a woman come in to buy our absolute cheapest desktop to give to her 6 year old nephew. The idea was that his little mind would learn it quickly and she'd have her own little tutor. Absolutely genius.

[@Kyle496]

As a person who's job was to sell that garbage, I'd tell them all to downgrade it to win7 asap. We had a Microsoft rep in the store and I wouldn't take any of his BS. Win 8 was obviously a worse user experience for people who just wanted a PC for business (excel, word, etc), gaming, or basically anything that wasn't built like a tablet app.

[@chadmann2724]

My mom’s pc died with windows 7, got my own PC with 10 while 11 was around.

[@sosukelele]

@@chadmann2724 in my experience 11 isn't that bad, but the nerfed right-click has me looking up more keyboard shortcuts than ever before

[@chadmann2724]

@@sosukelele Is it worth the change in OS?

[@theenzoferrari458]

Poor kid got tortured.

[@chubbyemu]

not sure if they did this intentionally, but this video is published almost to the exact 10 year anniversary of when the first Surface Pro was released. 09 Feb 2013. I woke up early that morning to get the Surface Pro at the Microsoft Store popup on Michigan Ave in Chicago, which was delayed a bit against the Surface RT, which came out a few months earlier. It had Windows RT, the Metro only version. I have a failed unboxing video of the Surface Pro with a "Year of the Snake" keyboard cover that will never see the light of day. That keyboard was unusable. To think, I could have been a tech KZbinr during Linus' NCIX days... 🤨

[@plc_memes]

ARM tablets were the future, he thought.

[@osacada12345]

Presenting to the emergency room Is Windows 8 showing signs of bad UI design and bad market share

[@deterdettol]

Chubbyemu posted a Surface Pro unboxing video. This is what happened to his career.

[@mikearisbrocken8507]

the diagnosis was "unusable"

[@Aryzcw]

Yoo Chubbyemu!

[@rynoman85]

The typing sound on the stock keyboard with the windows phones was the most pleasing sound I’ve ever heard. I’ll never forget typing on those phones. Probably the last time I actually had sounds enabled on my cell phone. 😂

[@khryogenic]

​@@DustySquitoNM I miss my lumia 710(?) it was a great phone.

[@praveenm5723]

Typing in wp ✨

[@aprofondir]

Puck puck puck puck

[@norsefrog]

timestamp

[@natzos6372]

@EndDims Windows phones used an os based on windows 8

[@Azeria]

Windows 8 ended up being a lot like Vista, underneath it had a lot of good power and features, but most people only got to use them with 7 and 10.

[@volvo09]

Yeah, Vista introduced some great stuff to windows, but unfortunately most people ran it on junk hardware. 1gb or ram was not uncommon, add a slow drive in there and it was a disaster. That was my worst era in home PC service. The proliferation of all the scam "PC cleaner" and "virus scanner" software also made for terrible experiences. (I loved it though, it's one of my favorite windows versions, I deeply miss it).

[@CyberVirtual]

Microsoft is the epitome of failing at making a decent Software Ecosystem. They should have embraced an open ended economy like Android or lean towards the Xbox Side of their software programming. Instead every exclusive launcher or app made for Windows absolutely sucks ass except for Game Pass. Complete Synergy with Xbox should have been a focus in early 2013 in the 8th console generation but it's too late to play catch up.

[@charliek9394]

The fuck you talking about? Vista was good if you had a decent PC, i had 0 fucking issues with it.

[@Mr.Morden]

The only bad thing about Windows 8 was the lack of a Start button, the way the Start menu rendered over top of the task bar. The worst thing brought forward to Windows 11 Fluid UI (the modern version of Modern UI) is the massive amount of whitespace between control elements. That's fine for a tiny touch screen but it is absolutely mentally deficient when on a large PC monitor (mouse or touch). I could dismiss that problem if there was a way to change information density of Fluid UI controls to eliminate all that whitespace. There isn't a way to change that though.

[@TheLongDon]

@@CyberVirtual I mean, to be fair they don't have anybody to catch up to. They dominate PC OS

[@matttypes2695]

I used to work at Office Depot and per their contract I was forced to promote and educate customers on windows 8. I didn’t meet a single customer that liked it especially because of the missing start button.

[@StephenOwen]

The absolute worst was that lots of customers standardized on Server 2012, not Server 2012 R2. This meant when remoting, it expected a touch screen and you had to use the terrible metro UI interactions like the charms bar and dragging from the left for the start menu. Fortunately most of those shops hopped to Server 2016 when that shipped and fixed most of the issues.

[@Bill_Woo]

It was about this era that "Help/About" even disappeared from all matters Microsoft. Seriously? Are they absolutely retharded??? Since the beginning of time, you could go alt-h,a and get help about. That's just one of the countless things that anyone, ANYONE could find on menus, but MS declared jihad on menus. I'm a scientist that types formulas and writes code. I don't use a mouse for that. I don't swipe for that. I don't do scientific calculations on my phone. MS just doesn't understand computers. That's the entire problem. MS does not understand computers.

[@quantumleaper]

I added a third-party Start Button, which could be customized to look like a button from 95 to 7. Also, 90% of the programs I use are on the taskbar anyway.

[@generalebeta97]

@@quantumleaper mee too it was called "classic shell" literaly the first google result and worked for me. It wasnt that bad.

[@HHalcyon]

The missing start button problem blew my mind the most. I hate that thing with all my heart and wish it didn't exist. Just press Windows key and problem solved. I mean I don't mind people having it but there's no comfortable way of removing it altogether as it's just unnecessary clutter on my taskbar.

[@waynej747]

I know of a number of corporate IT administrators who felt that the Win8 UI was a step too far for their corporate environment, and had zero interest in installing third party apps to make the experience more familiar for their users. So their decision was to stick with Win7 as long as they could, and hope that MS came to their senses!

[@PhysicsGamer]

The graph in the video shows that even to this day ~10% of Windows PCs report using Windows 7. Even Windows 11 continues to suffer from the bad decisions made back in Windows 8, which manifests in things like an unusable search, horrible UI design language that appears to have forgotten decades' worth of skeuomorphism, and menus that prefer becoming convoluted in order to avoid being "complicated".

[@michaelblair5566]

I NEVER installed Windows 8. Because the users would not have understood it. Stuck with 7 until 10 came out.

[@Alias_Anybody]

I killed two birds with one stone and as soon as Windows 10 was stable and established I installed it on some shiny new SATA SSDs which at that point had fallen in price to the point it was a really cheap performance boost for former Win7 machines. Most of those will unfortunately reach EOL when Win10 support runs out, even though at least some still do the job.

[@PlatypusVomit]

Too bad Win10 and Win11 sell literally every scrap of your data to the lowest bidder. There hasn't been even a single 'ok' Windows OS since 7.

[@TenWolf-wb7pc]

My issue with windows 8 was that you HAD to restart in 15 minutes for updates. Your options were "restart now or in 15 minutes". I was in college at the time and a lot of tests were done online, and there were people who lost time on their tests because of this. One failed because he couldn't get back in after the restart. I can understand their goral, but at the same time, make it a setting you can turn off, and have it off by default.

[@georgewashington6171]

You could turn off windows 8.1 updates, it was a little tedious admittedly but it was in settings and wasnt some dumb registry hack. Still using 8.1 to type this comment rn, after a debloat it idles at 500mb of ram on the desktop, still my favourite os

[@leothehuman_9476]

@@georgewashington6171 How did you debloat it so much? My Windows Server 2012 R2 which is even lighter idles at 600mb with the explorer closed, you definetly lied. Btw, switch to Windows Server 2012 R2 since it still is supported and has security updates.

[@DmitriLowell]

Dang, dude, this was a trigger for me. I was given the option of "Restart now or in 15 minutes" in the middle of a physics lab in university that required everyone to use graphing software on a laptop. I freaked out and had to click 15 minutes, but a lab in Uni is a lot longer than 15 minutes and I had to sit there, hand-writing all of the data that my group was getting so I can try to finish it in my dorm on my desktop while the damned thing spent the rest of the lab applying updates and rebooting.

[@rudraacharya8247]

​@@leothehuman_9476 my 8.1 after debloat uses 800-900mb, 500mb is nuts lmao

[@bzqp2]

You made me a racist, Obama!!!

[@metaleggman18]

With the update to 8.1, Windows 8 did eventually get pretty useable. I remember Luke saying that a long ways back on the WAN Show. Still a misstep, especially in terms of backwards compatibility, but most all complaints were fixed in 10, and as you said, a lot of cool features were added. I feel like the only reason Vista had so much adoption was because gamers wanted the best of the best, and DX10 (I believe) was Vista exclusive, and I believe Halo 2 and Gears of War were Vista only as well. It was also flashy, pretty, and had a truly functional x64 version (XP x64, I love ya, I enjoyed ya, but man were you a pain).

[@profosist]

Keep in mind launch Windows 10 had all the features that were promised in 8.2 with Win8.1 update 1 its was darn right good OS but there's no way it could come back form all the bad press.

[@HyperVanilo]

I still remember after I installed 8.1 how relieved I was when I see the Start button where it should've been

[@arachnenet2244]

I had forgotten about all the weird stuff Win8 did because the first thing I did when I got it was installing Classic Shell. What a wild time this was!

[@ThreadBomb]

Yes, Classic Shell! A shame it's no longer supported, but it still works.

[@griffin1366]

@@ThreadBomb It's called OpenShell now (open source) and is still maintained to this day. Works on Win11 too!

[@matthewtremain683]

I still remember the first time I installed windows 8. I classic shelled that B ASAP. After a little cursing.

[@PutoML]

@@ThreadBomb It's been forked into OpenShell.

[@byronhorde5892]

I remember ClassicShell. That was my goto. That is, until the Win 8.1 update hit.

[@snazzy]

Metro desktop was amazing on early Surface devices and actually pulled me away from Mac as my primary machine for about 6 months. No Windows version had done that before or since.

[@yazidbecdaigle4709]

best windows of all time but people not like metro

[@LuLeBe]

Yeah on my surface book with windows 10 and 11 I'm struggling with the touch controls at times, would be nice to still have a more touch-friendly interface when using the touchscreen.

[@ghostofdre]

It was good for tablets, somewhat. People probably have forgotten all the quirks the interface had, the inconsistency between Metro and x86 apps and the always full screen nature of the metro apps.

[@iannicolson]

@@LuLeBe On Windows 10, you can use the full-screen start menu. In modern apps, there is also an option to make the app full-screen (Windows 8 style, no title bar)

[@cyscott2714]

I have the Surface 1 and when it came out it was the perfect solution for me. I was going to college and used it most of the time as a tablet for taking notes using the stylus or when I needed to look something up in the browser. I used it in desktop mode when I needed to do something more complex like making an Excel spreadsheet, but that was a pretty rare case. So my experience was good, because my use case didn't require desktop mode a lot.

[@UltraViolet666]

I used Windows 8 exclusively in 2013, my last year of high school. It was installed on our student laptops, and most students hated it and reverted back to Windows 7. Except I thought it was pretty cool and kept it the whole year, even though i didnt have a touchscreen laptop. I loved rearranging the tiles on the homescreen and made everything i needed (my class notes, etc) super accessible. When i got a Nokia Lumia phone with the same design in 2014, i customised it to look like a tumblr blog with photo tiles everywhere. Good memories :) but definitely get the frustration.

[@linden6352]

It feels weird being nostalgic for Windows 8 but as a teen, my first experiences with tech were the family laptop on 8 and later 8.1. Such a weird OS looking back- it's like half the devs wanted modern style and half wanted old functionality and the execs wanted excessive touch support, and they had a very weird child.

[@zwenkwiel816]

And that weird child the devs and execs had made windows 8, it all makes sense now XD

[@PG03TheGod]

💀💀💀

[@Arnoldismouldy]

My first time ever using a computer was on windows 8. So yea kinda nostalgic for that

[@caffeinesippingman]

I had a customer that liked 8.0 When 8.1 came out I offered to "fix" his PC and he didn't want me to because he liked it the way it was.

[@imgnatkursld]

Windows 8 came out at a time when the industry thought we were all going to move away from laptops and get tablets instead. Windows 8 was supposed to be a transitional interface to get us used to working with a tablet. So it was kind of weird by design

[@caprature]

Lets not forget how lean Windows 8 and 8.1 were on system requirements vs 10 on the same hardware. The last os you could truly run from a HDD, and was very good and snappy on even lowly bay trail atoms.

[@GnBst]

I remember booting windows 2000 in 12 seconds from a 5400rpm hard drive and a Pentium 3 866 with 256mb PC133 SDRAM. It has the added benefit of the network stack ACTUALLY being loaded when the logon prompt was presented. and the OS install was only 400MB.

[@gustavovm491]

Yeah I have a bay trail tablet and it ran much better with 8.1 than with 10.

[@hmst5420]

Yeah. It's noticeably faster than 10 and even 7.

[@MrVoltz]

I very much agree with your comment. Back in the day I installed Classic Shell, which returned Windows 7-like start menu and you didn't have to touch the Metro stuff. It run just fine even on single core Celeron with 1 GB of RAM. The UI still looks fresh, I personally like the Ribbon tabs in Paint and Explorer and the new Task Manager. There was no clutter and the new Settings app was entirely optional (you still could do everything from the Control Panel).

[@ОсликИа-я2ы]

RN I'm installing Win8.1 on half a dozen of old office PCs before selling them. Why? Because Win10 doesn't even have GPU drivers for built into *motherboard* iGPUs and Win7 lacks pretty much everything including .NET Frameworks that are installed by default in 8.1 and later. With Win8.1 Embedded Pro just 1 GB of idle RAM usage while Win10 easily takes 1.7 or even more.

[@joshuan.]

I love listening to Linus talk about past Windows. I vaguely remember listening to my older brother telling me how bad it was and that there was no point upgrading the family computer from Windows 7.

[@eliezeidan5148]

The first time I used windows 8 in 2023 I had to search how to shut it down💀

[@bebekingg]

LOL

[@kshitijsharma6289]

Same here ☠️☠️

[@botjeff8401]

Lmao same

[@tvthecat]

Wow, I thought I was the only one.

[@eliezeidan5148]

@@tvthecat Don't worry, you're not 😂

[@castform57]

My history with win8: it came with my laptop, worked alright for a while. Once it updated and completely destroyed the audio drivers, and at one point it BSOD'd due to wifi drivers that had worked fine long before. Had to also start completely from zero once. At one point I had enough and drove to a 24h electronics shop at like 3am, bought an ssd, installed win7 on it, and it's still working fine to this day.

[@martinbernath]

8.1 has been to this day my second favorite os after xp. It performed really well, its was better optimized than 7. You dont have nearly as much telemetry or as many annoying updates as windows 10 but from my experience its functionally the same. Color personalization actually makes sense in 8.1 allowing you to set two contrasting colors, unlike 10 which only uses shades of a single color.

[@schadenfreude6274]

You have very poor taste in Windows. :)

[@mikhailshtin2726]

@@schadenfreude6274 no he doesn't, 8.1 was really good for the time even though imo 7 is still better. 8.1 definitely wasn't as bad as everyone talks about it

[@schadenfreude6274]

@@mikhailshtin2726 You also have very poor taste in Windows. :)

[@xxg.tester7851]

I agree with you

[@cazmatism]

@@schadenfreude6274 8.1 was the bomb lmfao

[@Menirz]

I absolutely loved 8.1 on my laptop because the track pad swipe shortcuts essentially replaced the touch screen, but still worked great on the desktop. I was actually annoyed when I upgraded to Win10 because so many of the shortcuts I had gotten used to just weren't there anymore. That said, that laptop died and my desktop replacement has caused all muscle memory of those short cuts up atrophy, so I guess it wasn't that bad of a thing in the long run.

[@zachSpark1234]

Yea I loved sweet sweet 8.1 wINdios

[@blockstuff4227]

Same! It was much faster than Windows 10. Especially on an HDD. Even volume/brightness slider or Wi-Fi settings, etc opened up in a snap.

[@zenithNoFake]

I FUCKING LOVE WINDOWS 8 AND 8.1!

[@polocatfan]

8.1 is basically windows 9.

[@bumblingbubble]

I used 8.1 on my Thinkpad from '20-'22 because I wanted to give it a try out of curiosity. It definitely wasn't as awful as I remembered it was at launch and I would've continued using it had they not killed it off. But now, having moved to a debloated version of Windows 10, I don't remember the upsides of running it vs running Win10.

[@chowrites6179]

I HATED Win8, but when 8.1 released I feel like it remedied everything that I hated about it before and even made something things I came to love and still use today, like keep all my apps on the Start screen instead of on the desktop

[@rudeskalamander]

How do you feel about 11? I love it and the new start menu but that seems like a hot take

[@chancepaladin]

bingo, same here. the start menu is basically win8.1, which is so rad.

[@Blue-nw3li]

Same here. My favorite windows is Windows Server 2012 R2 wich essentially is Windows 8.1

[@vilkku792]

I really miss the ability to run fullscreen applications next to each other in split screen mode. Now that I have a 32:9 monitor, it would be great be able to to fullscreen youtube to fill 1/2 of the monitor but it's not possible anymore with win 10.

[@-JonnyBoy-]

It was too late at that point. 8 was done by word of mouth alone.

[@zenu903]

I've had a very low end computer for a long time and 8.1 was literally my main OS for almost the entirety of it, I loved that it was lightweight and super responsive; and when you configured the start tiles, I actually preferred it to a corner menu. I also liked that it allowed me to play mobile games I couldn't elsewhere like Asphalt and Alto's Adventure. The metro interface and its apps didn't bother me and (unpopular opinion I know) but I liked the new design a lot too. I tried moving to 10 when it was offered as a free upgrade but was so much heavier to my poor Celeron 847 with 2GB of RAM that it eventually made me move back to 8.1, then experimenting (and later going full time) over to Linux.

[@Y0sS3FF]

Exactly !

[@mkorsukov]

Same story

[@gustavovm491]

Yes 8.1 shined on Atom and Celerons. Not even 10 LTSC was as snappy. The closest I have seen were some modded 10 isos that disabled a bunch of stuff.

[@ZekeOrionReviews]

honestly prefer the clssic control panel as it just feels better and more intuitive (though I set mine to show all icons instead of groups) my only issue is the lack of a dark mode for it and settings menues like the sound menu or the volume mixer pop up menus!

[@SuperWotman]

There are also some settings you can only find in the classic panel. Every sys admin I know uses the old.

[@SuperWotman]

There are also some settings you can only find in the classic panel. Every sys admin I know uses the old.

[@Deminese2]

@@SuperWotman Yeah I can't stand the current control panel. the old panel has a few things I use in daily help desk stuff that doesn't exist in 10

[@n646n]

Same. Either search for it or use classic control panel.

[@LRM12o8]

100% agree. The colorful icons and simple lists just make it so much easier to find what you're looking for than the flat, single-color line icons and whatever-the-f@ck you can call the arrangement of elements in the "new" (Windows 8/10) settings app. I hate that "modern" minimalist design philosophy with a passion! Everything just looks the same, they have such a weird aversion to simple, logical lists and hide everything in random sub-submenus because they're way too focused on making it look "clean", rather than making it convenient to actually use. It's form over function and it's stupid! I don't care if the control panel may look "cluttered" or "not elegant enough", I don't wanna look at it, I wanna use to set whatever I need to set as quickly as possible!

[@martaintitan]

I upgraded from windows xp directly to windows 8 and the only challenge I faced was absent start button. Once it grew over me, I loved windows 8/8.1. To this date I miss it, it's UI had some positive vibes going. I never used windows 7 on my pc.

[@13StJimmy]

Windows 8.1 to me was effectively a whole new OS… I kept 7 mainly because I loved it and didn’t feel the need to change but I remember buying a laptop that shipped with 8 and after a day updated to 8.1 and dealt with it until 10 And now I’m afraid to update to 11 😂

[@rfbeck1]

Do the update, Win11 is better than Win10 in many subtle ways.

[@BalaenicepsRex3]

@@rfbeck1 Did they remove the advertisements on file explorer? That was my main reason not to change.

[@killerdeamonking]

@@BalaenicepsRex3 Nope its just as ad ridden as win 10.

[@checksandbalences]

Man, from my experience 10 is awful. 8.1 was/is the quiet "mature" OS

[@rfbeck1]

@@BalaenicepsRex3I have not seen a single ad. But then I'm using beta build 22623.1245 🙂

[@sdpy15]

When I went into university, I bought the HP pavilion 360 which was actually quite good. The fact that the computer rotated so you had an "ipad" like touch surface really was the selling point and it made navigating windows 8 so much easier. That being said, it took a while to get used to, but ended up being one of my favorite versions of the OS because it was innovative and fresh.

[@eslmatt811]

The 8 and 8.1 feature I really miss is the refresh option. You could create your own refresh image with all your programs installed. Then when your relative messed up the system you could just have them run refresh and they were back up and running in 10 minutes. Beta testing windows 10, I kept putting requests in. Sure there are ways around it, but nothing as simple for relatives.

[@monkeyoperator1360]

doesnt windows 10 have this option ?

[@JuniorCloudHouse]

just use Macrium Backup. Works even better.

[@MyNameIsBucket]

Windows has always had System Restore. You can create a restore point once you get the programs and settings you want.

[@rpzcsonli]

@@MyNameIsBucketit was easier in Windows 8 and 8.1, it was like factory reset on a phone, 1 click and it was done in 2 mins.

[@MyNameIsBucket]

@@rpzcsonli You got me there. System Restore is at least three or four clicks.

[@Solitaire001]

I used Windows 8 and I didn't think it was that bad once you got used to it. My main problems with it was that: (1) it was designed for a touch screen which I didn't have, and (2) the UI had a number of changes that were not explained. Due to that, it took me a while to figure out how the UI actually worked. As an example, for the first time I ended up with several windows open until I figured out how to close them with my mouse. That convinced me that what Microsoft should have done with Windows 8 is when you boot up your computer for the first time it asks you a series of questions (if you decide to bypass the questions it will just take you to a default Windows 8). The answers to those questions would configure Windows 8 specifically for you. Questions such as "Do you have a touch screen? (Y/N)" "Do you want a Start Menu? (Y/N)" and "Do you want the standard icons for minimizing, maximizing and closing the window in the right-hand corner of the windows? (Y/N)" When you finished answering the questions it would configure Windows 8 according to your answers. If you later choose to change things you can run the initial questions again or just go through the Settings (where all of those setting are in one place).

[@PyTransformer]

If you moved your mouse to the bottom left and clicked to open the start menu, you could type in your search and it would automatically search. The search was much better back then too, and honestly was a better experience because you saw your search results on a full screen with more information.

[@Luca_212]

This can only be a joke

[@ju5e3]

@@Luca_212? He's right

[@esatd34]

yeah. as linus said, hidden things are not welcome in computer rookies. that needs an "accidental key press" to reveal itself. And the user must have a revelation of it lol

[@drone124]

This is basically how I got by on Win 8

[@EikottXD]

You can do that on 11. Or maybe it's because I have StartAllBack installed.

[@proesterchen]

Yes. Hiding the actual user desktop and applications whenever opening the start menu was the worst idea in the history of Windows.

[@brokeandtired]

Yeah...I tried Windows 8 twice...Pure cancer. Glad I never upgraded to it.

[@RebellionAlpha]

Actually I used the full screen start menu on Windows 10 and I miss it in Windows 11. 8 and 8.1 were great even for the desktop.

[@commanderosis435]

I remember first trying it and being so confused. Once I figured it out I was so livid. It was like they were hiding everything from me.

[@Nothinglastsforever]

Blame Steven Sinofsky for that.

[@avocado3-in-182]

I heard about windows 8 when I was in middle school but I never seen it up close. My dad’s and my mom’s laptops were stuck at windows 7 when windows 8 came out, so I don’t know what it look like until now.

[@TrepidDestiny]

I used Windows 8.1 for a brief time. It wasn't bad, but it felt awkward, and as soon as my system said "you can upgrade to windows 10" I did (which came with it's own hurdles).

[@Mythikal13]

The one panel I ever used on Windows 8 was the desktop panel. It's honestly funny how arbitrary that whole UI became

[@PatrykStachowiak]

Now imagine using this interface on Windows Server 2012 Standard, somewhere on the other side of the globe via RDP or remote console with poor internet connection and big latency. Opening start menu was quite challenging

[@grummpyyounggeek]

2012 R2 was kind of forced upon me when building out a VBlock. VCE in their infitie wisdow customised their 2012 R2 VMs by leaving in the Windows Store alongside the "Desktop experience". I don't think I EVER saw a metro app for Server 2012. All that effort of a metro interface, through to Administrative Tools only to be dropped back to an interface from 2008 and older. I also suffered the animations which on a slow connection made a frustrating RDP experience. In the end GPOs were deployed to turn off any fade effects or animations. It felt like Windows 95 but it was the only way to not have to painstaking wait for the pointless menu to render. Fun fact... Even VMwares hands on labs didn't like the Start menu of 8/8.1 and 2012/2012 R2. The Terminal Servers spun up with each lab would have Classic Shell installed. Thankfully they now run on 2016/2019.

[@munozyoshi]

I remember this, it was a huge fail. Someone actually created a powershell script that let you select a lot of the tasks you needed to do on a server as an admin.

[@Hartbreak1]

Initially I hated Windows 8 but after the user tweaks started to arrive (which was very early) it turned into my favorite version of Windows. Since with the tweaks you could go directly to the desktop and have the start menu I repurposed the start screen as a launcher for my favorite apps and games and it did wonders as a launcher. I think if MS would’ve used the start screen as an on demand launcher instead of trying to replace the desktop a lot more people would’ve liked Windows 8. There was also the initial issue of some drivers not being compatible with it but it was solved fast. After those initial hiccups Windows 8 became very fast and usable. I loved it more than Windows 10.

[@Phantogram2]

Same. I miss Win 8

[@Tribulation88]

Yes! Launch to windows, install start is back and you've got all the things you love about Windows 7 + some performance boosts in certain games. If I remember correctly 8.1 gave Battlefield 4 players around a 10% boost in FPS, I was already capped at 200 FPS at the time, but it meant my temps dropped a nice amount during the summer months =D

[@konzo5942]

my first laptop came with win8, after start is back i dont think i ever used the tiles menu at all afterwards. for whatever reason though it ran very well on my cheap amd apu laptop, when I put windows 10 on it many years later I lost a lot of fps in many games.

[@doug2434]

I really liked Windows 8 (at least after installing ClassicShell), but one thing Linus didn't touch on that really drove the nail into the coffin was third party support (or the lack thereof). When I upgraded my graphics card to an RX590, I was super bummed to see that due to the low market share, AMD didn't make any Windows 8 drivers - even though they did have ones for Windows 7 and 10. A few forum posts said that the Windows 7 driver would work on Windows 8, but I could never get it to.

[@profosist]

Thats due to the new driver model. AMD was also not in a great time around then, especially with drivers and took that as a chance to fully rebuild them. (how many times have they done that now) As a Win8 user I also had to switch to chrome because Firefox until it was rebuilt ran like garbage. These are teething things that happen with every major shift and things were seeing now with Win11 even though its built on 10.

[@DevinEMILE]

DoD was pretty big part to. I’ve been working for the military for about 8 years now. And I’ve seen maybe two or three windows 8 machines. And they’re usually standalone and used for very specific programs. While windows 7 stuck around until about 2019. Then windows 10. And now windows 11. Not to mention for some god forsaken reason we’re still using PSTs in outlook.

[@fynkozari9271]

Win 7 and win 8 have dx11. Gpu driver should work for both. At least it does for me.

[@joshjones5172]

@@profosist And to be fair, AMD just bought radeon graphics at that point and that was the reason for the new driver model, AMD took over around the rx400's series and this also took place during the first crypto mining boom and gamers could not even get their hands on the cards.

[@0AThijs]

Yep, my laptop came with windows 8 preinstalled and the network drivers didn't even support it, i also had a vaio laptop that I accidentally upgraded without the vaio upgrade tool, and instead used a iso which meant that I couldn't install Sony's software anymore (Sony didn't recognize my laptop as a vaio anymore) i also accidentally formatted the whole drive, causing another problem, unable to factory reset it to the vaio defaults.

[@meiduza]

I actually loved the Metro menu. With some basic tweaking you could get an awesome sorted library with gorgeous artwork for all the apps/games you frequented.

[@adesh116]

I genuinely love these series of old windows versions.. its nostalgic and gives an idea how Microsoft viewed the tech industry

[@alphaedrum]

I actually recommended 8.1 for my clients with more modest devices that couldnt run windows 10 properly. Installing a 3rd party start menu was enough to make it usable for your average user that only needs to use office, the file explorer and dp some web browsing.

[@yaboiflats6986]

We get it you have clients

[@mustafa_sakalli]

I was directly jumped windows xp to windows 8, while missing start menu was felt weird but I 've customised the metro UI based on my personal needs such as control panel, file explorer etc. After a short period of time getting used, my experience was maximized in windows 8. I think people going little bit rough on windows 8

[@LRM12o8]

No, it really sucked that badly for desktop. It deserved all the hate it got and then some! I had to use it at work and going to the start screen to find a program was just so incredibly unproductive. There's way too much wasted space between the programs in the list, making it so I had to scroll up to three pages just to get to it. And I can't tell you how many effin times I accidentally summoned the charms bar. It was nothing but a pain in the ass to use on a desktop setup and it had no place in any kind of professional environment!

[@Taboomix]

@@LRM12o8homie that’s just a you issue 😭

[@beni5149]

I tried really hard to like windows 8, i just couldn't, after like 8 months of using it i switched back to 7, then a few months after i tried 8.1 on my laptop and i used it for a couple of months, it went from absolute trash to trash pretending to be windows 7, it was usable but i still didn't like it, it felt similar to using a controller for first person games after years of using mouse and keyboard, i just couldn't do it, then window 10 came and it took exactly 2 days to get used to the layout and how it worked so i switched immediately on all my systems, it felt like windows 7 but better.

[@Muhluri]

Yeah it honestly wasn't that bad

[@allison6883]

I used 7 8, 10, and now 11, but 8 is the one I miss the most, it's got problems, but most people refused to ever even try

[@karenwang313]

I used to run windows 8.1 on my surface pro 2 back when I was in college, it was honestly a very pleasant experience. I eventually was forced to upgrade to windows 10 because of a bug in windows update that caused the tablet to have 100% CPU usage until it ran out of power. I'll be sad to see it go.

[@makinggeologyfun8968]

I am nostalgic for 8.1 because my first laptop in high school was a cheap Walmart laptop with Intel Celeron, a DVD drive and a touchscreen. I also had a Surface RT and later a Pro 3 that I got for college. I even had a windows phone. I really liked 8.1, and when 10 came out I had to switch back as it used more system power and that little Celeron struggled. I still have that laptop and still use it for old games- as 8.1 is the last OS that a lot of old CD-ROM games still work on.

[@aman9das]

Zorin lite will run fine on it.

[@cornonjacob]

The hidden side panel was super annoying when using a track pad: it would open if you swiped to the left in a certain manner, but I could never get it to do it when I actually wanted the menu

[@oienu]

XD sometimes happen, you need to update the touchpad drivers, on Synaptics works fine even using gestures but for not Win 8 Certified (older systems) sometimes get messy. I loved that because was really easy to use on the touchpad, on desktop still was awful experience. They focused too much on touch but forgot the mouse. You have to move a lot to do the same, the biggest drawback.

[@althejazzman]

Touchpad gestures are a disaster as they are more often triggered by mistake than on purpose.

[@MaethorDerien]

Yeah, I actually used it right at launch and it wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be. It took a bit of time to learn the weird quirks but once you learn them it actually was nice to use. It definately had some weird issues though. 8.1 actually made it into a surprisingly good OS but by that point everyone had been so turned off by 8 without even trying it that it didn't do much.

[@LordSwagtron]

see, “it wasn’t nearly as bad” isn’t exactly much of a testament to it not being just a universally worse experience to Win 7, lol. and that’s coming from someone who’s first ever laptop *was* one that came with a Win 8 OEM license, and I hated every second of me using 8 until 8.1 came out and made Metro UI marginally less shit lmao

[@katanah3195]

It was what I had in middle school after the XP machine I'd had since my dad first trusted me with a crappy cheap computer finally died. Can't say I miss it now that I use 11 but it definitely had some nifty features and there was one app available for it I really liked.

[@ziggybadans]

@@LordSwagtron The main thing for me was actually how fast it was. I had a VERY underpowered HP laptop at the time, and Windows 7 was really slow on it, Windows 8 by comparison was like getting a new computer. And once 8.1 came around, I actually really liked the interface, it had a certain charm to it that never really returned in Windows 10 or 11. Windows 10 kinda killed that laptop unfortunately, and anyway I was never the biggest fan of Windows 10's interface, I can never put my finger on it.

[@martinrapavy9815]

@@ziggybadans Alright, but for the price of Windows 8, you could have bought a fairly good second-hand laptop that ran Windows 7 really fast. Windows 8 was a fugly abomination that forced everyone to use full-screen windows without controls, supposedly for better concentration, except they forgot to account for the distracting claustrophobic feeling of no escape which it evoked.

[@ziggybadans]

@@martinrapavy9815 I was only like 7 or 8 back then, and my parents weren't big on buying second-hand hardware then so yeah. But yeah, I agree, it did feel claustrophobic at times, especially in the original version.

[@mh_dot_fm]

as a cg professional, which here means lots of different apps and need to launch them quickly - tiles of win 8.1 was a bliss. when you remember all your work pipeline by where tiles are on the start, you drag your mouse to a location and not wasting any time press win key and click. the whole process takes than around 1-2 secs, for like 20-30 apps total. Then, on win 10 this habit of "windows key for everything" turned into searching by first 2 letters of app name and using tiles like that still, but on 11 i exclusively use search now and taskbar. Taskbar was devoid of any pinned apps until win 11, desktop still is.

[@Daggerhead69]

I really loved the Lumia line-up and the metro tiles layout of Microsoft phones way back in the day and i still hope something like that will return . Ahh good times :((

[@jothain]

Microsoft shouldn't have left the mobile business. I've always been Android user. I tested couple Windows phones briefly and I was immediately ready to switch, but one thing kept me. Lack of messenger apps and especially that it didn't have application for banking I really would've needed. Banking app and ie. Facebook messenger back then. Just those would've been needed. I think they just should've done something better, like paying devs or something to get more apps into their system. I'm absolutely certain that it would've prevented their mobile disaster. Oh and MS should've fired Elop and never let that man touch mobile systems.

[@genesisfan029]

I had a Windows phone back in the day and I'm not going to lie, I loved it.

[@Daggerhead69]

@@genesisfan029 Same man , my family owned one and I loved it .

[@kR-qj7rw]

I didn't even care about the app stuff it was just a good phone with the Lumia aesthetic

[@Daggerhead69]

@@jothain I was a Android user for the longest time and I loved it until the UI got so janky that made me move to IOS . Anyways , I always admired the Microsoft phones and would still in 2023 trade my iPhone in for a lumia if that could be an alternative to the current phone I own .

[@PorscheRacer14]

On the ten year anniversary of Surface Pro, that my mom still uses, I got Windows 11 working on it. A heavily modified and stripped version, but it works. I still miss Windows 8 on that device and how my Lumia 920 worked seamlessly with it. I could have my headphones on and place and take calls within Windows, send a text, sync my music with SkyDrive. Good times, simpler times. I guess it was a flash in the pan. Solid gaming OS though, really solid. I guess Server 2012 will be retiring too. I've gotten used to seeing that familiar look in VMs and servers for so long. The time flies...

[@xXBeefyDjXx]

I've daily driven every Windows version since 98, I got 8 Pro for free with my Nokia Lumia as a bonus for getting the phone from the store, and drove it for a good 3-4 years before switching back to hybrid Windows 7 and 8 Dual Boots, and finally moving to 10 in 2016! 8.1 Wasn't all that bad. 8 however, was extremely clunky for a general desktop user. Thank god for StartIsBack back in the day :P Also, RIP Windows To Go. Gone but never forgotten for the techies who used it.

[@aeroragesys]

StartIsBack gang!

[@LordOfNihil]

used 95 forward myself. i really liked the simplicity of win2k and even in xp i disabled themes so i could get a more 2kesque ui. vista and 7 never really did anything i didnt like as far as the ui is concerned. i certainly liked it better than the skinned interface xp was using. i think i may have skipped over 8 entirely for 8.1, but used classic shell. later windows 10 with now open shell. 11 is still completely unusable. open shell doesn't seem to work as cleanly in 11 and i had to employ a plethora of registry hacks, the command line and other 3rd party software to get it usable, then i was grossly dissatisfied with its performance on hardware that really wasn't that old. that was for evaluation purposes and it never made its way to my daily driver.

[@lukey333]

this is how i feel about each newer macos version; it’s trying to merge ios and macos but since macs aren’t touch screens, the new settings, control bar, etc, are SO bad and take 2-3x more steps than they used to

[@TheKaleb503]

I really hope Linus makes a video about his switch to Windows 11 and how to make it more bearable. I'd love to see the types of changes he will make for his daily usecase.

[@d5gqwerty]

windows 11 is shite

[@loen9591]

tbh i dont see why windows 11 is so bad, i kinda like it

[@RoyanStudio]

What do you mean by 'more bearable'? It's one of the cleanest Windows I've ever used and basically Windows 10 with a much better and fresher UI. If you don't like the start menu you can always use Start11 and such

[@WS12658]

What do you find unbearable about it? If you could provide examples then I'm sure people, and Linus, could make a video helping with those issues.

[@Paronak]

@@WS12658things hidden behind several clicks in the context menu. I think Copy and Paste are hidden behind the Edit option.

[@mph8er]

Overall hated it. The missing start menu, particularly when dealing with Remote Desktop, was a huge pain. It's like nobody expected anyone to manage an enterprise environment from Windows 8 (even though Server Manager was installable at this point to do so). The unusual metro apps (and the new start menu with tiles) were probably the thing that bugged me the most about it though.

[@Phantogram2]

Classic start menu essentially turned it into a faster, upgraded and more stable win7. Overall I loved it far more than Win7

[@mph8er]

@@Phantogram2 I disagree on the 'faster' part, but I think it really depends on how you use your computer. I didn't use the start menu in the traditional sense. I opened it and started typing a search query (you could simply type and it would search). I never touched the tiles, just typed the first couple letters to find what I wanted, then clicked on it. This is what I did in Windows 7 and is what I do in Windows 10 and 11 still. One of the issues was that it wouldn't find stuff frequently because it would pick a seemingly random app category, finding nothing until you clicked the right category that the item you wanted was in. Windows 7 didn't do that. Windows 10 and 11 don't do that either. I don't even remember 8.1 doing that. And again, not being able to click the bottom left pixel reliably because I'm in a nested remote desktop session managing Windows Server 2012 (the server version of 8) was stupid. Half the time, it also didn't recognize which window I was in, so even pressing ctrl+esc didn't consistently work on the right RDP session, same with the windows key. It was great for someone like my mom or my grandparents who have very little computer experience, but it was a terrible experience for a power user who had preexisting expectations. Windows 10 did it right by making all the options (searching, list view or tiles) feasible and in their best iterations even if I overall preferred Windows 7.

[@alanlee67]

Let's be real. Microsoft really just wanted windows phone to be a thing...and it never was.

[@mph8er]

@@alanlee67 And tablet (Surface), cant forget about that. But yeah, I felt like they were prioritizing a niche they thought was going to overtake computers without realizing that both exist and both have their users. For a certain subset of computer users, that did happen, but they shouldn't have basically tried to force everyone to tablets, touchscreens and phones.

[@jankees4037]

There is still a start menu, but just lock programs you use often to the taskbar. That is one click and open. Start menu is two clicks.

[@Kuromario]

To me the biggest deal breaker was the start button, once I saw that 8.1 had one I upgraded.

[@matthewparker9276]

There was a bunch of good things introduced in windows 8, that I actually miss when I occasionally step back to windows 7 or vista. But the UI for PC users was annoying. Even with the 8.1 improvements it felt like I had to fight against the UI to get it to fit into my workflow. Some of my biggest annoyances with windows 10 are carry overs from windows 8, like the default video app always opening in full screen and a multi step process to return to windowed mode. It makes it significantly harder to multi task apps. I feel the same way about windows 11. There are many technical improvements, but it's not worth the sacrifice of the workflow.

[@Dwaxxx]

I use windows 8.1 and I really don't get the hate. It's basically just windows 7 with a new start menu and tons of new features.

[@Gogeta70]

At 9:52 ... Dude, that was a *SMOOTH* transition to advertise for LTT underwear. Well done.

[@FransVerhoef_lala]

I started using windows 8 after some experience with Ubuntu's Unity interface. I quickly realized it was not bad if using short cuts (just like I taught myself on Unity). After that realization, the usage of Windows 8 was pretty good (especially after the 8.1 update).

[@Kathlanus]

I'm fairly convinced to this day, that win 8 would have been a succes with the win 10 startmenu instead of the start screen. Jumping between worlds was what kept me from using it on Desktop. On the Surface Pro 3 I had at the time, it wasn't half bad tho

[@ChristopherPerrin]

Windows 10 still has a tablet mode that looks similar to 8.1

[@CheapBastard1988]

@ChristopherPerrin Yes, but he meant it the other way round: W10 start menu on W8.

[@WolvenSpectre]

It would have been a greater success if it had both a standard Windows Menu with maybe new features but not necessary, and the Metro UI and you could use one, the other, or both. I used ClassicShell, and on 10 I use a newer fork OpenShell, and 8 and 10 become great to use.

[@5british5]

You could disable it.

[@mojave5661]

if you weren't a Windows Insider back in 2014, look up screenshots of Windows 10 builds 9841 or 9860. those are the perfect blend of both

[@WlatPziupp]

The huge glaring unavailable intrinsic design flaw is moving away from the whole thing the OS has been built on from the beginning. Windows. Why would I ever want my desktop computer to use only one program at a time instead of having however many I want? With that being the default the first experience you're likely to have is just so much worse than what you were used to

[@jaxcyl1-t4b]

Waiting for the water-cooled raspberry pi video Linus!!!

[@leocorbett1456]

100% has to come asap

[@andyk192]

We need this

[@Alphaghosty]

Yes just yes

[@nocontext5590]

Putting a 4090 on a raspberry pi

[@Helios-Rex]

With a device with that much power demand they might need liquid nitrogen, just to be sure.

[@saladgreens912]

I loved windows 8.1, nostalgia blind I may be. But I just miss it so much. It was what ran on my laptop through school and it never failed me. Quirky yes, but functionally flawless.

[@normal47712]

Reminds me of the song

[@jole9000]

Windows 8.1 is a tinkerers dream. It's a Windows 7 ricer edition. Before Windows 10 telemetry and before going Unixlike.

[@jdsco37]

One of my favorite memories of Win 8 is using the beta, opening a metro app, and immediately going "How the heck do I close this app?", and then tinkering for way too long before realizing I had to bring my mouse to the left side of the screen, scroll down, right click on the window, and left click "close" on the menu that came up. ah memories

[@profosist]

on original launch the only way was to drag it down from the top. Got far too used to that to kill initial setup prompt to get to the desktop.

[@Sangster772]

I remember buying what is now my workshop laptop from my cousin who did business computers back in 2013. I deliberately had him get a "Windows 8 Certified" machine that still had 7 installed. Still chugs along with Win10 today, but I had friends that had 8 on regular laptops at the time and wanted no part in that.

[@cavegamer5989]

Windows 8 is weirdly nostalgic for me as it was the first modern OS that i really used. My Parents didn't update our old early 2000's behemoth till 2012-2013..... right when new PC's started shipping with windows 8. long story short i used it for many years and grew kinda fond of its quirky-ness. But they eventually updated to windows 10 and i got my own PC which came with windows 10 shortly later. I always wished it could have been more. Sometimes i still remember with fondness the jany full screen start and the odd settings menu.

[@thanasisanagnopoulos9265]

I liked windows 8.1 . i was sooooo afraid to move from windows 7 and never touched windows 8 . When i finally upgraded to windows 8.1 , it was like 6 months before the free upgrade to windows 10 started .So i didnt really used win 8.1 for more than a year , but it was fun and easy to use . i dont remember having a problem with it.

[@TheHatMan69]

NOTE: Metro UI started on November 13th, 2008 with the second generation of Zune. Come 2009 with the introduction of the Zune HD, tiles were introduced. Metro started on the Zune, NOT on Windows 8.

[@blackphoenixfamily8477]

If you're gonna be THAT pissy about it, then TECHNICALLY the earliest MDL principles were present in Encarta95 and MSN 2.0 and XP Media Center Edition....besides, all he mentioned was the Live Tiles aspect of MDL, nowhere did he say that Metro started on Windows 8.

[@GuyGamer1]

Zune HD was so far ahead of its time. Buttery smooth UI... And renting your music for $10 a month. Who would ever do that?!

[@lands1459]

that explains why the windows 8 UI looks so similar to my Zune HD

[@XielefR]

@@GuyGamer1 so far ahead? spotify already existed.

[@TheHatMan69]

@@XielefR Spotify launched in 2011. Zune launched in 2006

[@AspenSavage]

I used windows 8 for years and never had a problem with it. I also used the desktop version way more than the tiles (I never had a touchscreen version though)

[@mp40fan]

I was one of the few to upgrade to windows 8 from 7, mostly because I could get it cheap as a student and because of the added security features. I didn't hate it, it was very stable like you said. But the missing start button, that was a thing.. 8.1 made the whole OS so much better, I actually loved it better than windows 7. The metro UI was great for touch devices, I had a lumia phone and I think to this day it's still the best phone I ever owned. It was simple to use and fast. The downside was that it seriously lacked third party apps. But I wish that design philosophy lived on.

[@nonyabidness8676]

I signed on to 8.1, because I knew I was going to have to support it. So, I made it my daily driver, even if it meant losing the cool semi-transparent start menu and title bars. By 8.1, you could pretty much just close your eyes and operate it like Windows 7 if you did a lot of work by keyboard.

[@Garrettdx1988]

Totally agree. Windows Phone 8.1 is still my all time favorite operating system

[@Neoxon619]

I guess both Windows & Tekken dealt with the even-numbered curse. But if Windows 10 could break it, hopefully Tekken 8 can too. But on-topic, Microsoft definitely went too hard on the tablet stuff. And even looking back, it’s ironic since the iPad is slowly becoming more computer-like.

[@CatWithScissors]

Don’t you slander Tekken 4, I like it😢 Ok the game is *weird* and a lot of the new bits didn’t work and it’s horrendously balanced compared to modern fighting games (Like all older fighting games though let’s be real) but it was still good!

[@L0RDB4C0N]

technically windows 10 is windows 9, so that's why it's good and windows 11 then is win 10 and well

[@Thisandthat8908]

even on a tiny smartphnoe screen everything would have been too gigantic. The UI made no sense.

[@Korosivv]

@@L0RDB4C0N Wrong. Windows 8.1 is Windows 9.

[@kipzonderkop1994]

Tekken 2 and 6 were pretty good, ttt2 is my most favourite tekken of all time because the skill ceiling is so high you could play that game infinitely. Don’t get wrong, tekken 3,5 and 7 are probably the best when it comes to an overall package, but it’s my most favourite series of all time so all of them are at least good in my opinion.

[@Cahtah]

One thing I remember utilizing a lot in the Windows 8 craze days was the "auto-search" functionality of the start screen. Open the start screen and just start typing and it will search for you, similar to how the Windows 10+ search works in the start menu today.

[@charliegolf2730]

Same here. Because of that I didn't really mind Windows 8 all that much. On my machine it was faster and more stable than Windows 7, but using the new settings menu was a pain, luckily everything could be done through the control panel as before

[@rickywinataa]

This, i didnt care about the new tiles system because I always automatically search for the program Windows 8 was also crazy quick compared to windows 7

[@dpqb-web]

"Auto-search" actually did exist even back in Windows Vista, it just gets better over time. And yes, I liked Windows 8.1 start search, it's not that slow (even with HDD), and it get better at results.

[@thomaspotterdotexe]

Windows 8.1 was the best experience I've had. I had one potato laptop and it was really smooth, even the animation from boot screen to start screen, really satisfying. The new bluescreen is also helpful since not everyone is so technical about it. The search page with bing was beautifully interactive. It was the lightest official OS from Microsoft compared to Windows 7 and 10. Windows Live (password manager?) was the first password manager that I've used since it just seamlessly synchronize between computer and (back then when I have) lumia's phone. The music app (before it was bought by Microsoft then became groove), was the best one. The artist cover, lyrics, radio, etc is just wow. For the 2013 era, it was the best one. It just sadly people and the developer doing it so wrong and ofc Microsoft is at the wrong era.

[@Ingu.z]

I had 8.1, and after much grief and frustration I came to like that odd screen _slightly_ but loved being able to just click on the Windows key and then type in whatever and get results I wanted. Maybe it was possible before that, but to me it was a new experience that heavily outweighed the cons of the terrible touch interface as a m&k user. Other than that, I'm still in the "XP was peak Windows interface" camp. I hate the different new settings windows on Win11, I just want to use my good old Control Panel.

[@roberthutchins3435]

Still Running 7

[@doodskie999]

I was in college during my last years there. I was so excited to try windows 8, then it was a huge disappointment. I cant even finish my projects as I hated the tiles start menu. So I rolled back to windows 7.

[@eltamalero1039]

I got gifted one, and my god i sold it immediately (didnt know anything about computers) and i said this shit sucks ass (thinking it was just the computer)

[@fynkozari9271]

I like windows 7 because it's pretty. I like windows 8 because it's prettier. The best part about both they have dx11. Good for playing most games without crashing, except dx12 exclusive games. Like farcry 6, assassin's creed valhalla, saints row.

[@caffeinesippingman]

I tried Win ME on release week, it was a nightmare compared to 98se. I think the biggest takeaway is don't be an early adopter of every other MS OS.

[@roberthutchins3435]

2024 Still Use Win 7....Simplicity Is all Ways The Answer....I Dont Need 100 Choices Just To Open An Image.

[@ethai1]

My old laptop came with Windows 8 installed, and I was actually very okay with it. I just turned on the option to boot straight into desktop view and that's it...

[@rishavraj5661]

How do you do that?

[@ethai1]

@@rishavraj5661 Oh, it's been so long that I don't remember. Sorry. KZbin/google would help you with that.

[@atemoc]

8.1... big difference there

[@rishavraj5661]

@@ethai1 ok thanks

[@ethai1]

@@atemoc yeah later on in the video I saw Linus mentioned it was in 8.1. I upgraded to 10 about 2-3 months after it came out so really my time with 8 and 8.1 just sort of blended together and I don't really remember which feature appeared on what version.

[@mariusjoachims6866]

The Surface 3 with Windows 8.1 was my absolute favourite machine of all time. Had a Nokia Lumia to go along with it, and it was so awesome. … And because I took it with 2 GB RAM and 32 GB eMMC, I could toss it out two years later.

[@reikoshea]

Haven't finished the video yet, but I was DEEP in the cable card/HTPC scene for a WHILE. Windows 8.1's Media Center kept me on it for a REALLY long time. I only gave it up when I gave up cable TV in general. Woulda been nice had it existed on Windows 10.

[@kylebushue]

Was so awesome to record 4‐6 channels. Had 3 rooms with pcs live streaming off the ceton card from the main system.

[@reikoshea]

@@kylebushue Yeah, with windows 8.1 it really was a game changer, especially with a Ceton. Everyone's laptop (with 8.1) could just watch TV where ever, and then the HTPC in the living room with a DAS was just the icing on the cake.

[@jack.smith2958]

13:16 Great color choice for the graphs. Real easy to understand.

[@amigang]

It still blows my mind that a company with so much resources and I would of thought beta testing/user feedback before release that windows 8 got released the way it did. I think they just panic and saw market share dropping due to touch os from android and iPadOS, that if they make there most successful product in that stly to try and force devs to support it, but completely forgetting keyboard and mouse users. It’s crazy, windows 8.1 fixed a lot of problems.

[@profosist]

There were executives are the very tippy top that said this is the right way also based on telemetry (and my own person experience) no one actually used the old start menu so they tried to change it up into something someone might use, otherwise why is it there.

[@ElainaMaruyama]

The fact you're using a tablet to show off a PC operating system says it all.

[@furykillerBZ]

Ran windows 8 on my surface pro 2 from the moment I got it in 2013 to the moment win 10 became available. I liked the metro UI and I can see what MS was trying to do with the time menu, with how little I actually go to the desktop. But 8 still felt like a trial for a lot of the things 10 got right

[@andremasi9209]

I've learned to like windows 8.1 because I had a laptop that would refuse to run any other OS. And it was quite good. Beautiful, responsive and I can't remember of any feature that I missed from my Windows 10 desktop.

[@BilisNegra]

That's a parallel with me using Vista. It was preinstalled on my laptop of that era (an Acer with the most basic Core2Duo mobile CPU and 2 gigs of RAM) and especially after the first Service Pack it gave me no major headaches. I ran it on the same install for 9 years! When it finally got corrupted and would only start in safe mode I did not bother to reinstall because I was actually wanting to move to a newer computer.

[@AlmightyJu2]

I'm surprised at no mention of windows server 2012 having the metro ui too, I know the video is about windows 8 but forcing metro on a server was also damaging to windows 8, I remember telling everyone I knew how bad 8 was just from my experience in work with 2012

[@joudatfd]

Yes, it was horrible to use windows server 2012. Luckily 2012 R2 came and was usable again.

[@bazimnubailaz]

when windows 8 came out, I was so obsessed with it that I installed a crack version of it my PC, I was so font of the start screen style that I did a class assignment in that start menu bento grid theme. but as the video mentioned, there were no functional apps that I could use since we did not have a internet connection back then, all the apps I needed where on the desktop 😅

[@Ficohaker]

As a kid growing up in the tech world, using 8 and then 8.1 during my entire high school was amazing. I am sad to have upgraded to 10 and 11 as I still love 8.1 so much.

[@brookrichardson1373]

My first experience with Win8 was trying to follow a guide and switching between using IE in the Metro interface and the desktop interface, and couldn't see both at the same time. It was like the removed multitasking from windows.

[@LaggyBo1]

Still to this day, Win 8.1 was the most efficient Windows I've used. Used it till end of 2020 when I was forced to upgrade to Win 10 in order to play Cyberpunk 2077 as it didn't supported Win 8/8.1😢😢

[@isharadhanushan2002]

8.1 boots in 4 seconds on a hdd. Its way faster than windows 7 because of fast startup option. But in windows 10 they added more and more bloatware with each major update.

[@LaggyBo1]

@@isharadhanushan2002 yep, in my testing, I got better Battery Backup on my laptop than Win 10, more Internet Speed (no background speed hogging) & better Average & 1% lows in gaming as well as lower CPU & RAM usages

[@KiinaSu]

Yeah it's insane how much faster Windows 8.1 was. I switched over my VMs at that time that had to frequently be shut down and restored from a snapshot for software testing and it saved multiple minutes of execution time compared to Windows 7 and XP. No Idea how Microsoft even did that.

[@isharadhanushan2002]

@@KiinaSu It didn't have too many background processes, with the introduction of fast startup windows 8,8.1 is very fast and power efficient. But with windows 10 and 11 more and more bloatware was added which made the OS slow. Windwos 8.1 boots in 4s on a HDD, but it takes about 45 seconds for the latest version of windows 10.

[@lesliedellow1533]

When I saw somebody demonstrating the proposed user interface, maybe a couple of years before it was released, I wondered whether somebody had taken leave of their senses. A car is not a bus, and a tablet is not a desktop.

[@pudelz]

Yes, win 8 was horrible, 8.1 was a little better but still bad, especially on my laptop. Was getting BSOD left and right and that's not even factoring in all the annoyances that they introduced/changed. Took win10 on day one because I figured it couldn't be much worse besides the typical "every other" theme about windows being good/bad.

[@23wtb]

What's wrong with 8.1? I've been running 8.1 on my primary machine for years. Runs like a dream. Never have any problems with it, never have to do anything to it. It just works, hands-free.

[@pudelz]

Had driver issues, random BSODs even after clean installing multiple times (trying window's generic drivers and factory ones), and performance issues. My thinkpad even shipped with win8 so I would have expected everything to work perfectly but nope. I didn't have any issues in Linux so I know it wasn't an hardware issue at the time. When I upgraded to win10, all of these issues also went away. I'm sure 8/8.1 was perfect on some devices but wasn't on my laptop so I never did try it on my gaming desktop.

[@23wtb]

@@pudelz Super weird. I've been so long since a blue screen-literally years--that I forgot BSOD was a thing. At some point NVIDIA stopped making upgraded drivers for 8.1, and concurrently I stopped having any game crashes. I'm about to experiment with dual-booting 8.1 and 10, since DirectX12 is 10+ only. I guess we'll see how that goes. I originally went from 10 back to 8.1 because 10 was running like mud.

[@evilmark443]

I actually still prefer the Control Panel over the Settings app, even in Windows 11. As for Windows 8, I'm a cable guy and any time I had a call for internet issues for someone using a Win8 machine I always had a LOT of trouble just figuring how the hell to use their computer when trying to diagnose the problem. Some people didn't have the desktop app pinned in their start menu, I could never remember how to find the control panel, and if I remember right Internet Explorer acted like a different program with a different look and different tabs depending on if you launched it from the start menu or from the desktop. My very first call involving Windows 8 was enough to convince me to never upgrade my personal computers to it.

[@animeloveer97]

I agree

[@hkhan1989]

I'd be nice if you did a segment on windows 2012 / 2012 r2. Similar issues but the upgrade path was NOT free like in the desktop counterpart for the first time ever.

[@topicslp3782]

Why does Windows Server with Desktop Experience need Tablet controls ... what a great idea /S

[@hectorvivis3651]

Ho yeah, remote desktop on WS 2012 was just pure nightmare when I tried it.

[@daffapradana2956]

i remember their ads with Lenka song:everything at once

[@hansmitdergans7879]

I have been a very long time Windows 8.1 user and I still use it on some machines. It's was by far not perfect, but with some modifications - with ClassicShell being the most important one - it was basically a Windows 7 facelift. But not only that, it was much faster and much more user friendly. When I started to use Windows 8, I hated it so much, but with the years passing by, I appreciated its qualities and nowadays I hate when people just hate on it for absolutely no reason. I'm actually sad that it's gone.

[@Goshu1]

8.1 was actually pretty nice, the only downside was that you had to spend some time to set it up in order for it to become usable. However once you did that, it ran really smooth, reliable and fast.

[@DenDodde]

Like any other windows version then? Except you are now stuck with a fullscreen application always running the background.

[@ryzenforce]

@@DenDodde There was nothing running in the background when you setup your desktop as a regular Windows. The only thing running was the toggle to get the retro screen.

[@DenDodde]

@@ryzenforce Nope, windows 8 would load up 2 instances of DWM, one for the desktop and one for metro, and it would constantly wake and poll the metro one, even in desktop use. The reason for this is simple, hotkeys and mouse movements.

[@ryzenforce]

@@DenDodde But since you had no metro apps running, the 2nd DWM was doing nothing and was sleeping.

[@DenDodde]

@@ryzenforce No. Everytime you pressed a button on your keyboard or moved your mouse to the edges of the screen it would wake up, run through the message handler, then go back to sleep. Basically another fullscreen application. Unless, ofc, you had some other program open to eat up the messages before they got down there, like for example a game. But normal desktop usage, like surfing the web, or writing in word would pass it along to the desktop dwm, that then dropped them to metro.

[@cullinm]

Holy crap. I did tech support when this launched and it was a disaster. I consider myself good a good teacher, but this OS was not resonating with ANYONE. Particularly the older generation. I taught them how to nope out of anything new in order to find the familiar desktop as soon as possible.

[@rebelbolt]

I had a touchscreen that turned into a cool little laptop thing, I actually loved using windows 8 and I remember very specifically there was a way to view a more original desktop view Edit: I also remember gaming on my desktop PC with windows 8 before I went to windows 10, and I must say I remember it being much better for some titles but there wasnt any compatibility with the xbox features

[@SuperVincenot]

I used it for few years, with some settings and removing shortcuts and adding my own ones I was working very efficient with it. But yeah it looked very much like a operative system for a phone/tablet in the menu. Most other things worked as usual. There was a windows 7 classic shell that u can install making it look better. (Imo)

[@bwofficial1776]

Classic Shell + locked to desktop mode was the way to go. Microsoft thought the market was going all-in on touchscreens and tablets and completely neglected the traditional desktop/laptop users.

[@lasbrujazz]

I was actually following its development, going as far as downloading leaked build of it, one with Black Screen of Death instead of blue. To be honest, it was confusing at first, but once the memory muscles kicked in, it was similar to using Windows 7. Performance was also head-to-head with 7.

[@DescubreAntigua]

Had a couple of Surface RT used only for PDF and Office, you couldn't replace the OS so... I had to deal with it and actually ended loving it. Yes already used W8 on my computers before, but never in full touch mode. Yes, my experience with W8 was extremely cool, had to update to W10 due to being pushed by the apps I used.

[@bulleto8192]

Surface RT can run leaked build of W10

[@me2olive]

IMHO tablets were the one exception where the UI kind of worked, after you got used to it. I had a Dell Venue 8, and swiping in to get the charms bar was actually pretty handy. Of course Microsoft still crippled it though, that charms bar really *should* have been customizable.

[@Yabba0008]

I think to prefect this OS would’ve been to have a toggle for metro features, like if your on desktop it would be disabled or if you were on a tablet/2-in-1 you could have a toggle for metro

[@imzesok]

Windows 8/8.1 is very much my favorite Windows. Just installed classic shell and you were good to go. Sadly, they went out of their way though to make sure current versions of directx wouldn't get backported, so it got left behind. Otherwise... I'd probably still be using it. Had used it since the open beta, until the open beta of Win10 came out, eventually made my way back to 8 because 10's beta progress was a nightmare due to tons of profile corruptions basically every update, and sometimes just completely at random, all the way through several updates after the official release. Once they fixed that and announced that newer versions of DX weren't coming to 8, I moved onto 10. Windows 11 came out and they've hacked away the start menu and taskbar customizations that were available in 10, so I don't really want to "upgrade" to that anytime soon. If they give us back those customizations I might consider it, but it might just be time to just deal with the fact my nvidia graphics will never be used on linux via wine/proton on my laptop, because it'll use the integrated graphics over dedicated graphics with no way to actually switch between them. ngl, that's kind of more irritating than the lack of customization, and bloat that comes with Win11 because that really cuts into performance. IDK, I'll cross that bridge when Win10 is officially EoL, I guess.

[@quantumleaper]

I loved Classic Shell.

[@FilipCordas]

I had a tablet version and the metro UI made a tone of sense ie11 on tables was really really good. The chakra engine was better than chromium by a lot faster and used less memory. I still can't get used to browsers on tables they still feel like a bad desktop port to me not even close to ie11.

[@imzesok]

@@FilipCordas yeah, mobile browsers are pretty craptastic, sadly. they're not good as apps for these touch interfaces.

[@imzesok]

@@quantumleaper It was really nice, for sure. thankfully the project is still around. it's under a different name: Open Shell. and yes it sort of works for Windows 11. though classic explorer should be avoided on that OS. go the menu only route, or you'll just end up breaking things. Important things... like the windows update app. you can still run it via powershell but that's annoying. Win11 doesn't like alternate shells sadly.

[@quantumleaper]

@@imzesok Win11 isn't bad, the only problems I have is my screensaver doesn't turn on, I can test the screensaver and it works and I can only get one of my two extra monitors to work, but I think the monitor is using the wrong input. I don't mind not having a different shell, though it would be nice to have a different shell after all I have using alternate desktop shells all the way back to Win 3.11, I even had alternate desktop on Geos on my C64.

[@LevaniaMeyano]

I remember having fond memories of Windows 8 when I got my first new personal laptop as a kid. Interesting to see a ton of features I didn't even know existed in Windows 8 within this video. Still swapped to Windows 10 as soon as I could when it released though.

[@robinbegley1077]

Back when 8 came out, my school had a single test machine and when you signed in with AD, left you on a blank purple screen, with nothing to even hint at needing to gesture at corners to get a menu. Nobody stayed long trying it out. Even IT wasnt aware of needing to gesture.

[@W1ldTangent]

I had the same experience remoting into my first Windows Server 2012 machine... thought RDP was going wonky, spent more time than I'd like to admit searching in that direction for answers before I figured out how to trigger the hot corners (not very straightforward when remote, even if you know).

[@a5thofscotch526]

Gesture passwords were cool for home use at least