Good News/Bad News

[gimmethesimplelife]

I have been away for awhile and things have been a bit trying but I wanted to post here and say hey, I'm back and in action once more and some good news I have is that recently I have had to upgrade to Windows 8 on a new laptop and I'm actually figuring it out which to me is nothing short of a miracle! After a series of setbacks it's nice to figure out something on my own and feel positive about something! Rob

[Tradd]

Rob, have you loaded the "classic shell"? That will give you back the "start" button. The lack of start seems to be the primary complaint I hear about Windows 8.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Tradd, so far I am using the start button and I am slowly navigating this and figuring it out. I promised myself that I would be calm and patient and take every block as a learning experience and allow myself to experience the learning curve here. So far I am able to do basic things and am working up to downloading photos that I will need to download for secret shops and hopefully I will be able to download video to for some paid review sites.....We'll see. Rob

[Tradd]

So was the start button already there? I'd heard MS was going to issue an update that restored the start button, so maybe the Win 8 version you got already has it. My laptop has Win 7 and I'm going to use it as long as I can.

[Teacher Terry]

I have 8 & no start button. Also even though you think you are closing windows you are not. All of a sudden out of nowhere all these open windows appear and it is your chance to close them. If you don't you do not know when it will appear again. another major complaint. Also if you google how to do this things will appear as solutions but they actually do not work-ugh!

[Alan]

Windows 8.1 restored a version of the traditional Start button as well as provides the option of booting to the desktop rather than the Win 8 start screen.
If you'd like to re-create the Win 7 experience, follow Tradd's advice and install "Classic Shell" (http://www.classicshell.net/), it'll take a lot of the frustration out of adapting to the new OS.

[lhamo]

Add me to the list of those struggling with Windows 8 -- we had a required computer upgrade at work and I've been trying ot get used to Windows 8 since December. Finally have a few tricks that seem to work, but boy is it ever annoying. Especially when you open anything that is a picture-like file -- totally end up in this other space and you can't use the picture for anything except looking at it (at least as far as I can tell). I hate learning new computer stuff. Give me back XP!!!!!

[gimmethesimplelife]

Thank you Tradd and Alan! I have followed your advice and downloaded the classic shell and yes this does help and does make more sense to me. Also with this having been downloaded if I want to deal with the live tiles I still can. It is now 5:45 AM and I have been up all night and I did figure out how to download photo and video to Windows 8! This for me is quite the accomplishment. This also means that I can continue to secret shop and also I was recently sent a very nice hair clipper to review and keep - the only catch is that I have to download a video of myself speaking about the hair clipper. Now I know how to do it and so can keep this line to nice freebies to use or possibly ebay open.....and I can also list on ebay, too, now that I know how to download photos. So much of my income is already online based, it's crucial that I get a quick handle on what I need to know on 8 to keep going. At least I'm getting that. The rest can wait. Rob

[goldensmom]

I had Windows 8 for a while before classic shell came out and got used to it. I prefer Windows 7 but found that Windows 8 has everything I used on Windows 7 but that I just had to look for it. Now that I'm used to it, I find that it's okay and did not do classic shell or update to Windows 8.1.

[iris lily]

Add me to the list of those who are unhappily using Windows 8 and I use the shell as well. We have a new computer at home and I haven't even completed my "to do" list of things that I can't get to work. Loading photos are on the list. It's been 2 months. This coincided with a change at work during the same period and I had to focus on learning the new things at work and didn't have interest to come home and learn them, too.

[Tradd]

Rob, glad that helped!