Windows 8 Desktop mode

rossiboy001

rossiboy001

rossiboy001

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6 Jan 2011
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893
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Stoke on Trent
Have buried my head in the sand , but I think the upgrade £25 offer runs out this month , its time to make decision to upgrade .
I use the PC for office work and gaming .
Will the drivers be significantly better for gaming long term , How long will support for w7 last , perhaps till W9 ?
The W8 software checker thing from the website , says I will lose fraps or get a payed update ?, and desktop gadgets along media centre which I use a lot .with a tv card .
Are there good alternatives in w8 for those , I overclock and run SLI so I like to have the on screen information all the time in the corner of one of my three screens in surround .
Seems to me ill be losing a lot , to gain a couple of FPS perhaps with better drivers that maybe sometime in the future .
Also running different apps , I see a lot of youtube videos that say that the sizes you can run pages or files is limited to set sizes , not like W7 where you can adjust by dragging the edges to suit . Though all i find is this being shown in metro , not the desktop mode , Is the desktop mode the same as W7 and i can size everything how i want it , making it easy"r to drop and drag ect and have multiple things open .
These are all the issues I need to answer before deciding to upgrade , or not to downgrade to w8 depending on your view .
 
Media centre is available as a free add-on for the pro version of windows 8, but only until around the end of January and you have to go to a certain site to acquire a key (the link is hovering around this section of the forum somewhere).

As for fraps, you might be better off going to the site of the company that created it to see about windows 8 compatibility (I wouldn't trust the upgrade assistant when it states that there's a paid upgrade available for a program since it did the same for an older version of skype), and you won't lose it if you're upgrading from windows 7 and select keep everything (I thing it'll keep all the programs).

And if memory serves, windows 7 will be supported for at least three years.
 
Window management in desktop mode is almost exactly the same as 7.

Windows 8 is much improved out of the box for multiple monitors.

Mainstream support for Windows 7 will be up in a couple of years, but extended support phase goes all the way to 2020.

You will probably hate the fact that you currently can't pin the Start screen open to one monitor (if you upgrade)
 
Ditch fraps and use MSI Afterburner, it's got everything fraps has and more.

There's no such thing as "desktop mode", there's the Windows 8 desktop, which is everything underneath the new start screen.

The Windows 8 desktop has every function that Windows 7 had, and more. Nothing is restricted, it just has additional functionality, so everything you can do in 7 you can do in 8.

You can get Media Centre as a free add on so you'll be able to continue to use your TV card.

How come you keep putting a space in front of full stops, commas, question marks, and exclamation marks?

Chrisoldinho said:
On my Eyefinity setup, if I change to extended desktop mode, and launch the "start" screen, this locks to the 3rd screen on my display, leaving the other two in desktop mode.
Click to expand...

It doesn't "lock" it, it simply opens on only one screen at a time when using extended desktop. "Eyefinity" or spanned displays is awful for desktop usage anyway, it's best for games and games only. Extended desktop is much more useful and functional for Windows desktop.
 
Thanks Guys . Can get media as a free add on ? Is that automatic ?
Lol Spoffle , Am I doing something wrong , maybe , To me it dont look right without a space , maybe its my eyes . If I was handwritting though your way looks to close , mine to far , shame computers cant move half a space .

Ok So last of all fair enough I can ditch fraps , But how pratical is W8 for overclocking . Iv got my i2700k set to 4.5ghz and SLI 680"s with factory overclocks . Does Core temp still work ? I Find the core temp , and GPU gadgets comforting so I can see out of the corner of my eye whats going on , Like when driving your main FOV is the screen , but its good to glance at your temps and revs ect once in a while . Mind I know Its hardly useful just right now typing and browsing , Not exactly taxing until I get into a game ect then there gone .
Is there alternatives , but if not more importantly will core temp still work , so I can review that directly not from a gadget ?
Thanks Again
 
Honestly I haven't regretted windows 8 one little bit.

The start menu is easy to use and does make sense and the desktop is excellent now you can move the task bar so the clock is on your second screen
 
Core Temp (I use RC4) works as normal, as does GPU-Z and CPU-Z.

I have SLI 680 and EVGA precision X also allows easy over clocking.


Hope that helps :)
 
Just to say iv upgraded , Was a bit of hard work at first cause i thought ill try the easy way and just let it upgrade itself like ubuntu , but it froze , of course after it asked me to remove all the USB 3 drivers , and me mouse would not work so I couldnt do jack until digging out an old mouse , rebooting several times and trying all the USB"s but eventually one worked albeit very slowly , but it saved me from giving up and repairing with me W7 disk .
Just cant get my logitech centre speaker to work of my 5.1 system, even though it test out good with the sound configuration thing in programs n features .
Also havent figured how to reduce the taskbar to the center screen and not span all 3 of the surround
Sure the first ill prob find in a driver update , the second maybe im just missing something , it was in the options at the top in nvidia control panel .
But on first impressions , feels a bit better, smoother , looks a little smarter deff worth £25 not sure about the cost of a full disk upgrade though , right of to try sort out media center .
Thanks again all
 
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