New Laptop, Same OS

The new Acer got here today, and I'm pleased to say I don't miss True HD (1920x1080).  This 17" behemoth running 1600x900 is A-OK by me, and given what I HAVE been playing video games with, I think I'll be ok there, too.

But, I did cheat.  I've been running a Solid State, SATA III 120GB drive in my PC for a while now, waiting for the day I'd have a machine that actually HAS SATA III.  Guess what?  This Acer now boots in 10 seconds, and since it has a 2nd HDD bay, I still have my 1TB of storage :)

But, to do it, I had to re-install Windows to the new drive.  I played around with Windows 8 beforehand, though... I guess it's not designed for me.  I hated it.  I'll elaborate a bit, but I couldn't see a single reason I'd want it.

Firstly, I'm jaded.  When I installed Windows 7, I was expecting the same old thing.  Within 10 minutes I had been confused by something and decided to give Windows Help a shot... and it WORKED.  I then noticed the search box in the start menu, and launched Chrome with 2 key strokes.  I had heard about docking windows with Windows Key + arrow, and tried it, and it was SMOOTH.

So, tl;dr: Windows 7 made me smile 3 times in the first 10 minutes.

Windows 8 made me frustrated 5 times in as many minutes.  First, I used IE from the Home Menu to go out to Chrome's website and kick off its download.  I think I hit escape, or windows key, or something and it ended up taking me to the Windows Desktop, which was jarring as hell because I thought Windows8 was JUST that start menu interface.  Anyway, I wanted to get back to my Chrome download, so I opened IE from the taskbar... only to find that it was a totally different IE.  What the hell?  I installed it and tapped the Windows key and started typing "CH..." like I'm used to, only to find that the new Start Menu came back (it was at THIS point I realized that the blocky interface was ACTUALLY the new Start Menu, not just some overlay thing).

"Great!  It's got a nice search interface, I can dig that."  I thought, until I wanted to see why my mouse side-scroll wasn't working.  I did what I would on Win7: tap the Windows key and type "mouse," only to see that it found no results... because Win8 doesn't search ANYTHING except for apps by default.

So, first Microsoft borrows one of Apples biggest boons, Spotlight Search, and then tries to improve on it by... splitting it up?  I don't understand it.

I never found out how to just enable the extra touchpad features.  Why?  Because when I went into the settings screen to try and adjust the Search and Mouse and whatever else settings, I realized I was stuck in an infinite loop.  I could either go to the useless start menu, or to the settings.  There was no close, no save, no cancel, no X, no NOTHING to get rid of it.  I eventually just started a random app in hopes it would bring me back to the Desktop.

Ugh.  It was at this point I tried to shut down, only to realize it was IN THE SAME CURSED SETTINGS AREA.  The next time the computer booted it was to a Windows 7 Install disk.

On the Hardware

I'm digging almost everything about this laptop so far.  The exception is that I keep nudging the touchpad.  I'm sure I'll condition myself soon to avoid it, but it's made for some tricky typing so far.

I do miss the Tracking Nub, and the backlit keyboard, but I think I'll adapt to those as well.  All-in-all, a frakin' AWESOME rig for $850!