Windows 7 or Windows 8 for Inventor 2014?

[NigelBriggs5097]

So, my nice, shiny new PC has arrived with all the good bits you'd expect to find in a *cough* mid-range build spec. But what operating system do I install?

It has to be a work machine and whilst my laptop has Windows 8 installed on it, I do find myself wandering off into social-media world from the Metro-style front screen, straight away after boot up. On my Windows 7 machine, I work all my projects through Explorer, with taskbar icons to drive all my Autodesk programs and I don't seem to have that same distraction.

Of course, everything will be 64-bit with plenty of RAM, but what operating system is going to keep me the most productive during my working day? It would also help if I'm not spending too much time looking around for new drivers and even worse, find drivers aren't yet Windows 8 compatible ...

Any thoughts, anybody?

Dare I also whisper "Vault" at the end of this thread?

[IS200]

Windows 8, then install Classic Shell from SourceForge. This not only gives you back a Start menu, but also lets you disable that attrocious metro thing on startup.

[DarrenP]

was this a bare bones pc with no OS on it?
or did it come with an OS on it?

[NigelBriggs5097]

Darren: It's a clean machine with no operating system. I have Windows 7 Pro and purchased several Windows 8 upgrade licences, when they were cheap back in January.

IS200: I'm not entirely sure I want to get too involved with modifying Windows shell's and creating an OS that looks more akin to Windows Vista. That's not for me. Just a straight choice between 7 and 8 for productivity is all I'm looking for.

I was really hoping some members would rant and rave about Windows 8 but they haven't, so I'm beginning to assume that some out there, like it!!!

[DarrenP]

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@NigelBriggs5097 wrote:

I was really hoping some members would rant and rave about Windows 8 but they haven't, so I'm beginning to assume that some out there, like it!!!

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i like it but i installed classic shell to get the start menu back and to disable boot to start screen

[NigelBriggs5097]

I might be tempted by Pokki but after a little searching through expert blogs, it appears Microsoft may be bringing back the Start menu and boot to desktop features in Windows 8.1 (possibly due in October).

[DarrenP]

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@NigelBriggs5097 wrote:

I might be tempted by Pokki but after a little searching through expert blogs, it appears Microsoft may be bringing back the Start menu and boot to desktop features in Windows 8.1 (possibly due in October).

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not entirely true about the start menu
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57586786-75/for-windows-8.1-a-half-step-toward-a-start-button/

[NigelBriggs5097]

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not entirely true about the start menu
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57586786-75/for-windows-8.1-a-half-step-toward-a-start-button/

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Haha! And so the ranting begins!!!

Darren, do you use Inventor 2014 on Windows 8 and have you had any issues with workflow? Do you find it just as quick to navigate around WIndows 8 as you did in Windows 7?

[DarrenP]

there are known issues on windows 8 like these

Application Functionality

• On Windows 8 operating system, the Application window temporarily goes black when some resource demanding operations are performed

Express Mode

• On Windows 8 operating system, the Application window intermittently goes black
  when you switch from Express Mode to Full Mode for large datasets.

there is also an update 1 for inventor 2014 here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=21503391&linkID=9242019

[DarrenP]

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@NigelBriggs5097 wrote:

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Do you find it just as quick to navigate around WIndows 8 as you did in Windows 7?

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yes i do

i guess it depends on hardware

[WORKSTATIONresearch]

What I've discovered is that Windows 8 uses a new technology called UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), which is meant as a replacement for the BIOS.  This means that your hard drive will not allow dual-booting unless careful attention is paid to compatibility, which is one way to decide whether you prefer Windows 8 or Windows 7.  The reason for this is that your drive will be formatted with a number of recovery partitions that are incompatible with Windows 7.  I almost got Windows 7 to install until I got a message that the installation could not continue because of drive incompatibility (something to do with UEFI and GPT).

What I'm now thinking I'm forced to do is to format the whole 1 TB drive and install Win-7 Pro on it.  Be aware that you cannot dual boot unless you have both Win-7 PRO and Win-8 PRO.  Microsoft shows this on their compatibility chart for upgrade, which at this point I'm not sure even at this point whether a dual-boot will be possible, given BIOS restrictions.  Some of what describes UEFI appears to indicate that when Windows 8 is installed in a partition that is the result of a Windows 7 installation on another partition that there will be backward compatibility.  Others have described this as potential data corruption of previous Windows 7 files, or maybe the whole hard disk.  Be sure to back up.

I'm no expert on where all of this might lead.  Hopefully someone here has the answers.

Also, you said: "...I do find myself wandering off into social-media world from the Metro-style front screen..."

I just had to replace my workstation due to a catastrophic failure, which was solely being used as a research tool for an Inventor capable workstation on a large project.  I bought for the purpose a capable replacement for the task pre-installed with Windows 8.  Thereupon I was confronted with the blizzard of Microsoft apps that did nothing but get in the way of what I wanted to accomplish.  Accordingly I would suggest:

Open what now appears as a "Start" shortcut on the lower left corner of the screen.  That opens a subset of the installed apps.  Then right click (left if you're left-handed) on the lower border.  A circular dime-sized object appears on the lower right corner with a representation of the next screen with all the apps on it.  If you click on that all the installed apps appear.  Then right click on any of the apps and a checkmark will appear on the upper right of the shortcut which activates options on the bottom border of the screen.  One of those options will be (most times, except when MS demands it remain) "Uninstall".