Playing with a new OS is much cheaper than many other sports today.
I like to use a little script called "Reboot Timer" to see if a certain 'Tweak' or performance tip is actually making the PC more efficient, or if it's having a negative effect. I like to keep a log sheet, showing a certain Tweak or adjustment and then the reboot time after that change is made. That gives me 'Real Time' feedback as to whether I'm gaining or loosing.
Back in the 8088 days (anyone remember those?) I used a stopwatch, to measure boot time. I wish I'd had a program like the reboot timer back then. It could have been done with a batch file, maybe.
Still on memory lane, does anyone remember the 1200 Baud Hayes Modem? (Pre-Internet days)
I built my first PC from spare parts and it had only 64k of ram memory and a 20 meg hard drive.
One thing to consider in speed testing the Win-8/DP OS, it comes with very little bloat. It does however come with a sizable Driver Store.
As for running various software, so far I've had no problems EXCEPT when trying to install Anti-Virus software.
My old favorite AV program, AVG 2012 Internet Security (or even AVG FREE) installed up to a point and then logged an error and the install was halted.
I then tried Avast AV (not my favorite) and got a message telling me that there were 'Incompatibilities' with that program. Again the install aborted. Win-8 actually performed a recovery, on reboot, sort of like an automatic System Restore.
So right now, all the real time protection I've got on Win-8 is 'Malware Bytes'. For passive protection I'm using Spybot Search & Destroy and Spyware Blaster.
I'm confident though, that by the time Win-8 is ready for the store shelves, all those little 'incompatibilities' will be ironed out.
Just at first glance, it would appear that the more a program has to get into (write to) the registry, the more likely it will fail.
Programs that are registry IN'dependent seem to run just fine. I copied "Sol.exe & Cards.dll" over from XP and the classic Solitaire runs like a champ. But,
AVG Tune-Up ran fine till it came to re-writing the LAN spec's in the registry. (optimize the internet connection) Then I got a message that it could not write to the registry. That was a big disappointment to me.
I'm anxious to see the next version of Windows 8.......
Happy Holidays Everyone!
I have been running it as a vm since mid-Sept. It is, certainly, interesting, very fast, slick & w/ some features & changes that are quite a voyage of discovery. I am anxious to see what I'll get once start actually testing the Beta, which is yet to be made available to us from MS. Right now I am only using the Developer Preview. 1 neat thing about it is Spell Check, that is normally (in the past) available in OFFICE (Word, etc) is everywhere; even as I write this note.
