Windows 8 and PS/LR

I've searched for discussions here about it, but haven't found any. Has anyone been running PS and LR on a Win8

machine?

How's the "user experience"? Is it time to switch to an IMac?

Official release later this week - I

wonder how many peoe are actually

using W8? As far as whether its time to

switch to an Apple product it certainly

is not for me. I like their mobile

solutions but Macs have always driven

me crazy with their UI and desire to do

things fobme that I want to do for

myself. And W8 is going to have an

interesting impact on mobile devices

that could make those solutions less

Apple-centric.

<p>With a note that I haven't had time yet to use Win8 seriously.... but:<br>

Classic application, like Lightroom and Photoshop, will run in the 'classic desktop' mode in Windows 8, which is very much like Windows 7 (only the start button is missing). So, the user experience will not significantly change for these applications, as nothing in the applications themselves change. Shortcuts, menus, etc. - they all stay exactly as they are.</p>

<p>Whether it is time for an iMac, you need to decide for yourself. Like David, the MacOS UI does not really work for me, nor does a iMac-style all-in-one solution. What I've seen so far, I'll probably going to like Win8 quite a lot. So, certainly no iMac for me too. But my preferences are completely irrelevant for your decision there.</p>

<p>Note that if you "upgrade" to Win 8 from Vista or XP you will have to reinstall ALL your applications. Win 7 users don't have to reinstall.</p>

<p>There's no way I'm migrating from XP SP3 to Win 8. Just too much work and not enough payoff (if any). Even if they gave it away for free I still wouldn't do it. I suppose when software I really need starts coming out that won't work on XP, I might think about an update (or more likely just buy another PC).</p>

I tried W8. Not impressed - and this was on a pen tablet laptop so I got to try the UI a few different ways.. Maybe when

more apps compatible with the tile screen are available it will be better, but the main W8 UI seems like its actually for

touch tablets and running any regular program meant dropping into Windows 7 mode - which is pretty literal, it runs

Windows 7 like its in VMware or something.

I did try Elements and it did run in W7 mode. I don't have PS or LR running on Windows because my usual computer for

that sort of thing is a Mac with Aperture and Windows is for Office. Hard to say whether it was fast or anything like that. I

reverted to W7 pretty quickly because I didn't want to deal with the mode switching.

<p>Bob, I'm in the same situation as you with a couple of machines and considering dual boot with Win-8 if not too risky. </p>

<p>It just seems like a waste of hardware (in my case) when they're 64bit, capable of 8G RAM, Wacom screen, but running 32bit XP SP3. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Note that if you "upgrade" to Win 8 from Vista or XP you will have to reinstall ALL your applications.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Bob, I do a fresh install of EVERYTHING at least once a year. Sometimes all I do is place back a saved Norton Ghost image. With a SSD it doesn't take too long. It just depends if I saved a bunch of setting on my Ghost back up or not. If not then yes it can be annoying to put the settings back to the way I want them.</p>

<p>With my method my machine runs silky smooth and if I ever have any quirks I can just reinstall a saved clean image. I actually ran without an antivirus program for a long time. Never had any problems. The thing about a clean install or at least a clean install from an image is you don't have to be a computer super expert. Any time you have the slightest issue with your computer that is not solved by a few easy tricks you can just reach for that image and start over.</p>

I'm the same as Jeff. It'd be too wierd not doing a fresh install every 8 months or so. The crispness

of a fresh computer makes it so worthwhile. I can live without W8 but I'll give it a shot as I qualify

for the cheap upgrafes from W7. I was just reading a Mac forum and today's iMac announcement

has sure upset a few as its lost the dvd drive, didn't get a performance bump, but got a price

bump. One might be better off to get a rmbp and plug in a better monitor

I've depended on Window's support for "legacy" programs. They're part of my toolkit, my workflow and run well on Win 7. I've also not religiously upgraded major applications. So, moving on to Win 8 will cost me. My loyalty to Windows is summed up by the phrase "legacy support". Microsofts's decision to no longer do so, means I can consider a Mac.

There's a philosophical issue for me, whether the desktop and mobile devices can benefit from a unified GUI and OS. Like many power users, I'm unconvinced Microsoft, with Win 8, has my computing needs in mind. As best I can tell, Apple may see some convergence, but they maintain a distinction between the two, while Microsoft does not. Power users, including photographers, are a niche market, never of much concern to Microsoft, may be even less well served begining with Win 8.

Win 8, no matter its alternate classic GUI, indicates zero awareness of those of us who think 'workstation', rather than 'desktop'.

My question is has anyone been using the various pre-releases of Win8 for photo editing? How's it feel?

<p>When I bought my new computer it came with Vista which I promptly dumped and installed W7.<br>

Next my old computer crashed on me so I organised an XP Pro and had it installed on the new computer. When I boot up there is a menu asking me which system I want to use. XP is default of course but when I looked at Lightromm 4.2 and Elements 11 I found LR wouldn't work on XP and I guessed E11 wouldn't either so they are accessed through W7.<br>

Adobe bless them do not tell you LR will not install on anything earlier than Vista until after I wasted ten minutes or so downloading it. I was able to copy it to a memory stick and install it with W7.<br>

So maybe a clued up computer guy will be able to help you like the one that helped me :-)</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I've depended on Window's support for "legacy" programs. They're part of my toolkit, my workflow and run well on Win 7. I've also not religiously upgraded major applications. So, moving on to Win 8 will cost me. My loyalty to Windows is summed up by the phrase "legacy support". Microsofts's decision to no longer do so, means I can consider a Mac.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Is there any indication that your applications will not be supported in Win 8? Also if legacy support is your thing you may want to think twice about moving over to OS X... then think one more time and stay with Windows. Here is my story. I am a long time Windows user. I have Windows 7. Just as an experiment/hobby I decided to delve into the world of hackintoshing (OS X on PC hardware). So for almost two years I have been running OS X on my PC (dual boot with Win 7). Okay when I started I had to buy OS X 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard). I believe the DVD was $30 at my local Apple store. With some help from the good people at Insanelymac.com I got my dual boot hackintosh up and running. Well what do ya know Cupertino came out with OS X 10.7 (Lion) mere months after I bought Snow Leopard. Well that was another $30 I had to spend. Cupertino axed some of their apps and made new ones that only ran on OS X 10.7. Please refer to the Final Cut Pro debacle to see what pros thought about that. Well guess what? Like clockwork a year later OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) drops. I believe that was a $20 download. So in less than two years that is $80. Support dropped for multiple apps and 3 year old Apples that are not supported in the new OS. Can anyone name for me a time when Redmond pulled a maneuver like this? Seriously in less than two years we went from Snow Leopard being the latest and greatest OS X OS to Mountain Lion and in that short span of time support for multiple 3 year old macs was dropped. And I don't mean 3 year old macs could install the software and kind of work. I mean 3 year old macs wouldn't even install the OS.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Win 8, no matter its alternate classic GUI, indicates zero awareness of those of us who think 'workstation', rather than 'desktop'.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don, how so? You are saying no matter how good the "classic" GUI is nor no matter how well it satisfies your needs it is unacceptable?! That seems a little... unreasonable.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Power users, including photographers, are a niche market, never of much concern to Microsoft, may be even less well served begining with Win 8.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don, you may think photographers are "power users" and MSFT should sit up and take notice but I can assure you I have used MSFT products in life and death situations that are slightly more widespread and certainly more important than editing some photographs and I need my computer to work. Trust me MSFT has no intention of pissing off doctors, hedge fund managers, and NASA engineers that either have people's lives in their hands or billions of dollars on the line... or both. Why do you think the upgrade cycle for those professionals is so protracted? Why do you think XP is still supported while Snow Leopard isn't? I guarantee you Vista was not widely distributed in those environments because IT mangers said no way that is going on a production machine. MSFT knows real power users need something that is rock solid and has a long track record before they put it on a production machine. If you are disappointed with legacy support from MSFT get ready for some real tears with Cupertino. You've been warned.</p>

Jeff "Is there any indication that your applications will not be supported in Win 8?"

Because some don't run on 7. It's why I use XP.

Legacy wouldn't be an issue for me on a Mac because I don't own any Mac sw. Either Mac or Windows, I must buy sw. Microsoft isn't responsible. It's me.

"You are saying no matter how good the "classic" GUI is nor no matter how well it satisfies your needs it is unacceptable?! That seems a little... unreasonable."

I wrote, instead, "Win 8, no matter its alternate classic GUI, indicates zero awareness of those of us who think 'workstation', rather than 'desktop'."

Microsoft is into making (or designing? or is it branding?) its own hardware. They are not unveiling a workstation-class Microsoft-branded computer along with the new tablets and phones to sell in their brick 'n mortar.

"Trust me MSFT has no intention of pissing off doctors, hedge fund managers, and NASA engineers that either have people's lives in their hands or billions of dollars on the line... or both."

When I worked in 'the enterprise', in the industry with billions of dollars on the line, Windows replaced Wang minicomputers in 1995 there, not the IBM deathstar MVS mainframe that ran mission critical systems. You could use Windows for Office, email, the intranet, and view databases with MSAccess, but the money was on the mainframe.

I guess no one reading this has tested Win 8 with their image editing and management workflow.

<blockquote>

<p>Microsoft is into making (or designing? or is it branding?) its own hardware. They are not unveiling a workstation-class Microsoft-branded computer along with the new tablets and phones to sell in their brick 'n mortar.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Oh, I see. No there is absolutely zero chance of that. The only reason MSFT is making a tablet and possibly a phone is because it got it's clock cleaned in those categories in a few short years by Apple, a company that had been left for dead back in the 1990s. A so called "surface" phone is just a rumor. And the actual Surface tablet wouldn't exist if OEMs were churning out things that could compete with the ipad. My understanding is MSFT produced Win 8 and the Suface to show case it so that there was a mostly seamless environment from desktop to tablet to phone. They also wanted to stop and reverse the erosion of their profits by the ipad. I'm not aware of anything in the Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 universe that compromises the "workstation" user. And if you look at apple offerings desktop and workstation solutions are not their strong point. Visit any Macintosh forum and you will find it filled to the brim with people screaming, when will Apple update the Powermacs.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Adobe bless them do not tell you LR will not install on anything earlier than Vista...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Really? When I bought LR a few months back (after downloading a testdrive) I checked system requirements, found out LR 4 requires Vista/7, and bought a copy of LR 3 on eBay. Seemed pretty evident to me. Happily, LR 3 does everything I need.</p>

Those with a better memory than me should correct me, but I recall using PS7 on XP. Then the CS

series started and XP runs up to CS5? I don't know about anybody else, but that's a pretty good run for

XP to support all that. And certainly better than my apple friends that had to deal with apple's move

from Motorola to Intel and then just a while later, got left out of 64- bit Adobe products because apple,

with no notice to anyone, dropped 64-bit carbon. There's no way I would spend $2500 on the master suite and hope in the back of my mind that it can be loaded onto a Mac two years later.

<blockquote>

<p>There's no way I would spend $2500 on the master suite and hope in the back of my mind that it can be loaded onto a Mac two years later.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Eric - I see you are not feeling it. When you enter the iWorld, you leave these petty financial considerations to your credit card company. In the iWorld it's all about Lifestyle, it's all about Culture, it's all about Art!</p>

<p>Oh well, I guess that's why I am using Windows and balance my credit card at the end of each month ;-)</p>

<p>I know very few people who keep a computer long enough for Adobe to desupport it but also buy the newest Adobe products, or keep Adobe products long enough for them to not work on new computers but also buy new computers. I've certainly never had a problem with it. I think this is a problem that a very tiny fraction of Mac users experience.</p>

<p>Meanwhile Windows XP is 11 years old and we've got people writing here who still use it because... what, Microsoft hasn't made an OS that those users like in 11 years? I'll take my cheap plastic Windows PCs for work and my aluminum Macs that cost $1600, last me 5 years and get in-person tech support from Americans for everything else.</p>

<p><strong>"I think this is a problem that a very tiny fraction of Mac users experience."</strong><br>

<br>

Sure. But which ever the size of that fraction, it is certainly a larger one than what the Win users experience.<br>

<br>

<strong>"Meanwhile Windows XP is 11 years old and we've got people writing here who still use it because... what, Microsoft hasn't made an OS that those users like in 11 years?"</strong><br>

<br>

because...what, they've made an OS that users really like and have no reason to leave in 11 years? It speaks volumes, if it aint broke, don't fix it. It's a pretty remarkable OS when you consider how many vendors it has to accommodate for such an array of users for such a long period of time. Apple has a really simple job in comparison, yet it's still a new $30 OS every year for what boils down to really minor OS changes but they still get to inflict that "new os install pain" on you. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.</p>

<blockquote>

<p> In the iWorld it's all about Lifestyle, it's all about Culture, it's all about Art!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't you mean "iLifestyle", "iCulture", "iArt"? :-)</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>" it's all about Art!"</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>In the words of Goodby Silverstein Partners in advertising, it's Art serving Capitalism. </p>