After Bumpy Start, Microsoft Rethinks Windows 8

[A mali]

I do like it's faster, but I do want to bring back the old look of Windows 7 and I don't really want to try to open stuff and change stuff to get that.

[PERUVIAN FOLK BAND]

sorry but the only thing i could think of while reading this is "the struggle is real"

[Straight Ace]

Eisefin

• I don't have a touch screen. I use a mouse. Windows 8 is fine.
  People need to stop bitching.
  
  

Real talk right here

When people complained about vista or ME, at least there were legitimate points (generally slower, being the #1) Every complaint I've heard about 8 though, boils down to one thing. Start screen 2 hard.

And it's really not. On your first boot of a windows 8 computer it gives you a run down of the changes, one of which is how to search. So within the first minute you can search anything that might have been in your start menu>pin it to start, and ding. The start screen now has all the functionality of the of the almighty start menu. I'll give that it was clearly designed with touch technology in mind, but it in no way impedes or discourages the use of a mouse.

Even things like facebook and gaia layout changes show people are metathesiophobic by nature. Win8 isn't worse, just different. As for any learning curve that's just the very presence of having to learn something new on the basic level, I genuinely question that if you found someone unfamiliar with windows entirely that they'd find windows 8 much (if at all) harder than 7.

[David2074]

Eisefin

• I don't have a touch screen. I use a mouse. Windows 8 is fine.
  People need to stop bitching.
  
  

I'm glad for you that your happy with Windows 8. Most people are not.
And given that the Microsoft more or less has a lock on the market yes, I feel entitled to b***h when they screw it up. I don't want an overpriced Mac and while I have used various flavors of Unix I don't really want to deal with it. The majority of off the shelf software these days is programmed for Windows and I'm not interested in tweaking. So I'm kind of stuck with Windows. Also, unless I go out of my way purchase a laptop or PC without an OS or with unix (limited choices there) then you are paying for windows as part of the purchase.

[Jeremy Kaji]

2sarahgate

Jeremy Kaji

David2074

Keltoi Samurai

they're basically admitting to polishing up a turd for us to buy.

LOL! That's not a first for MS. Windows ME anyone?

Windows Vista anyone?

i prefer my six year old windows vista sony vaio over my two month old windows 8 samsung. O_o
but i think my hard drive is starting to fail, so i finally have to transfer over soon... i heard the click of death. domokun stargate

Hard drives are cheap my friend. and if you have restore media it will be a quick and painless transition.

And Samsung? how can you stand those devices? looks way to Mac clone as of late to me. [/opinion]

And for the record most people gripe with vista is it was slow. but that was because it was ahead of it's time. At it's launch Vista had some rather hefty requirements (higher than was shown on the box) that even MOST XP machines of the time didn't have. Add on top of that, the OEMs barely put anything into those vista machines (not enough RAM, anemic hard drive space, slow processors (even for the time) It was no wonder that Vista was seen as a flop. 7 was Vista with the requirements cut down to make it fit the hardware availability and popularity (netbooks gag...). check through all the options in the OS versions, you'll see what I mean. the only really noticeable difference between vista and 7 is a tweak to the task bar. (especially after that patch that killed the sidebar/widgits.)

[Jeremy Kaji]

David2074

Also, unless I go out of my way purchase a laptop or PC without an OS or with unix (limited choices there) then you are paying for windows as part of the purchase.

ever hear of system76? or zareason? both give Linux based systems, no windows licenses involved though I think that Ubuntu is pretty much the norm with those though I have seen Fedora and some others. Dell I think still does Open sourse computing and gives an $80 dollar discount for buying them, but good luck finding your way to that section of dell's website. (options last I saw that part of their site was No OS, freeDOS, Ubuntu) and the warranties only covered hardware damage that isn't caused by Linux tweaking.

[David2074]

Jeremy Kaji

David2074

Also, unless I go out of my way purchase a laptop or PC without an OS or with unix (limited choices there) then you are paying for windows as part of the purchase.

ever hear of system76? or zareason? both give Linux based systems, no windows licenses involved though I think that Ubuntu is pretty much the norm with those though I have seen Fedora and some others. Dell I think still does Open sourse computing and gives an $80 dollar discount for buying them, but good luck finding your way to that section of dell's website. (options last I saw that part of their site was No OS, freeDOS, Ubuntu) and the warranties only covered hardware damage that isn't caused by Linux tweaking.

But I don't want a Linux system because it is always swimming upstream. That new software might be compatible - or not. That new game may work great or you may have some incompatibility issue you don't find out about until way in. When you have an issue and try to look up a fix or a patch they are typically geared for windows. If you use a wide variety of software you are frequently researching what will work and/or trying to make it work.

Admittedly I have not gone this route in several years. Things may be better now. But back when I was supporting lots of systems some of our customers went this route and at times they would run into issues with software they needed for their business where something tweaked just enough to be a major problem but worked fine on the windows PCs in their business. I've worked with hardware cards / peripherals where the flavor of Unix made a difference in whether it worked. Our accounting software worked great in Xenix and SCO Unix but for some reason on the RS6000 Unix it would sometimes toss in an extra penny on just one side of the ledger that made it impossible for the customer to balance their books unless we manually removed it for them.
I suppose my point is that when developing software and hardware unexpected oddities can pop up but the majority of QA testing is done for the Windows and Mac environments and so are the fixes because that's where the most $$ are attached in terms of customer base.

My personal experience with Linux flavors is very limited. My hands on was mostly with Xenix, RS6000 Unix, SCO Unix. There is not doubt they were definitely more powerful OS's than Windows. Especially the SCO Unix. There are things I could do in Unix I wish I could do in Windows. But for my usage patterns I just don't want to deal with the BS of 'making it work'. I certainly have no problem with others using them. In fact I applaud it. Let MS know they are not the only game in town. (Sorry Mac users - I know you are out there too)

[David2074]

Straight Ace

Eisefin

• I don't have a touch screen. I use a mouse. Windows 8 is fine.
  People need to stop bitching.
  
  

Real talk right here

When people complained about vista or ME, at least there were legitimate points (generally slower, being the #1) Every complaint I've heard about 8 though, boils down to one thing. Start screen 2 hard.

And it's really not. On your first boot of a windows 8 computer it gives you a run down of the changes, one of which is how to search. So within the first minute you can search anything that might have been in your start menu>pin it to start, and ding. The start screen now has all the functionality of the of the almighty start menu. I'll give that it was clearly designed with touch technology in mind, but it in no way impedes or discourages the use of a mouse.

Even things like facebook and gaia layout changes show people are metathesiophobic by nature. Win8 isn't worse, just different. As for any learning curve that's just the very presence of having to learn something new on the basic level, I genuinely question that if you found someone unfamiliar with windows entirely that they'd find windows 8 much (if at all) harder than 7.

Your opinion and I respect your right to have it.
A lot of folks disagree with you. Yes, folks tend to grumble about change. At the same time change for the sake of change is not progress. More than once MS has been guilty of drastically changing the look of their products to beef up the appearance of more functional change than there really was - to justify it being a 'new' version instead of just an upgrade to the old one. This isn't just my opinion. There are plenty of professional reviews out there that say if you are not using touch screen there is no compelling reason to upgrade to Windows 8. I suspect most folks buying it are doing so simply because they 'had to' because it came on a new computer and they don't have the knowledge or desire to screw with wiping their OS and loading 7 or some flavor of Linux.

Some of the features in Windows 8 are good - especially if you are actually using a touch screen. Some of the changes - including the start menu - are completely unnecessary. So was 'hiding' the shutdown command. Yes, you can learn it but there is no need to force people to do so. I installed OldShell for my friend and put a lot of the old features back while keeping the new features. In terms of the general layout / look I prefer Windows 7. That's not about 'change'. If they both came out at the same time and I had to get used to either one I prefer the look and feel of 7.

Possibly you are too young to remember when one of Microsoft's major selling points for Windows (and Office) was how they maintained the look and feel across versions and you didn't have to relearn it when you upgraded. They have long since abandoned that philosophy in favor of 'make every product look shiny new to justify forcing people to upgrade'.
My Office 2003 still works just fine on Windows 7. According to MS's support site it is not compatible with Windows 8 even though the old one does everything I need just fine. Since it works just great in my 64 bit Windows 7 I consider that planned obsolescence rather than a true technical problem but at least I got a 10 year run out of it. Sad though because I like the menus in 2003 better than the latter versions and I hate having to pay good money for casual use of Word, Excel and Outlook. (and INB4 - no, I don't want openoffice but thanks.)
(On a more encouraging note I do find folks in the internet saying that while Office 2003 breaks a Windows 8 upgrade, Office 2003 works fine on WIN 8. I guess I'll find out when I'm forced to move to 8 on an new computer)

[Jeremy Kaji]

David2074

Jeremy Kaji

David2074

Also, unless I go out of my way purchase a laptop or PC without an OS or with unix (limited choices there) then you are paying for windows as part of the purchase.

ever hear of system76? or zareason? both give Linux based systems, no windows licenses involved though I think that Ubuntu is pretty much the norm with those though I have seen Fedora and some others. Dell I think still does Open sourse computing and gives an $80 dollar discount for buying them, but good luck finding your way to that section of dell's website. (options last I saw that part of their site was No OS, freeDOS, Ubuntu) and the warranties only covered hardware damage that isn't caused by Linux tweaking.

But I don't want a Linux system because it is always swimming upstream. That new software might be compatible - or not. That new game may work great or you may have some incompatibility issue you don't find out about until way in. When you have an issue and try to look up a fix or a patch they are typically geared for windows. If you use a wide variety of software you are frequently researching what will work and/or trying to make it work.

Admittedly I have not gone this route in several years. Things may be better now. But back when I was supporting lots of systems some of our customers went this route and at times they would run into issues with software they needed for their business where something tweaked just enough to be a major problem but worked fine on the windows PCs in their business. I've worked with hardware cards / peripherals where the flavor of Unix made a difference in whether it worked. Our accounting software worked great in Xenix and SCO Unix but for some reason on the RS6000 Unix it would sometimes toss in an extra penny on just one side of the ledger that made it impossible for the customer to balance their books unless we manually removed it for them.
I suppose my point is that when developing software and hardware unexpected oddities can pop up but the majority of QA testing is done for the Windows and Mac environments and so are the fixes because that's where the most $$ are attached in terms of customer base.

My personal experience with Linux flavors is very limited. My hands on was mostly with Xenix, RS6000 Unix, SCO Unix. There is not doubt they were definitely more powerful OS's than Windows. Especially the SCO Unix. There are things I could do in Unix I wish I could do in Windows. But for my usage patterns I just don't want to deal with the BS of 'making it work'. I certainly have no problem with others using them. In fact I applaud it. Let MS know they are not the only game in town. (Sorry Mac users - I know you are out there too)

I'll give you that, but zareason has the no OS option too so you can load whatever you wish once it arrives. Or just get it with a linux and whipe the hard drive, that way you know the hardware is working in the first place upon arrival. Some of what is offered is pretty powerful. And there is nothing forcing you to keep linux on the machines, not even the warranty.

[David2074]

Jeremy Kaji

I'll give you that, but zareason has the no OS option too so you can load whatever you wish once it arrives. Or just get it with a linux and whipe the hard drive, that way you know the hardware is working in the first place upon arrival. Some of what is offered is pretty powerful. And there is nothing forcing you to keep linux on the machines, not even the warranty.

Okay, thanks for the info. I actually wasn't familiar with the zareason brand.
For the foreseeable future I'll probably stick to windows laptops (I'm pretty happy with my Toshiba i7 core) but I'll keep it in mind.

Perhaps it is getting older but these days I'm less interested in tweaking and learning new systems and more interested in just having my s**t work out of the box. I used to build my own systems from scratch and overclock and tweak and play around with the OS and such. Now I just want to load my internet and type my letters and email and such. I'm a more boring computer customer than I used to be. smile

[Lupa Fangs]

I hope all these "upgrades" come to users who have purchased the windows 8 like me.

I really didn't want to get one. I told my friend that I wanted a windows 7 quad core. No it doesn't have faster running, but with the way I like to open multiple programs I can do that with a quad core. On a dual core I was barely able to do that, but I didn't.

Still my friend who is in college swore by the window 8 and I got it. I did get a good deal, but after a while of using it I didn't like it.

Yes I was quick to learn it, but I didn't like that it didn't have a start button. I went so far to add one. I also installed a program called skip metro which allowed me to skip the metro screen. I still use it, but I like the desktop to show up first because admiringly I use that more often. Really it's kind of silly that I have metro, but I guess it does serve some purpose. I use it to play youtube play lists without the ads when I am "djing" or something like that. I am not a profession, but it's fun to listen to stuff without the annoying adds.

Another beef that I had with the system is the camera comparability. At first window 8 was not compatible with built in cameras in that the picture would show upside down. I was kind of miffed after I had just got a computer with a built in camera to find out the programming didn't work with it.

I would love it though if the metro worked in the background of the metro. The metro to me is a lot like the ipod thing in that programs don't work in the background. (except on the desktop) That can be annoying when I run apps. It's way I like my android phone so much. I can run music apps in the background of other apps I am currently using. Metro... you can't do that.

I would also like something to be able to shut off the hot spots on my mouse. In that I mean if you swipe a certain way it opens the charms bar or the start screen. I don't like that. When editing with just the laptop mouse that severely gets in in the way.

[Jeremy Kaji]

David2074

Jeremy Kaji

I'll give you that, but zareason has the no OS option too so you can load whatever you wish once it arrives. Or just get it with a linux and whipe the hard drive, that way you know the hardware is working in the first place upon arrival. Some of what is offered is pretty powerful. And there is nothing forcing you to keep linux on the machines, not even the warranty.

Okay, thanks for the info. I actually wasn't familiar with the zareason brand.
For the foreseeable future I'll probably stick to windows laptops (I'm pretty happy with my Toshiba i7 core) but I'll keep it in mind.

Perhaps it is getting older but these days I'm less interested in tweaking and learning new systems and more interested in just having my s**t work out of the box. I used to build my own systems from scratch and overclock and tweak and play around with the OS and such. Now I just want to load my internet and type my letters and email and such. I'm a more boring computer customer than I used to be. smile

Ah overclocking, I haven't done that since the days of the pentium... but screwing with the with OS is something I do on a daily basis.

I got a windows XP box that runs at 19 processes comfortably. Granted it doesn't have much in the form of protections but it doesn't see the internet so it doesn't matter.

Currently though the most powerful computer I have has an AMD Turion X2 Neo in it... running at 1.6 ghz the Processor is basically just a Turion X2 that runs at a reduced power level and has slim to no overclocking ability. I got that because I wanted something simple that wouldn't have GNU linux blocked, not that I would use Linux on it, but I did recently when it crashed hard on me. Used it for file recovery that hadn't been backed up for a while... I fell behind on my backup schedule xp

I'm not sure however what my next computer will have in it, do you have any suggestions as to what hardware I should look into? (gamer, internet, power for the sake of longer run before obsolete.) I figure you have been looking into that sort of thing or have some knowledge on the subject.

[Jeremy Kaji]

Lupa Fangs Makucha

I hope all these "upgrades" come to users who have purchased the windows 8 like me.

I really didn't want to get one. I told my friend that I wanted a windows 7 quad core. No it doesn't have faster running, but with the way I like to open multiple programs I can do that with a quad core. On a dual core I was barely able to do that, but I didn't.

Still my friend who is in college swore by the window 8 and I got it. I did get a good deal, but after a while of using it I didn't like it.

Yes I was quick to learn it, but I didn't like that it didn't have a start button. I went so far to add one. I also installed a program called skip metro which allowed me to skip the metro screen. I still use it, but I like the desktop to show up first because admiringly I use that more often. Really it's kind of silly that I have metro, but I guess it does serve some purpose. I use it to play youtube play lists without the ads when I am "djing" or something like that. I am not a profession, but it's fun to listen to stuff without the annoying adds.

Another beef that I had with the system is the camera comparability. At first window 8 was not compatible with built in cameras in that the picture would show upside down. I was kind of miffed after I had just got a computer with a built in camera to find out the programming didn't work with it.

I would love it though if the metro worked in the background of the metro. The metro to me is a lot like the ipod thing in that programs don't work in the background. (except on the desktop) That can be annoying when I run apps. It's way I like my android phone so much. I can run music apps in the background of other apps I am currently using. Metro... you can't do that.

I would also like something to be able to shut off the hot spots on my mouse. In that I mean if you swipe a certain way it opens the charms bar or the start screen. I don't like that. When editing with just the laptop mouse that severely gets in in the way.

Lets see. The Camera thing was probably a rotational setting, still something that shouldn't have to be messed with by default.

Apps not running in the background? not actually true, there was something a Microsoft rep told me that had to do with swiping the app off screen to close it, otherwise it just minimizes within metro and hangs out in RAM. But I see where you might be coming from with the IOS similarity though. but I see it more akin to an Android similarity other than the security differences.

Microsoft wasn't first to have a "Desktop" OS have a mobile like interface. they were just the first to make it mandatory to look at it by default. Mac OS 10.7 has launchpad which is very similar to an Ipad's interface for launching apps. it's sort of cool but at least you don't have to use it if you don't want to. And Gnome 3 (a linux Desktop environment) had a full screen application launcher as soon as it was released. It's just another case of Microsoft taking good ideas and messing them up completely... That and the fact that they wanted to make the interface similar all across the board all the way down to the windows phones. (even the Xbox360 has a tile interface.)

As for the mouse issues... I have no solution as the hotspots on the screen were copied (poorly) from Mac OS which for that OS you could adjust what the "CORNERS" of the screen did.

[David2074]

Jeremy Kaji

David2074

Jeremy Kaji

I'll give you that, but zareason has the no OS option too so you can load whatever you wish once it arrives. Or just get it with a linux and whipe the hard drive, that way you know the hardware is working in the first place upon arrival. Some of what is offered is pretty powerful. And there is nothing forcing you to keep linux on the machines, not even the warranty.

Okay, thanks for the info. I actually wasn't familiar with the zareason brand.
For the foreseeable future I'll probably stick to windows laptops (I'm pretty happy with my Toshiba i7 core) but I'll keep it in mind.

Perhaps it is getting older but these days I'm less interested in tweaking and learning new systems and more interested in just having my s**t work out of the box. I used to build my own systems from scratch and overclock and tweak and play around with the OS and such. Now I just want to load my internet and type my letters and email and such. I'm a more boring computer customer than I used to be. smile

Ah overclocking, I haven't done that since the days of the pentium... but screwing with the with OS is something I do on a daily basis.

I got a windows XP box that runs at 19 processes comfortably. Granted it doesn't have much in the form of protections but it doesn't see the internet so it doesn't matter.

Currently though the most powerful computer I have has an AMD Turion X2 Neo in it... running at 1.6 ghz the Processor is basically just a Turion X2 that runs at a reduced power level and has slim to no overclocking ability. I got that because I wanted something simple that wouldn't have GNU linux blocked, not that I would use Linux on it, but I did recently when it crashed hard on me. Used it for file recovery that hadn't been backed up for a while... I fell behind on my backup schedule xp

I'm not sure however what my next computer will have in it, do you have any suggestions as to what hardware I should look into? (gamer, internet, power for the sake of longer run before obsolete.) I figure you have been looking into that sort of thing or have some knowledge on the subject.

Okay, the TL/DR answer is no, I don't know what to advise you to get.
Years ago I owned a one man computer consulting business and in addition to going around to businesses doing maintenance and repairs I would build and sell systems or at least advise people on what to get (depending on the situation). Back then I stayed up on the specs of every new chip, RAM, motherboard, graphics card - blah - blah - blah. I knew which standard processes were necessary and which were bloated nothingness slowing down your computer.
These days - not so much. When I need to purchase a computer for me or a friend I feel like I'm practically researching it from scratch.

My current laptop is an i7 core at 2 Ghz and 8 gigs of ram. I've been pretty happy with that, especially in a laptop, especially since I purchased it two or three years ago. Due to unavailability of serious internet I don't play online games but I'm pretty sure it would do okay. It does do pretty good for stand alone games like Oblivion (have not played Skyrim yet) or Bioshock or.. trying to think of some others. Assassin's Creed looked good but never finished the game because I hated the movement interface.

I used to buy 'the fastest' but long ago decided it is much more economical to purchase about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the food chain. You pay a lot extra for being one of the first to have the latest and greatest. I mentally equate it to purchasing a brand new car instead of a late model car a year or two old. You can get what is effectively a new car for a huge chunk less money. With computers typically in 6 to 8 months your 'fastest' no longer is and with the money you saved by buying 'mostly the fastest' you can afford to upgrade to what was the fastest since it is now a lot cheaper.

These days I'm not even playing that game. I rarely upgrade anything since I moved to laptops. That's the crappy internet thing. A laptop is easy for me to take some place with high speed for downloading windows and other necessary updates. But laptops are not the sacrifice in speed they once were. Time marches on and my i7 laptop will run circles around any desktop I have owned. If absolute best gaming speed was my main concern I'd still go desktop and customize the box but I consider today's laptops a good compromise for the other benefits you get. I do carry a wireless keyboard and mouse with me because I'm not keen on laptop keyboards / mousepad. Also, at home I use an external monitor or sometimes hook it up to my plasma widescreen TV.

One thing I do like about where technology has gone is that with the exception of high demand uses like hard core gaming or lots of video editing - you can just about walk into a PC store, close your eyes and point and get a computer that will at least do the job. Back in the day some computers were slow dogs even for stuff like word processing. Stuff is fast enough now that is no longer the case.

I'm sorry I don't have any good specific advice. I'm too out of touch.
I don't know you personally but one thing I would say is don't let ego or an over zealous salesman influence your purchasing decision. Buy what you need that will do the job well, don't pay extra just for 'bragging rights'. When considering what to buy that is faster so it will last longer try to guesstimate total cost of ownership. Money you save now can be applied to being able to upgrade later.

[Jeremy Kaji]

David2074

Jeremy Kaji

David2074

Jeremy Kaji

I'll give you that, but zareason has the no OS option too so you can load whatever you wish once it arrives. Or just get it with a linux and whipe the hard drive, that way you know the hardware is working in the first place upon arrival. Some of what is offered is pretty powerful. And there is nothing forcing you to keep linux on the machines, not even the warranty.

Okay, thanks for the info. I actually wasn't familiar with the zareason brand.
For the foreseeable future I'll probably stick to windows laptops (I'm pretty happy with my Toshiba i7 core) but I'll keep it in mind.

Perhaps it is getting older but these days I'm less interested in tweaking and learning new systems and more interested in just having my s**t work out of the box. I used to build my own systems from scratch and overclock and tweak and play around with the OS and such. Now I just want to load my internet and type my letters and email and such. I'm a more boring computer customer than I used to be. smile

Ah overclocking, I haven't done that since the days of the pentium... but screwing with the with OS is something I do on a daily basis.

I got a windows XP box that runs at 19 processes comfortably. Granted it doesn't have much in the form of protections but it doesn't see the internet so it doesn't matter.

Currently though the most powerful computer I have has an AMD Turion X2 Neo in it... running at 1.6 ghz the Processor is basically just a Turion X2 that runs at a reduced power level and has slim to no overclocking ability. I got that because I wanted something simple that wouldn't have GNU linux blocked, not that I would use Linux on it, but I did recently when it crashed hard on me. Used it for file recovery that hadn't been backed up for a while... I fell behind on my backup schedule xp

I'm not sure however what my next computer will have in it, do you have any suggestions as to what hardware I should look into? (gamer, internet, power for the sake of longer run before obsolete.) I figure you have been looking into that sort of thing or have some knowledge on the subject.

Okay, the TL/DR answer is no, I don't know what to advise you to get.
Years ago I owned a one man computer consulting business and in addition to going around to businesses doing maintenance and repairs I would build and sell systems or at least advise people on what to get (depending on the situation). Back then I stayed up on the specs of every new chip, RAM, motherboard, graphics card - blah - blah - blah. I knew which standard processes were necessary and which were bloated nothingness slowing down your computer.
These days - not so much. When I need to purchase a computer for me or a friend I feel like I'm practically researching it from scratch.

My current laptop is an i7 core at 2 Ghz and 8 gigs of ram. I've been pretty happy with that, especially in a laptop, especially since I purchased it two or three years ago. Due to unavailability of serious internet I don't play online games but I'm pretty sure it would do okay. It does do pretty good for stand alone games like Oblivion (have not played Skyrim yet) or Bioshock or.. trying to think of some others. Assassin's Creed looked good but never finished the game because I hated the movement interface.

I used to buy 'the fastest' but long ago decided it is much more economical to purchase about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the food chain. You pay a lot extra for being one of the first to have the latest and greatest. I mentally equate it to purchasing a brand new car instead of a late model car a year or two old. You can get what is effectively a new car for a huge chunk less money. With computers typically in 6 to 8 months your 'fastest' no longer is and with the money you saved by buying 'mostly the fastest' you can afford to upgrade to what was the fastest since it is now a lot cheaper.

These days I'm not even playing that game. I rarely upgrade anything since I moved to laptops. That's the crappy internet thing. A laptop is easy for me to take some place with high speed for downloading windows and other necessary updates. But laptops are not the sacrifice in speed they once were. Time marches on and my i7 laptop will run circles around any desktop I have owned. If absolute best gaming speed was my main concern I'd still go desktop and customize the box but I consider today's laptops a good compromise for the other benefits you get. I do carry a wireless keyboard and mouse with me because I'm not keen on laptop keyboards / mousepad. Also, at home I use an external monitor or sometimes hook it up to my plasma widescreen TV.

One thing I do like about where technology has gone is that with the exception of high demand uses like hard core gaming or lots of video editing - you can just about walk into a PC store, close your eyes and point and get a computer that will at least do the job. Back in the day some computers were slow dogs even for stuff like word processing. Stuff is fast enough now that is no longer the case.

I'm sorry I don't have any good specific advice. I'm too out of touch.
I don't know you personally but one thing I would say is don't let ego or an over zealous salesman influence your purchasing decision. Buy what you need that will do the job well, don't pay extra just for 'bragging rights'. When considering what to buy that is faster so it will last longer try to guesstimate total cost of ownership. Money you save now can be applied to being able to upgrade later.

That is very fair, thank you for at least telling me that much. I guess my biggest gripe about my current computers is their lack of ability to encode video from one format to another without it being basically set it and come back in 8 hours to find it still working on the job. I will just have to consider everything I expect the computer to do and figure out the best hardware for the job in that case. Form factor though I don't see as an issue though. sure my home internet if flaky but I can always tether my phone for a more stable connection (that is often times faster anyway.)