drewfx1

WookieePut it another way it has been brought to my attention that a popular patch editor and librarian software is currently beta testing in Win 7 64.  A certain manufacture of high quality audio interfaces suggested that Win 7 64 is more appropriate for audio work.
 
Just saying.

Do they have any mention of why?
 
I'm just curious, as before I made the Win 8 jump I couldn't find much in terms of technical deal breakers. I suppose I never grew up to the point that the words, "don't do it" without a good reason why I shouldn't are effective.
 
 
Oh, and "popular patch editor and librarian software" made me smile, as I didn't know such things were "popular" anymore. Maybe there are more of us guys who still sometimes use HW than I thought. 

Tricky to answer without possible infringement if you get my drift, but I suppose I could possibly rightly focus your attention for your quest of the ultimate sound patch then perhaps I better not.
 

Okay, for my two penn'orth,
 
I installed Win 8 Pro about a month ago on my desktop PC.  I have no touch screen.  The start screen took a bit of getting used to but once I 'modified' it to my liking (grouping tiles into 'sets' of similar apps, resizing the tiles, making sure the tiles I use most are on the main part of the start screen) it all started to fall into place.  I have a tile for X2 that requires one click to launch and no 'double clicking' required for any app on the start screen.  The traditional desktop screen is still there, you just have to switch to it, and the installation of Classic Shell gives almost identical functionality of the original start button.
 
Now as for performance!  Compatibility is excellent -  all the programs that worked under W7 work faultlessly under W8.  W8 drivers for most of my hardware is available and installed and for those that don't have W8 drivers (an old casio Keyboard) work fine with the W7 drivers.  X2 performs exceedingly well with no glitches, freezes, pops etc., and latency is very low.  All my VST's work fine too.
 
Overall the OS seems 'snappier' - it may be my imagination but programs seem to load quicker, windows open quicker, dialog boxes open and close quicker etc.  I get the impression that under the hood W7 has been 'tweaked' to get better performance and the W8 interface sits neatly over the top.
 
One issue to be aware of - you CAN install W8 pro without needing an account or password (no-one else has access to my machine)  BUT if you use your desktop PC as a normal PC for the internet, emails etc., and you LINK your social website accounts using a Hotmail, Outlook or other e-mail address to make use of the live tile updating of Facebook, Twitter etc., FROM THAT POINT ON YOU WILL HAVE TO SIGN INTO W8 WITH YOUR ACCOUNT NAME AND PASSWORD!!  There is no going back from this.  You cannot then create an account that DOESN'T have a password. Personally this is my biggest gripe and is the reason I went back to W7 temporarily before re-installing W8 and learning my lesson.  I HATE WITH A VENGEANCE having to 'Log In' to my own computer - I know all about security BUT there are thousands of people who don't have kids or have other people who may have access to or use their computers, so in my view this is totally unnecessary.  It's like having an overriding 'User Account Control' that you can't tun off!
 
Save for this annoyance I have found W8 a pleasure to use, even without a touch screen.  99% of my existing programs are compatible and seem to work just as well if not better under the new OS.  I am not too fussed about having a touch screen, but when they become affordable I will give one a try.  Hopefully, if I don't like the 'touch' part I will be able to turn that off!!

Excellent post LordElpus and I appreciate all the details. I don't use any of those social websites, but do use the internet for email and general research. So, my understanding is that if you actually LINK these social websites to your email, then the log in process begins......(if you don't LINK it, then it won't happen) right?
 
Although there are Win 8 drivers for my hardware, it's comforting to know that Win 7 (even Vista) drivers will work. 
Great info to know.....thanks again for posting this and clearing up a lot.

Like you, I don't use any of the social sites etc. I use hotmail for email purposes.
 
When first setting up my W8 pc, which is a breeze btw, I too made the "mistake" of entering my email add / password when it was requested by the set up prog. What this resulted in for me was that my email was automatically signed in when I was on the pc. The problem with that for me was the way the hotmail prog, now called outlook, works with this set-up, mainly that when I clicked on the mail prog, it automatically directed to Inbox (fair enough) but also automatically opened the most recent message, which I was not happy about. Sometimes emails that I don't wish to open make it past the spam filters etc. (usually Facebook related even though I've never been on it). How this works with other email clients I don't know.
However, it IS possible to undo this link when you sign in, which I did and now I can just sign in and use my email the same way I always did.
 
When you switch on W8, the first thing you get to is the "lock screen" which does require a password, but this needn't be linked to anything else. I just made a seperate password to get past this. A little unecessary for me, but no big deal really. I only have to sign in when switching on from total shutdown, the stand-by modes keep you "signed-in" so it's a once a day thing for me as I shut down my pc at night.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks Mesh, glad you found my comments helpful.  I think Paulo may be right - it may not have anything to do with 'linking' the social media sites, but linking W8 to an email account creates the issue.  When I first installed W8 I didn't set an Administrator or User password for the OS, so on boot up W8 went straight to the Start screen or Desktop, by-passing the lock screen altogether.  Later on when I foolishly used my windows 'live' email account i.e. outlook (formerly hotmail) to be my 'mail' client on the start screen, using the 'mail' tile, that's when the problem started.  I could still use Thunderbird for all my other emails but from that point on I had to use my outlook sign in credentials to get past the lock screen!  For people who buy their computers pre-installed with W8 they are stuck with this, unless they re-install.
 
Fortunately, I had made an image of my hard drive when I first installed W8 so I just rolled it back to that version and I won't be making that mistake again.
 

I bought my daughter an HP pre-installed with 8 and ended up putting 7 on it. I just wasn't into the feel of it at all. Heck, it's only been a couple years since I upgraded my studio comp from XP sp3 to 7.:)

Hi,
 
I'm using W8-Pro (32bit) on 2 computers now, and added Classic Shell to them because those other Windows are annoying as heck!
 
The kernel in W8 appears to be really stable and working fine, despite some things that were annoying ... like the early version did not have a DVD playing anything and you had to spend $10 bux on the Media Center garbage, that does not even have a Main Menu/Root Menu setting that works correctly! I guess that things should improve by SP1.
 
Per my ole roomate, who is now at Intel, the Windows 8 kernel is the best they have ever put out, and it is much better designed and defined than before ... and that is coming from someone that had been a Network/Server Administrator (took ISP from 3k to 25k folks in 4 years!) whose preference was Unix BSD.
 
With all that said, W8-Pro has a nasty ... NASTY ... issue with losing networking information that is a pain in the wazoo. I might recomend setting up a real network, and tell W8's Homegroup Bullmerde to take a hike!

<<<<<Just updated OP......>>>>>

What's the classic shell and how do you access it?
 
We just got my FIL a new machine and it was loaded with Win 8 and he doesn't like it.  if there's a way to make it operate more like Win7 then he'd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Beagle
What's the classic shell and how do you access it?
 
We just got my FIL a new machine and it was loaded with Win 8 and he doesn't like it.  if there's a way to make it operate more like Win7 then he'd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Yeah, it'll have all the access itmes like Win, but work in the background on Win 8. It's an extremely easy install (very small file).
This is what I used: http://www.classicshell.net/