Upgrading to Windows 8 would have gone without a hitch were it not for a defrag utility called

RAXCO PERFECTDISK 12.5

Windows 8 reported it as incompatible and asked that it be removed. Easy to do? Not hardly.. It very quickly brought back memories of removing Perfectdisk a few years ago. The trouble was it wouldn’t fully uninstall enough back then, and NOTHING has changed. Will a RAXCO product ever find its way onto a computer of mine in the future? Not a chance..

What should have been an easy task ended up being a 90 minute attempt which FAILED over and again. In the end, I elected to do the upgrade where only personal files are retained. Fortunately, I don’t have too much installed these days, and when I re-installed Office and one or two other bits, Windows 8 joined up the dots and set up Outlook and OneNote automatically just as they were before.

Thee are still some settings which I have yet to resolve but, overall, it is better than I could have hoped.

First impressions..

No point asking me about the UI formerly known as Metro, because I used the desktop icon to get to the desktop and I have been there ever since. Classic Shell has taken care of the lack of a Start button and menu, and I have re-instated the Quick Launch toolbar.to partner it.

Do you want the Quick Launch toolbar? It’s easy.

1. Right click on the taskbar and select ‘New toolbar’
2. Paste the contents of line 3 in when asked for a folder..
3. %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
4. Right click in the QL toolbar and deselect title and labels

That’s it..

Both user interfaces look like the elements were cut from cardboard, and look very flat. I understand the change because Aero was hard on graphics, but it isn’t an OS that sparkles exactly.

My two favourite gadgets have both gone to the wall. Gadgets don’t work in Windows 8, no way to make them work, so look for alternatives. The one I can’t get is a Network monitor which showed the status of computers connected to the router, and no, I don’t want an app for the UI formerly known as Metro.

Overall, it installed quickly, connected the dots accurately when setting up, and it all works. What better could one reasonably say?