Hi John, hope you're well! I haven't seen any erratic browser behaviour with my copy of Windows 8 and IE10, everything seems normal and is no different from my work laptop that runs Windows 7. Regarding Control Panel, all you need to do is move the mouse to the bottom or top right and click on Settings, then Control Panel. This is no more effort or clicks than doing the same thing in XP or Windows 7.

Regards
David

PS: I think the boot time is mostly the Operating System, I don't have a SSD and it boots in approx. 20 seconds.

Lens received in 'as new' condition, boxed with all items present and correct. Thanks for a smooth and excellent transaction Nicolai.

Regards
David

I can add my endorsement to Dr. O's. For £40 it makes a hell of a good landscape lens, high in contrast, sharp and with lovely rendering of colours. I have taken a lot of landscape shots with mine and I continue to be impressed with it.

Someone should buy this lens!

Regards
David

The lens looks nice and sharp, with good colours. I think the images are just a little under-exposed though, try bringing the exposure / levels up a bit and this would make a big difference.

Regards
David

I've just bought a 12-24 from a Forum member, so here's hoping it's as good as has been mentioned above. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Regards
David

I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Dr Orloff on this one. The IQ is really terrible, rather than looking dreamy it all looks out of focus.

I do applaud you Ken for trying out different combinations and experimenting like this, but maybe this one is best consigned to the 'rejected' pile? Sorry if this sounds a bit negative, just being honest with what I see.

Regards
David

I didn't have much choice as my new Laptop shipped with Windows 8, but as I mentioned earlier I've actually been very happy with it and not found any major downsides yet. Granted, you do have to learn to use the 'desktop' view, but that's not a big issue for me. More important to me is the boot time (very fast, only around 20 seconds, was nearly 3 minutes on my Windows XP machine) and the stability (no crashes yet)

I am really not sure what that's all about, but there's no need to SHOUT! I can only tell you about my experiences with Win 8, I can't and don't speak for anyone else and I'm being honest with you all when I say I like it and don't find it difficult or annoying. Just so you all know, I am not a software writer, a PC Whiz Kid or anything remotely similar to this I work for an organisation that provides software solutions to the Retail Motor Industry, but I work there for my Retail Motor Industry knowledge and experience (28 years), not my software writing experience, of which I have none!! So, I am just a normal PC user, like most of the people on this Forum.

I'm not surprised there are split opinions on Win 8, this tends to happen when something changes significantly. I'm sure Microsoft are hearing the dissent and working on improvements. After all their products are still dominant in the business world and they will probably want to keep it that way.

Regards
David

All very beautiful Shaun, the first one, the Whitby one and the last one are my favourites.

Regards
David

There is a direct route to the desktop, either via a mouse click or by moving the mouse pointer to the top or bottom left corner of the screen, this then allows you to click to reveal the desktop.

All you need to do Stephen in that case is to put shortcuts on the desktop to all of the programs you like to use, just like you probably had on previous Windows versions!! Then you click on the shortcut for the program you want to use and it opens!

As stated above, Windows 8 is basically Windows 7 with some added navigation options, but can be used pretty much like Win 7 if you wish.

Regards
David

I can only give you my own experiences, and they have all been good. I don't find anything annoying and much of the additional security already exists in Windows 7.

I will not be switching back to an earlier version, I really do like Windows 8 and find it helps me to do things much more quickly and efficiently.

Regards
David