Thanks Shenan,
Most helpful. You are right, I hadn't fully read it, I was not in a good frame of mind as Windows8 tends to get me frustrated trying to do the simplest of things. I have actually been using it at work for a few months and, although it is still frustrating,
it is better than at home for some reason. I suspect that the IT department made it more friendly. For example, it still has the good old 'start' button for access to programmes and shutting down.
Some other things that troubled me but I have now found work arounds:
If I plug an SD card into the slot on my new machine I then have to go and look for it whereas my old XP machine would open a window to ask me what I wanted to do.
The biggest gripe was shutting programmes down. I know now that 'alt/F4' does this but what was wrong with a cross in the top corner? I have my hand on the mouse all the time so this was quick and easy, finding and pressing two keys is unnecesarily cumbersome.
I know it's not much but it's still a backward step, like three steps to shut down (as my computer is set now, and it includes the step of trying to activate the charm bar that won't come on now you need it but was coming on all the time when all you wanted
to do was scroll down before) when two did it before and I thought that was one too many.
It is probably all down to me being an old fuddy duddy. I would claim to be quite tech savvy and open to new ideas but computers do seem to be designed by geeks for geeks and if they can spend half an hour tapping away to achieve precisely nothing they are
happy. I on the other hand want to do what I switched the computer on for in the minimum time so when it takes 3 minutes to start up and another ten to work out how to do something, this is not good.
Tim (AKA Grumbly Tim).