An example would be an eBook reader. You are reading a book on your laptop and the application knows what page you were last reading. (That happens already with a single computer.) On the train to work you open that application on your phone or tablet. It opens at the page you were last reading on your laptop.

Or, you have a favourite game that you play on several devices; the high score is the same on all of them. I'm sure you can think of other examples where maintaining the state of an application is useful.

A real-life example is that I installed a trial of Windows 8 in a VM on my desktop and set up the mail application with four email accounts. When I installed the retail version on my laptop I opened the mail app ready to go throught the setup again, only to find that it was already configured. I just needed to confirm the passwords for the accounts (probably a good idea). Nice!

So it's a great toy, but not a great tool.

If you say so, Camie. I think you need to brush up your imagination a little.

Even if you don't see the value of preserving the state of an application (and I'm sure you could if you tried), it adds to the capabilities of the OS rather than detracting from them.

I understand that there are people who still prefer XP (God knows why; it was always inferior to 2000 and isn't a patch on 7). There are many still using 95 or 98. That's fine by me; I'm not trying to convert anyone. But I do like to correct some of the misinformation being put around about 8. I don't think misinformation is a good thing in this business.

In reply to a post by AEP:

A real-life example is that I installed a trial of Windows 8 in a VM on my desktop and set up the mail application with four email accounts. When I installed the retail version on my laptop I opened the mail app ready to go throught the setup again, only to find that it was already configured. I just needed to confirm the passwords for the accounts (probably a good idea). Nice!

Whilst I'm minded to accept most of your points in the thread, just an incidental point. The correction of a basic flaw that should never have been present in the first place is nothing to do with the ongoing day-to-day advantages or disadvantages of a particular operating system.

The correction of a basic flaw that should never have been present in the first place is nothing to do with the ongoing day-to-day advantages or disadvantages of a particular operating system.

You have lost me. What is the basic flaw that you refer to?

That updating a pre-release version of an OS to a release version should lose user settings.

I've always been appalled at the way MS used to, and maybe still do, send users through complex lists of manual instructions to delete beta or similar pre-release software in order to install the release version. Simple cost-saving!

I'm not talking about updating. I'm talking about a new install on a different machine.

When I installed 8 on my laptop it picked up the mail settings (for the same user account) that I had configured on my desktop machine. That is not correcting an error; it is behaviour that has not existed in the past on any Windows machine unless you are using Roaming Profiles on a Windows network. Some of the advantages of enterprise Windows is now trickling down to home users.

As for deleting beta software; that's standard procedure from almost all software publishers. Beta software is intended for testing, not production work. It would be foolish not to clean a beta off a system before installing the final version of a software product.

I missed the change from "desktop" to "laptop" in the post I replied to .

As for the beta point, they should provide a cleanup routine of what they have installed. They tell you what needs doing, so not automating it is slipshod.

I'll grant that users may have added some directories (folders for the youngsters) of their own which are pertinent, but that will rarely be insuperable, and probably not covered in the manual instructions anyway.

When the beta in question is an operating system, the only cleanup needed - and the only safe course of action - is to wipe the disk.

That is usually automated anyway, and as you know isn't what I was referring to.

Anyway, we seem to have strayed from what I am finding a useful and informative discussion about the pros and cons of Win 8, occasioned by what seems to have been a needlessly scary article that I started the thread querying.

The inter-kit link you describe does sound rather neat. However it's a bit scary in that it seems likely to completely remove the facility for a non-techie user to have a private system - techie ones being able (or not any more?) to protect themselves from everything they have being up an a MS/Google/Amazon system.

I'm not sure that isn't even scarier than GCHQ wanting it. Which is something it will make far easier anyway. Plus the CIA of course.

Now there's a question - would the CIA stop GCHQ getting access to MS Cloud? Seeing as they are losing their faith in British secrecy.