Windows 8.1: A bit square, sure, but WAIT! It has a Start button Windows 8.1 adds a layer of polish to the previous release, Windows 8, and fixes various annoyances. But has Microsoft done enough to rescue its OS against a background of plummeting PC sales and unimpressed customers who want Windows 7 back? Discussion of Windows 8.1 tends to focus on the Start screen and revived Start button …
I disagree. I have been using Win 8 for about 6 months now, I'm used to the start button and menu not being there, I've got all my usual apps pinned to the bar at the bottom like I had in Win 7 and my desktop is just the same.
Don't get me wrong, Win 8 still smacks of beta in a lot of areas and still has Windows ridiculous habit of hanging the whole OS if a bit of hardware misbehaves (dodgy SD card killed mine a treat!) but the user experience, when running old windows apps not stupid full screen metro apps, is pretty much the same as 7. Works ok as a tablet too...
Gonna do a system backup over the weekend and try installing 8.1, but for the bug fixes not the start button...
.........that durst not speak its name.
"Windows 8.1 still sucks donkeyballs for anyone that wants to WORK with their PC. For people that TOY, it's OK, but then so is a £99 Argos/Tesco/ASDA Android tablet...."
Apple fanboi perhaps, hmm? If you aren't then your phrasing of that posting was extremely peculiar.
I've been working with Windows 8 for a few months now. Windows 8.1 on my laptop for the last month or so.
Yesterday, I had to work on a Windows 7 PC - the whole start button thing seemed very primitive.
Strange what you get used to.
Worth having the Start button again, just for using remote access - getting the menu up was a pain over a windowed RDP session.
Oddly enough, after upgrading to 8.1 my laptop (XPS 12) lost right-click functionality. If I'd wanted a mac... :)
The missing start-button was one of the stupidest things in Win8. Watching any new user staring blankly at the desktop wondering what to do next would have taught Sinofsky that.
Good job with the popup introductory guides, too. How they ever thought that they'd got it perfectly right in the first place and these weren't necessary is beyond me, and I like Windows 8...
Why do you people make so many concessions to Microsoft for their crap OS. Their "upgrade" is the size of a complete OS DVD, and to add insult to injury you will have to pull all 4GBs of it down on EACH of your computers. Why not just allow the user to download an ISO or even a USB flash disk builder?
You sympathizers do realize that if your OS goes south or you lose your OS drive, that you will have to install Windows 8 first, then install your 8 Pro "upgrade", then re-download the whole 4GB 8.1 "upgrade" again?
They need to give their customers what they ask for and then stop screwing over their paying customers with this crazy anti-piracy crap.
YOU sympathizers need to stop bending over and taking what they give you, or at least stop thanking them for it.
Yes it was. Which is why it was already in Windows8 and WindowsRT. Yet another biased a badly written so called review from TheRegister. I'm stunned. Honest.
I mean, it's not even a review! Where is the mention of app snap, the multiple Store apps windows, opening links in a snap window rather than a full switch, better store and music apps, looks better with the more tiles options, ie11 and the pin to Start feature.
Seriously, just for once, try to write a review of Windows 8 without revealing your ineptitude. If you find Windows 8 bewildering then you're a retard. My Dad is mid 60's and loves his Surface. Write a review of the product, not your own biased views
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OK, so you are beating me up because you can right-click the bottom left corner in Win 8.0 too for the admin menu (or press Win-X).
True, but the reason I mention it is that I most often right-click the Start button in Win 8.1 for the "Shut down or sign out" option which was added - it is not in Win 8.0.
The right-click menu is also more discoverable in Win 8.1, which does not matter once you have discovered it, but that discoverability is improved is also important.
There is another thing you should know about this review. After discussion we agreed not to repeat everything that we had already said about Windows 8.1 Preview, which was reviewed here last month:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/12/windows_eight_one_review/
Hence the focus on some of the business features. We should have included a link to the earlier piece though, so apologies for that.
Tim
He may be picking a nit, but there's still something off about the review. Quite honestly, I got about a third to halfway through it and skipped the rest. I'm not sure exactly why, but it reads like a rewritten MS PR piece so I assumed it was. Since you assure me it was an actual review, I might go back and have another go at it.
Having dealt with loads of wildly different operating systems over the years, some with GUIs and some without, I don't think I have ever found one so bizarrely messed up as Windows 8 / 8.1
Configuration options are scattered around willy-nilly, there are usually at least two versions of any type of application, important menus are deliberately hidden - it's a completely unintuitive, illogical mess and only a retarded fool in severe denial could ever argue otherwise.
It's all the more astonishing as MS had finally, after decades of botched attempts just about managed to produce a version of Windows (7, obviously) which worked pretty reliably, supported a reasonable subset of hardware "out of the box" and had an interface with some kind of logic behind it.
Once search was declared the 'right way to launch anything' (a view spouted endlessly throughout the launch of Win8 by the faithful), it stopped mattering if they broke every other structure. Maybe even became worth breaking the organisation of settings launchers just to encourage adoption of search.
And as the faithful used to remind us every sodding day, search is what makes that pile of tiles on the start screen usable. Or in my opinion the only thing that makes it usable.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but 'unintuitive' and 'illogical' are not two accusations I would throw at Windows 8 or 8.1. Any app, you swipe in from the right and select Settings. What's so bloody confusing about that?
For me, it's only retarded fools that can't understand Windows 8 and invariably those who have spent no more than 5 minutes with it. You want a toy, use an iPad but the things I can do on my Dell XPS10 , yeah, that's right, I'm rocking WindowsRT 8.1 muthafukkas, that put the iPad to shame are countless. Check your Twitter account whilst working on a Word doc in an iPad, go on, I dare ya.
Swiping an invisible/imaginary control surface, with no visible cues is hardly 'intuitive'. It's a learned behaviour, with no discoverability because it's such an unusual gesture given the absence of cues, something people need to be told about rather than left to discover.
The only logic to it is in using the screen edges most developers deliberately avoid, because touch input typical breaks on those edges and has less precision when it works. (Touch problems that are irrelevant in desktop mode because touch is barely usable there anyway)
Rote learning != intuitive OR logical. Dragging a phones visible notification bar to reveal notifications is logical, intuitive and discoverable, dragging an arbitrarily chosen zero width edge is none of those.
Your final line seems to be there to save you from the wroth of MS as far as I can see.
Just *why* is it a viable or worthwhile upgrade to Windows 7? You spent the whole article priving why this isn't the case, then have this one sentence right at the end.
Very puzzled. As a programmer working on three screens, having had the dubious "pleasure" of Windows 8 and going back to Windows 7, I cannot see what the impetus would be to change. All it does is hide things and slow my work down considerably over a "desktop" OS like Win 7 or Ubuntu.
For me and quite a few of our customers the answer is simple:
One OS to rule them all
My privat desktop (core-i7 / Dual Monitor), my company notebook (T-series convertible) and my privat tablet pc all run the same software, the same set of tools, the same UI. There may be "optimized" systems that work slightly better on each hardware also I have yet to see them. But with Win8 I do not have to ask "will document a show on system b" because it will. And it will do the same on Win7, Vista and XP if necessary. I won't have to remember "gesture x does z on system a but y on system b" and "option y is in menu/function etc w on system a but in k on system c".
As a company (like most) we are using Windows client and the fact that the document with all the hand made annotations and diagrams generated in Journal or OneNote during the client meeting can be viewed and edited on a desktop as well is convenient. Tablet/Convertible + Beamer has replaced whiteboards and "gather the paper / take a snapshot with the mobile phone cam". The documents can simply be send (or stored in sharepoint) and distributed / edited / transformed to computer readable text etc.
Dropbox is a cloud solution with servers in the US of A. Maybe ok for privat data but not legal for some of the company stuff we do (person based data). Same problem with i.e Evernote or GoogleDocs. A company run Sharepoint and VPN access OTOH is as would be a company run Azure cloud.
And even IF Db where acceptabe it would not solve the document format problem between platforms. I.e there is no SNote outside Samsung and even the Win8 version does not fully understand the Android one. And PDF is nice for "watch" and somewhat useable for "comment" but lousy for "editing". Other formats play "two programs - three formats" and since the customer ("he who pays our bills") decrees "MS Office compatible" - we use MS Office.
"Dropbox would probably have been about 1% of the cost of what you have paid, and infinitely more ubiquitous."
Or scp, which is free and included in real OSs (you know, the sort that don't need rebooted just because you installed a word-processor).
Windows is Windows is Windows is shit, same as it ever was.
For me and quite a few of our customers the answer is simple:
And you're boasting about Win8 because it can finally, so many years after the rest of us have been taking this sort of thing for granted, actually do something like that?
Damn. Man, you need to get your tongue out of Balmy's backside and take a look at the real world. If your post is anything to go by, Microsoft are so far behind the times they make the Amish look futuristic!
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pointing at the bottom left corner of the desktop in windows 8 popped up a link to the start screen. right clicking it brought up quick access. to various admin options. 8.1 has just made the area bigger, which will help laptops using touchpads. the start screen gives you acustomisable start menu. you can arrange the programs/apps you use the most so they immediately available.
I had to install a bit of software for my niece on her laptop the other week and I'm ashamed to say I couldn't work out how to shut it down and neither it seems could she 'oh you just close the lid and the screen goes black' she said...
She was happy enough with shutting the lid and I couldn't be bothered to google it, but I dread to think what I missed in order to find shutdown.. Start > Shutdown was illogical enough, so I dread to think where they will have moved it to now. I think I'll stick to administering Windows 7 at work and using Linux at home then when companies start a Windows 8 roll out I think I'll apply to be a truck driver in Afghanistan...
Shutdown in in the "charms" menu by swiping right-to-left or with a mouse, IIRC, upper-right corner. It's a stupid spot and Start-Shutdown was miles more logical than Win8's mess. Yes, shutdown is in the same spot in 8.1
I'm not sure which UI I found more annoying: Ubuntu's Unity or Win8's Metro (or whatever they are calling it this week). At least Unity kept some thing in a local location, but Win8's "Metro" screen is an improvement over Unity's Dash.
Overall: 8.1 in an improvement to 8, but that's not saying too much. However, the Metro tiles UI is here to stay so better get to filling out those applications in Afghanistan.
"However, the Metro tiles UI is here to stay so better get to filling out those applications in Afghanistan."
That's what they said about the start button / menu too, and look where we are now. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more and more changed back until we reach a point where people are being given a choice in this matter.
Because if people continue to ignore Windows 8 then Microsoft will have a serious problem on their hands. They couldn't afford this with Vista and they can surely hardly afford it now.
"Because if people continue to ignore Windows 8 then Microsoft will have a serious problem on their hands. They couldn't afford this with Vista and they can surely hardly afford it now."
What happened with Vista was, they put together a patch that turned it into a decent system, called it Windows 7, and the naysayers flocked to it with gladsome cries, despite it containing (almost) all the previously-hated features of Vista. (The big exception being, they didn't try to push it on systems that were woefully underpowered. That, and it's stopped asking permission twice when it escalates privileges.)
In the same way, I'm hoping Windows 9 will be Windows 8 "done right". I'm not sure what that will involve, but if it is to Win 8 as 7 was to Vista, it'll be (a) much the same, and (b) pretty good.
Our customers pay me. Without exception from large corporate to loaner granddad they hate 8.
Those that didn't buy 7 in time are starting to learn the wonders of Linux.. Interesting to watch - I am seeing less machines coming back for problems, but referrals for new business are way up. Thanks Microsoft, you're really helping me promote Linux! :)
Simply hate change
I play with more different OS's in a week than most people use in their lives. My poor most-used machine is cluttered with many hundreds of extra programs from where I trial all sorts of software - if I don't try a new package each week there's something wrong (thankfully it runs Linux so the excessive amounts of software don't cause slowdowns and registry corruption (there's no registry! :) like they do in Windows). Have used everything Microsoft from Dos 5 through to Win8 (haven't yet played with 8.1), toss up between XP and 7 for favourite Windows - 7 loses points because it doesn't quite play my favourite game.
I prefer Linux for home and work though. Well, I have to use it at work, there's no windows up to the jobs we do - and no amount of money could make windows capable.
Have never used (or even seen) Win8
Sadly have used it far too many times.
Have spend a whole of 5min with it
Have sadly wasted many hours of my life with it, starting with the preview version.
But in reality... I've said it before and I'll say it again.. I love Windows 8! Thank you so much Microsoft for giving us this OS! It is the best advertisement for Linux ever! :)
Back in the windows 95 days, before yahoo messenger, msn and facebook etc, bored people used to communicate using a window IRC client called mIRC. When a room got a little crowded, one particular person used to invite people to view the 'art pamphlet' he'd just uploaded by pressing alt-f4. The room would suddenly empty, as the majority of people closed their mIRC. Gradually , the userbase would build up again, then he'd say it again, the room would empty again. Halogen days.....
Unfortunately nothing happens when I click on the Windows Store*. No error message. Nothing.
Yes, I tried editing settings within msconfig and rebooting, I tried creating a new account, I tried rolling back to the earliest system save point, and I tried running wsreset as administrator.
When none of that worked, I finally turned to Microsoft support. That also failed.
Since there is no other way of downloading 8.1, it looks like I'll be staying with 8.
*I'm not the only one encountering problems:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_store/
That's probably because you're running Windows 8 Pro or Enterprise.
I am running Entreprise from MSDN.
I have downloaded the DVD from MSDN (as the store was useless) and installed 8.1 and now he refuses my original key.
That means that I need to waste one of my MSDN key to activate the thing, again. One key for W8 and now one for W8.1
Microsoft fails again.
Assuming you're not on MSDN or an enterprise-managed PC...
You need to have your system fully updated to the last version of 8.0 before you're shown the link to 8.1. Despite the 8.1 update being in the Store, the remaining 8.0 updates are in "PC Settings" as "Windows Update".
This caught me out too, but it does say it in the FAQ, and I had been ignoring the "You have X new Updates" message on the corner of the lock-screen for a while...
Based on "media" articles I must be in the minority. It took a few days to get used to Win8 but after that it's been great. I have zero issues and the usability is the same as any other OS. All I read is "Win7 was great" "We should stick with Win7", &c. Absolutely, then in 8 years you can be my new "Migrate our company from WinXP ZOMG NOW!" customers.
Whinging. That's all I'm hearing.
(The 8.1 upgrade path is terrible, granted).
"You just get slagged off as a heretic."
Incorrect. A heretic is of the right religion, just the wrong variety of that right religion. You get slagged off as an infidel... wrong religion entirely. Unless, of course, you think that anyone other than mmeir and a very few others around here think that there is anything right about Microsoft?
Wrote :- "It took a few days to get used to Win8 but after that it's been great."
Never tried it myself, but I'm getting the impression that it all depends on what you use your computer for.
TIFKAM sounds fine if you just want to surf and tweet, and consider that arm waving is a natural accompanyment to doing so, but not so fine if you are a power user - when you need to get past that phone-style interface. The Register has a much higher proportion of power users than your average Web forum, hence the overwhelming criticism.
The reg has (like many web sites) an above average number of Gnuliban and Fosstards. That and the need to generate click count is why there is a negative undertone to stuff some trolls<<<journalists here write and to the comments. Win8 works just fine on a classic multi monitor non touch system for software development. Been there, doing it since W8 came out.
Stuck with 8.1 for a full 18 hours and have now rolled back to Win 8 RTM (plus Start8 etc). 8.1 "update" introduced touch lag onthe screen, non MS apps weren't rendered correctly. unimpressed. still so much to do to make it a usable interface. Only using Win8 because the laptop has a touch screen. Oh well...... at least there is beer
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Wrote :- "the haters on here should .. put "I couldn't cope without the Start menu" .. on their CVs. That would help future employers to pick the right sort of people."
Perhaps you should, on your own CV, put "I can't tell the difference between 'Can't cope' and 'Don't like'"
"Actually in my job interview I mentioned that I have declared Windows 8 my arch enemy and my boss agreed. I was hired later on by this same guy."
Someone said to me in a job interview once that "I just have to get out of LA". I hired him on the spot.
Some statements cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter, and reflect certain characteristics far more succinctly than a 20 page CV!
I've been finding that the error message is most often along the lines of "something happened"
When you click the details button or check the event viewer you get "Error 0x80040A41:"
When you check online you get "No error description available"
When you google the error "0x80040A41" you find there are so many different things that cause that error code that you are back to Something happened.
Then it turns out that the error was caused by something stupid like windows installed some patches in the background but had not asked to reboot, so you could not install anything... until you rebooted.
I've got it! It makes sense!
0x80040A41 is the code for the error, "No error description available”
The developers didn't want to confuse poor, dumb users when there was an error with no description, so they decided to throw away the undescribed error, and report a helpful message.
With over 2 billion error conditions to describe, it's going to be a while before they finish. This also explains why the 8.1 download is 3.5GB; at, say 30 characters per message, that's only 125 million new error messages. I think I'll wait for SP18, they should have all the errors described by then.
I was going to use the joke icon but...
Don't bother trying to install this if you've moved your user directories to another drive.
If like me (and many others) you use a SSD as a boot, and have moved the 'USERS' directory to another drive, Micro$oft won't allow you to perform the upgrade.
Only solution appears to be a full wipe and re-install, upgrade to 8.1 and then try to move the directories later.
oh hum......
You are wrong.
I have 2 drives: a SSD as a boot-drive and a 2TB hard drive for data.
I did not move the 'Users'-directory itself to my data drive, but I did move all directories like, 'Documents', 'Downloads', 'Music', to my data drive.
Windows 8.1 installed without any problems.
Been using Win 8 from the beginning. After an afternoon, got used to the UI within hours and haven't looked back, since. Solid, fast, useful. And, the direction they are going is welcome. Got the upgrade shortly after it was available.
1. Painless install
2. Flawless hardware support (on an older system, too)
3. Upgrades make sense
We have three very solid OSs from which to choose. All of them are amazing on so many levels. I've been using since 1980, so nothing looks bad to me. Apple and Linux have their issues, just like Win. Feels like I'm in jail with Apple, and - admit it - even this latest Ubuntu can't make the file incompatibility problem go away. I just need to get my work done, and Win does it.
Stop whining! Enjoy the bounty.
Got the upgrade shortly after waking up this morning
1. Painless install: 10min download + 30min unpacking while I used the PC,then 30min+ watching it install.
2. Broken hardware support as it replaced 2 tuner drivers with the same, broken 64bit copies I also had to override after installing Win8. Watched it replace my GPU driver with a dumb Microsoft build, disabling *every* setting apart from resolution. Then watched 8.1 persistently resist better GPU drivers. What fun. Not.
3. Upgrades make less effort to disrupt the desktop than I expected. Can't see anything they improved yet though, unless it's those Metro apps I've never used. They have materially interfered with both Classic Start and UXStyler in petty and annoying ways.
Anyway, after wasting hours patching up after the 8.1 install one very positive result: it actually installed with just 7.7Gb of spare space and cleaned up some of the crud Win8 had accumulated. Other than that I'm seeing absolutely no reason to bother with the update for desktop users.
"Watched it replace my GPU driver with a dumb Microsoft build, disabling *every* setting apart from resolution. Then watched 8.1 persistently resist better GPU drivers. "
What? It won't let you install drivers from the cards manufacturer? Hmm, I guess that also means the end of OpenGL drivers?
Windows is dead. Win 8 is the head shot nobody else could have fired but the beast itself. Baller resigns in time to catch a balloon into space whilst the good ship MS sets sail for the bottom of the ocean.
People that know can see this and are already planning ahead.
"
"Steam OS for games, Google Docs / something else for the office work"
The latest Linux kernel in the recent Ubuntu release still has inferior games graphics performance to Windows 8, so Steam OS is not for me...
Google docs is vastly inferior to Office 365.
"Windows is dead."
92% share of the desktop says it isn't. Many large corporates are already starting to take a look at Windows 8...Faux News already went live with it.....
"People that know can see this and are already planning ahead."
I have contacts in the engineering departments of many large companies and zero of them are even considering a move away from Windows...
"I have contacts in the engineering departments of many large companies and zero of them are even considering a move away from Windows..."
My experience also. Colleagues in world wide support for something like 1,800 companies between quarter to 5 billion £ turnover - none are talking about any sort of change. Slow take up of Win 8, certainly.
Win8 came out late 2012. By that time most IT departments had already done at least the necessary evaluation for a switch away from XP or where doing the switch. Since any corporate IT worth it's pay will do a lengthy (3-6 month) test and allow quite a bit of "in case it fails" margin (Y2K switch is still remembered) they went to Win7 and will stay there till about 2015 (three years lease) maybe even longer given that for desktop the new hardware generation has little to offer.
Some customers have a "limited" Win8 roll in for specialist maschines (Atom based tablet pc). Those run a limited set of programs and could be checked / tested on short notice. The "complete" evaluation of all rolled out variants/packages has been started by one customer recently and will be done by Q2/2014. Since he will replace PCs with Q1/2015 that is a typical timeframe (We are talking 5 digit number of boxes here)
"Slow take up of Win 8, certainly."
But then that was true of any new OS. Even Windows 7 took a long time before there were many mass corporate roll outs...Windows 8 probably more so as there are some bigger potential changes....
None of this need particularly worry Microsoft. It doesn't matter too much which flavour of Windows that corporates use. Microsoft will still get the licensing and the support fees....
I have doubts that Steam OS will be a suitable one-stop replacement for gaming on Windows any time soon. The big issue here is with backward compatibility, which has been a big draw of PC gaming over the years. Most existing games are simply unlikely to ever get ported to Linux, and hence, won't be running natively on Steam OS any time soon. The vast majority of new games are still only getting released on Windows, with a portion getting Mac support, but very few see a Linux release. When Steam OS launches, this is likely to improve for new releases, but publishers are not likely to invest in porting their existing games to the OS.
Those with large Steam Libraries will likely find that 90% of their games won't run natively in Steam OS, and those games that do will be mostly limited to a subset of indie titles. Steam OS is slated to offer streaming capability that will allow you to run Windows Games on another system and play them over a network, but this still requires you to be running a copy of Windows on the one, and have both systems running the game at once. Perhaps they'll eventually add an OnLive-like cloud service for game streaming, but again, such services have their limitations. And of course, until Steam OS (and desktop Linux in general) gets a decent install-base compared to Windows among gamers, things like graphics card driver support are bound to be substandard, even if the OS is designed to run games more efficiently. Steam OS might be a decent solution for playing some of your PC games in the living room, and for doubling as a home theater PC, but I think it will be some time before most gamers will be willing to give up access to their Windows game libraries to switch to it exclusively.
Windows 8 will undoubtedly cause Microsoft to lose some users, but it's hardly going to be anywhere close to a majority, so Windows can't even remotely be considered 'dead'. It's more of a shot to the foot than a head shot. I do suspect Windows will lose more of its usage share in the years to come, but it's difficult to say how new management could affect that. The biggest advantage of Windows over its competitors is its backward-compatibility and the familiarity of its interface, which is an area where Microsoft clearly messed up with Windows 8. Even if drastic changes to the interface were to make for an improved experience, if you're forcing users to relearn how to use their systems, you've brought yourself down on par with the competition on that front. At the very least, Microsoft should have provided native 'classic interface' options to keep power users happy. They might make up a minority, but are vocal, resulting in a lot of bad press that is bound to turn off a lot of the more casual users. Of course, Microsoft might still turn this around with the next major release of Windows, as they did with Windows 7.
Tried a Windows H8 down grade once, first stage was CPU not supported. After what I have read since, that was the one good feature.
Shut down on the early version was easy, hit the big shiny metal switch
If I had to still suffer the charmless dodah I would stick a batch file on the desk top and call it something useful like Shutdown, or have they broken the use of batch files as well?
Somehow windows will never match the 'operating system on my mobile telephone; dummy (Alias smart) phones cannot do what I need, I do not want to look at the numb nuts thing while I am calling. So what use is windows ever going to be to me?
I have never used Windows 8, and I have no plans to. Am I the only person to DESPISE the lack of contrast in every single screenshot I've seen?
I hate what they've done to OWA,,I hate what they've done with their new flat styling, and I hate the lack of iconography in a lot of the UI.
I'm 34 years old and I've always been a huge MS fanboi, having rushed to install every OS since Win 95, and loved every single one of them. I even found Vista "not that bad" to use.
Now however I feel more love with Android for tablets, and Apple & Linux for desktop useage. Heck I'm even warming to the possibility of working solely in the cloud via Chromebooks. Granted it will be a while before we do away with the powerhouse desktop only programs such as Photoshop, and truly embrace a cloud-only software world, but I really feel that Microsoft are on a path of self destruction.
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"Why is it people insist on telling me that Windows is "user-friendly"?
This sort of thing should be a click or two away..."
I know, it looks like an internal VS developer's hack. Perhaps they didn't like it themselves.
It's is quite stupid.
Mind you, this is coming from a company that likes to tell the public:-
"Error 0x80040A41: No error description available"
"Try again?"
Can you boot directly to desktop mode and set things up so you never go to Metro mode? If I put it on a desktop or laptop, I don't want an interface designed for touch. I don't want to see it or even know it exists. I would want it to function in a similar manner to 7 - doesn't have to be identical, but at least as similar as 7 was to XP once you ignore the differences in eye candy.
Can I do this? If not, it is still Vista 2 ME as far as I'm concerned and I'll wait to see if they fix their mistake with Windows 9.
No adverts in Windows 7, openSuSE, CentOS, Linux Mint, Kubuntu, Debian, Fedora, PC BSD, Free BSD or indeed OS X for that matter. And the Ubuntu issue can be sorted by the simple command "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping". Or installing Mint / Kubuntu depending on preference if you want the features of Ubuntu and none of the "iffy" stuff.
Metro however is marketing ejaculate.
If you get this error, which seems to be common if you have an original w7 upgraded to w8.0, then the value of PortableOperatingSystem key in HK_Local_Machine/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/ needs to changed from 1 to 0. Apart from that hiccough the upgrade was pretty smooth, SSD system.
The Right Click of an image to save-as
The fact that not everyone has a tablet, so the tiles are not "slidable"
The fact that for 10+ years users have been on XP, then tried Vista, then 7, now on this Pretty monster.
Its a wonder why the young IT crowd still prefer Linux.
this is a joke, this startmenu was here in org. version of 8
clearly they dont want to restore the quick access to the windows 7 or vista or xp program selection for desktop they want to stiffle economy manufacturers and the world
they only care about their own ass
this is shit it is crap come on microsoft show something innovative not shit
...period.
Oh yeah and FYI I'm really fed up with your clueless-worthless, pushy, arrogant @ss behavior so here's the deal: NO MORE MONEY FOR YOU this year AND next year. Yes, you heard it right: no more Office upgrades ever so current one will serve out their times for those few who haven't switched to Google Drive yet and then it's over - no, we will never switch to any of your online services because your reliability SUCKS, the WORST in the industry.
No more Windows upgrades for anyone (W7 will last for many years for us), no tablets, phones or anything with your craptastic W8-sourced experience. No R2 for Server 2012 because it's a ripoff to ask money for fixing missing things in a SP, not to mention you keep jacking up the price. No Azure/SkyDrive/mail/whatnot because no sane person would put a critical service on any online service with your track records.
I warned you of this, you clueless, bald, chair-trowing clown with anger-management issues - you are still so f'n arrogant you just keep pushing your crap agenda. Now you have it.
It's a long probation - we'll see what you will make of it in the next 18 months, you come back sane and start making things we want or you will keep doing lunatic crap like W8 etc... if the latter then I guess we'll start migrating away from MSFT and you can go die alone within few years or keep selling Xboxes and el cheapo entry-level cell phones - if so, be it. Good riddance, I'll say.
"No R2 for Server 2012 because it's a ripoff to ask money for fixing missing things in a SP"
It's a free upgrade under Software Assurance. And it's not a Service Pack - it's a full product release with loads of major new functionality - for example BGP routing with multi tenancy support...
"no, we will never switch to any of your online services because your reliability SUCKS, the WORST in the industry."
Microsoft have a better record than Amazon or Google for instance....Google had a major outage a couple of weeks ago in September just after the last one in August....
"And it's not a Service Pack - it's a full product release with loads of major new functionality - for example BGP routing with multi tenancy support..."
You (paid) MSFT trolls are so easy to recognize - all you do is copy/paste from your dumb cheat sheet, provided by your Ballmerian DoubleSpeak Office... new product? Especially "loads of new functionality" then all you can bring up is the most extreme crazy internal MSFT example (just who TF in his right mind outside of MSFT would use Windows Server for BGP routing, seriously???)...? :D
"Microsoft have a better record than Amazon or Google for instance.... Google had a major outage a couple of weeks ago in September just after the last one in August"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
...ah you're joking, I see! You almost got me there...! :)
For a sec I thought you're being serious... then I realized nobody, not even the stupidest MSFT troll would claim something so obviously false and easily double-checked nonsense ie Google almost never had a total blackout (eg if IMAP was out I was always able to use web UI or vica versa) and certainly never had a system-wide worldwide one while MSFT and its HOURS-LONG, WORLDWIDE OUTAGES, MULTIPLE TIMES EVERY YEAR (365, Azure and previously BigPOS etc canonical names for the same craptastic service bundles) clearly show why MSFT's reliability is an utter pile of dogsh!t, a butt of every joke in the service industry for years now... tsk tsk tsk, for a sec you almost got me, I admit. :)
"just who TF in his right mind outside of MSFT would use Windows Server for BGP routing, seriously"
Anyone constructing a multi site, multi tenant cloud environment - such as large service providers should consider it. You wouldn't normally use it on the edge to replace dedicated routers - just within the cloud and for S2S VPNs.
I work as a cloud and infrastructure architect - not for MS. Here is a long list of what's new if you don't like the example cited: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn250019.aspx - a number of these features are simply not available on alternative platforms like Linux, or don't scale as well.
Google had a total Google Apps blackouts on a number of occasions. I have previously been involved in migrations off Google Apps that were partially due to stability and performance issues (but mostly due to functionality issues)...I recall that Google Apps had a 30 hours total outage at one point.
As I said, Microsoft have had a better recent global uptime record with Office 365 than Amazon with their cloud or Google with Apps. Google tries to obscure this by quoting only numbers for Gmail, rather than the whole platform - missing out numbers for features such as such as Calendar, Docs, Sites and Video...
Large enterprises are generally heading for Office 365 rather than Google Apps for good reason...
"Anyone constructing a multi site, multi tenant cloud environment - such as large service providers should consider it. "
Says who, MSFT internal PR docs?
Wake up, troll and semll the reality - NOBODY will ever build large networks on MS routing. Mark my word: NOBODY.
even if they ever did none apparently EVER touched it.
"I work as a cloud and infrastructure architect - not for MS. Here is a long list of what's new if you don't like the example cited: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn250019.aspx - a number of these features are simply not available on alternative platforms like Linux, or don't scale as well."
Ah yes, you are and independent infra architect who does not work for MS but recommends implementing MS-based routing...
...as one infrastructure architect to another let me be straight with you: no offense but are you high? Seriously.
"Google had a total Google Apps blackouts on a number of occasions."
Link, please.
I have a feeling you don't know what the word "total" means in English - or you just playing the good ol' BS game from MSFT's playbook when they try to boast their reliability percentage, conveniently leaving out the fact that their outages ARE WORLDWIDE, SYSTEMIC ONES, lasting for HOURS at every other occasion (yes, MS have a LOT MORE than anyone else in the business.)
" I have previously been involved in migrations off Google Apps that were partially due to stability and performance issues (but mostly due to functionality issues)..."
Or could it be that you, as a well-paid MSFT "architect" just couldn't make any money out of that/didn't even know how to set it up etc?
See, it's very easy to counter lame 'empirical evidence' (my fav euphemism for made-up stories impossible to check) injected into some argument, presented something like a trend - if anything it's vica versa, Google Apps is practically OMNIPRESENT now, the fat Ballmerian super troupe managed to lose its old email market as well and it's unlikely they will ever get it back.
As for stability - is it one of your bad jokes again? If you want I can pull together a list of all MSFT outages in the past 3-4 years, with impact, scope and length, it won't be pretty - but hey, it works for me, the more people are aware of it the more can avoid it, the better we all off...
"I recall that Google Apps had a 30 hours total outage at one point."
At this point I have to question your basic understanding of the subject - you really need to define "total" or just admit you have no clue about the subject whatsoever/full of MS <ahem>.
Anyhow, ball is in your court - in short put up or shut up. :)
PS: BTW why is it that all you lame (obviously paid) MSFT trolls are ALWAYS ANONYMOUS, huh? You people are so pathetic, seriously.
"for example BGP routing with multi tenancy support..."
You made that up, right?
It is so utterly important that I don't even know what it is (or means), so it must be terribly important and vital to the well being of my enterprise - not.
I am more committed than ever to avoid the entire Windows 8.x branch. The changes Microsoft has instituted are insufficient. There is much left that is disliked.
I can't stand the overall appearance of the OS. It boggles my mind how Microsoft was starting to get on the right track with XP, then Windows 7, the totally botched up Windows 8. It's flat and boring. This is not how I want my workspace to look. If I want flat and boring, I'll go back to sticking post-it notes everywhere.
Windows 8 is a disaster. The sooner Microsoft realizes that, the sooner they can get back to producing something lean, mean, and compelling. The only thing compelling about Windows 8 is the intense desire to defenestrate computing devices running Windows 8.
I'm stuck with Windows 7 until Microsoft smartens up, or Linux matures as a music production and gaming platform.
Yes that's right. It's just that. Literally nothing else has happened.
Do shut up about the bloody Start Button/Menu. It's the least relevant part of Windows. It's just the bit people are making a lot of fuss about without any genuinely compelling reason.
How to launch app - Windows Vista:
hit windows key, type "Wor" and MS Word is there selected
Hit Enter.
How to launch app - Windows 7:
hit windows key, type "Word" and MS Word is there selected
Hit Enter.
How to launch app - Windows 8:
hit windows key, type "Word" and MS Word is there selected
Hit Enter.
How to launch app - Windows 8.1:
hit windows key, type "Word" and MS Word is there selected
Hit Enter.
That's assuming you've not already already pinned it to the taskbar. Etc Etc. And in most cases you can type even less depending on what you have installed. If you use the app all the time and you like the clicky clicky way of doing things, you can pin it, stick it near the beginning of start and so on.
Do get with the way the UI has worked for several releases now. I don't even really *see* the metro/tifkam/whatever screen at work because that's how everything is done.
At home I see it ALL the time because I don't really have any need for the desktop mode.
If my mum can use Windows 8, having NEVER used a computer before, and being the type to still call me and ask how to set her bedside alarm clock up, I can only assume the average person who reads this supposedly technically biased site is so utterly lacking in basic IT skills they have hired a friend to even comment about how they dislike Windows 8 so much.
Every single person I've given windows 8 to (and that's an awful lot of people) is coping just fine, regardless of skill. I spent 5 minutes showing them everything. It's called training. You may have done it as a child to learn how to use a loo. Same thing, not sure why it's so much of a crisis that once every few minutes a bit of learning is needed.
Basic outline of training needed:
"Here's how to shut it down" - admittedly added as everyone asked. Fair do.
"Here's how to start your programs" - only an issue for people I've not shown Vista upwards
"Here's what this key on the keyboard does" - only an issue for people I've not shown Vista upwards
"OK great, you're good to go, give me a shout if you have any issues..."
"Oh yeah, everything else you already do, please crack on"
Ever since the release of Windows NT nearly 20 years ago, Windows has been essentially based on a VMS core, which is known to be very effective and reliable. (It's ironic, come to think of it, that Mac OS too is layered on an older, utterly unfashionable, brilliantly engineered OS). Most of Windows' problems derive from the condition that Gates laid on Cutler and his team right at the outset: they must keep the existing Windows look and feel as nearly unchanged as possible. Over the years we have seen lots of experiments and proposed improvements, many of which overburdened the core operating system with slow, inefficient, and sometimes downright unworkable user interface extras. Vista was a classic case in point. It's looking as if Windows 8 is another.
I keep seeing comments from serious professionals lamenting that Windows gets between them and the operating system, rather than helping them as it is meant to.
"No, WindowsNT is not based on VMS, that's utter nonsense. NT inherited a few design properties which are similar to VMS but that's about it."
It's clear you have never studied Windows NT (and subsequent) internals. Even the names of most of the routines and locations are the same.
I think the truth is "inherited a lot of design properties".
But not from the VMS codebase, just from paying the same architect.
Anyway, it's the subsequent history that matters. Microsoft consistently put marketing ahead of securirty. NT 4 blew huge holes in the VMS security model. W2K blew some more. By the time they realised security slightly mattered (around XP SP2 time), it was so completely F*cked that mentioning VMS ancestry just made one feel like crying.
I have now spent 7 years away from VMS.
I miss it every day, and despair at my colleagues and their complete ignorance - an ignorance created and curated by Microsoft (and if I hear "best practices" again, I may just do physical violence to the speaker) ...
But alas, my family needs feeding and we are all left here in the soup that Microsoft and their perverted focus over decades, has left us.
Like always, in cases like this, one asks ,, "How did it come to this", and after the apprpriate quantity of ale, one concludes "it just sort of happened" and blame the anti-christ himself.
I haven't spent much time with Windows 8 or 8.1 yet, but I have spent a fair amount of time working with server 2012. it still blows my mind that they put this mentally repressed, logically deficient interface on a server OS.
My first day setting these servers up was hell, literately, I couldn't get shit accomplished, I just about punched the monitor trying to find the shutdown dialog to restart the damn things. After taking as long lunch to gather myself and regroup, I came back and installed a start menu replacement and revived the quick launch area on the taskbar, I installed classic shell, not the best choice but it allowed me to be productive and finally get some work done. what a nightmare.
Once I undid the Microsoft user interface fuck up, working with server 2012 wasn't bad, it does the job its designed to do very well. I set up multiple identical servers in a failover cluster running Hyper-V, I was extremely impressed with how well server 2012 handles multi-path I/O and VM failover. If only Microsoft wouldn't have completely desecrated the user interface they would actually have a golden egg here.
I think it boils to the fact Microsoft cant handle / is afraid of success, they go through all the trouble to make a great OS, but deep down inside they have a defect that just wont allow themselves to be great, so they had to go and bork that great OS by fucking up the user experience.
Win8 - 8.1 has some compelling features as well, like full fledged Hyper-V on the desktop OS and a few other things, but with the mental retardation of the user interface, i just cant bring myself to do it... I recently tried StartIsBack+ on a Win8.1 VM, Its a great start menu replacement and very well polished, but the underlying retartedness of Win8 still oozes thru that band-aid, so at least for now, its Windows 7 and VMWare...
I run a small IT business , locally outsourced IT best describes what I do. Out of 18 companies, not one has been happy with Windows 8. Classic menu had to be installed on the Win8 stations and even then, the clients weren't happy. I was asked to install Windows 7 on the majority of systems, at the client's expense!
Hopefully WIndows 8.1 will satisfy their needs. I do not run WIndows, but most of my clients do. The recommended upgrade to XP is currently Windows 7, maybe Windows 8.1 will become the recommended upgrade. I hope 8.1 works (for them), because it would make my life easier. Eventually when everyone realizes a 'fat client' is a terrible idea we can get rid of the expensive 'PC' and go to (browser based?) thin clients.
I love these "it has a start button" articles about the Win* update. Yup, it has one, that does nothing. NIce job listening to your customers MS. So far, I have yet to see anything fix the core problems Win8 is plagued with and users continue to be upset about. All MS continues to do is ignore the user and insist on trying to force a change that no one running a pc really wants, needs, or cares about. As others have mentioned, streamlining the OS, keeping the Win7 interface would have made the latest release a winner. Instead, sales of Win8 are pathetic, businesses are ignoring it, and the only ones who seem to be enjoying it are recreational users.
Windows 8 is an abomination. I have worked with almost all Windows from v3 to 95, XP, 7 and now 8. It is true Windows 8 is not the first leap in style - Windows 95 was quite different. BUT on all the other versions before Win8, 90% of the existing applications ran in the same fashion - just the usual wait for device drivers to catch up. Skype usage is terrible on Windows 8 - so difficult to switch between windows and look up some information on IE you are looking are whilst Skypeing. The workaround for this is to install the desktop version of Skype - which does work better but is still not an elegant solution. On Windows 8 RT things get worse...Skype desktop version cannot install.
Also on Windows 8 you are forced to log in to Skype with a Windows Live ID and it will not let you use any login other than that of your Windows login ! - I have a separate Skype account and want to use that - thanks very much Microshaft - or maybe my gf wants to use her Skype on my laptop. I know there are potential workarounds of using local logins - but yet again more effing around before you get to where you want...argghhhh....
I see the logic of unifying Windows Phone 8, Windows Surface and Desktops/Laptops with same UI but the execution of that idea has been awful. Most of my friends are IT professionals and they are getting sick and tired of hearing friends/family complain about Windows 8 and the PC retail outlets refuse to take the items back....the retailers have had to become hard-headed and have had to baton down the hatches to avoid losing sales - they leave people with unsuitable laptops/desktops/tablets and a whole generation will lose trust in PC sales outlets. If someone comes to me or my friends asking advice BEFORE they buy we search for a Win7 machine to save them pain....but that will become more difficult in months to come as supplies of Win7 laptops dwindle. I was thinking to buy as many Win7 PCs as I can afford as people out there will pay a premium price for them on well known personal selling sites - they may well increase in value despite CPU tech moving on !
The PC sellers, manufacturers and Microshaft appear to have colluded to make it difficult for an average Joe to downgrade to Windows 7 with UEFI - is this a coincidence ? - I think not, if it was just coincidence is was a pretty useful one for them . What happened to "the customer is king" ? - they want me to use MY PC in the fashion THEY dictate. I have spent years disparaging Apple for similar closed-shop, over-hyped and over-priced reasons...but right now it is MICROSOFT that sucks big time.
Disappointed former Microsoft fan,
Ton
People keep saying "You can't polish a turd", but you can. You just gotta wait a while first. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyds_Bank_coprolite
Why, that could mean that if someone were to bury Win8.x, in only a thousand or so years it might be worth something.
I say that we try the experiment. As, as it's difficult to fossilize stuff, we should bury _all_ examples of Win8.x, just to see if we can get even one example that's worth a damn come 3013-3113 or so.
"Nevertheless, Windows 8.1 is a step forward and a worthwhile upgrade over Windows 7 even for those sticking with desktop, keyboard and mouse."
Really? From all I've read about Win 8 and 8.1 I just can't see any advantages for me with my desktop, keyboard and mouse - used for games, normal home stuff (editing photos, home movies, managing music collections etc) and a bit of working from home.
Given I moved to Win 7 from XP for this desktop, I think I'll skip a generation again.
I am not exactly a newbie when it comes to dealing with Microsoft Windows - I have been using their products since, well, since they first came out.
When I installed Windows 8 for a friend recently however, I had to boot up my own Windows 7 laptop so I could Google two questions:
1) How do I shut down Windows 8?
2) Where is control panel on Windows 8?
Microsoft seem to think that progress involves deliberately confusing their long term customers. And the point of that is?
Windows 3.1 had more flexibility than Windows 8. When windows XP came out there was an option to make it look like Windows 98. From an aesthetic point of view Windows 8 looks worse than iOS seven. If customers want a start menu, give them a start menu, if a start screen is better they will eventually start to use that instead, but never force a customer into doing something they don't want to do. Economic's 101.
I use Ubuntu 13.04 (dual booting with Windows 7), and I prefer Unity and iOS 7 over Not Metro. I am dictating this on my iPad 3 and have an android phone (cyanogen mod 10.2). I love technology and operating systems that make hardware dance - but I dislike Not Metro (loved 98SE, XP and 7, IBM OS2 & Warp, MS and DR DOS).
And it's not because I'm too stupid to find the shutdown option in the 'Charms' menu, or the missing Start menu, or too lazy to press the start button on the keyboard, or the fact that it's become a bit of a spyware program in its own right, or the clusterfuck that is UEFI, it is simply that Microsoft have stopped listening to me, to allow me to work the way I want.
Having said all that, I'll probably still check out 8.1, as I do like a challenge.
EOL.
My day has just been ruined by doing a Windows 8.1 upgrade. Apparently it doesn't play nice with systems running Intel hd 4000 displays. thanks Microsoft for making a rubbish product even worse. Wish I had windows 7 installs :(
oh and the "start button" is a super weak excuse for something useful
Remember how illogical it was to click "Start" so you could shut down? Now you log off - very logical, before you see the shut down button. Just one example of why Windows 8 is better than any of its predecessors, and why I don't intend to (but will probably be forced to) install the 8.1 upgrade. One of the things I like most about Win 8 was getting rid of the Win 95 Start Menu. Even without a touch screen Windows 8 is my favourite OS.
If you could possibly think of a more cack-handed way of implementing a start button for the desktop, Microsoft have managed to achieve it already. The situation as I see it is I've upgraded from 8 to 8.1, primarily to get things like the start button back, but now I've got it back it's so utterly crap I want it taken away again.
I recently bought a new laptop after mine died, and didn't have much choice other than to go for WIndows 8.
Straight away I installed Start8 and ModernMix, and never looked back. For all intents it now behaves exactly as I (and everyone in my household) would expect.
The 8.1 upgrade broke my WiFi though - the bundled Microsoft drivers don't seem to play nicely with the Intel 6205 WiFi card and it kept losing its DNS resolution every couple of minutes. Downloaded the latest drivers from Intel though and that seems to have fixed it.
Unlike previous Windows versions it appears that you can only use the Skydrive desktop application if your user account is a Microsoft account. This is of course all wonderful for the less IT savy user such as my mum who will gain all the benefits of a roaming user profile/email/personal settings regardless of what Windows 8.1 PC she uses. But for those who are concerned with privacy this is totally unacceptable. Given all the commotion about NSA and their Prism program there is no justification to make it easier for governments to snoop on peoples files (although they probably already have a backdoor).
Likewise it is hard to imagine enterprises endorsing this. They have their own IT policy. For them to convert user accounts to microsoft accounts seems unimaginable. Skydrive seemed like a great product and very competitive. But with Windows 8.1 my guess is that Dropbox will be seeing a surge of interest among estranged Windows users and reduced interest in upgrading to Windows 8.1 by enterprises.
Yet again Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot.
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