Windows 8.1, What's The Point?

[Kensuke]

So, I have 8. Came with the 'puter. And yes... I hate Metro to the point where I installed Classic Shell. I am actually pretty happy with this. It runs just like my beloved XP. Most stable version of Windows I have used. I apply all the critical updates, and reboot a couple of times a month. La de da.

 

Now I see that MS is offering a free upgrade to 8.1. But from what I understand, it's really just MORE Metro bullshit and attempts to get me to use Bing (sorry, I already sold my soul to Google). They are not bringing the start button back or killing Metro.

 

So, I am really inclined NOT to do it. It ain't broke. But I am wondering maybe there is something "under the hood" I am missing.

 

- John

Edited October 18, 2013 by Kensuke

[Corinthian]

First there was Windows 3.

 

Then there was Windows 3.1

 

Then there was Windows 3.11

 

And remember: 3 is simply half of the figure 8.

 

Yes, this post was extremely unhelpful.

 

[Rickard N]

I'm not sure about what's been done "under the hood", I haven't bothered since they ship 8.1 with IE 11 and the my main focus at work is a product that doesn't support IE11 yet. They have put the start button back though if I understood the info mail from Microsoft. That's one thing I haven't missed much though considering you can't do anything else while using the start button so for me it doesn't matter if I have a start screen instead. It's a bit annoying that old-stuff gets a bit sorted away in the new infrastructure but that's sort of hard to do something about imho.

 

/R

[Fritz]

The issue with the 8.1 Start button is, afaik, it sends you to the metro screen... so it's not really a Start button.

 

I have 8 on my Surface Pro so it's pretty much mandatory update, but on my workstation I'll stay with 7 for the foreseeable future.

[m1a1mg]

8.1 does allow you to boot to the desktop. It has a few other tweaks that are free if you already have 8, so why not. Unless IE11 isn't your thing.

[Leo Niehorster]

First there was Windows 3.

 

Then there was Windows 3.1

 

Then there was Windows 3.11

 

And remember: 3 is simply half of the figure 8.

 

Yes, this post was extremely unhelpful.

 

You young wippersnapper, you missed the very first Windows, namely Windows 1, and then came Windows 286 ...

[sunday]

There was a early release of Excel that came with a Windows 2 installation diskette.

[Kensuke]

8.1 does allow you to boot to the desktop. It has a few other tweaks that are free if you already have 8, so why not. Unless IE11 isn't your thing.

 

I can already boot to the desktop via Classic Shell. I don't use IE. I use Chrome. I wouldn't object to it being on my system, but it would just lie dormant 99% of the time.

 

- John

[Leo Niehorster]

19 October 2013: Windows RT 8.1 update Removed

Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1.

As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store.

We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.  We will provide updates as they become available.

 

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-pictures

[Kensuke]

19 October 2013: Windows RT 8.1 update Removed

Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1.

As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store.

We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.  We will provide updates as they become available.

 

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-pictures

 

 

That's for ARM-based devices. It doesn't affect x86 computers, like mine.

 

Still not seeing the point. Somebody said it has a slightly upgraded version of Direct X 11 though.

 

- John

[Murph]

it was a painful three hour upgrade process. Victoria likes it better than "stock" Winders 8. I still think Classic shell is a better option, but she likes it, and I was not going to take a chance of "zorching" her system. It took forever to d/l, then something like five restarts, and then I had to go in and tweak it to get it to boot to desktop. They really, really want you to use Bing.

[m1a1mg]

it was a painful three hour upgrade process. Victoria likes it better than "stock" Winders 8. I still think Classic shell is a better option, but she likes it, and I was not going to take a chance of "zorching" her system. It took forever to d/l, then something like five restarts, and then I had to go in and tweak it to get it to boot to desktop. They really, really want you to use Bing.

The Bing BS is overwhelming.

[Murph]

I forgot to add, it was not on Windows Update, no, I had to go to the Windows STORE, and get it there, along with other updates to crap on WIndows 8. Seldom have I had to go to so many places just to do an upgrade.

[Kensuke]

it was a painful three hour upgrade process. Victoria likes it better than "stock" Winders 8. I still think Classic shell is a better option, but she likes it, and I was not going to take a chance of "zorching" her system. It took forever to d/l, then something like five restarts, and then I had to go in and tweak it to get it to boot to desktop. They really, really want you to use Bing.

 

Classic Shell should work fine with 8.1 (so says www.classicshell.net). But that's sorta the point. It's an update that doesn't fix what you want. It doesn't bring back the Start button like a lot of people wanted. It does let you boot directly into desktop, but that's redundant if you're already using Classic Shell.

 

Fuck Bing. MS is a day late and a dollar short. For better or worse, I'm in the Google ecosystem. Which is another reason I'm not going to run out and update. I chucked MSIE in the garbage bin ages ago. I went to Firefox and then Chrome.

 

- John

Edited October 21, 2013 by Kensuke

[Fritz]

I let my surface pro get updated this morning. I literally LOLed when after one of the restarts the message on the screen was "Setting up a few more things"

[Fritz]

Well MS is just epic. After upgrading I lost my pen capability on the pro. It's basically crippled without the pen. Trying to figure out how to get it back.

 

* * * * * *

 

OK the issue was with the Wacom driver, had to be updated.

 

Now the fail is that you need to get this Wacom driver on your own to get full pressure sensitivity with the pen. This is something that should come standard. Let me remind you the Surface Pro is Microsoft's flagship hardware piece.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Fritz

[medicjim86]

 

 

Now the fail is that you need to get this Wacom driver on your own to get full pressure sensitivity with the pen. This is something that should come standard. Let me remind you the Surface Pro is Microsoft's flagship hardware piece.

 

Classic Microsoft... testing in the public domain is soooooooooo much easier than actually testing end-to-end user experience internally. <BG>.... I'm sure the next patch will contain what should have been in the first release

[Fritz]

It's been like this since the Pro was released back in January I have no hopes, I bet MS thinks this is how it should be

[Murph]

A photo buddy had the same issue. Epic fail on MS part.

Well MS is just epic. After upgrading I lost my pen capability on the pro. It's basically crippled without the pen. Trying to figure out how to get it back.

 

* * * * * *

 

OK the issue was with the Wacom driver, had to be updated.

 

Now the fail is that you need to get this Wacom driver on your own to get full pressure sensitivity with the pen. This is something that should come standard. Let me remind you the Surface Pro is Microsoft's flagship hardware piece.

[Rickard N]

Ok.. I've updated to Win 8.1 and the main thing you notice is a button to go to the start screen, and I think they've made some sort of change to how stuff's organized on the start screen. My main reason to upgrade was that Hyper-V has been updated (virtual machine thingy) and that VMs are supposed to run faster. Not sure about that just yet

 

/R

[Ivanhoe]

Ok.. I've updated to Win 8.1 and the main thing you notice is a button to go to the start screen, and I think they've made some sort of change to how stuff's organized on the start screen. My main reason to upgrade was that Hyper-V has been updated (virtual machine thingy) and that VMs are supposed to run faster. Not sure about that just yet

 

That's actually a logical outcome of the whole snafu. Turn Win8.2 into a skeletonized Type I hypervisor for running user-friendly VMs (such as Win7). The core kernel seems to be a major improvement on the old code base, its the UI that is hosed. So have 8 run the hardware and let users choose their OS "skin".

 

I have an old laptop that I used to run with Linux Mint as the host OS, and ran various VMs under VMware Player. Mostly Win7 Home, but also a couple of Linux VMs and a Windows Server 2003 appliance. Win 7 Home was my "working" environment; aside from running Player I mostly used Mint for web surfing. That machine didn't have enough CPU, and RAM maxed out at 4 GB, but I got a lot of work done on it. I sort of plan to go that route again on my next laptop, next time I will forgo long battery life and get CPU and video that benchmarks out closer to ultrabook standards.

[Ivanhoe]

As for unwelcome GUI designs, its amusing to watch the parallels between Metro and the alterna-GUIs in the Linux world. Along with the old-school alternatives of xfce and LXDE, we now have Mate, Cinnamon, Trinity, and who knows how many others.

[Rickard N]

I haven't had any problems with the new UI to be honest. Looking at pictures is the only time I even notice the app world.

 

/R

[m1a1mg]

I haven't had any problems with the new UI to be honest. Looking at pictures is the only time I even notice the app world.

 

/R

Photo Gallery is a free part of Windows Essentials. (Just make sure you don't install all the other stuff that comes with it.) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/photo-gallery#photogallery=overview

[TTK Ciar]

If xfce is "old-school", do I even want to know your opinion of good old fvwm? :-)

I like it because it (1) does everything I need, (2) is stable and sane, and (3) is unlikely to change much in the next twenty years. Continuity rocks.