its faster to navigate to an app with the metro screen than the old start menu, the solution in Blue to have the Menu pull up on your desktop so you do not have the surprise effect of being transported to a different desktop background is a good one. Allowing them to swipe up for all apps instead of swiping then taping is a good one. Its a good solution.

6/7/2013 2:42:52 PM

you clearly don't work in software.

Quote :

"its faster to navigate to an app with the metro screen than the old start menu"

not even remotely correct. maybe if you have and extremely small number of apps it's "similar"

6/7/2013 6:22:38 PM

Quote :

"you can set file associations to avoid metro without any 3rd party software, it comes like that from microsoft. setting file associations works exactly like it did in WIndows 7."

No, when you right-click and choose Open With... you get sent to a Metro-style overlay that doesn't even fix your preferences correctly all the time and requires you to go through a gauntlet to choose a non-installed (i.e., portable) program as the default.

6/7/2013 10:32:15 PM

^^ go read the research that was posted in this thread, metro is demonstrably faste

^ when I right click a file and select file association, the menu looks exactly like Windows 7. If I select a non-metro app to open the file the association is saved if I set default and I never see Metro. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[Edited on June 8, 2013 at 10:52 AM. Reason : .]

6/8/2013 10:50:37 AM

It doesn't look "exactly like Windows 7" for me: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7811-open-change-default-program-windows-8-a.html

6/8/2013 7:59:27 PM

we are talking about someone who wants to do it all in desktop mode, changing file association in desktop mode is exactly the same as Windows 7.

6/9/2013 12:49:53 PM

when I hit winkey and start typing I get a list of matching things in windows 7

in windows 8 it puts the start menu on top of whatever I was doing and then it only shows me apps that match instead of files and settings. if I want it to show files and settings I have to take my hand off the keyboard and use the mouse to select the file or settings filter.

then theres about a 30% chance that it launches the shitty metro version of something instead of the desktop version, so now im stuck in a retarded fullscreen app and I have to alt tab back to my work.

metro is not for mouse and keyboard. its fucking awful. its a total fucking failure and its the sole cause of the huge drop in pc sales.

6/10/2013 1:30:48 PM

Blue is fixing that

6/10/2013 1:39:16 PM

Quote :

"we are talking about someone who wants to do it all in desktop mode, changing file association in desktop mode is exactly the same as Windows 7."

Those screenshots show what pops up when I try to do it in desktop mode, fucktard.

6/10/2013 2:22:04 PM

no need to get rude, you asperger twat. this is what it looks like for me on Windows 8:


(or you could click the link you posted and see that the screenshot you posted is from doing it in Metro. The way it looks in desktop is also included in your link, just scroll down a little more:


)

[Edited on June 10, 2013 at 3:10 PM. Reason : aspergers]

6/10/2013 3:08:09 PM

Quote :

"in windows 8 it puts the start menu on top of whatever I was doing and then it only shows me apps that match instead of files and settings. if I want it to show files and settings I have to take my hand off the keyboard and use the mouse to select the file or settings filter. "

that's probably the one thing that still irritates me about win8. i've only about half gotten myself into the habit of doing win+w or win+f instead if i want to search by settings or files

6/10/2013 3:31:18 PM

Quote :

"or you could click the link you posted and see that the screenshot you posted is from doing it in Metro"

After I click "Choose default program..." I get the very same menu that I posted about above; I'll even show you a couple screengrabs from my own machine to prove that it happens in Desktop mode: http://imgur.com/a/1r0d5

Yes, I know I have a lot of programs installed, but after I click "Choose default program..." and wait like half a minute, the following appears:

Or you could have looked farther down the EightForums thread, where screenshots of that procedure were taken (fun fact: second screenshot in my earlier post came from Desktop Mode, and the first one could have too, because I see toast notifications from Desktop Mode); I for one would love to find the registry entry that makes setting file associations work just like Win7.

6/11/2013 6:42:42 AM

http://gizmodo.com/windows-8-1-everything-you-need-to-know-585637162

I'm running the 8.1 the preview now, so far everything looks good and works as described.

6/26/2013 1:46:49 PM

http://www.wpcentral.com/quick-list-significant-changes-windows-81

Quote :

"1. A new Windows tablet is coming, Acer W3, with a 8" screen. This will spearhead a whole series of small-sized devices, and even more mobile experience. 2. FOUR sizes for home screen tiles. The "small tile" we have right now is defined as "medium". Employing that as the base measurement, the four sizes are: large (2x2), wide (2x1), medium (1x1), and small (1/4x1/4). The smallest tile is only 1/16 of our current standard tile in size, and it can't be be animated into "live tiles", for developers can't possibly show anything but an icon on one of those tiny things. 3. A "read list" option into your Charm bar. "Read list" is like a clipboard for your account, storing links and pages to read later on different devices. The intended user scenario is: discover a nice article on your tablet put it to your read list, and read later on your PC's huge screen. 4. Improved text input for English language. I don't quite understand what WPDang is trying to describe. So... you guys will have to find it out on yourselves... 5. Panorama for the default camera app, powered by Photosynth technology. Now somebody please stash a Pureview camera into one of those Windows tablets? 6. "Smart Search", not sure if it's a built-in function or a separate app. This is like universal search, presenting everything the OS mines out about your keyword and put them all into one place: local files, internet pictures, websites, Wikipedia entries, etc. 7. Xbox Music and browser: Windows 8.1 will recognize playlists fused into web pages, and play the list in Xbox Music. 8. Even deeper SkyDrive integration. Now you will be able to check your SkyDrive usage with a nice pie chart in your PC settings. 9. More language support: 139 languages in all. 10. More powerful lockscreen wallpaper. You won't be confined to one single lockscreen picture at one time. The lockscreen is now able to play SERIES of pictures like a slideshow. You can feed the lockscreen with locally saved pictures, and files in your SkyDrive. 11. Pick up Skype calls faster, without even needing to unlock your tablet. Do it right on the lockscreen. This makes Windows tablets the fastest device responding to Skype calls. But I'm wondering if there will be any privacy problem... 12. Animated background for your Modern home screen. The new wallpaper will move as you slide left or right. And you are allowed to really customize the background color, instead of picking from a few pre-defined options. 13. One more home screen gesture: slide from the bottom up to access your "all apps" screen. This is a lot more handy than Windows 8's current solution, but sounds a bit like webOS to me. 14. More powerful built-in picture apps: new features for editing pictures, including effect filters. 15. New app called "Food and Drink". Apparently Microsoft found a great number of users like to use tablets in the kitchen for quick recipe reference. So come this new pre-loaded app. It shows recipes, and has an egg-timer built in. Handy. Moreover, the app can be controlled by gestures without actually touching the screen (motion sensed by the front-facing camera). Don't worry about staining your tablet any more. 16. Added support for 3D printers. That's the future right? 17. Halo: Spartan Assault!!!! 18. Start button coming back, but not working like it used to. You've read quite a lot about this in the past month. I won't waste more of your time. 19. Improvements for the Mail app: new group for key contact, a brand new "newsletter" category for organizing your inbox. Opening a picture attachment in an email will now show it in a snapped view instead of firing up the Picture app in full screen. God having mercy, finally. 20. Faster music search. Search for music while you are in another app, and play what you get right through the search screen, without needing to launch Xbox Music. 21. New snap view for applications. Windows 8 allows us to snap two apps to the same screen, in a ratio that looks like 25/75. This mechanism could be frustrating at times, since every now and then we do have two apps snapped, and want to see detailed stuff in reasonably big fonts in both of them. Windows 8.1 introduces 50/50 app snapping, each taking half the pixels. 22. "Modern" version for the Office productivity suite. Microsoft showcased the Modern version of Powerpoint and Word. Sadly they are all in alpha stage. 23. For enterprise: IT guys' life made easier. Install all corporate apps required on one Windows tablet, generate a XML specification file, and apply it to all other Windows devices within the organization. 24. Policy changes for Windows Store: availability in over 200 countries, accepting developer submission from 191 countries, average review and certification time reduced to 2.2 days, 80% revenue goes to developers, and now allowing the submission of M rated games. Finally we are going to see some AWESOME games in the Store? 25. Advertising of Windows Store apps through Bing. 26. The option to automatically update Store apps without user interference. 27. New payment options: gift card support brought to 41 markets to reduce the reliance on credit cards. 28. Less limitation for app roaming. Remember that "you can install an app bought from Windows Store on 5 computers at most under your Microsoft account" regulation? That one's apparently gone from Windows 8.1 on. Buy once, and install on whatever computer, as long as you are the owner. 29. Opening up of new API to developers. This means developers will be able to do many things they were not allowed to previously. The downside is that apps utilizing these new APIs probably won't run on Windows 8. Theoretically all Windows 8 apps should be able to run well on Windows 8.1. But since the latter is still in review shape, there's no guarantee for that at this stage. 30. Special treat for Chinese folks: Alipay support. Microsoft does know credit cards are not household items in China, therefore added support to the country's most popular online payment service in Windows 8.1. "

6/26/2013 2:11:10 PM

I am installing the 8.1 pre-view (or beta or whatever you want to call it) on tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions.

6/26/2013 10:17:36 PM

worth the $88 upgrade price?

6/26/2013 10:19:19 PM

Yes and No.

6/26/2013 10:22:08 PM

If you use SkyDrive or have multiple computers, its definitely worth it. Beyond that its up to tour preferences. Its worth $88 to me, but if you are just going to be lovong on the desktop side and never using metro apps and have no interest in syncing computers, Win 7 is probably still fine.

6/27/2013 7:50:15 AM

50/50 split is awesome

(one cool thing I discovered whole typing this is that suggested words now appear here you are typing instead of right above the keyboard. Kind of annoying IMO but I'm much more likely to use now.

6/27/2013 7:54:42 PM

One thing I dont like is with the browser. To open a link in a new tab you used to long-press the link and a drop down menu appeared. Now, instead of a drop down menu, the options appear t the bottom of the screen, it requires you to move your hand and click on the bottom corner, its annoying.

6/28/2013 6:33:59 AM

7/12/2013 2:39:19 PM

One of the updates for the 8.1 preview killed my instant resume on my tablet. If its off for awhile it freezes and you have to long-press the power button to force it off and restart it. I can deal with other beta hiccups, but this one is too annoying. I'm probably going to need to roll it back.

7/12/2013 2:54:53 PM

German government reports Windows 8 has NSA backdoor, refuses to use it.

[Edited on August 22, 2013 at 11:40 AM. Reason : .]

8/22/2013 11:32:06 AM

couldn't you just install Windows 8 on a computer that doesn't have a new TPM chip and not worry about that?

8/22/2013 11:51:39 AM

I tried loading 8.1 on my Dell XPS 10 tablet (WinRT) -- the update didn't take and hung on the Dell loading screen. Reverted back to 8.

8/22/2013 3:09:11 PM

Is everyone still using Start 8, or did 8.1 reduce the need for that?

8/22/2013 3:37:33 PM

I uninstalled it on both of my computers, I prefer the "metro" screen now

(i use combination of "metro" screen and pinning desktop items to taskbar)

[Edited on August 22, 2013 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

8/22/2013 4:14:30 PM

Ballmer is quitting. Thank fucking god. Hopefully the replacement is smart enough to salvage windows by tossing metro.

[Edited on August 23, 2013 at 9:31 AM. Reason : a]

8/23/2013 9:31:26 AM

fuck that, troll

8/23/2013 9:46:02 AM

^^
I used to think ballmer was awesome, but that proves to only be the case with an engineer in charge with a proper vision and him being the junkyard dog to execute it.

8/23/2013 9:55:50 AM

yeah he was ok as a sales front man, but he was a terrible ceo.

gaben for new Microsoft ceo

8/23/2013 10:24:35 AM

whoops reply all

8/23/2013 2:07:14 PM

Yeah, we all got a good chuckle from that. There's only a handful of people in the company who CAN reply-all to the large Discussion Lists.

8/24/2013 11:08:48 PM

Windows 8.1 up on msdn now.

9/9/2013 6:31:56 PM

hay I thought everyone would be getting 8.1 at the same time

Quote :

"Is everyone still using Start 8, or did 8.1 reduce the need for that?"

8.1 will have a Start button but no Start menu so I'm sticking with Start 8

9/9/2013 7:29:10 PM

its so much nicer when you stop using the start menu

9/10/2013 10:33:22 AM

I installed W8 on my home machine a couple days ago. The whole start screen thing is obnoxious but once you just get back to the normal desktop it's fine. If it was my work PC I'd probably hate it more, but since all I do on that machine is play games and stream video to my PS3, it's fine.

9/10/2013 12:54:23 PM

Man, I'd love to have it on my work PC. I'd also use Start8, like I do at home.

9/11/2013 8:19:26 PM

any good reason not to download 8.1 before the official october 18 release? it's no longer in beta, right?

9/12/2013 10:32:03 PM

It's here! Windows 8.1!!!!!

Windows has been much improved and it runs very well on my legacy and my "made for windows 8" devices.

PC List:
-Dell Inspiron Duo
-Dell Latitude E4300
-HP Envy X2
-HP TouchSmart 7320
-Acer Iconia W500P

I love the SkyDrive integration. It makes having a tablet with "only" 32 GB of onboard storage (W500P) feel much more capable.

[Edited on October 17, 2013 at 2:28 PM. Reason : IBT "start button" & "tiles suck" comments come up again.]

10/17/2013 2:26:06 PM

FUck windows 8. Bought a desktop...Downgraded to Win7.

A friends just bought a desktop today and texted me..."where do I setup the wifi? on Win8". I told him google it or downgrade.

10/17/2013 2:50:58 PM

^your loss. it's not complicated.

10/17/2013 3:03:54 PM

its in the charms bar, he would have seen it when trying out swiping from the right. (or he could click on it on the taskbar in the same spot)

i'm in the process of installing 8.1, i had to roll back to Win 8 from the 8.1 Preview to get it to show up in the store. Are there any changes from the preview?

[Edited on October 17, 2013 at 3:05 PM. Reason : .]

10/17/2013 3:05:10 PM

-the "moving" wallpapers are there
-the updated mail app is there (which FINALLY works with my exchange server)
-updated calendar app
-not sure if this was there before, but your tabs in IE11 sync across all your devices, so I could see what tabs are open on my laptop and desktop from my tablet, for example
-I think there's a new setting to delay the touchpad to prevent the cursor from moving while you type.
-you can clear the list of recent apps from the left swipe from PC Settings

Not sure if those are all updates as I am going strictly off memory from the preview. They still don't have a built in Cisco VPN connector, but you can just use shrewsoft vpn for that (shrew.net).

10/17/2013 3:35:03 PM

Having an old version of RAMDisk on the system rendered updated Windows 8.1 incapable of booting. Had to boot into safe-mode, manually enable the msi service, and uninstall RAMDisk. Now the system could boot I installed the latest version of RAMDisk and the system seems to work perfectly.

10/17/2013 4:49:05 PM

Up and running, I really like the changes and it runs faster for me on my laptop and tablet than 8 or 8.1 preview

I do have one complaint, and its the same complaint that I had before. In Windows 8 when you long pressed a link (equivalent of left click) the drop down menu to open in a new tab was at your finger. In 8.1 Preview and 8.1 when you long press on a link you then have to press on the bottom par to open in a new tab. Its very annoying.

10/17/2013 8:55:22 PM

Yeah, that's weird. It brings up the menu (not at the bottom) when you right click with a mouse.

10/18/2013 8:50:11 AM

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense at all considering that it worked correctly in Windows 8.0

[Edited on October 18, 2013 at 11:39 AM. Reason : I meant right click above]

10/18/2013 11:38:46 AM

So far so good with the update. The only thing that I did not like about the whole thing is that at first my multi-finger scrolling did not work properly (Acer Aspire S7). However, all I had to do to fix it was go into my mouse properties and click Apply for it to work.

10/18/2013 7:07:15 PM

yeah, i just noticed that's not working for me too. With the 8.1 preview i had to reinstall the drivers and then it worked, so if you are still having trouble try that.


How do you get to the desktop-side mouse/touchpad settings? I need to setup my gestures, and in preview typing mouse would take me there. Since there are now those settings in the metro side, how do I get to my synaptics touchpad settings?

[Edited on October 19, 2013 at 9:22 AM. Reason : .]

10/19/2013 9:12:15 AM