Windows 8

Woolen_Horde · 2013-10-17T17:48:59.000Z

stusser:

Hopefully MS keeps to the yearly cadence. It’s nice to get a refresh every year.

The rumble is that 8.2 is going to be first half 2015. 8.1 was basically greenlit by Sinofsky. There’s a new Windows chief in town, and sounds like she’s planning something a little bigger.

Calelari · 2013-10-17T18:14:04.000Z

stusser:

Obviously I’m not using a microsoft account, and that is kind of a debacle too. Pity, because I would like to try skydrive. Oh well.

Wow. I hadn’t noticed it nuked my desktop version of Skydrive. Did they really do away being able to log into the service separately from a standalone desktop account, like all the other apps allow? That is quite dumb.

stusser · 2013-10-17T18:19:02.000Z

Yes, it is highly integrated now, and they really want us to use a MS account. It’s asinine.

KevinC · 2013-10-17T19:33:29.000Z

KevinC:

EDIT: I’m also running into an issue where pop-up dialogs will not pop up on top, instead they’re coming up behind other windows. As an example, I’m deleting a folder and it hits a read-only file or whatever, bringing up a prompt asking what to do. Depending on the dialog, sometimes this locks up the dialog I’m using. It’s only after a few seconds figuring out WTF is going on that I notice that something is flashing on the taskbar. Then I alt-tab and get to the dialog in question and address it. Anyone else getting this issue?

If anyone runs into this issue, it’s this feature here that was causing me the problems:

rUTKlun.png926×671

It was disabled by default. After enabling it now the text is scaled properly between my two monitors (I have one large 37" and a smaller 22", I think it was screwing it up somehow). Reading the text from the option it seems to me enabling this would cause the issue, but apparently not.

Jason_Becker · 2013-10-17T20:34:22.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

I just installed it, and man, there are some annoying things about 8.1.

For example, having a Microsoft Account to use your computer is now required, where it was optional in 8.0. You must create one, which means your computer has a password, whether you want one or not. Fortunately I found a video telling me how to turn this “feature” off so I can use my computer without entering a password. I still have the option of manually selecting Lock if I want to password protect it temporarily.

There are “helpful” tips that pop up, and don’t go away until you use them. I was doing some work, and it said “hey, you can get to your last Modern App by swiping from the left!” And until I obeyed, part of my screen was obscured with the tip. No way to tell it “shut up, I’m busy.” Then it did it again, only this time telling me I could get to the Start Page by swiping from the right. Which I never want to do.

What is annoying and stupid to you could be very helpful to allot of other people. Stuff like the hot corners and charms not being very easy to figure out was a major complaint about Windows 8. Not everyone is a computer geek.

TimElhajj · 2013-10-17T22:39:53.000Z

stusser:

Yes, it is highly integrated now, and they really want us to use a MS account. It’s asinine.

I don’t understand the problem? You can use a gmail address (or any email address you want) as a Microsoft account.

You just have to have an email address to designate as your Microsoft account, much like how you have to have an email address to sign up for Facebook, twitter, QuartertoThree or pretty much any service on the web. It doesn’t have to be stusser@outlook.com.

wumpus · 2013-10-17T22:51:14.000Z

MICROSOFT DOES NOT TELL STUSSER WHAT TO DO GOD DAMN IT

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2013-10-18T04:10:29.000Z

Jason Becker:

What is annoying and stupid to you could be very helpful to allot of other people. Stuff like the hot corners and charms not being very easy to figure out was a major complaint about Windows 8. Not everyone is a computer geek.

You completely misunderstood my point. In fact, I’ve ranted in the past about how they’ve hidden vital features by making them only usable by gestures, rather than icons you can see. What pissed me off was that Microsoft decided that you couldn’t dismiss those tips if you were busy. You must break your work flow to do what they want if you want your screen back. Can’t see what you are typing? Too bad, you must give the entire screen over to another program for a bit if you want to close that dialog.

It’s more about Microsoft deciding that what they want you to do, and when, is more important than what you want to do. It’s like how you don’t want to make Windows Update completely automatic, because sometimes that means your computer reboots unexpectedly to install those updates. It’s a clueless disregard for the user.

TimElhajj:

I don’t understand the problem? You can use a gmail address (or any email address you want) as a Microsoft account.

I’m not Stusser, but my problem is that if you create a Windows 8 profile using a Microsoft account, you’ve just put a password on your computer, one that shows up every time you turn on your computer or you wake it from Sleep. You can’t leave the password field blank because doing so would also blank your Microsoft account’s password. Most people just want to turn their computer on and use it, and requiring a password they didn’t want for a home computer is a significant inconvenience.

It turns out you can bypass the password login screen, as we discussed upthread, but the dialog for doing so is fairly well hidden.

sharaleo · 2013-10-18T05:15:19.000Z

And why should you need to create an online account in order to use a, for the most part, offline general purpose operating system? If you want to use the online services, sure, but if not, fuck off with your mandatory online account shit.

Periastron · 2013-10-18T05:45:57.000Z

KevinC:

Now I’m going through the joy or moving my user folder, which Microsoft still doesn’t give a UI option to move during install for some unknown fucking reason. I’m sorry, but limited space SSD system drives just aren’t uncommon these days. Give me an option to change it via an “Advanced” section during install and not have to create answer files myself.

If you hadn’t been forced down your particular install path, you would have hit the problem I have now, which is that the Windows 8.1 update refuses to install if your Users folder is not on the boot drive. Now I have to jump through hoops to “fix” this temporarily, so I can apply the upgrade. Bleh. :P

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2013-10-18T06:29:12.000Z

Periastron:

If you hadn’t been forced down your particular install path, you would have hit the problem I have now, which is that the Windows 8.1 update refuses to install if your Users folder is not on the boot drive.

Uck. That’s exactly how my Window 7 desktop computer is configured, the Users folder is on my data drive since, well, it’s data, and I don’t really want photos and such taking up space on my SSD. Fortunately I hadn’t done that with my Windows 8 laptop.

I just discovered another area where the touchscreen support in Windows 8 doesn’t measure up to iOS. When I quoted your message, I wanted to delete part of it for brevity’s sake. Selecting a text block is a bit awkward on an iPad, enough so that I often wait to use my desktop computer to do so if it’s a really big post and I just want to reference a single sentence. As clumsy as iOS text selection is, Windows 8 is worse if you’re using a touchscreen and not a mouse. There’s no magnifying glass, and you don’t have the selection handles to expand or reduce the selection. If you don’t get it right with the first swipe, you start over.

Fugitive · 2013-10-18T06:43:48.000Z

TimElhajj:

I don’t understand the problem? You can use a gmail address (or any email address you want) as a Microsoft account.

You just have to have an email address to designate as your Microsoft account, much like how you have to have an email address to sign up for Facebook, twitter, QuartertoThree or pretty much any service on the web. It doesn’t have to be stusser@outlook.com.

The problem I have with it is that any such account is public-facing, so I want a strong password on it. I don’t want to type a 30-character password to log into my own machine, but I don’t want to leave it completely unprotected with an automatic login either. Having a more weakly-passworded local account that’s linked to an online account is what I prefer instead (edit: And most Windows 8 services will work that way, I think it’s just SkyDrive that now insists on logging in with an MS account).

pyjamarama · 2013-10-18T07:23:59.000Z

You can configure the windows login to be a 4 digit Pin or even the picture password, but that may be awkward with a mouse, that way you don’t have to type the full password every time.

Periastron · 2013-10-18T07:56:53.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

Uck. That’s exactly how my Window 7 desktop computer is configured, the Users folder is on my data drive since, well, it’s data, and I don’t really want photos and such taking up space on my SSD. Fortunately I hadn’t done that with my Windows 8 laptop.

Yup. This is happening on my desktop gaming rig, which has something like three hard disks and an SSD boot drive in it. Reading around on the 'net, apparently it’s not even good enough to set up the Users folder with a hard link (junction) on C:; the profile path folder actually has to be on the boot drive. I’d forgotten that I’d had the same issue when I went to apply that free Media Center upgrade to my Windows 8 installation. Looks like I get to spend part of my weekend pushing bytes back and forth. :P

Here’s a discussion thread, full of people with the same problem:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-windows_install/sorry-it-looks-like-this-pc-cant-run-windows-81/84310e8a-edd3-48d7-af31-0b09666b0c74

pyjamarama · 2013-10-18T09:03:30.000Z

I have given up on moving the user folder and just move the data and add that folder to library, essentially is 4 folders, Photos, Music, Videos,and Documents that are free to be anywhere. Of course if you have many applications that write lots of data to the user folder is probably less of an hassle to move that folder then to configure all applications, but that is not my case.

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2013-10-18T09:19:31.000Z

I’m having a problem with my Windows 8 laptop now that I moved to 8.1, and I wonder if anyone here has any idea what’s going on.

Every time I restore from Sleep the Store and Adobe Reader apps are firing up. It’s not just on boot, which would be weird enough, it’s on opening the laptop when it’s been asleep. I have to close them every time, and it’s annoying and baffling.

Vesper · 2013-10-18T10:27:33.000Z

Reminder of an issue I ran into when RTM came out: Asus USB 3 drivers get replaced by some Microsoft default ones that caused me issues. Specifically, my Line 6 GX guitar interface wouldn’t work with them. I found some ASMedia drivers from the ASUS site to replace them and all was fine. (They were old too - October 2012 I believe).

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2013-10-18T10:41:29.000Z

I just closed Civilization and they popped up again. I think they’re not closing properly, so they’re always running, and when I open the desktop again for some reason (restore from Sleep, close a game) they’re trying to take over the screen.

rei · 2013-10-18T11:48:46.000Z

I do miss the ability to make a disk image that they took out from 8 that was present in 7.

rei · 2013-10-18T17:03:58.000Z

Pretty stupid of Microsoft not to release an update for the Windows Phone 8 Remote Desktop when shiny new versions are out for iOS and Android.