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Windows 8.1 Rolling Out October 18th
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Mine is free, too. It's in the recycle bin and free to anybody who wants it.
I know a lot of what they added in 8 I could care less about (hence my never getting it), but I doubt it is that bad. I imagine a lot of 8 is just like Vista, people just repeating things they heard that often have no basis in fact.
That said, metro or whatever is still an awful idea IMO.
Vista sucking was hardly a figment of ones imagination or a regurgitation of what someone else said. Vista did suck, even after the service packs.
Unknown-One
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Just upgraded my media server from Windows Home Server 2011 to Windows 8 Pro.
Home Server is dead-end (Microsoft has officially canned it). Went with Win8, because it's the only current-gen product with both Drive Pooling and Homegroup support. So far, working perfectly.
Also run Windows 7 on my desktop, laptop (convertible into a tablet), and media center PC's. Windows 7 is sticking around for a bit on the rest of the family's machines (Mostly because we missed the $40 promo pricing. Gotta save up).
Eagerly awaiting 8.1
Home Server is dead-end (Microsoft has officially canned it). Went with Win8, because it's the only current-gen product with both Drive Pooling and Homegroup support. So far, working perfectly.
Also run Windows 7 on my desktop, laptop (convertible into a tablet), and media center PC's. Windows 7 is sticking around for a bit on the rest of the family's machines (Mostly because we missed the $40 promo pricing. Gotta save up).
Eagerly awaiting 8.1
Unknown-One
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Has 8.1 fixed the wallpaper compression bug? If you use a .jpg as a wallpaper, Windows compresses and adds artifacts to it. Solution is to save the image you want to use as a .png.
heatlesssun
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I was thinking that Microsoft might bring back the $40 promo with the launch of 8.1 but they didn't bring that up today, but with XP going dark in about 8 months I have to figure they're going to do some kind of promotion to entice a few of those XP users.
Ur_Mom
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I didn't think Vista was that bad, personally. Not until 7 beta came out and I was very impressed.
Then, Vista was horrible in comparison.Vista was responsible for boosting apple market share from 8% to 13%. That's how bad it was. People switched platforms. This was partially due to the fact OEM's were selling cheap laptops with 512MB of ram running vista, and partially because it was crap.
what happens if/when 8.1 fails to take off?...throw in the towel and put all resources into Windows 9...and stop being so stubborn with the new Metro interface and bring back the Start menu?...amazing how something so simple can change something so radically...MS realizes this but they are just being stubborn and want to force people to adapt
good call.
It's odd to see that kind of dedication outside of investors intent on salvaging a bad bet. But of course, anyone with a shred of integrity would include some kind of disclaimer in at least a couple of posts when literally defending Win8 in every forum where it's criticized, post for post. *cough*
Ur_Mom
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I don't know if I'd call them stubborn.... But, from your first question - I don't know. I'm not sure if they see a lack of adoption if they would go back to the standard Start menu (or make it an option, or Metro only on touch or whatever) or not.
That's not a true statistic.
Apple had a 6.1% market share in the US in right before the initial release of Vista in 2006 (Gartner data). World-wide, it just topped 5% (IDC data), and it doesn't change much despite the increases in the US.
In Q1 2009, Apple's US market share began to drop (7.4% by Gartner and 7.6% IDC, drops of 1.1% and 1.2% respectively QoQ). I've only seen Apple reach a 12% share in the US, and much of that gain happened after Windows 7 was released. Apple gained 3% in US market share during Vista's release cycle, and gained another 3% in the US during the Windows 7 release cycle. During the Windows 8 cycle, Apple lost around half a percent of market share in the US.
It's not so simple to blame a single version of the OS, but it's becoming clearer that consumers are leaving the Windows ecosystem and not coming back. Macs, Android devices and iOS devices are benefiting from this shift.
fake edit: OK I do see where OS X hit 14%, right before the release of Windows 8. But it doesn't change most of what I posted above. Vista ceded ~3% (peak, down to only 1.4% right before Win 7 was released) market share in the US to OS X during its release cycle, and things were worse under Windows 7, where Windows lost 6.5% market share (OS X had 7.5% at Windows 7 release, rising to 14% right before Windows 8 release) in the US to OS X during its release cycle.
The gains could be due to a halo effect of some happy iOS device buyers abandoning Windows in favor of OS X.
A nice chart to show if Vista was "horrible", I don't know what to say about Windows 7 ("horribler"?):
The gains could be due to a halo effect of some happy iOS device buyers abandoning Windows in favor of OS X.
A nice chart to show if Vista was "horrible", I don't know what to say about Windows 7 ("horribler"?):
heatlesssun
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There's two sides to it. A lot of people make comments about Windows 8 who obviously aren't using it much. But 8 is a controversial subject and people love controversy in tech forums, it's much more entertaining than everyone agreeing.
At any rate I've be digging in the 9471 leak like a lot of folks and there is a lot of feedback in this release. I know I'll get called names but it's pretty obvious that Microsoft was listening to feedback in this release. With the exception of a Metro off/classic UI switch just about every major complaint that I can think was addressed. One may not like what was done but something was done.
The big change I see in 8.1 with this leak is emphasis on making it easier for traditional Windows desktop users. There are initial login help cues (not like the minimalistic intro video in 8), the tutorial app and now many cues in the included apps. More subtlety and something you wouldn't see without using Modern apps, their behavior is more desktop friendly. The resizable snapping is the big piece but one thing that's different in the 9471 release is that closing a Modern app takes you to the desktop instead of the Start Screen. If you're a fan of Aero snapping and windowing commands, For instance it you use Aero snap on desktop windows, the behavior is almost identical with a Modern UI app window. Drag it to the side and it snaps at half the screen, just like a desktop app. Even the Windows Key+<Arrow> shortcuts work identically.
8.1 isn't going to make 8 magically more popular and certainly isn't brining back the Start Menu. But there are enough changes here to make it much better with keyboards and mice.
At any rate I've be digging in the 9471 leak like a lot of folks and there is a lot of feedback in this release. I know I'll get called names but it's pretty obvious that Microsoft was listening to feedback in this release. With the exception of a Metro off/classic UI switch just about every major complaint that I can think was addressed. One may not like what was done but something was done.
The big change I see in 8.1 with this leak is emphasis on making it easier for traditional Windows desktop users. There are initial login help cues (not like the minimalistic intro video in 8), the tutorial app and now many cues in the included apps. More subtlety and something you wouldn't see without using Modern apps, their behavior is more desktop friendly. The resizable snapping is the big piece but one thing that's different in the 9471 release is that closing a Modern app takes you to the desktop instead of the Start Screen. If you're a fan of Aero snapping and windowing commands, For instance it you use Aero snap on desktop windows, the behavior is almost identical with a Modern UI app window. Drag it to the side and it snaps at half the screen, just like a desktop app. Even the Windows Key+<Arrow> shortcuts work identically.
8.1 isn't going to make 8 magically more popular and certainly isn't brining back the Start Menu. But there are enough changes here to make it much better with keyboards and mice.
I'm suggesting that Vista started the trend, or at least, played a big part of it and that momentum continued. I know tons of people who converted to mac's during the Vista years and brag about it every chance they get to their PC friends/family.
It's no accident Apple had a huge marketing campaign aimed directly at Vista with the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" commercials. That's how bad it really was, and those commercials all but stopped as soon as 7 was released.
Obviously this is my own personal speculation, but I honestly don't believe Apple would have ever broke 10% if Windows 7 came right after XP.
It's no accident Apple had a huge marketing campaign aimed directly at Vista with the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" commercials. That's how bad it really was, and those commercials all but stopped as soon as 7 was released.
Obviously this is my own personal speculation, but I honestly don't believe Apple would have ever broke 10% if Windows 7 came right after XP.
The problem is the premise doesn't hold water. Market share fluctuates, even during the release cycle of each Windows version.
Had Vista been the driver behind consumers abandoning Windows in favor of OS X, the data should show a trend. 1.4% is a significant gain for OS X (likely held to a low number due to continued availability of XP), but it's nothing compared to what happened under Windows 7.
I still think the halo concept has some merit, but also XP could be partly to blame. For whatever reasons (familiarity, etc), once XP was finally gone, the rate of consumers moving away from Windows increased significantly.
TheCommander
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What was wrong with Vista? It was very similar to Windows 7 after it was patched up and driver support increased. I think a lot of people hated it at first due to poor driver support and an aggressive UAC.
heatlesssun
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The end of this campaign had a lot more to do with Apple's lines of business changing radically with the launch of Windows 7. The iPhone was a historic success and the iPad announcement was just three months away in October 2009. At current rates Apple is only going to sell about 16 million Macs this year, they sell that many iPhone is 6 weeks.
heatlesssun
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Vista had plenty of technical issues at launch, it did become better but as the cliché goes, first impressions are lasting impressions. But much of the architecture in Vista is core to 7 and even 8, like the desktop security model which is FAR better than XPs.
That's what some people would like to believe but its simply not the case. Even with the service packs, Vista is slower at everything, more of a memory hog and suffers from hard drive thrashing that gets exponentially worse the longer the OS has been installed. And if you ever needed to update a video driver... Be prepared for a 10+ minute reboot cycle.
You would turn search indexing and SuperFetch off in services.msc. Both are useful for system performance, and I would leave both on, but if those things really annoy you...
Start/Run/services.msc
Change start type for Superfetch/SysMain to Disabled
Change start type for Windows Search/WSearch to Disabled
You can right click each and click stop to stop the services, or just reboot. Enjoy less hard drive thrashing, and slower system performance!
Slower system performance is very arguable considering hard drive thrashing slows performance down for anything that isn't cached and caused system wide lag for the first several minutes after starting the machine up.
These are both services that work properly in 7 (and 8) and another reason why the service packs didn't magically turn Vista into 7 like some people would like to believe.
These are both services that work properly in 7 (and 8) and another reason why the service packs didn't magically turn Vista into 7 like some people would like to believe.
Correct. SuperFetch in theory could slow your system down, but its implemented so poorly in vista that it speeds it up.
The OS also uses indexing, but that's blunted after certain folders are accessed the first time. It's not a huge difference, but it does affect performance.
IMO the best thing to do is just let Windows stupidly* index everything at least once (leave it on overnight) and in the future the indexing should be updated much more quickly. Of course if you have a huge OS partition, search indexing is going to continue to suck under Vista.
* compared to 3rd party indexing tools which are amazingly fast for first pass by comparison
Yes. There is plenty of functionality that was removed from the start screen.
"Boot to desktop" and "disable edge shortcuts" in Win 8.1 is a first step, but there's still a lot of work to do. MS should add this functionality to the start screen for desktop user productivity and efficiency. I'm pro-MS and I'd like MS to improve their products that will lead to better sales and more satisfied customers.
1. Resizable start screen, so it doesn't cover the entire desktop.
2. True context menu access from the start screen. Renaming and deleting shortcuts, etc.
3. All Apps sorted in even columns with nesting. Currently All Apps view folders and shortcuts are stacked on top of each other in uneven columns.
4. Nested control panel, network, favorites, recent documents/programs, restart/shutdown, etc. and other removed accessibility features.
5. Metro apps should be able to run in a window on the desktop.
6. Traditional search from the start screen.
7. Fix the new explorer ribbon, networks sidebar, notifications, newly metro-ized dialogue boxes, etc.
8. (superficial) Restore title bar transparency, allow tile color changing from Metro defaults, more display customization, etc.
Live tiles and resizable shortcuts (aka tiles) isn't a bad idea, but not at the expense of all the other removed functionality.
Comparing Win 3.1 to 95 complaints as a way to dismiss Win 7 to 8 complaints is a fallacious false equivalency and says nothing about functionality. "Change = good, it's the future, deal with it" is another often repeated yet meaningless Win 8 fallacy.
Insulting the large majority of people who don't like Win 8 as "afraid of change", ignorant, idiots, etc. is not only fallacious but rude. Furthermore, insulting the people who are supposed to be buying MS' products is a recipie for business failure.
heatlesssun
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I don't disagree with what you're saying overall, but different doesn't mean one necessarily has to jump through hoops to do the same things between 7 and 8.
I've been talking about this one for well over a year now. I don't think it's as big of a deal as many make it out to be, particularly with multiple monitors, but it would allow the Start Screen to be customized more to the liking of some.
Again, something I've mentioned before myself and agree with.
Would be a nice addition to the views. One thing that I go think the Start Scree/App Screen bring to the table is the idea of seeing things in different ways as opposed to just this type of traditional Start Menu hierarchy.
Recent documents and programs are still there, just pin the locations to Favorites.
This is the one I probably disagree with the most, it's a complex subject. At this point I dont think the Modern UI is really a replacement for the desktop and doesnt need to be turned into another desktop.
Not sure exactly what you mean by this. 8.1 does work much more like Windows 7 in that has a side overlay and when launched with Windows Key+S works similarly to 7.
Windows 8 wasnt change for the sake of change, it was change to allow Windows to function better with touch and tablets, which is market here to stay and will eventually be bigger than desktops and laptops. Desktops and laptops arent going away but they simply arent as needed as they were when Windows 7 launched. I can appreciate many of the issues with 8 and why people dont like it on the desktop, but its still more than capable on the desktop and things did improve a good deal with 8.1.
rudy
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So how long after that do I get to keep using 8.1 for free?
So just pretend everything that W7 does better, particularly in a desktop environment, isn't that big of a deal? Pleb was absolutely correct.
heatlesssun
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Very odd response to a post critical of Windows 8 in which I agreed with much that was said.
next-Jin
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I just got a cheap laptop with Win8 on it, is this going to have a Start menu and can I turn off this tile bs?
Either through windows or a third party app I really don't want to format but if I cant get rid of it in 8.1 or with an app it's gone. Sorry but it's trash.
Either through windows or a third party app I really don't want to format but if I cant get rid of it in 8.1 or with an app it's gone. Sorry but it's trash.
They could have still done that and also left in an option to boot to traditional desktop with classic start menu so cut the BS excuses.
heatlesssun
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In what you stated the changes would still be there, just optional in the box. All I said was that the CHANGES in Windows 8 were for the purpose of making work better with touch and tablets. How one views the efficacy of those changes depends on how they use Windows. Disabling those changes for the sake of familiarity is of course a well known issue but has nothing to do with the changes themselves.
You agreed and played the complaints off as inconsequential.