Posted on 10/19/2013 1:06:03 PM PDT by dayglored
You're talking about a regular Windows 8 computer (desktop, laptop, or Surface Pro tablet), right?
The reported problems with 8.1 are on the RT tablets.
Reminds me about the old joke of the trick of putting a brick to sleep. Easy to put to sleep, but nobody can wake it back up!
No, I didn’t know the Metro connection.
I think it’s designed to blare in your face, because it’s easier to see on a phone or an iPad. Then you know just where to touch the screen without searching around. But if you jack it up to full size, it’s horribly ugly.
That’s why they needed two desktops for two kinds of users. Incredibly stupid that they refused to listen to the complaints.
I have Win8 on a laptop, and it is a major disappointment. Aside from obvious unusability of Metro (for which there is software to fix,) Win8 is poorly supported by the current software (too many to list, easier to throw it out and install Win7.) On top of that, I noticed that Win8 is faster in GUI but slower in actual application use. (They just traded scheduler's cycles between threads.) This works fine as long as your application is not resource-heavy. If it is, like most professional applications, then you will not get much of an advantage from this change.
I have one Win8 box, therefore, and chances are excellent that the count will be zero soon. I have no use of an OS that cannot run, say, Xilinx tools. I'd be better off even with Windows XP. Win8, as sold, is a massive failure.
I am not even sure what a Microsoft RT device is
oh the good old days when recovering your device was impossible for many
What, all twelve of them? :)
Microsoft 8.1 Beta 2?
“You’re not really saying it was file corruption during transmission, are you? I have to call that a red-herring argument. Surely the patch does a self-exam and digest (CRC/MD5/etc.) check after download and before installation. And just as surely, the patch does a system exam to make sure the necessary existing pieces are in place.”
Oh no, not at all. ;)
I was more trying to say that we should be amazed that we have the ability to even do this, and not sweat the fact that something can happen, and this case has.
It all is a big pile of first world problems in the end....except for Obamacare.con. That’s all 3rd world.
I don't know who "us" is in your sentence; Microsoft employees? :) Anyway, I don't think I said anything about not being able to use it. I learned it, it's part of my job. I just think it's a joke on a desktop, and an abomination (to borrow from above) on a server.
>> Look, Microsoft made a mistake....
> Please dont use that leading rhetoric. You have an opinion. Realize that it does not equal fact.
Point granted, I withdraw the implied factuality of my statement, and will wait for the returns to come in in a couple years, when we again examine the ratio of people using Win8.x, Win7, and WinXP. And also the upcoming Win9.
>> Apple shifted people from the old MacOS Classic to OS-X in a similar fashion
> Wait...so that break was ok despite all of the people screaming bloody murder when it happened?
Perhaps you misunderstood. I meant "similar to the way MSFT handled the 95/98 -> 2K/XP transition". Which is to say they made it look and feel as much like the old interface as possible, despite the fact that NT (OS-X) was a completely different, and largely incompatible OS with the old (DOS/Classic). Microsoft provided DOS support on XP (still basically does). Apple also provided Classic support on the OS-X systems for many years.
> I wonder what ever happened to those people? Oh yeah, they learned something new and the world moved on.
In the case of Mac Classic -> OS-X and Win95/98 -> 2K/XP, there wasn't much new to learn, as the new system looked and felt pretty much like the old one. Changes came incrementally over time.
In the case of Win8, MSFT made it much different in look, feel, and operation, in one big unsweetened leap. They hid the traditional desktop, Start button, etc. It has been a huge difference for people to adjust to.
> Simple stuff that kids can do, adults are bragging about how they trip all over themselves
Kids using the Metro interface haven't had a decade of prior conditioning to the WinXP desktop. Hell, even the Vista/Win7 desktop threw a lot of people, and that was really pretty easy to beat back into XP-style, took less than 5 minutes by hand.
Anyway, I'm glad you like Metro, and that it's simplified your desktop and computing experience. That's undoubtedly true for a lot of people who either a) got Win8 on their first computer, or b) upgraded from Win7 or XP after minimal use of the old systems. It's probably also true for many folks who ran XP for a decade and probably ran Win95 before that, and perhaps Win3.1 before that. Those folks are out there and they count.
On the tablets, we all agree that Metro is a big win as an interface. Whether the numbers of Win8 lovers are large enough to save Win8 on the desktop/laptop is yet to be determined. The days when Microsoft owned the computing experience and could lock users into their products are long over, even in the business workplace -- people have other options and they're using them increasingly. Whether Microsoft can succeed in a truly competitive marketplace will be interesting.
Personally I want them to succeed. They represent a huge body of highly talented software people whose work should have a chance to get out properly and be judged fairly. I have friends who work at MSFT and their frustration over the management and marketing snafus would fill Wikipedia, if they could get away with writing it down in public. MSFT still has a lot to contribute.
Why take it offline? As our government would say "It's only a glitch."
Ah, I could not possibly agree more.
If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'll share some personal history.
My first home-brew computer that could really do something was built in 1981 on fiberglas perfboard and hand wire-wrapped. It was based on both the 6809 and 6502 CPUs (the 6502 for back-compatibility with my yet-older KIM-1 which ran Microsoft 8K BASIC but not much else). The 6809 machine had a DOS (I designed the whole computer from scratch, including the 8-inch floppy controller circuitry), 64KB of DRAM, etc. etc. It ran a serial port to a really-truly DEC VT-100 terminal.
The first time I downloaded a small text file successfully over the 300-baud modem (purchased, and I couldn't afford 1200 baud yet) was a HUGE big deal. I eventually (~1984) got a 9600 baud modem pair at work and at home, and then I was cooking!!
Trust me, I have a deep appreciation of our ability to do what we nowadays take for granted. :)
Not bad. I suspect you'd have scored well on the old SAT that had an analogies section.
Microsoft Surface Tablet RT, with Windows RT. I probably should have said "(Bricks Windows RT tablets)".
Specifically not the Microsoft Surface Tablet Pro. As far as I can tell, so far the problem does not affect Windows 8 Pro tablets, or the desktops and laptops. Just the RT tablets.
Fortunately (although not for Microsoft, who took a major bath on the RT tablets) there aren't that many out in users' hands, so the actual number of failures will be kept reasonable.
Microsoft Pulls Windows RT 8.1 UpdateThe link URL remains the same. The original article source has updated their title to reflect the fact that they only pulled the "RT" update, not the Pro update.
Thanks to FReeper VanDeKoik for indirectly encouraging me to check back to see if/when the original article title got corrected.
Exactly right - shell to explorer=desktop, shell to metro=tablet. Super simple to do, one statement in system.ini *shakes head* It isn't like they will be getting rid of explorer anytime soon.
How do you brick a camel?
(I know I'm gonna regret this...) Okay, I dunno. How DO you brick a camel?
None.
No antivirus? I have windows security which I think is the problem.
So do I. I have not one complaint about W8. It's an HP that I got from Staples for X-mas. I really like it.
Well, in all probability, MSFT's error in the Win8 patch is "only a glitch", and they'll have a new one posted within a few days. It's extremely unlikely that there some massive underlying flaw in Win 8.1 that's doing this.
The same can NOT be said for ObamaCare's God-forsaken websites. That whole mess is an unmitigated disaster, and the flaws are deeply structural, architectural, and conceptual. The thing was screwed, before it left the gate. I fervently hope the broken websites spell the end, or at least a long delay, for ObamaCare.
As for MSFT and Win8.1, they'll correct it quick, and I suspect that in a month nobody will remember or care about this glitch. Its importance is strictly transient, unless MSFT determines that there's a good reason to use it (e.g. to kill off RT, which has been a pain in their side and wallet).
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