Windows 8.1 request for help / soundoff

[UK_Eliter]

[Moderators: please move this to the 'PC' forum if you think it would be better there.]

Dear all

I've just had a fun old time installing Windows 8.1 as an upgrade from Windows 8. It took ages, including multiple reboots and uninformative messages. Then it worked (mainly and to start with . . ), but I discovered that the much advertised new 'boot directly to desktop' option seemed to be missing. Then next boot I got a screen that was blue (nice and old-fashioned!) with unreadable white stuff, that looked a bit like garbled text, on it. Somehow I recovered from that, and then . . encountered various other problems, all of which I've solved, bar one. The ones I have solved are:

- Ramdisk driver (from 'PrimoRamdisk') not working - fixed this by reinstalling the program.

- Weird duplicate library-like things, which turn out to be sort-of new libraries. which I shall call 'Folders' (capitalised). I fixed this by finding registry fixes to download and - in the case of a 'public downloads' Folder - finding the relevant (numerically-entitled key) in the registry myself, and deleting it. (The web contains at least one other report of this problem.)

- My desktop folder had been set to the folder that the 'public downloads' Folder pointed to.

- The 'skip disk check' time seemed to have become set to one second, causing problems with a large hard drive that, after previous problems, Windows insisted on checking sector-by-sector with no abort option.[/list]


The one remaining problem is that I can't turn off the desktop text drop shadow. The relevant checkbox is unticked, and the relevant registry stuff seems to be as it should be, and yet, those shadows persist - rendering my desktop icon titles very rough on the eye.

Anyone had similar experiences? I bet you have! Also: can anyone help me fix the icon problem, please?

PS: Please don't advise me to switch to a better operating system (because I am unsure I like any of them and, anyway, my life is rather in hoc to Windows, sadly).
[EDIT:] PPS: Application launching does seem a bit faster than before the installation, though.

[Rxke]

Groan, my condolences.

I'm afraid I'll have to go through this hell too in a short while (my wife's new laptop that shipped with W8...)

Is it just me or are all OS-es going downhill lately? At work I curse OSX doing stuff it really really should not do. Really bad bugs, or inconsistencies...


Pushing al the latest and greatest stuff onto the market and then ending up with a system that behaves like a schizophrenic, grrrr.... Why not test stuff in real life situations before release?

(Can you tell I'm a Debian user? )

[Disembodied]

Is it just me or are all OS-es going downhill lately?

I think it's because for a long time (a very long time in industry terms), each OS represented a huge increase in capability and functionality, and customers would flock to each new OS launch, waving bundles of money and weeping with joy: this period was known as the Boohoozoic. Then the industry hit the "good enough" wall: they finally made OSs and basic software that did more or less everything people wanted them to. Suddenly, the money tap was in danger of being turned off. New releases were being put out there, and there were no ecstatic throngs hurling wads of cash. So began what is known as the Frippozoic, or Bells and Whistles era, where we are today. Everything comes festooned with bells, whistles, hooters, sirens, gongs, balloons, streamers, fuzzy felt, etc., none of it of any actual practical use, and all bewilderingly mixed up from where it all was last time around, lest you begin to suspect that it's just the same program that's been whizzed around in a blender. And, of course, to help prevent any unpleasant backwards compatibility that might make people think they can just stick with the old version.

Charles Stross has had a good old rant online recently about Microsoft Word, which is worth a read:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... t-die.html

[Diziet Sma]

Why not test stuff in real life situations before release?

According to Microsoft and Apple, that's what the paying customers are for..

[UK_Eliter]

Rxke: thanks, and good luck!

Disembodied: what eloquence!

Diziet: that is indeed a striking resemblance!

And I enjoyed the Word rant. (I used Word 2003. I don't like it, but there's always at least one thing about later versions that makes me like them even less.)

[Celt]

Windows 8 was Steve Ballmer's parting joke on the world before retiring. . .

[Rxke]

I'm positively scared...

I installed some kind of add-on to have a classic look (semi-classic) and a start button.


...And I'm *Not* going to start tinkering with registries and all that jazz, no sireeeee.

I already know it will be my fault if something goes wrong during updating

[UK_Eliter]

Rxke: uninstall that program, and ensure you've the latest version of it, before you install 8.1. Then install that latest version once you've managed to get 8.1 to work. I've got ClassicShell, and it works, although, as said, 8.1 itself is, somewhat amazingly, lacking the 'boot to desktop' option (or at least I can't find it). Yet, that option is still there within ClassicShell, and in that and other respects ClassicShell works. (It's not free, though - and I'm talking only about its start menu component - it has others, and I had some small trouble with them in the past).

But, in order to get those Folder/library things right, you might *have* to go into the registry. You might feel better about doing that if you have a good backup program (!). I use StorageCraft's ShadowProtect, which isn't free and doesn't have the best interface, but it is very reliable and it does work quickly.

Or, and perhaps especially if you have drop shadows disabled, then you could try just not installing 8.1 at all.

[JazHaz]

I'm so glad I got Win7. I think that Win8 is a joke and a huge backwards step.

[UK_Eliter]

@JazHaz

Windows 8 is alright - and indeed fast, and has improved memory usage - so long as you install stuff to disable/work around Metro. And 8.1 will be alright if/once the bugs get fixed, although - somewhat independently of that - the installation is a nightmare. There are jokes about the installation on Reddit. ('Every time it says you are almost there, take a drink . . You'll end up dead' sort of thing.)

[Cody]

I'm so glad I got Win7. I think that Win8 is a joke and a huge backwards step.

I'm on Win 7 too - but people tell me that Win 8 boots faster, runs faster, etc. The GUI is the problem, it seems.

[UK_Eliter]

I might add that Windows 8.1. seems, somehow, to have changed the cluster size of my main drive (from 64K, which is good for 'shadow copies', to 4K . .), even though it preserved most of the drives contents. Weird! I shall now try to turn it back. I'll backup first!

[Rxke]

I'm so glad I got Win7. I think that Win8 is a joke and a huge backwards step.

I'm on Win 7 too - but people tell me that Win 8 boots faster, runs faster, etc. The GUI is the problem, it seems.

yea, it does boot impressively fast. Lots of stuff in the preferences too that make me think 'wow, nice of them to take that stuff a bit further'

Things like battery management, for instance.

But the ui really gets in the way at times, bad thing.

[Cody]

But the ui really gets in the way at times, bad thing.

As noted, Balmer's parting gift - but I'd wager that Win 9 will be very good.

[Celt]

But the ui really gets in the way at times, bad thing.

As noted, Balmer's parting gift - but I'd wager that Win 9 will be very good.

No bet . . . I'm sticking with Win 7 and it is pretty fast, but then I deal with storage for a living and have a disk setup that is pretty darn swift