What is so bad/wrong/terrible about Windows 8.1?
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I have found Windows 8.1 to be a REALLY stable OS. Over many months of heavy use and I have never had a crash or seen a blue screen. I don't need to reboot, unless there is a system update. They are doing something right.
Dennis Saeva wrote:
I have found Windows 8.1 to be a REALLY stable OS.
Either you are lucky, or I am not...probably the latter. I have 8.1 on a laptop, and my wife has it on an all-in-one. The laptop was built for testing only, but has a bad habit of freezing (about 20% of the time) when starting up. The little 'dancing circles' just stop...I've left it that way for a couple of days, but it never goes any further. Last weekend, I had to rebuild the wife's all-in-one when it started doing the same thing, eventually failing every time...no BSOD, just frozen! :sigh: I have been running Win7 on multiple computers since it came out, and this has never happened. I'll stick with 7 for now.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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For me, it's a matter of not being able to really get there. I am on a service pack on Windows 8.0, as an upgrade from Windows 7. After three several hour attempts to upgrade to Windows 8.1, it fails with an esoteric blue screen crash, and takes a few more hours to roll itself back. I loathe Windows 8.0, primarily for its flakiness and app incompatibility, but I cannot move the box forwards or backwards without wiping it. I'll use Windows as required at work, but this box killer, plus Dell laptops now shipping with Ubuntu, means I'll never personally buy a Windows device again. {end mini-rant}
One thing I have to agree with is that YES - - - EVERY time I try to upgrade a version of Windows it goes horribly wrong. Then spend hours trying to fix itself. I always end up wiping the drive and installing from scratch. Doesn't matter if it's my gaming rig, gaming laptop, regular laptop, wife's or kid's machines, the upgrade nor the recovery have ever worked for me.
hatfok King Yiddum's Castle Pegasus Galaxy
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We use both in our household. I use 8.1 with a boot directly into the 7 style desktop. From my perspective, there is not much difference. I'm happy with either, but maybe it just takes little to keep me happy. :) BTW: I never experienced problems with any of the updates.
Well, you are a genius!!! I spend most of my life when windows 8 came out explaining and re-explaining to everyone I know that you do not need a touchscreen to use windows 8. Finally some people are intelligent enough to see that! Cheers!
hatfok King Yiddum's Castle Pegasus Galaxy
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Two MAJOR issues: Usability! Win 8 is a totally different paradigm that Win 7. For a laptop and the Windows Phone the Tiles were cute, but for a Corporate environment, no one really wants to work like that. Security! Win 8 has gone completely overboard with security. As a developer your app can only write to it's own folder or the cloud... so I can't build an app that write app that write to another app's folder.. something I've done in the past.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
Oh good Lord - see the previous post --> "boot directly into the 7 style desktop. From my perspective, there is not much difference. I'm happy with either" I thought this was over. :-(
hatfok King Yiddum's Castle Pegasus Galaxy
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
Old software (from windows 95 days) that wrote files to the Program Files/xxx/subdir And the user is NOT ALLOWED to get into subdir (unless they were admin, and they were not). So, the ability to use old software started failing. The ability to get "in there" and look at it was blocked by a down-graded security setting for explorer. Not to mention RETRAINING for non-tech users. My wife took forever to use the start button. She bought a fast new laptop, and almost threw it at me. She is screaming about not being able to launch her gmail. She had the "paper notes" from the old computer. And was trying to follow them. Then I sit down, COMPLETELY NEW to windows 8... OMG, how to I program one of these panels to go straight to chrome? Ugghhh... Installed: Classic Shell... Ah... Usable computer. The Charms bar SUCKS. Windows Key, then start typing, and it finds what I want. Right click, run as administrator. So nice, so easy. Charms bar. Doesnt even find the same stuff... Ugghhh... Now... That computer will upgrade to Windows 10. But my windows 7 Pro machine will stay here for as long as I can... (Oh, windows 8 was so bad, I bought my first Mac just to play with it). My wifes next computer will probably be a Mac... She does email, youtube, some browsing...
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
People still remember the problems with the initial version of Windows 8.0. I've had numerous problems with drivers, crashing, programs switching unexpectedly etc etc. Windows 8.1 is way better now. They fixed most of the unpleasant things, so actually I prefer using Win 8.
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I've still got a laptop running Vista mainly being used as a media device. I agree, I didn't have a problem with Vista, other than the fact it was over hyped and didn't add anything to XP. As for Win 8.1, I've got 2 PCs and a tablet running it and I really only have 2 dislikes 1) No start menu 2) The hover in the lower right you have to do to get the settings to show up Other than that it's not that bad and the wife and kids are able to use it effectively. I'm still running Win 7 on my PC but, like with Vista, I didn't have a compelling reason to upgrade to 8.1. I will be upgrading it to Win 10, mostly cause it's a free upgrade.
Guess I'm one of the few people that use third party menu apps in Windows... Had Classic Shell running since switched from XP to Win 7. Never actually noticed the lack of menu in Win 8. Classic Shell had 15 million downloads according to SourceForge. Probably about 1% of the Win 8.x users checked it out. Maybe someone should have mentioned going to third party apps in their tirades against Win 8.x on all the IT media. The idea that you can change to a third party app if you don't like the base app is why lots of us use Firefox or Chrome. So why not a menu app?
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Why does Win8 suck? Simple...
Your computer has installed updates and will restart in 30 minutes
[Restart Now] [Close]I clicked Close, because I'll restart when I'm %(*#ing well ready to restart... Go back to doing things...
Your computer has installed updates and will restart in 15 minutes
[Restart Now] [Close]What the elephant? I told it to shut up! ...and so on, until the automatic reboot... Obviously, once I experienced that, I turned it off so it'll never do that again... But no operating system should force a reboot like that, without even giving an option to postpone. The start screen is annoying, but not a deal-breaker... Haven't found anything else I hate about it yet... Of course, I only have it on my laptop, not my Win7 desktop, so it hasn't seen heavy use.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)What you've got there is a bad case of unchecked I.T. administrator arrogance. (Heyyyy here's something that'll make my job a teensy bit easier... And screw the people whose work it trashes, they stepped away from their computer, so fsck them.)
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What you've got there is a bad case of unchecked I.T. administrator arrogance. (Heyyyy here's something that'll make my job a teensy bit easier... And screw the people whose work it trashes, they stepped away from their computer, so fsck them.)
Umm, no... Home machine, not work. That's out-of-the-box behavior, courtesy of Lenovo
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Y'know what's really funny? I still have a Vista PC in use, mainly as a file server, but I still sometimes sit at it. I think I'm one of the nine people in the world who didn't have a problem with Vista -- the only thing I objected to was the "wow factor", but the first time I booted the PC, it asked me if I wanted the "wow factor" cr@p, I said "NO!", and it never bothered me about it again. It was lovely and fast, with all that memory that was added to handle the "wow" being freed up.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Vista is the most beautiful Windows ever. It is not as polished in the details as XP was, but compared to W7... well, W7 has the chunky taskbar, baby steps to touch, has the single panel borders in Windows Explorer while they can be resized with mouse. It has icons changed to text - cost cutting, time constraint, touch support - who knows? Vista had the same poised Start menu - just leave the mouse over All programs while looking for a frequently used program...
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Two MAJOR issues: Usability! Win 8 is a totally different paradigm that Win 7. For a laptop and the Windows Phone the Tiles were cute, but for a Corporate environment, no one really wants to work like that. Security! Win 8 has gone completely overboard with security. As a developer your app can only write to it's own folder or the cloud... so I can't build an app that write app that write to another app's folder.. something I've done in the past.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
The corporate environment is full of dashboards, Metro apps born for that. It is full with restrictions (or downtime for removing viruses), too. Added: and full with longing for full screen, single apps the users can't switch from.
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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan wrote:
People try to hate new things and changes in the beginning... Then they accept them!
Yup. Windows Vista, OS/2, WebTV, the G4 Cube, Google Buzz, the Newton, Net PC, PCjr, and, of course, Clippy... History is riddled with examples.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Clippy is called Cortana now, headline feature of W10, with jobs outside of Office. The name implies boobs so the reception from the average developers will be astonishing.
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
Another thing that hardly anyone mentions which I find extremely helpful is how Windows 8 integrated the Microsoft Account (aka Live account). At work with AD, we don't think about it too much, but at home with my laptop, desktop, tablet and phone (yes, all Windows 8.1), all of my contacts, calendars, email accounts (outlook/live/Hotmail or not), passwords, browsing history and files on OneDrive are all synced up. I actually used to run Windows Server so I could use AD at home years ago, but now with Microsoft Account integration, I feel like I have AD everywhere. And if your significant others are using Microsoft Accounts, then sharing files and calendars becomes easy. But I still find a lot of people just hate Window 8.1, but so many of these are the kind of people who still believe that they have to use the pop mail account that their ISP provides or they're the kind of folks who share email address w/ their significant others.
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Tim Carmichael wrote:
Is the layout different? Yes, but the layout was different going from a green screen in college to Windows 3, and then again on Windows 95... Change is constant.
Ah, but it doesn't have to be. It's a balancing act, between progress (change is good!) and what is already good and familiar (change is bad!) I see it as kind of like the progression of cooking (speaking from personal experience here...) DOS and earlier were kind of like PB&J sandwiches. Basic, but kept you fed. Windows 3/3.1 etc were like microwave ramen. Slightly more difficult to make, but still, kept you fed. Windows 95 was a step up to grilled cheese. Getting better, but still, not all that great. Windows 98 was adding ham to that grilled cheese. Windows 2000 was pairing cream of tomato soup with that grilled ham and cheese. Windows ME was back to ramen. Windows XP was a medium sirloin with a loaded baked potato. Close, but not quite there yet. Windows 7 was a perfectly cooked rare filet mignon with a loaded baked potato and asparagus with hollandaise. Perfection. Now Windows 8... That is like you took a look at that beautiful meal that was Windows 7... And got greedy. You said 'I want more. I can do better.' But what you ended up with was an over-seasoned, over-cooked, filet, a potato with flavors that don't pair well, and hollandaise with a consistency that more closely resembles cold butter, than maple syrup. All because you couldn't leave well enough alone. Now your wife is upset with you because you ruined her favorite meal, and you had to order pizza. Progress only comes from experimentation, and we certainly learn more from our failures than our successes. Still, you have to learn when to leave well enough alone. Microsoft has been in business long enough now that they should have already learned that lesson.
You had me at hollandaise!
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
Here is one, Scrolling. I live with someone who due to a disability can't use multitouch or a mouse with a scroll wheel. So she uses the scroll bar. Windows in it's infinite wisdom stuck the scroll bar on the right, and made the exact same area the activation for that pop out drawer. To make it worse, all windows default to full screen, and in metro, you can't pull the windows off of that border. She can still scroll. Move the pointer to the scroll bar wait for the pop out move the pointer away wait for the drawer to time out move the pointer to the exact spot, going too far will cause the drawer to pop out again. click. You went too far? start the song and dance all over again. Try it out, On windows 8, tape over your scroll wheel, feel the frustration.
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Member 10707677 wrote:
Swipe in from right edge is extremely difficult when no touch screen device is attached.
Try Win + C on the keyboard.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
Most of the command-control functions are disabled on the international home version. I discovered this 5 days after my system was delivered with the wrong OS onboard. (I got home version when pro version was specified.) Six months later, I'm still sifting through the chaos. It's alot of encounter-a-problem, Google-a-solution,[WinK-C]-do-the-fix.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Clippy is called Cortana now, headline feature of W10, with jobs outside of Office. The name implies boobs so the reception from the average developers will be astonishing.
Peter Adam wrote:
headline feature of W10
I have yet to see a headline feature of W10 that inspires me to do more than look away with a "meh". This cortana is a feature that I won't even install, unless it does not give me the option to skip it. nb. returning what they removed for w8 doesn't count as adding features, AFAIC.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Another thing that hardly anyone mentions which I find extremely helpful is how Windows 8 integrated the Microsoft Account (aka Live account). At work with AD, we don't think about it too much, but at home with my laptop, desktop, tablet and phone (yes, all Windows 8.1), all of my contacts, calendars, email accounts (outlook/live/Hotmail or not), passwords, browsing history and files on OneDrive are all synced up. I actually used to run Windows Server so I could use AD at home years ago, but now with Microsoft Account integration, I feel like I have AD everywhere. And if your significant others are using Microsoft Accounts, then sharing files and calendars becomes easy. But I still find a lot of people just hate Window 8.1, but so many of these are the kind of people who still believe that they have to use the pop mail account that their ISP provides or they're the kind of folks who share email address w/ their significant others.
Your solution only works if all devices use the same or similar operating systems. Additionally, you are opening yourself to one of the biggest of privacy invasion gaps. I'm used to a mixture of operating systems (Windows, Android, *ux, Non-stop). Google provides more of an all-purpose solution. Even then I'm very cautious.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Your solution only works if all devices use the same or similar operating systems. Additionally, you are opening yourself to one of the biggest of privacy invasion gaps. I'm used to a mixture of operating systems (Windows, Android, *ux, Non-stop). Google provides more of an all-purpose solution. Even then I'm very cautious.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Google provides more of an all-purpose solution.
So you're saying that you can log onto your Windows 8, Windows 7, Linux and Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices using the same gmail account? Google does not offer that, and I wouldn't expect them to. Furthermore, what they do offer is not significantly better than Outlook.com, Office.com or Skype. Hangouts would be nice, but they just don't want to offer that in the same way Microsoft offers Office and Skype for Android and iOS.
Quote:
Additionally, you are opening yourself to one of the biggest of privacy invasion gaps.
Care to back that up?
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After asking a question on how to upgrade to 8.1 a lot of respectable :bob:ians have told me that it was a bad idea doing that (going from 7 to 8.1) and of course, I've wondered what is so terrible about it as it Works for me... So here's another question: why 7 is much better tan 8.1 or if you prefer... why 8.1 is as terrible compared to 7? Please don't start flame wars or similar... everyone has its opinion and it must be respected. I'll start: windows 8 pro's: - Internet explorer 11 knows that it has to change it's spell check when you change the input language. - You can pause large file operations. - It starts really fast. - When you start several copy operations all of them are stacked onto one single dialog. - Once you know that windows+c shortcut getting into the control panel is a breeze. - In a multi display environment you have the task bar in all the displays and then you can reach all your open programs from any display and show the start menu in the display you are looking at... windows 7 pro's: - start menu is much better. ...
[www.tamautomation.com] | Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing. [YouTube channel]
Ok, so the bottom line with me is that I have a Windows 8/8.1 tablet computer (Acer R7). Love the computer HATE the OS. Why? It locks regularly and maybe unfreezes after 15 minutes. Else a hard boot. The file system operations sloooooooow down massively for unknown reasons. I have to reboot it once or twice a day to "fix" it. Software updates are fairly regularly via Windows Update but routinely involve 1 GB+ file package sizes. I regret having Windows 8 on my PC. I upgraded to 8.1 and still have these problems. I would dearly love to downgrade to Windows 7 for stability reasons but that's a complete reload and I have to use old drivers from other machines that may or may not work. Bottom Line: Avoid Windows 8.1 unless you need touch screen support or specifically need 8.1. Use good old reliable Windows 7 instead. And if you must use 8.1 get Stardock's Start8 for the Start Button bring back. - Grant
