Hazelnut, you still use Windows Defender? And why do you keep its shortcut on your desktop?
I have to say that for a state of the art OS, that's a really crap image of a fish.
They must have used Tux Paint.
I agree.
Maybe, however, this is something great that we are missing out on. The complexity of simplistic seeming artwork. A regular Picasso, or something! Masterpiece! Bravo?
Hahaha!
@corona
That is my Win 8 desktop don't forget.
It's the new Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows 8, they called it Win Defender again... cunning eh? It comes built into Win8 so you have antivirus from the get go, you have to update it of course.
@Super Fast
The 'pitfalls' are just knowing how to begin when you get it up on your screen for the first time. Read up via google first for tips and hints, there are quite a few threads out there. There are also a few forums dedicated to Win 8.
Don't give up at the first hurdle and say this is c**p, just keep trying. Think of it as 2 places, your desktop and your start desktop.
I started by making the metro squares small and right-click deleting some I knew I really didn't need. Don't forget the desktop square is your desktop (if it helps in your head)
By the way a nice shortcut on Win 8 is holding the windows key down and pressing X
For those that cant live without the start button
http://www.full-windows8.com/2012/03/start8-v085-available-now-from-stardock.html
20 useful tips
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/big_guide_20_tips_and_tricks_get_most_out_windows_8431
Unlike my usual style, I'm gonna make this as brief as possible.
My system drive has 3 partitions, XP operating system C:, data partition E:, and Win8 F:
Last night while booting into Win8 it kept telling me I needed to repair my E: partition. I know my partition was 100% OK, as I'd used it both in Win8 and back in XP, and it had only recently been loaded on to this couple of weeks old, new Western Digital internal drive.
Cancelled that, and removed it from Win8's "things needing attention" type message.
A couple of reboots later, I got a "repairing E: partition" message as Win8 loaded. No choice offered this time.
Short version, doing this screwed up my E: data partition, and subsequent attempts to repair this and to remove Win8 ended up with the E: and the F: being merged into one huge partition of "Unallocated Space".
Took all night to repair this .. short version ... found and restored the Win8 F: partition, but couldn't do that with the still "unformatted" E: partition. Had to scan that for files with a partition manager, and thankfully got 16,840 files back, which I returned to the now formatted E: partition.
I also found hundreds of OS files on that data partition which could only have come from Win8 when it was screwing it up.
I had an Image of that drive but it was a few weeks old and missing a lot of movie, music, and eBook files, so the Image was a last resort.
Another long story short.
Win8 introduced it's own dual boot routine into the boot process, leaving, and not touching, the normal XP operating system choice screen. The one with a choice of XP or the Recovery Console.
After removing Win8 and getting my 3 partitions back to normal, that other boot screen was still there (this time just white text on black screen), and still gave the choice of "Older Operating System" to boot into, and then a couple of seconds later, the normal XP choice screen appeared.
Trying to get rid of that extra boot screen, trying various thing like replacing the boot.ini and other relevant system files made no difference. It was written into somewhere I couldn't find, and should have been deleted when I used "EasyBCD" from the "remove win8 dual boot" at this website.
http://www.howtogeek...ual-boot-setup/
Ended up screwing up my system drive, knowing of course that I had an Image of it to restore if needed, and it was needed.
So if you've dual booted Win8 with your own operating system, be careful how you remove both the Win8 install, and the Win8 dual boot screen.
I'm pretty good usually at doing this stuff, and have some good software to rustle up, but Win8's own dual boot screen, and it's damned "repairing E: partiton" surprise most definitely taxed my abilities last night, and until 5.00am this morning.
Forewarned is forearmed they say, so I hope my experience is avoided by anyone else dual booting Win8.
EDIT: That was the short version.
I got a headache just reading that.
I think I'll just stick with Win 7 for a few more years.
LOL I thought that when they used the betaFish for win7 beta
Trying to get rid of that extra boot screen, trying various thing like replacing the boot.ini and other relevant system files made no difference. It was written into somewhere I couldn't find, and should have been deleted when I used "EasyBCD" from the "remove win8 dual boot" at this website.
In Windows 7, they have a Boot tab in MSCONFIG that allows you to do a few things to edit the startup somewhat. Could this be anything that would work in Windows 8 as well?
Sorry to read about your problems with the dual booting Win 8 and XP Dennis, and glad to hear you have more or less got things sorted. Sometimes things just don't workout on a machine
Did you make the partition by shrinking the C volume and installing it there? (Seems that is what most folk have done when dual booting as far as I can see)
On a remote chance you may not have done, did you try msconfig as Super Fast mentioned? Look in the bootini tab and remove the win 8 option. It could well still be listed there in your XP install..
So dual may not be the best option. Clean install with no other operating systems on the machine is better.
I'll just stick to having it installed in Virtual Box for now
msconfig was one of the first places I went, and it listed the "win8" and "older operating system" options as well as my normal XP boot choice screen.
The temptation was to get in there and just edit win8 out, but I scratched that idea, as I really wasn't sure where else this win8 extra bit may be written/ stored. I didn't want a mis-matched conflict.
I used EasyBCD to delete the win8 dual boot sequence, and after removing win8 from the partition, that would be it I thought, but the now basic white on black screen (as opposed to the blue graphics of the "live" dual boot option) was still there, and appearing a few seconds before the normal XP boot choice screen.
Damn, all the instructions about this on line don't mention that this screen would still be there, or how to get rid of it.
Back to msconfig, and only the normal boot.ini dialogue is listed. Double damn, I can't edit out something which isn't there.
Next step, and I thought this would be a winner. I keep backup copies of all the root system files, including the hidden ones ...
... so I replaced the lot.
And it still booted with the win8 screen intact.
It was then that I noticed a new folder in the root drive called "boot". A quick look confirmed that this folder, containing a lot of files, was created by EasyBCD.
Bite the bullet time. All my own system root files were still there, so I decided to delete this folder. Took a while as I had to use some brute force with "Unlocker", but I got rid, and was left with all my intact, normal root system files.
Goodnight Irene, system drive screwed on next boot. And no amount of jiggery-pokery would make it boot again.
It was now 5.00am and time for the last resort, so I restored the Image of my C: drive. I half expected to see that damn win8 screen still there, but thankfully it had at last lost it's grip on my computer. I could have restored this Image much earlier, but I was trying to find a way to fix this directly as lots of folk don't have a disk image to fall back on. The quest for knowledge thing.
@hazel
Nope, I already had this new internal drive configured into 3 partitions, and the third one was formatted, and completely empty. Perfect for a second OS.
I later realised that this hiccup was probably normal. This is MICROSOFT!
I recently uploaded Windows 8 preview to my netbook to take it for a test drive.
I found the following:
- Attempt to use an application tile while 10.1 in netbook screen resolution is maxed out results in error: "Screen resolution too low". (Are you kidding me?)
- Attempt to install latest Classic Shell while offline results in error: "Smart Screen filter cannot determine if this file is safe to run". (Are you kidding me? Click the arrow key like a dummy to see, run this file, anyway.)
- Clicking start button once to load "Application tiles" & again to load "Desktop Tile" takes too many clicks. (Are you kidding me? Ummm, NO! I don't want to tap the start menu button on my keyboard more than ONE TIME to load the start menu. Only, it still doesn't load the start menu, but just switch between desktop & tiles).
- Right-Clicking an empty area to see all your apps (basically, your start menu) is not cool. (Are you kidding me? Right-click every time I want to see all the apps. Phew! Come on!)
- Shutdown? How? (OK, research, start menu, add a menu, latest version seems to not have a startmenu & adding the RPenabled key doesn't bring it back to the latest version of 8 preview... WHAT!?)
* Windows 8 is dead. When you spend more time googling fixes than using it, that's NOT a good OS. Sure, you can get used to it. But why should you have to?
Oh, & seems like it is all too easy to kill Windows 8... Windows 7 is far more stable. I personally booted into Windows 8 once, then the second time, it was different & I had to hit CTRL + ALT + DEL & use task manager to enter Windows 8 desktop since I was stuck looking at a blank green screen with no right click options.
Oh, & plus, Windows 7 actually loads FASTER on my netbook than Windows 8.
Oh, & plus, Windows 8 doesn't have any organized way to keep up with your programs now in a human usable format...
Oh, & plus, did you notice I do not like 8? Hahaha!
Sorry Super fast I do not see some of the issues you mention. To see start tiles I just click on the right hand side 'charms' menu. (perhaps because of your resolution you couldn't see it) or just hover in top left hand corner and select it. There are quite a few ways.
Shut down can be reached via the 'charms' menu. 2 click to shutdown, same as now.
Review here of another netbook user
http://liliputing.com/2011/09/this-is-what-windows-8-looks-like-on-an-old-netbook.html
Anyway each to their own opinions, me... I am just trailing
it out of interest.
I really feel like Win8 was designed purely for Tablets :/
I'd be all over Win8 if it looked like the Zune Player
Sorry Super fast I do not see some of the issues you mention. To see start tiles I just click on the right hand side 'charms' menu. (perhaps because of your resolution you couldn't see it) or just hover in top left hand corner and select it. There are quite a few ways.
Shut down can be reached via the 'charms' menu. 2 click to shutdown, same as now.
Review here of another netbook user
http://liliputing.co...ld-netbook.html
Anyway each to their own opinions, me... I am just trailing
it out of interest.
Yeah, but if they are gonna force tiles on us, they should work on a netbook. Period. There are millions of netbook users out there.
And they don't work on netbooks. At least without hacks to trick your computer into thinking it has a higher resolution than it does, which could ruin your netbook if you do it this way long enough.
And the Metro interface should be easier to totally disable.
And I got shutdown menu by logging out, then it showed the shutdown menu.
(It's as easy as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 ...)
Oh man, Windows 8 is making my head hurt! Microsoft, if your looking at this, can we PLEASE skip Windows 8 & pretend it never existed? Let's just skip to Windows 10, ok?
Hahaha!
I have to say it surprised me when I learned that win8 was actually being developed.
I haven't been following it on-line at all, and I've no intentions of even googling to find out why it's being developed, but win7 hasn't been around for long, so why not keep working to improve that.
Or is win8 supposed to be an improved win7 with a new name to capture the folk who "must have" the latest of everything?
From what I've seen so far, and I have had a good play around with my sons win7 machine, thank heavens I came into computing when XP was the latest operating system. It's still the bees knees for me. I was gonna say the dogs bollocks, but decided not to.
Dennis, I quite agree with you. I found work arounds for many of the problems in 7, including being able to import XP image viewer into the 32 & 64 bit versions of it. This solved my gripes with it not playing animated GIF files, but it still did nothing to solve the problem of the treble/bass controls. I bought a new creative card that does sound great in 7, but in XP, I could turn down the bass so I could really crank it loud enough to jam on my drums here.
With 7, there is no, ahem, easy way to do that unless you download the youtube vids as MP3 & use WMP to do so...
And Windows 8 has features scattered all over the place. I quite like a wallpaper much better than I do a tile, & excuse me, blocks do not look good for a "start" menu. Nor is it a great way to browse, install, uninstall, view your programs.
And having multiple places to have all your settings, & changing the way settings already are used by users, not a good thing at all. Windows 8 has a few good things, & the rapidity of how fast I can remove it is one of them. Even Windows ME is better OS than Windows 8, & that's saying a lot!
Not a bad assessment here
http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-consumer-preview-call-common-sense-142476
Got a bit cranked up, didn't he?
I have a question, probably everybody except me knows this, but I'll ask anyway: What does this mean? (about three quarters down the page) "But just so we're clear, it's a modern PC. Why the frick are you shutting down a PC? It's not 1989, people."
My experience is quite narrow, so I am probably missing something here, but even I can think or one or two good reasons to shut down a PC.
I'd even think it'd be the reverse:
My understanding of the early days of computers leads me to believe that minimal shutdown/turn on processes were better for the hardware, as the expensive components would wear out over time. Now that computers are incredibly cheap, it's no longer an issue, and we can restart to our hearts content.
That being said, I only shut down my PC if I'm going to be opening it up.
I worked in Research/Design Laboratories and the mains supply to the entire laboratory was always shut down when we left at night.
This was to protect equipement far more expensive than computers from being destroyed should an experimental prototype short circuit and burst into flames.
Our computers did not suffer from the shutdown.
Windows 95 was DESIGNED for shutdowns - it never went a day without giving a BSOD.
When a serial COM port stopped communicating the Reset switch never restored normality - it took a full shut down and power up.