There are apparently lots more hardware bugs on 8.1, particularly with mice. Or so my Googling found when I was trying to find a touch pad driver for the net book I put it on. According to the forums no such driver exists for that model yet but luckily for me the owner said she doesn't care. I never tried 8 so I can't compare.
Windows 8 Without A Touch Screen?
- Thread starter -Maverick-
- Start date
Yeah, I actually had a comment about my seven years as service manager for a Microsoft and Corel OEM dsitributor in my last post, but removed it. I could have also added the total of 25 years in the industry with positions from product evaluation, to quality control, to production level O/S installation, with the last 16 years in organization level support having an install base of more than 2000 Windows based PCs (and a couple of hundred Macs), but I figured it wouldn't have meant anything.
Shaman
Well-known member
It never ceases to amaze me how if it's the only thing you know about computers, Windows is THE BESTEST. It's been that way right from the start, Windows has almost always been the worst OS on the market with the poorest reliability, the most proprietary outlook and the poorest performance (well OK, there was the pre-OSX Macintosh, which I don't have much good to say about either). I'd say that they finally pulled it together for Windows 7 / Server 2008 and then they threw it in the manure pile and released the gawdawful mess that is Windows 8.
I remember back about... oh... 1989 when Windows wonks would go on and on about how OS/2 sucked, or the Amiga sucked. Windows didn't even have multitasking, nor memory protection, nor process privelege separation. The people with intelligence weren't fooled... OS/2 didn't disappear from big companies until about 5 years ago! You'd think after more than 30 years I'd just accept that people are sycophantic followers, but it still makes me shake my head even today.
Last edited:
I'm actually a Windows proponent. I'm just not a blindered fanboy. When they do it wrong, I have no problem with saying it. Some of their Service Packs, over the years, have virtually made me want to slit my wrists with all the support issues they gave me.
Windows, specifically WinXP and Win7, do what I want. They also work in the environment, in which I operate on a daily basis. If I was making a high performance stand alone web server, then I'd likely go for some flavour of Linux. If I wanted a system on which I was only doing video production and photo editing, I'd buy a tweaked to the nuts Mac. I spent almost a decade doing product evaluation and recommending system configurations, but I buy pre-built systems for myself.
One of the issues with Windows is that it tries to be all things, to all people, from a hardware standpoint. A lot of the Mac fanboys just ignore the fact that their hardware is no different from a Windows box, these days. In fact as an experiment I turned a Dell Optiplex 760 into a Mac, for a while, and it ran beautifully. Mac has fewer O/S issues than does Windows, in no small part, because they control the hardware.
I found issues with all versions of OS/2, both IBM and Microsoft. Warp wasn't bad, but still had its issues. Most of them were solved by choosing from a very short list of hardware on which to run the OS.
Last edited:
Shaman
Well-known member
Oh I won't deny that OS/2 had issues, but most of them were hardware, as you point out. That's what happens when the crappy alternative to it gets all the market share by buying its market. I had a whole essay on that posted here at gtam years ago, too tired to repeat it, but I can sum it up with: "Microsoft built an amoral marketing ploy that would see them buy their market by spending thousands of dollars per customer until it had a market share going that would return their investment with interest... and in so doing, destroyed a vibrant computer industry full of innovation." That's why Andy Grove, former head of Intel and a man who Microsoft did a lot to make very rich, hates Microsoft with a passion.
An example:
I hate Microsoft. Always will. It's a sleazy company run by amoral sociopaths. But Win7 was actually not a bad OS, paired up with Server 2008. I hope they get what they deserve with their new "strategy."
An example:
I hate Microsoft. Always will. It's a sleazy company run by amoral sociopaths. But Win7 was actually not a bad OS, paired up with Server 2008. I hope they get what they deserve with their new "strategy."
Last edited:
Not yet, I've been reading of several reviews of users complaining that Skydrive isn't playing nice with 8.1 upgrades. This concerns me as I use Skydrive and Outlook regularly and would rather not have any hassles.
Will wait a bit for MS to sort this out.
Because I have nothing better to do right now I'm going to bite on your troll-ish/ignorant/arrogant post. Again, I'm a developer. Most of my experience has been developing ASP.NET and HTML5 cloud computing applications (http://clara.io/) so I'm not pulling random **** out of my ***.
I've been using Photoshop since 2.x. Never found it difficult to use. I was tasked with developing bluetooth drivers for the iPhone, thus requiring Xcode and further an OSX system. Because the OSX is Unix-like, any unfamiliar elements can be bypassed by using the Terminal application. Hell, you kinda have to use it to develop efficiently. The actual OSX itself kept the standard WIMP concepts intact so learning it was extremely easy.
Compare this to Windows 8. Applications such as msconfig, services.msc, lusrmgr.msc took me minutes to find because the default search on Metro won't pick them up. It also took me an awful amount of time to force an update versus hitting the windows key and typing windows update then enter in Windows 7. I'll probably be forced to develop on Windows 8 in the future but thankfully there's Visual Studios for that.
Believe it or not, a consumer designed software/computer product that doesn't come with a manual is intuitive. Have you seen the Google Nexus manual? I think there was only a warranty slip. Some Apple products are the same. Hell, many video games no longer come with manuals. This is also the reason why, as much as I hate to admit it, motorcycles will never become main stream, the operation of a motorcycle is complex and to efficiently operate it is against human instincts (everything your instincts want you to do when you panic will make you crash).
Next you start talking about mental challenge and exercising thought processes. Really? You think it takes thought to build a computer after the first few times? I built my first Pentium 100 with a turbo button that went to 133mhz when I was in grade 2. Shaman has me beat on the hardware side of things because I ended up in software development. Then you proceed to say games are a waste of time when many of them provide TONS of mental stimulation. This is especially the case for games with high difficulty curves such as the Metal Gear Solid series, many fighter gamers, and nearly all RTS games.
Also, do you have any idea what an Android based tablet is capable of? I'm a fairly late tablet bandwagon hopper (just got one 2 days ago) but the Android is based on the Linux kernel. It can do A LOT of things and was pretty much a nerdgasm for me after I got root access to it.
And to end with a bit of ad-hominem, I understand you're trying to prove something, but don't do it on the internet where people will call you out for not knowing your ****!
I've been using Photoshop since 2.x. Never found it difficult to use. I was tasked with developing bluetooth drivers for the iPhone, thus requiring Xcode and further an OSX system. Because the OSX is Unix-like, any unfamiliar elements can be bypassed by using the Terminal application. Hell, you kinda have to use it to develop efficiently. The actual OSX itself kept the standard WIMP concepts intact so learning it was extremely easy.
Compare this to Windows 8. Applications such as msconfig, services.msc, lusrmgr.msc took me minutes to find because the default search on Metro won't pick them up. It also took me an awful amount of time to force an update versus hitting the windows key and typing windows update then enter in Windows 7. I'll probably be forced to develop on Windows 8 in the future but thankfully there's Visual Studios for that.
Believe it or not, a consumer designed software/computer product that doesn't come with a manual is intuitive. Have you seen the Google Nexus manual? I think there was only a warranty slip. Some Apple products are the same. Hell, many video games no longer come with manuals. This is also the reason why, as much as I hate to admit it, motorcycles will never become main stream, the operation of a motorcycle is complex and to efficiently operate it is against human instincts (everything your instincts want you to do when you panic will make you crash).
Next you start talking about mental challenge and exercising thought processes. Really? You think it takes thought to build a computer after the first few times? I built my first Pentium 100 with a turbo button that went to 133mhz when I was in grade 2. Shaman has me beat on the hardware side of things because I ended up in software development. Then you proceed to say games are a waste of time when many of them provide TONS of mental stimulation. This is especially the case for games with high difficulty curves such as the Metal Gear Solid series, many fighter gamers, and nearly all RTS games.
Also, do you have any idea what an Android based tablet is capable of? I'm a fairly late tablet bandwagon hopper (just got one 2 days ago) but the Android is based on the Linux kernel. It can do A LOT of things and was pretty much a nerdgasm for me after I got root access to it.
And to end with a bit of ad-hominem, I understand you're trying to prove something, but don't do it on the internet where people will call you out for not knowing your ****!
Last edited:
I stayed at a holiday In last night
lol, I think that comment got lost in translation
Nope, it's more akin to what happens when a guy who took grade 9 science tries to tell a physicist why the sky is green.
Yes. spent a bit of time last night with it and definitely noticeable improvements. I like the direction they are heading and 8.2 should be even better.
Dell tech support (guy was India based, and very helpful) had to come to the rescue to set up the 8.1 download. He asked all the basic questions of stuff I already did from the MS help site, like resetting the Windows store /wsreset, then asked if all the latest win updates were done, which they were.
Then, we did a "GoTo Meeting" type arrangement, where I allowed him to "take over" my computer. It was neat sitting back and watching as he was going through all the files, and clicking and downloading away. He was looking for file KB2871389, but didn't see it, but was able to get it placed when he went into the BIOS and modified and added a few things.
As soon as we rebooted, and reset the window store again, the update 8.1 window popped up.
He asked how I liked win 8, and agreed that a lot of people he helped, didn't like win8 at first until they "get used to it". I don't mind it at all, and am enjoying it so far.
Most support services use a web applet based remote access process that requires the user to explicitly grant access to the computer these days, rather than the Windows based Remote Desktop process.
Yes, there were a few steps and permissions required for him to access my system. And we had to install a special Dell program as well so that he could gain access.
It was an easy, painless process. Once given permission, I just sat back and watched on my monitor as he did all the work clicking through files and downloading. Neat.
Just a shout out for Dell, this is my 3rd system from them for my home in 10 years and service and quality are impressive as usual. Highly recommend.
Last edited:
So how did he have access to the BIOS? That generally requires a reboot and hit a special key before the OS even boots. I know there are systems that allow remote BIOS configuration but I thought that was more of a network administrator thing than something used by support. I've never played with it myself but I know my Dell M4600 has some features for that in the BIOS settings.
It might have been the remote administration pack but it's more likely that it was a BIOS update, that is done via an application that's run in Windows, for Dell computers.
Oh ok. Yeah a BIOS update from within Windows makes sense.
Obvious software issues their (Dell) support is pretty good. Hardware issues are hard to get them to do anything. I had really bad luck getting them to fix an Inspiron (although that was because it was purchased at Best Buy so you need to go through Geek Squad to get it fixed, which is bull and Geek Squad is full of terrible liars). My current laptop is under warranty still and does this thing where it will just randomly go dead, like someone pulled the power even though it's plugged in and has a full working battery and Dell basically says it's a software problem (they did no investigation) and won't do anything about it. The only error messages in the logs are that power was cut unexpectedly. Luckily it only happens like once a month and usually while the machine is idle. This is after the video card literally went up in smoke while I was using it and they replaced the whole machine. The old one didn't do that. I'd expect more when I pay $3000 for a machine (that would've cost over $4500 if I had ordered it from the Canadian site instead of US).
If it's a problem with my Windows installation / drivers I don't understand why they had me install a BIOS update that made it less frequent (but it still happens). From Googling awhile ago it seemed it was a problem with some of the i7 chips and Intel and the manufacturers were just doing a lot of finger pointing so that could be why they don't want to take any responsibility.
Obvious software issues their (Dell) support is pretty good. Hardware issues are hard to get them to do anything. I had really bad luck getting them to fix an Inspiron (although that was because it was purchased at Best Buy so you need to go through Geek Squad to get it fixed, which is bull and Geek Squad is full of terrible liars). My current laptop is under warranty still and does this thing where it will just randomly go dead, like someone pulled the power even though it's plugged in and has a full working battery and Dell basically says it's a software problem (they did no investigation) and won't do anything about it. The only error messages in the logs are that power was cut unexpectedly. Luckily it only happens like once a month and usually while the machine is idle. This is after the video card literally went up in smoke while I was using it and they replaced the whole machine. The old one didn't do that. I'd expect more when I pay $3000 for a machine (that would've cost over $4500 if I had ordered it from the Canadian site instead of US).
If it's a problem with my Windows installation / drivers I don't understand why they had me install a BIOS update that made it less frequent (but it still happens). From Googling awhile ago it seemed it was a problem with some of the i7 chips and Intel and the manufacturers were just doing a lot of finger pointing so that could be why they don't want to take any responsibility.
Last edited:
