Windows 8.1 a hero or a zero

AlecEiffel

UnderPressure wrote: »

I really do not understand all the hate towards Windows 8 but then I never understood the hate towards Vista either, I had machines capable of running Vista and also had enough knowledge and confidence to get on with it and never had a days worth of trouble with Vista not a single day!

Same with Windows 8, upgraded all my machines on the day of release and never had any issues at all with it, sure it took a bit of getting used to and I really do not take advantage of all the capabilities of Metro and the various apps from the store but as an every day operating system it is great, not one single issue.

Having said all that I did find an hour to download the 8.1 update to my laptop yesterday, the download and install went fine, I was shocked at the size of it at 3.2gb, I was even more shocked when I fired it up fro the first time as apart from the appearance of a new Windows button on the task bar I can see no differences at all, not for what I use my machines for anyway, no doubt I will stumble across some oddities along the way but on the whole I am having a great experience as ever with Microsoft's operating systems.

I have no issues with 8, 8.1, and also was on vista before and had no problem with that either. Guess I'm part of the lucky few judging by others comments.

But anyway, there are a lot of changes you'll stumble across. In the menus and configuration sections, plus you can boot to desktop, resize tiles, turn off live tiles, use your desktop background in the start screen, plus lots more.

I'm happy with it.

S0litaire

if you're having problems downloading the 8.1 update.
Microsoft offers the ability to get the update sent to your home address in a convenient format:


lol ^_~

penrhyn

Can't figure out how to get more than one modern app on screen at the same time in this pile of crap.

Sucess! Mouse to top left and move down to expose previusly opened apps, right click of the one of choice, and insert left, or right or replace.
About as user friendly as Windows 3.1

Jivesinger

Lum wrote: »

Once again, proving that this is just a glorified service pack. same thing happened to the earlier XP service packs.

It makes sense though, why waste effort patching up things for people who wont install the latest patch?

If that patch removes features though, it's a different thing.

See if you can find the Windows 7-style backup and system image for example; I believe only one of the two survives from 8 to 8.1.

Also from what I've seen, they have slightly changed the minimum requirements in 8.1 so some systems which happily ran Windows 8 won't upgrade to 8.1.

Service Packs and patches don't normally do that sort of thing.

S0litaire wrote: »

if you're having problems downloading the 8.1 update.
Microsoft offers the ability to get the update sent to your home address in a convenient format:

:rotfl:

adamc260

I find 8.1 slower than 8 tbh =/

I think this whole start menu is a pure joke, it should of been left for their tablets and not come anywhere near a computer. I never use any of the 'apps' and just flip straight to the desktop. Everyone else I know uses the computer the same way and all wish they'd just bring back the start menu of old....

Very stupid mistake by windows but it'd be too much of an embarrassment to go backwards now so we're stuck with this mess.

Who decided also that you have to move your mouse to the bottom right of the screen, then up to press settings, then power off was a good idea!? When I first got windows 8 I had to google how to switch my computer off and I work in IT....

michael243

I think it is a good update to windows 8, but I wished I had kept windows 7

Also my most hated thing is that I cant snap two excel files next to each other, which is just stupid..

Lum

Jivesinger wrote: »

Service Packs and patches don't normally do that sort of thing.

XP SP2 add a whole bunch of stuff, including native support for wireless networks, and removed a few things such as the Microsoft Java VM.

This one is closer to Windows 95 OSR2 conceptually. That's the update that added FAT32 support.

grumpycrab

penrhyn wrote: »

Can't figure out how to get more than one modern app on screen at the same time in this pile of crap.

Sucess! Mouse to top left and move down to expose previusly opened apps, right click of the one of choice, and insert left, or right or replace.
About as user friendly as Windows 3.1

I haven't looked at 8.1 yet but if you don't like the full screen aspect of "Metro" apps this is a nice addon (free to try otherwise $5)

http://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/

almillar

I think Windows 8 is a great OS, and 8.1, though I haven't used it much yet, seems to fix lots of things that were being complained about.
The Start button is back.
The first few times you run it, big messages come up telling you how to get, for example, the charms.
You can set it to boot straight into the desktop
You can set the background for the Start menu to be the same as the background for your desktop - this feature will really make it feel like it is just a Start 'menu' rather than a completely different desktop. I'd recommend doing the above for anyone not currently liking 8.1.

JohnStuart_2

penrhyn wrote: »

Just spent an hour or so upgrading.
Never get the hour back.
As far as Im concerned, its still schizoid and a total mess.

Windows 8.1 is fine, if you are using tablet then it will be great.