Just bought a windoze 8.1 laptop

chunter

Do you have to sign up for a Microsoft account to download and install 8.1?
I can't see any other way. Not my pc, btw...

Jivesinger

chunter wrote: »

Do you have to sign up for a Microsoft account to download and install 8.1?
I can't see any other way. Not my pc, btw...

You may get more answers by starting a new thread with this question.

In general, I believe you shouldn't have to.

However when I was trying to upgrade from Windows 8.1 Preview to 8.1 proper, I couldn't find any other way than to sign into the Store with a Microsoft Account to trigger the download. But that's a pretty unusual case, I think, and even then, once 8.1 was installed I could stick with only needing Local accounts to sign into the machine.

Nice_Weather_For_Ducks

W8 / 8.1 is truly AWFUL, especially on a non-touch PC.

My laptop has had this OS for a month now (With classic shell thank god) and it really is a pile of steaming poo!!

Weird_Nev

How so? I'm finding it fast, intuitive, nice to use and above all completely stable. It's even running a bunch of programs from 2003 XP vintage through to Win7 without complaints, in the proper compatibility mode.

The 8.1 update definitely improves things, and I agree I think it was a big mistake to 'assume' that it would be used on touch enabled devices.

However, with a touch enabled device, Win 8.1 is swish!

MaxTheCat

I wouldn't bother worrying about windows 8 microsoft have as much as admitted its a mistake and are now talking about windows 9 which is supposed to be a lot more like traditional windows. For myself after 2 days of getting nowhere with windows 8 I formatted the hard drive and installed windows 7 all problems solved. By the way I'm a senior software developer I know a thing or two about ui design and win 8 is rotten even worse than win ME and vista which was at least usable if unstable.

securityguy

MaxTheCat wrote: »

I wouldn't bother worrying about windows 8 microsoft have as much as admitted its a mistake and are now talking about windows 9 which is supposed to be a lot more like traditional windows.

It'll be interesting if Microsoft end up setting out to satisfy the more conservative end of their existing userbase. It'll mark the point at which they transition to being a legacy company, who can't innovate because their existing business is too much of a focus and their existing customers are too influential. Microsoft may have an absolute lock on the minds of people over thirty, and for a lot of them "computer" and "PC running Windows XP" are indivisible. But that generation will not be around for ever, and manly talk about how people won't in the end switch away from existing paradigms explains why Xerox, Kodak and Nokia are in such fine health these days.

GunJack

I think what MS need to do is, ok, have the same core functionality, but tailor the versions of OS to the devices they will be used on, i.e. Win9 (traditional look & feel for desktop/laptop), W9 touch for phones/tabs.

If there's enough interoperability between devices without imposing the restrictions/UI/etc on the devices it doesn't suit, then W9 should be fine....

securityguy

GunJack wrote: »

I think what MS need to do is, ok, have the same core functionality, but tailor the versions of OS to the devices they will be used on, i.e. Win9 (traditional look & feel for desktop/laptop), W9 touch for phones/tabs.

Why is it assumed as an axiom that desktop GUIs reached a state of grace with Windows XP, and thereafter all change in decay? That "traditional" is always the best answer? Nokia and RIM/Blackberry were absolutely fixed on the idea that people would always want a mechanical keypad on their phone: how's that working out for them right now? Philips were not prepared to countenance the idea of a device that played music without using either cassettes or CDs, because surely no-one would want music stored on their computer, and passed up on the iPod.

There is a pretty direct line from the Alto, circa 1975, through Mac circa 1986 and Windows circa 1995. Since then, there's been essentially no desktop innovation. But the basic metaphors ("folders" and the like) are now dead metaphors, because most people starting to use computers are more familiar with the computer than they are with the paper-based precursors. But both Windows and OS/X are very conservative in UI, neither doing much that an Alto didn't, and someone who had used a Unix workstation in the early 1980s (by which time both contextual and button-based menus had arrived) would see anything new. It's as though car manufacturers had look at the Morris Marina and decided that this was the end of the development line, and nothing could ever be better. It seems a bold claim to state that paradigms will never change, and all a company needs to do is stay the same and they'll be safe forever. As RIM's shareholders will tell you.

mart44

Apples2 wrote: »

I put it on my PC, for about an hour before I binned it and went back to Win7.

Doesn't seem very long to give it a fair chance. I can remember being a bit lost during the first hours. Fine with it now though (using a Desktop computer, keyboard and mouse).

Jivesinger

securityguy wrote: »

Why is it assumed as an axiom that desktop GUIs reached a state of grace with Windows XP, and thereafter all change in decay?

I don't assume this, and I agree that some of the noise of Windows 8 around that a lot has changed.

However... the 'Metro' UI, presented by Microsoft as the future, is pretty hopeless for doing work.

If 'useful' software was developed to be Metro-only (eg. some future version of Office), and Microsoft surely want developers to do this, I just couldn't do my job effectively with the current Metro design.

The full-screen, non-multi-tasking nature of it is more suited for content consumption, but not for effective working.

Also, too much is missing from Metro. My printer insists on putting a border round everything if I want to print double-sided. If I want to print a PDF without the border, I can't do that from the Printer Settings in the Reader app in Metro; I have to go back to the old fashioned Control Panel which has more settings and change it from there.

Another example - try listening to BBC Radio iPlayer within the 'Metro' version of Internet Explorer. As soon as you switch away to another app (but wanting to keep listening) the sound cuts out.

Hopefully Metro will evolve into something better, and it doesn't necessarily have to look like Windows XP to do that, but at the moment, it's not fit for purpose, so of course people compare back to a UI that actually works.