Hardware & Technical Windows 8.1

[Aewarin Jameson]

Anyone tried the new "Blue" patch for Windows 8 ?

I have a local version of Windows 8 but removed it due to some incompatibilities.

Wondering if it's worth trying 8.1.

 

[Mobius]

sorry buddy, im sticking with my Win7. don't like the GUI on win8, even if they have changed it. gonna wait to see what Win9 brings before I upgrade.

 

[Cody]

Ditto.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Currently using Win7 myself .. liked the idea of 8 but the tabbed front end bugged me - but I will say it was much faster than 7.

Anyone else ? It's a 3Gb DL for the 8.1 ISO from MS and I don't know if I can be bothered

 

[Slopey]

I'll get round to it at some point, but for now, Pokki does everything I need for a start button in Win 8, probably better than 8.1 does anyway.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Currently using Win7 myself .. liked the idea of 8 but the tabbed front end bugged me - but I will say it was much faster than 7.

Anyone else ? It's a 3Gb DL for the 8.1 ISO from MS and I don't know if I can be bothered

going to give it a try but only because i have both 7 & 8 installed, although saying that i can count on one hand the number of times I've booted into 8

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Pokki does everything I need for a start button

Sorry Slopey, what's Pokki ?

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Sorry Slopey, what's Pokki ?

http://www.pokki.com/windows-8-start-menu

 

[Slopey]

^^

It's excellent! And free!!

 

[Kerrash]

I tried to update to 8.1, but apparently I need the ISO instead and it will wipe my apps; so I will probably wait until it's released properly.

Most people I talk to who don't like it have either just seen it, or only used it briefly. I have been using 8 since before it was launched, honestly after a few days of using the new start screen I realized that it is actually quicker and easier.

But appearance aside, it loads everything quicker and I have more free RAM for games; so I can't complain.

People are just averse to change, does everyone remember how much XP 'sucked and we should all switch back to 98'. I do, I did. Until SP2.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

Was going to try it, but now that I'm running off an SSD, I don't fancy wasting the write cycles that would come with reinstalling everything once the trial period runs out. It's also not so easy to get the preview access in the UK, although there's a workaround to make it show up in the store (I got that far).

It looks good to me though. I like the fact that you can have the same wallpaper for start-screen and desktop environments (should have been in 8.0 really). Also, now that I'm back using IE after many years of giving it a wide berth, the performance gains in IE11 sound good. It's using the GPU for a bit of acceleration, and to smooth out scrolling etc. - apparently a 30% speed increase.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

It's excellent! And free!!

Oooh .. looks interesting

Thanks .. will read up on it later.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Was going to try it, but now that I'm running off an SSD, I don't fancy wasting the write cycles that would come with reinstalling everything once the trial period runs out. It's also not so easy to get the preview access in the UK, although there's a workaround to make it show up in the store (I got that far).

It looks good to me though. I like the fact that you can have the same wallpaper for start-screen and desktop environments (should have been in 8.0 really). Also, now that I'm back using IE after many years of giving it a wide berth, the performance gains in IE11 sound good. It's using the GPU for a bit of acceleration, and to smooth out scrolling etc. - apparently a 30% speed increase.

cant get the preview in the uk? no idea what your on about there i downloaded the 64 bit iso without a problem, installing it now.

so far its on it's 1st reboot having taken 8 mins to set it up prior to the restart, but it's now Setting up again apparently?

one thing i already hate about 8 though is that it doesn't play nice with other versions of windows, accessing it over the network via XP is a real pain in the ass.

and now it's just informed me it's installing the previous version of windows on the third reboot - brb

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

and now it's just informed me it's installing the previous version of windows on the third reboot - brb

Ouch ... let me know the outcome though Andy - curious as to what you think.

Well, being mean really .. you're in the middle of it so going to let you try it for me

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

i can now confirm that windows 8.1 is a steaming pile of @#$% (insert swear word of choice)

and to me was a complete waste of time.

 

[jabokai]

I just installed it under Oracle Virtualbox to give it another try (didn't like 8.0)... and I don't see the changes as adding much. I guess I'll stick with 7 until there's a truly compulsive reason to upgrade.

 

[Patrick_68000]

He seems, well Windows 8.1. But hey I have Windows 7 and I'm too lazy to download, install and test 8.1 in beta version. In 2014 I intend to change my computer for Elite. So maybe I will install Windows 8 if not I will install Win7 64.
I learned not to run after Windows.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Cheers Andy .. and that's a real shame

In all honesty I am attracted to Linux .. tinkered with it for years on and off (install - ooh that's pretty - find something can't work - uninstall) I like the opensource nature of it but (being honest here) it's too complicated for me. Most things work, sure, but when it goes wrong I end up looking for the log files in the wrong places ... services are called things different ... even task manager looks wrong.

Curse you MS .. you made me dumb and now I am stuck with Win 7/8

 

[Slawkenbergius]

cant get the preview in the uk? no idea what your on about there i downloaded the 64 bit iso without a problem, installing it now.

On day one, at least, it didn't appear in the UK store, and the installer wouldn't run. Maybe that's changed now, but I've decided to wait until the official update anyway.

 

[Beachlight7]

I will update to 8.1 on my netbook. But I'm still hoping to not need a PC for Elite. In 2014 I will have a PS4.
OS, just one of the thousand things you dont have to think about with fixed hardware/firmware/software setup lol.
And that is how Elite was first made and so special. Optomised and refined for the perfect game experience on fixed hardware tailored to the last byte of memory.
(best version of Elite will be on PS4!)