Windows 8 Dev build

I think my Windows 8 to 8.1 upgrade rebooted all of one time, but I'm not 100% sure, it could have been twice. It was a pretty smooth process too, and fast. Maybe because I have it on a fast SSD? (550/500)
 
The selling point for SSD is to run Windows Update ?! :D.
Seriously, there's a strong security risk just from people who are peeved with the slow updates and needed reboots. Grinding noise doesn't help. Those people thus make shit up about how the updates make their computer slow and unstable (although occasionally an update might bork something - more not than often).
Not you zed, but we all know people who say that.

My advice is to get over it - even 1.5 hour is not too bad, i.e. it was not 4 hours.
 
I think my Windows 8 to 8.1 upgrade rebooted all of one time, but I'm not 100% sure, it could have been twice. It was a pretty smooth process too, and fast. Maybe because I have it on a fast SSD? (550/500)
windows81update-6.png

It even mentions it has to reboot several times, you prolly didnt notice as your bios is prolly set to boot straight to win 8, Ive gotta manually select which OS every time. Anyways a minor point.
Playing around with it, I cant for the life of me find out whats really that different

One thing they need to change is give the user more control, one of the first things I'll change
color 208,209,215 (scrollbar) -> 232,232,236 (scrollbar background) (*) and make the bar more than 9 pixels wide (just counted in visual studio)
Usuability is more important than ascetics

(*)If you do this with webpages have the text nearly the same color as the background you'ld be crucified
 
My PC rebooted at least 3 times when installing 8.1, once after first starting the install, and then two more times during. Each time the install process displayed a percentage counter that went from 0 to 100, lying to me three times. ;)
 
Percentages like that are crass! :LOL: At least when the unit is just the "blue bar", and you get to see the blue bar filling thrice, you're fleeced but come to expect this if you have past experience.

Bars and percents always lie in hilarious ways anyway. I've seen Memtest taking 30-40 mins to go to a 50% pass.. then the last 50% is instantaneous. Nice but this messes with the time waste planning. Ubuntu/Debian stuck at 83%, spending over half the time there : they were kind enough to not choose the customary 99% for this. Unspeakable are the installers still doing work at 100%
 
I prefer numbers to a bar, as you know if its gone up or not, with the bar its like has it grown a pixel or is it my eyes?

btw another win 8.1 minor bug, default size of cursors has been reset
Is it just me but some things that I pressed esc on before to get rid of now dont work?
eg "what app do you want to open file with dialog", in MS visual studio, suggestions popup where 90% of press escape to stop annoying me, doesnt do anything, or find on page.

Search is now terrible, why on earth show me what you find on the internet? If I want to find whats on the internet, I look in my browser

one major improvement with 8.1 - I can now leave my computer alone without windows antimaleware kicking in and checking the HD nonstop ~10mb/sec, ~40GB/hour. Now I can go to the shop and dont have to turn the PC off
 
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I can't believe the taskbar bug(*) is still with windows 8.1
Its been there with every windows version since win 95 at least, thats ~18 years and they still havent fixed it

(*)where you have taskbar on autohide you move your mouse cursor to left side of screen (mine taskbar on the left) and taskbar pops up, except sometimes it doesnt! the only way is to fart around, minimizing all windows usually works.

- Another similar bug is the (app steals focus in the task bar), there was a reg key that helped, not 100% though

- it has a similar issue with gimp, which you wont believe until you see it with your eyes. I should make a video
 
I'm the only who "lost" the "left charm" bar?
For some reasons I'm no longer presented the open apps though if I click it swith to the most recent one, bothering.
Edit solved by a reboot, still unpleasant.


Other than that I realize that "switchable graphics" (llano+redwood) is no longer working for me. I tried to uninstal and reinstall without any success. WHen I call the interface it first sent me to the "home Page" and after an uninstall/reinstall now it sends me to the display configuration page :(
 
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I can't believe the taskbar bug(*) is still with windows 8.1
Its been there with every windows version since win 95 at least, thats ~18 years and they still havent fixed it

(*)where you have taskbar on autohide you move your mouse cursor to left side of screen (mine taskbar on the left) and taskbar pops up, except sometimes it doesnt! the only way is to fart around, minimizing all windows usually works.
This is so typical Microsoft: hyper conservative about buggy/retarded behaviour, and ultra progressive about repainting icons and GUI glitter.

- Anything but default taskbar/toolbar setup is "technical challenge" for the OS (like fucked up fullscreen in games, or fucked up window placement with title bar in unreachable area).

- Console, that was already obsolete in '90s. It's like they simply recompiled Windows 3.0 source for it and shiped it with each version ever since.

- Spinning up CD drive after showing Open File dialog.

- 7 mouse actions to unplug USB device.

And all this in version, after version, after version...
 
- 7 mouse actions to unplug USB device.

Huh? 3 mouse clicks at most for me. And that's only because I have "safely remove hardware and eject media" task tray icon hidden so I have to use one mouse click just to see it. If I had it shown all the time, it would only be 2 mouse clicks.

I have no idea how you would use 7.

Regards,
SB
 
Huh? 3 mouse clicks at most for me. And that's only because I have "safely remove hardware and eject media" task tray icon hidden so I have to use one mouse click just to see it. If I had it shown all the time, it would only be 2 mouse clicks.

I have no idea how you would use 7.

Regards,
SB

Another method I've learned not too long ago is to right-click on the drive in windows explorer and select eject. Sometimes this method is easier when needing to identify which drive to eject in case multiple removable drives are hooked up.
 
Another method I've learned not too long ago is to right-click on the drive in windows explorer and select eject. Sometimes this method is easier when needing to identify which drive to eject in case multiple removable drives are hooked up.

Yup, that as well. Oddly enough though, I forget about that one a lot. I think it's because I'm just so used to using things in my task tray that my mind just remembers things there more often.

Regards,
SB
 
move mouse to tray
doubleclick
move mouse to center
select device from list
click Stop button
click OK button
click close button

Except the visual theme, it looks the same in XP, Vista and 7 (don't know about 8).
 
move mouse to tray
doubleclick
move mouse to center
select device from list
click Stop button
click OK button
click close button

Except the visual theme, it looks the same in XP, Vista and 7 (don't know about 8).

Correct procedure in Windows 8.x:

Move mouse to system tray
Right-click "Safely remove hardware and eject media" icon
Select device to eject from list
Left-click the device

Unplug device from pc

= 2 clicks, 4 'mouse actions'

frankly, I wouldn't even know how to propose a better solution with less mouse actions that the one listed above.
- You could propose displaying EACH ejectable device as a separate icon and allowing a single-click to eject. That would be 2 mouse actions, at the expense of desktop real estate and protection against accidental ejects caused by misclicking.
- Having an 'eject device' context menu for a right-click on the desktop and in windows explorer could reduce the mouse actions to three. But then it would only work if you are hovering the desktop or windows explorer... not good for providing a consistent user experience.

In the end, there's little to criticise Microsoft for the way they've implemented the eject device procedure.
 
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The procedure outlined above also works in XP, Vista and 7 also. I'm pretty sure it was even available in Win2000.

If you need seven "actions" to remove a device, it's because you're doing it wrong.
 
Well, you were shown a quicker way to do it than the one you described, how would you make it even faster, seriously? There's many legit complaints and gripes about windows (like, not including language packs with national OEM copies, making it virtually impossible to search the internet for solutions to error messages and so on if you don't have english windows installed); I don't think this one is one of those however. It's just not practical to make it better or faster than the right-click procedure.

Oh, and refusing to accept my iPhone5S as a networking device - although I don't know who to blame for that one; Apple might be an equally accurate target to shoot accusations at.
 
I'm just amused that moving the mouse is considered a mouse action.

I guess that means that even with the most efficient UI possible it would require a minimum of 2 "actions" to do anything. If you have to access a menu item, then it's a minimum of 4 actions. Pretty silly. :)

And holy hell, he must hate having to access anything in the old Windows Start Menu.

Move mouse to button
Click button
Move mouse to menu item
Click icon (stop here) or folder icon
Move mouse to item in folder
Click icon (stop here) or sub folder
Move mouse to item in folder
Click...etc...

In which case he must absolutely love the start screen in Win8.

Hit windows key.
Move mouse to icon
Click icon (done)

Regards,
SB
 
I'm just amused that moving the mouse is considered a mouse action.
Why are you exagerrating my argument? In my list I didn't count every mouse move. I only counted two: the significant ones, requiring user to "teleport" mouse pointer across large part of screen. The first move is necessary, the second one isn't.
Well, you were shown a quicker way to do it than the one you described, how would you make it even faster, seriously?
Cluttered design is still bad design. And mind that Microsoft didn't touch this turd since more then decade.

Better design is no brainer. You get "mouse actions" halved by getting rid of:
1) stupid window placement
2) redundant confirmation
3) telling your GUI for second time your requested action is "stoping some USB devieces".
 
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