Windows Windows 8 Marmite thread... Because you either love it or hate it

Copied from the benchmarks thread:

Right, spent my first full day with Windows 8 and I find the new interface amazing! Yes, it's a learning curve but I got used to the new features more quickly than I thought I would. It's fast, fluid and having everything right in front of you is great! I'm only having to use the desktop for troubleshooting. The live tiles are great, and for me, it'll be a wonderful OS once more things start appearing in the Windows store.

It's well worth the £25, that's a bargain for an OS!

Goodbytes is more than correct. Yes, it is a learning curve, but this one has been incredibly easy and fun to get fast. Windows is so much nicer to use now!

 

Greetings!

 

Upgraded today and love it.

 

At first I was not a huge fan of Windows 8 having tried it for a few days as a main OS and latterly within a virtual machine. However I heard advice from Goodbytes in regards to using Windows 8 as a main OS to give it a good going over and get used to it day in and day out. This I did and haven't looked back.

A few weeks later I'm so happy with Windows 8 I have now upgraded my Desktop to Windows 8 Pro (with Media Centre as I've just received my key) and also my laptop today. The only issue I have at the moment is a slight memory allocation problem when shutting down the laptop but no other obvious issues at all.

I have had to disable "Fast Start" on my desktop in order to get the drivers to work for my X-Fi Titanium, interestingly Windows 8 RTM needed "Fast Start" to be disabled on the desktop so that it didn't automatically turn the computer back on after doing a shutdown. Even with "Fast Start" disabled Windows 8 still boots very quickly.

I've found that I'm staying on the desktop most of the time but I do like the odd dabble in downloaded games from the Microsoft Store.

One thing I would like though, I'm not sure if it is possible, is to have Tweetro automatically start at system start but as a sidebar on my second screen (i.e. as "metro" split screen app in the smaller portion on the right hand side). I do like having my twitter feed auto update on the right hand side of the screen...

 

The one gripe I have is that my FLAC files won't show up in the Windows 8 music app. I can play them in WMP but would like them in the app. Is there any way to do this?

 

I can prepare the disk on a 64-bit system, but the computer to be upgraded is on XP. Any ideas on where I might find a guide to prepare the installer or the disc itself?

I don't want to prepare a disc on a Win 7 64-bit system only for the new Windows 8 license to be tied to that computer and not the XP computer...

Thanks

 

you'll be ok, i downloaded the files on my windows 7 [64-bit] pc, then used the disk to install on a different [vista] pc

... then went back and did my windows 7 pc with the same disk [once i'd picked up another key]

 

I bought a Windows 8 Pro upgrade DVD pack from a retail store for my desktop and on my laptop used the same DVD with a key purchased as a "Download" version of Windows 8 Pro directly from Microsoft.

I paid the extra for a DVD pack from the retail store as my internet connection is only at best 1.3mb until we get fibre towards the end of this year and therefore downloading Windows 8 would take ages! It's taken long enough to download Office 2013 Preview on both computers at best this afternoon...

Worked without issues but I did have Windows 7 on both computers (had to re-install Windows 7 and activate it as I was running Windows 8 RTM).

Anyway I'm trying to say that I doubt the DVD ISO will be any different to a retail DVD whereby it'll work with any computer as long as you have a separate key for each machine.

 

I doubt that will be possible tbh. Would be nice if it was though. I have been using xbox music as a sidebar, which works incredibly well, and the updated version now has nice visualizations in this mode.

I find it annoying that you can only have metro apps open on one screen at a time, and opening the start screen on a different monitor to the one I have xbox music open on moves it to the other screen. I hope this is something they fix, because I could see a lot of use in having xbox music as a sidebar on the right side of the right monitor, and a different app (such as tweetro, although i don't use twitter, but something similar) as a sidebar on the left of my left monitor. I would then have roughly 1 3/4 width of my two screens to use a desktop program like AutoCAD or photoshop.

 

If anyone is interested, you can do a clean install of Windows 8, but keep your personal files.
The only personal files not kept was AppData. So you want to backup that folder to carry your programs settings, if you care about it. If you forgot, no problem, your old Windows 8 install will be in the Windows.OLD folder.

The process was kick and painless.

 

Ok thanks guys, looks like my Dad will have his Xmas present!

 

Does anybody know if you can get FLAC support in the Windows 8 music app?

 

What makes me angry in Windows 8 is... that none of the new devices with the finally usable 1920x1080 displays are coming in a realistic timeframe. Aspire S7 ? Middle of December. Surface pro ? January or February. Sony VAIO Duo 11 ? No timeframe at all. The rest ? Not even listed in local shops.

Pretty much the only device on the market which i can buy right now is the ASUS ZENBOOK Prime UX31A, which is not a tablet and doesn't even have touchscreen. Yes, it has an SSD, a 1920x1080 display, but also 1400 euro price.

And then the manufacturers will cry how bad their holiday season was, how people didn't want to buy computers etc etc.

Edit: LOL @ Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-S7-391-13-3-inch-Ultrabook/dp/B009R1766Y/

@KidMod: first link in google ? http://blog.dabasinskas.net/enable-flac-support-on-windows-8/

 

FLAC was always a bit of a balls when it comes to windows.

 

Sadly, like the Zune software the codecs they use can't be changed or added. Kinda like if it was hard coded. You'll only be able to play them in Windows Media Player 12.

Microsoft doesn't recognize MKV nor FLAC for some reason. I guess they don't see it as popular enough.

 

anyone else on here struggling to get past the payment section with the upgrade assisstant? ive tried both credit card and paypal, and it just says to check payment settings. done a bit of googling and seen others are having the same, though not seen anyone mention it on here?

 

Greetings!

 

Has anyone had problems installing the Lucid Virtu software?

 

I don't know, I don't have it to try.
But if you do, than my software (see signature) can help you out as an alternative solution. (There is a free version, and it should fit yours needs nicely). Just PM me thought (anyone else is also welcome), as I have the coming up version which works properly with the GeForce 400, 500 and 600 series.

I am just adding some final features, and need to fix a few very minor interface bugs. The rest is solid and well tested.

To put it in perspective, it make desktop is quieter, and my laptop has more battery life (about 1h more).
I think you'll enjoy it.

 

FLAK and MKV have never really took of outside of the top end music listeners and makers.