The Windows 8 Train Crash!

Good lord, the entire Microsoft Music experience is a complete train wreck. The Metro Music App crashes constantly in Windows 8. The Xbox glass experience crashes in Metro when you try to stream to a device. To top it off when using a Windows phone it says streams are open if you have the Music app just open not even running. I can see why there is no support page, MS has this so screwed up its sad.

Yes all three devices have problems, when you check the Windows Application logs, the errors are just generic, and no information is available. I was really hoping MS got their act together, I have Apple and MS products and I thought maybe MS had finally learned their lesson, but everything seems half baked not even in a Beta stage to me.

To top it off the content in Xbox Music isn't even the same. Do a search for Florence + the Machine on a Windows 8 phone it works, on Xbox it works, on Windows 8 it gives the response Florence the Machine and bombs out. nice.

Seriously this is just basic stuff MS, I hope you get some hotfixes out immediately to start addressing these issues otherwise the whole Windows 8 experience will be even more of a failure than Vista.

It appears I am not alone. I have similar problems although with perhaps a different twist. Utilizing the media player in Xbox I can play movies and play music contained in my Windows 8 system. But this only holds true if that is the first action I take upon opening my Xbox. If I do something else first, as an example play a game, I can neither play a movie nor listen to music on the Xbox. This is strictly a Windows 8 issue as I don't have a problem with my Windows 7 system nor Vista system. I am surprised this issue has not been corrected. I don't suppose Microsoft is trying to steer us into spending money on the Xbox music system or movie rentals?

Clearly the Windows 8 OS can't work with the Xbox system player but the Window 8 folks appear not to be giving you straight answers. Microsoft apparent refusal to admit to the problem is confusing. Is the strategy to wear us down so we will subscribe to the Xbox Music app? I hope not. I am puzzled, with so many of us having the same problem with respect to Windows 8, one would think a solution would have been presented by now.

The reason i am upset is because it appears they designed windows 8 specifically for use with Microsoft devices like Xbox... now they don't want to offer support when there are issues with their big plan... obviously the issue is beyond the control of end users like our self. they need software engineers to fix this and quit giving their loyal customers the horrid run-around.

Got a new laptop 1st week of Dec. It replaced a windows 7 pc, had not a single problem with 7, or xp.... windows 8 is slower.... have 1 wired Xbox, and 1 wireless. the wired Xbox experiences delays when propagating music list from system media player, artists list sometimes fails to propagate ("timed out" action w/error message "not currently connected to pc") .... the wireless Xbox experiences major delays when propagating media lists, opening files, skipping scene function, with music artists list propagation failures.... have received major buck-passing on part of Microsoft, and HP. it just blows me away that its ok to charge money for a product, then require more money if you want support, even within a few days of ownership.... but that's another topic....anyway, I have read a few threads by consumers experiencing similar problems, and have tried just about everything within reason to resolve these issues, if there is no support, no update, no resolution in 2 more weeks I am returning my products for full refund and revert to prior protocol....

I refuse to dump my data and reload... these problems appeared the instant my pc was unboxed, also at that time Xbox support had control of my pc, when media was added to media player the first time program was opened. windows is trying to blame this on HP, and thus refuse support of my 1 week old operating system.

Users are frustrated, and annoyed but still no resolution from Microsoft. The end users are having issues with extremely poor video streaming with XBOX 360 on Windows 8 Media Center platform. They had no such issue with Windows 7. There are lots of feedback - an observations in many threads I found going back to Windows Seven is the ultimate solution. At one point I found this reply from Microsoft moderator of the forum:-

“We’re looking into this and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience…” He replied on 17th November - still no official fix from Microsoft. Unfortunate.

TO BE CONTINUED.................................

I tried to play a song from an album I have in my music folder. The song started, played for about 45 seconds, then stopped and next thing I know I was back at the Start screen.

Yes that's another issue for many, I've come across on various forums!! ....................:thumb:

I do not use metro I go straight to desk top and whatever software
[FONT=&quot]I choose is desk top version not metro.[/FONT]

I have a client that bought the windows phone. Every timer she tried to open an app the phone locked up. This was a htc smart phone. She was so frustrated with it,, she rebooted it 4 x, she reinstalled it 2x. After all this frustration she brought it back to sprint. They gave her a new one. Thing worked great for about a week. Then all the apps she wanted kept crashing, she was so frustrated with it she went back and traded it for an iPhone and never looked back and so far it has been 2 wks and everything works. I find that when I try some of the free apps they r constantly crashing on my windows 8 desktop and laptop upgrades. I think Microsoft pushed windows 8 out too fast and Also should be doing more testing of the apps before allowing them in the store

Hmmm,,,


View attachment 13046

robinb9 said:

I have a client that bought the windows phone. Every timer she tried to open an app the phone locked up. This was a htc smart phone. She was so frustrated with it,, she rebooted it 4 x, she reinstalled it 2x. After all this frustration she brought it back to sprint. They gave her a new one. Thing worked great for about a week. Then all the apps she wanted kept crashing, she was so frustrated with it she went back and traded it for an iPhone and never looked back and so far it has been 2 wks and everything works. I find that when I try some of the free apps they r constantly crashing on my windows 8 desktop and laptop upgrades. I think Microsoft pushed windows 8 out too fast and Also should be doing more testing of the apps before allowing them in the store

Click to expand...

That's a Windows Phone 7, not 8. The phone you're talking about is the HTC Arrive, which is mildly unfortunate as it's on a carrier that doesn't even support Windows Phone.

I personally don't use the Xbox Music app anymore, as it's a poor poor version of Zune, it's not even discussable. I have to ask, your app updated? Everything up to date everywhere? Your Microsoft Account has the Xbox Live association everywhere?

Microsoft will be releasing a major update sometime next month to include a Cloud player thing among others things, so we'll see.

Personally, I'm using Music Info for my music playing needs. It looks better than Xbox Music ALL AROUND. But, it's a bit shaky as it can crash from time to time, kinks are still being worked out.

Coke Robot said:

I personally don't use the Xbox Music app anymore, as it's a poor poor version of Zune, it's not even discussable. I have to ask, your app updated? Everything up to date everywhere? Your Microsoft Account has the Xbox Live association everywhere?

Microsoft will be releasing a major update sometime next month to include a Cloud player thing among others things, so we'll see.

Personally, I'm using Music Info for my music playing needs. It looks better than Xbox Music ALL AROUND. But, it's a bit shaky as it can crash from time to time, kinks are still being worked out.

Click to expand...

Agree with you on this, I'm not a fan of this Xbox Music app at all, not many are, compared with Zune! here are a few quotes from Neowin forum:

"I have a surface and windows 8 pc. I have cloud settings turned off and every time I load app it says its downloading music!!! I have installed all my paid for music in my Xbox music folder for local listening. I would like someone to explain to me why this is happening? Also id like to hear from some Zuners what they think of the Xbox music app because to me it has a lot of work to be done to it before it comes close to Zunes functionality. Thanks"

Click to expand...

"They definitely need to bring back a LOT of functionality that Zune had. I'm surprised there's no way to change the sorting of music when viewing by artists in your own collection. It just defaults to songs which is lame. It's also sluggish when it has a few thousand songs compared to Zune which handles it gracefully. There's no obvious way to change the position of the song. There's no "my picks" in the marketplace that shows relevant results. No Social, which was "removed" from Zune, but is actually still functional if you don't restart Zune after a fresh install. If it weren't for the free streaming, I wouldn't even use the app."

Click to expand...

Other users were also unhappy with certain features being missing. In a different thread, bguy_1986 lamented the fact that music ratings aren't available in the Xbox Music app.

"Did Microsoft take away all song rating stuff in Xbox music? Can I no longer like or dislike a song like I could with Zune or am I just missing how to do this? If you can rate a song, is there a way you can create an auto playlist of your favorite music like you could in Zune? Loved that feature!"

Click to expand...

For the most part, Neowin users seem to be unhappy with the state of the Xbox Music app!!.............:thumb:

Coke Robot said:

I personally don't use the Xbox Music app anymore, as it's a poor poor version of Zune, it's not even discussable. I have to ask, your app updated? Everything up to date everywhere? Your Microsoft Account has the Xbox Live association everywhere?

Microsoft will be releasing a major update sometime next month to include a Cloud player thing among others things, so we'll see.

Personally, I'm using Music Info for my music playing needs. It looks better than Xbox Music ALL AROUND. But, it's a bit shaky as it can crash from time to time, kinks are still being worked out.

Click to expand...

so your ok with music info
[listed some of my songs as if they were from a different band altogether ] and its problems but not with one made by microsoft , i use both you mentioned and did not like either for same reasons you stated ,i did what other poster said ,i go to my desktop and use VTL or WMP

There are a lot of issues with the whole Xbox Music experience, from the change of DRM that won't allow previously downloaded Zune Pass music to play in Windows 8, to the Music App only working off the library which you can't add a network location to. I don't have my WP8 yet so I've decided to deal with the frustrations of this new experience at a later time when I get one. For now my WP7 works fine with Zune on my Win7 laptop. Hopefully Microsoft will fix some of this stuff before I get my new phone.

I use (VLC Media Player) no problem with DRM… never use WMP!

Philgates said:

Coke Robot said:

I personally don't use the Xbox Music app anymore, as it's a poor poor version of Zune, it's not even discussable. I have to ask, your app updated? Everything up to date everywhere? Your Microsoft Account has the Xbox Live association everywhere?

Microsoft will be releasing a major update sometime next month to include a Cloud player thing among others things, so we'll see.

Personally, I'm using Music Info for my music playing needs. It looks better than Xbox Music ALL AROUND. But, it's a bit shaky as it can crash from time to time, kinks are still being worked out.

Click to expand...

Agree with you on this, I'm not a fan of this Xbox Music app at all, not many are, compared with Zune! here are a few quotes from Neowin forum:

"I have a surface and windows 8 pc. I have cloud settings turned off and every time I load app it says its downloading music!!! I have installed all my paid for music in my Xbox music folder for local listening. I would like someone to explain to me why this is happening? Also id like to hear from some Zuners what they think of the Xbox music app because to me it has a lot of work to be done to it before it comes close to Zunes functionality. Thanks"

Click to expand...

"They definitely need to bring back a LOT of functionality that Zune had. I'm surprised there's no way to change the sorting of music when viewing by artists in your own collection. It just defaults to songs which is lame. It's also sluggish when it has a few thousand songs compared to Zune which handles it gracefully. There's no obvious way to change the position of the song. There's no "my picks" in the marketplace that shows relevant results. No Social, which was "removed" from Zune, but is actually still functional if you don't restart Zune after a fresh install. If it weren't for the free streaming, I wouldn't even use the app."

Click to expand...

Other users were also unhappy with certain features being missing. In a different thread, bguy_1986 lamented the fact that music ratings aren't available in the Xbox Music app.

"Did Microsoft take away all song rating stuff in Xbox music? Can I no longer like or dislike a song like I could with Zune or am I just missing how to do this? If you can rate a song, is there a way you can create an auto playlist of your favorite music like you could in Zune? Loved that feature!"

Click to expand...

For the most part, Neowin users seem to be unhappy with the state of the Xbox Music app!!.............:thumb:

Click to expand...

UGH! It's just so frustrating that the Zune UI can literally, honest to GOD, can be real easily taken over to the Windows 8 metro style WITHOUT difficultly! Just resize some buttons, move some controls into the app command bar, and make it more efficient on system resource, BAM! That's all!