Windows 8: Biggest Problems

[GMan]

Uh, the post is about BIGGEST PROBLEMS with Windows 8. Yes, it is beta and yes, I EXPECT problems and I AM REPORTING my BIGGEST PROBLEMS in this post!
I am certainly glad you are 100% but a quick look at the posts here in this forum shows that many are not. I am a pretty damn good engineer (troubleshooting hardware and systems in the field for HP for 25 years) but there are some issues I am having RIGHT NOW and I am NOT WILLING to spend hours and hours troubleshooting them especially if they just magically disappear in the next windows update. Yes, users are the problem, drivers are the problem, programs that don't work are the problem, and being beta is a problem. THEY ARE STILL PROBLEMS, MS to blame or not.

Have you noticed the success I've had helping people through all ranges of problems, from bsods to freezes to lots of other things?

You never gave me your system info when I requested it - if you would have, your system too would be well.

It doesn't take me hours. It takes seconds.

 

[Coke Robot]

"Power" users that belittle Windows 8 becasue it doesn't have a start menu/users that don't actually USE Windows 8 as main OS have no opinion...


My biggest concern with it at the moment is the EXTREME lack of customization. I can deck out the Desktop with themes and sounds, but the Start Screen doesn't have that. In fact, I have to go elsewhere to even change that, like PC Settings. Even then, nine colors is anemic to choose from. Why not just have the 16 colors that the Desktop offers, consolidate that down to main colors, and allow for color precicion selection? I don't like how there's a slider thing in the initial setup, it's too...out of place.

I also think another problem is the serious segregation between the Desktop and Start Screen. Initially when Windows 8 was announced, the Start Screen was a new iteration of the start menu. Now, it's silently turned into a new interface in itself. (Please, I don't want to hear the Microsoft marketing ploy) Why not, on non-touch PCs or even all PCs, make the Start Screen be the TRUE, new iteration of the start menu? Why must it not?

Also, going along with personalization and integration, I'd like to see themes that go across the system.

Another problem, going with colors, is with the colors of the Start Screen. Choosing dark red for the Start Screen, it results in a screen with dark red puked on, the same with grey and blue and on. The Start Screen was based on the Windows Phone 7, but with the Windows Phone, choosing red is both a complement color and a tile color. If unlocked, one can choose custom color backgrounds and tile backgrounds. This needs to happen with Windows 8.

Another problem I see is Aero design. Metro and Aero design really can't coexist with each other. One's new and modern, the other was new and modern in 2006. Windows Explorer MUST be designed metro style. That doesn't mean taking the UI and making it flat and calling it good. It means genuinely going through and replacing iconography with metro ones, it means a consistent way to navigate through files (I want to scroll horizontally through files like in metro), and it means taking the old Aero design of open windows and making them just simply, digitally transparent. It shouldn't be a glassy design, but just pixel transparency.

Or to sum up simply, the problem with Windows 8 is that the Desktop and Start Screen design and interfaces NEED to meshed and integrated together in a modern, innovative, integrated, and authenitc way than it is now.

 

[whs]

EXTREME lack of customization

How many 'customization' options did we have with the old Start menu? You could not even put folders on it - at least not without gymnastics.

 

[BillWindows]

"My biggest concern with it at the moment is the EXTREME lack of customization. I can deck out the Desktop with themes and sounds, but the Start Screen doesn't have that."

I'd say it's got to do a lot with the fact that this is going to be run on lesser machines and tablets. If you look at the boot up time into metro, I'd say MS has really cleaned out anything that may take up computing power, fancy graphics take up more than most. I think that by talking a backward step MS has made this OS light and nimble enough to run on practically any PC or Tablet.
Considering the fact that it runs amazingly well on a 3 year old Netbook, I'd say they've pretty well nailed it. I'm sure over time as the new breed of Lightweight chips become more powerfull they'll loosen the reigns.

 

[Coke Robot]

EXTREME lack of customization

How many 'customization' options did we have with the old Start menu? You could not even put folders on it - at least not without gymnastics.

I'm not really speaking in the context of folders and organizing, since the Start Screen does that FAR better than the start menu could.

I'm saying how the Start Screen doesn't have a lot of color customization, or how that color customization doesn't stream out everywhere. I mean, it's the first thing you see when you start up your PC. On a desktop, you wouldn't see it a lot, but on for an ARM tablet user; the Start Screen will be the user's main home screen or even their "Desktop." On a Windows slate, the Start Screen would be used more. I would imagine someone would want to customize it more color wise than the limited set. I could use a third party tool to do that, but that would defeat the purpose of Windows 8 of "already doing that."

For example, I changed my Windows Phone's tile color from red to blue and I could choose to have a white backgroud versus a black one. That there is more customization than Windows 8. Also, with the Windows Phone, your color choice is system wide. In Mail, unread mail titles are in blue. The loading animation is in blue. Unread messages are in blue. The highlight color is blue. You get the point.

Windows 8 should do that and more. It should extend from Start Screen to Desktop. If I want red to be the tile color, red should also be a complement color so theoretically in Outlook 15, unread mail titles are in red. Highlight color should be red. Hyperlinks should be red in Word 15. You get the point.

 

[whs]

On that I have to agree. The color choices are poor and the contrast for the writing is too faint. We should be able to customize the tiles into different colors.

 

[johnpombrio]

On that I have to agree. The color choices are poor and the contrast for the writing is too faint. We should be able to customize the tiles into different colors.

The iconic John Dvorak has a LOT to say about the choice of tiles with words ("back to the DOS days"). He is baffled why they don't use easy to recognize icons.
The Serious Flaw with Win 8 and Metro | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com

 

[prospero]

I've been trying it out in VMWare Player for a few days and overall I'm beginning to like it.
My biggest beef is that it is obviously designed for touch screens, I find that the "hot spot" (lower left) is too small and fiddly.

 

[GMan]

I don't have a touch screen, but after using 8 for a while, opening Start with a mouse is really fast.

By this, I mean I don't even think about it. I bust the mouse over to the extreme corner and without thinking or waiting or anything, just click and it opens. Maybe try something similar with touch. Just don't even pay attention to the screen. Go there like you know its there - like there IS a Start button in the extreme corner.

See if this kind of mentality helps at all with the touch - I dunno.

 

[prospero]

I see what you mean, my problem is that I am running two monitors and the cursor doesn't stop on the main monitor.
If I switch the monitors in W7 control panel, your solution works fine but it's all a** about face.
I don't want to physically switch them.
I'll live with it as I'm only evaluating W8 and don't intend to upgrade until the finished version is available, and then a few months after that so the inevitable bugs have been flushed out.
Thanks for the prompt reply.

 

[Brink]

It appears that Wake-On-LAN (WOL) from shut down doesn't work when fast startup is turned on even when WOL is enabled in the BIOS. WOL works when fast startup is turned off though.

 

[BobMc]

I don't have any gripes. I'm impressed how smooth and error free my Windows 8 experience has been so far, especially with it being at the stage it is. Explorer has stopped working (locked up) a few times but restarted with no problem. I love the fact that Microsoft put the "Up Level" button back but on the other hand I can't believe they have eliminated the Advanced Appearance Settings. I really hope they put it back in the RTM. I mentioned this in another post but I installed a program called Classic Shell that restores a fully functioning Start Menu

 

[GMan]

Explorer has stopped working (locked up) a few times

Install the latest SATA storage drivers available for your board from ASUS website. You're currently using pciide.sys which is not the proprietary driver and you're losing performance because of it.

Good to install latest Intel chipset shown too:

ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS P9X79

(You can get the latest Intel Rapid Storage from Intel.com, which will be slightly newer than that page. Likely, same for chipset too.)

 

[BobMc]

Explorer has stopped working (locked up) a few times

Install the latest SATA storage drivers available for your board from ASUS website. You're currently using pciide.sys which is not the proprietary driver and you're losing performance because of it.

Good to install latest Intel chipset shown too:

ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS P9X79

(You can get the latest Intel Rapid Storage from Intel.com, which will be slightly newer than that page. Likely, same for chipset too.)

I'm using storahci.sys. I have the SATA set to AHCI. Normally, I don't have any drives connected to the onboard sata ports, except for the DVD, because all drives are connected to my raid controller but I didn't want to mess with dual boot problems. Windows doesn't see Areca Cards without drivers. While I was using ViStart for a start menu is when I had the Explorer problems.

 

[GMan]

I'm using storahci.sys.

Alright, so you have the bios set to AHCI and you're using the non-proprietary generic AHCI driver.

You need to install the proprietary drivers.

Uninstall any 3rd party antivirus or security suite in safe mode with the special tool. Reboot and set Windows Firewall and Windows Defender services to auto and start them too.

 

[Gustavius99]

I love Win8. The start screen Metro tiles are weird but it's what's under the hood that counts. Win8 is a hot rod. I've been using W8CP as my sole OS since the day it was released and I've grown to love its' many upgrades from Win7. I do wish they would make a separate version of the start screen and Metro Tiles for desktop users however. These Tiles are dull and clunky. Pleeeeeeeeese Microsoft, can you make it so I can put the cursor anywhere on the screen and move the tiles? Please? I'm getting Carpal from running the cursor down to the bottom and across all the time and making long wide swipes to the corners to pull up other screens...Carpal attack.. but I would never go back to W7 and I look forward to October for my final release retail version of W8. If any MS people are reading, I don't like tablets and I'm a desktop PC, laptop PC and Android cell phone person. And no Apple products for me never, gawd nooo... Sooo, exciting times ahead for us PC gamers, I look forward to seeing the new desktop designs coming out next year with fantastic capabilities and hopefully some upgraded asthetics for people who appreciate some bling and flash with the power. That's my two cents worth.

 

[whs]

I'm getting Carpal from running the cursor down to the bottom and across all the time and making long wide swipes to the corners to pull up other screens

I solved that problem with a trackball mouse: Logitech - M570 Wireless Trackball - Gray/Blue - 910-001799

 

[BobMc]

I opened a command prompt to disable hibernation to free up some space on my SSD and even though I've disabled UAC, I got an error message telling me I didn't have permission. I began searching around to find out how to open an elevated command prompt and found something that I find to be very helpful in Windows 8.

This menu pops up by clicking the Windows Key + x:

 

[Trucidation]

The biggest problems? The cancer that is third party applications.

When you install something, you'd expect it to sit nicely in it's own folders and maybe set a few registry keys, all following some kind of standard, right? Well, nope. I'm a gamer, and let me just say:

C:\Program Files\
C:\Progam Files (x86)
C:\Program Data\
C:\Users\<user>\
C:\Users\<user>\My Documents\
C:\Users\<user>\My Games\
C:\Users\<user>\Saved Games\
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\

That's not even getting into how some programs don't even handle UAC gracefully and simply quietly quit to desktop for no apparent reason, forcing us to turn off UAC notifications even if that's not the blessed way we want to use our machines and we want to use them properly blessit, not be forced to create an unrestricted admin-level account just to install your $60 turkey, etc.

My favourites are those apps which "manage" other apps, trying to poke their tentacles everywhere. "You bought a HP printer? Good, now stand aside while we install this HP Apps Manager, comes with free Apps Updater, Install Fixer, and Uninstaller. Do you want these toolbars while we're at it? What was that, Windows already has a place to uninstall programs? Well, here's ours, good luck guessing which one you need to use lol (actually if you use Windows' version the app won't actually be uninstalled properly and bits and pieces of it will forever clog your registry)."

Programs should just use
C:\Program Files\ or C:\Program Files (x86)
and maybe
C:\Users\<user>\My Games\
for config files and other crap. There's a user path there so it'll even work multiuser. Everything else is just bullshit excuses to pollute your system.

Edit:
What has MS got to do with this? Well, it's their ecosystem innit? If DirectX is good enough for those weenies to use, surely folder/registry key guidelines are trivial to adhere to. Anything that doesn't comply needs to die in a fire.

 

[bcguy]

It has taken 24 hours but I am actually starting to like and understand this win 8 pro. No problems whatsoever installing this system on my dell, definite big difference and only cost $15.00. Gonna stick with it