Trying to Get Started With Windows 8.1

[Cliff S]

View attachment 55651
I use RAPID mode on my Samsung 840pro and it rocks. It uses a new algorithm to improve caching that some university in the states wrote a couple of years ago and put out as Libre ware I believe(free and open anyhow). With fast boot and RAPID turned on my computer is at sign in screen before my TV can boot and connect via HDMI.

 

[GracieAllen]

OK, now you guys are just messing with me!!!!!!!!

I created a startup folder in the ProgramData tree inside the "Start Menu/Program" one, and stuck in a simple program. Rebooted and it worked fine....... So, just for giggles I opened the task manager and ALL THE MISSING STUFF WAS BACK........

Is it just me, or does 8.1 appear to have a perverse sense of humor?

In any case, I now have at least 20 things that want to start and I'm gonna get rid of at least 18 of 'em........

As for RAPID mode, I just need to know which, if any, of the 3 Samsung Magician applications or services or whatever actually need to be running for RAPID to work...

 

[Cliff S]

Just leave them all on, Magician has Rapid mode, it also warns when/if the disk begins to fail using SMART, and it checks for new firmware/magician updates..

 

[Clintlgm]

Yes I agree with Cliffs, leave the Samsung stuff if you have a SSD for you OS, Rapid mode works on only 1 SSD, I have 2 a Samsung 850 pro 256 OS and 1TB for data, Benchmark show that rapid mode smokes the 1 TB without it. on Benchmark designed for SSD's. on HD Tune the 1 TB actually is a little bit faster. IN Samsung's Magician it show 10 times faster with rapid mode activated.
As to the rest I tried Win 8 for about 30 minutes and found ClassicShell haven't looked at the metro screen since. There's really no point to it unless you have a tablet or at least a touch screen. Windows 10 is just around the corner and will have a choice on installing for Desktop version or metro or what ever there calling it now. of all the Start programs ClassicShell is the most configurable for some people to many choices are a not good thing so Start8 and start back are a better choice for them

As far as start up programs go the new Task Manager is great you can turn anything off or on from just one place. I actualy keep it running in the back ground. IE 11 is crap and needs to be killed every few minutes it real easy with task manager running on the desk top.

The quick launch tool bar is still available and can be install as in Window 7 and XP can't remember if it went back to Window 2000 or not I favor it for my generally used program I don't like cluttered desktop with icons. I do still have my favorite Gadgets and they slow down my start up times but I like them so will keep them until something similar becomes an APP that will run on my desk top Gadget8 creates a window Vista like Gadget bar and contains my favorite gadget of all time Clipboarder.

If you got on my notebook or workstation you wouldn't know you weren't on a window 7 machine except that is much faster

I got a flash deal on Amazon for the 1 TB 850 pro at $450 I couldn't pass it up with a 10 year warranty these drives will move with me for 2 more notebooks and I'm sure they will be going grate still even once there obsolete

 

[strollin]

Here's a tutorial from Brink about adding Quick Launch to Taskbar in Win 8.x: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5069-quick-launch-add-taskbar-windows-8-a.html

 

[GracieAllen]

Cool. I'll leave Magician alone and check the other bizarre apps and services that have shown up with 8.1!

I got the new system installed and connected to the editing monitors and all's well...............

EXCEPT that I'm going blind. I've got BOTH monitors turned down to 6 - 7 % brightness and the white window background is STILL blinding. I haven't done the calibration on the monitors with this video card, and that MAY help slightly, but is there some way to change the blinding white window background color? I've got a medium gray desktop background, and I can control the background and other colors in the image editing tools, but I've gotta find a way to tone down these white windows...

 

[10soonerlater]

You probably, like me, never explored high-contrast themes in Win 7 personalization, because of Aero and enormous color control of windows elements. While they may pose problems with third-party programs' user interfaces, they do allow one to get rid of the blinding white window backgrounds, mostly.

 

[hawkman]

ie11

i actually turn of ie11 via programs>turn windows features on/off. using firefox.

 

[GracieAllen]

Hm... I THOUGHT I put in a reply last night, but I don't see it so I may have just imagined it!

Yes, I've looked at the high contrast themes, and they DO let me make the window backgrounds less glaring. Unfortunately, it appears from the ones I've checked that they also limit me to TWO desktop colors - GLARING white, and BLACK HOLE black! And changing the desktop color doesn't seem to change the them (presuming I did it right).

I switched one on last night and when the BLINDING WHITE desktop lit up I thought I'd been pinned by a helicopter search light or had a STROKE!

I did a bunch of searching and finally found a thing on the web that said all the control over the parts of the theme was REMOVED in 8.1. Has MS just decided we're too stupid to customize the size and color of things or do they just figure we've all lost our minds and spend our time tweeting and taking selfies?

Anybody got a recommendation for a good, customizable 3rd party tool for controlling the UI them parameters?

 

[10soonerlater]

Yes, I've looked at the high contrast themes, and they DO let me make the window backgrounds less glaring. Unfortunately, it appears from the ones I've checked that they also limit me to TWO desktop colors - GLARING white, and BLACK HOLE black! And changing the desktop color doesn't seem to change the them (presuming I did it right).

^^That didn't make sense. There's an entire color palette for you to work with for each of the restricted twelve elements of the desktop under high-contrast themes. Heck, you can themed it in low-contrast and still call it high-contrast.

 

[GracieAllen]

I agree 10soonerlater, but so far I've gone into the high contrast themes twice. I can change all sorts of parameters on the windows. But when I select "desktop background", no matter what I change it to, it comes out blinding white or totally black. I'll go back in and see if there's a parameter inside the high contrast thing I'm missing.

--------------

Just went back in. I can change window background, text, hyperlinks, disabled text, selected text, active window title, inactive windows title, and button settings. But I don't see anything for changing the desktop. And when I go to desktop background and set the custom color I want (127,127,127 - 14% gray), it changes it to blinding white... Even some of the preset colors don't come out the way the preset looks when set as the background. It's not a huge deal - I'm currently using the dark gray for the desktop, which is less awful than blinding white, but I'm gonna rummage around and see what I can find.

 

[10soonerlater]

I apologize for misunderstanding you.

Desktop background can be 'determined' by the wallpaper image you select as the backdrop.

I suppose you can 'paint' a 'square' and tile that as your wallpaper.

 

[Cliff S]

Gracie do you mean "Window Background "and not Desktop?

 

[CountMike]

Actually, it's desktop picture, background is under it. Background is what shows under an icon when you put cursor on it.

 

[GracieAllen]

As it turns out, it's FAR worse than I thought...

The vast majority of my time is spent doing critical editing on digital images. Consequently, having the widest spectrum (gamut) and most accurate colors possible is essential. The image on the monitors has to match what comes off the printer - as much as possible when dealing with transmitted light versus reflected light.

From THAT standpoint 8.1 is a total disaster. For example, my desktop is NEVER a picture. As it WAS IN WINDOWS 7, it SHOULD be a 14% reflectance, neutral gray. That's 127,127,127 in RGB colors. In Windows 8.1 I have been unable to achieve that. In THEORY, using the Personalize, selecting solid colors for the desktop, and going into the color mixer to create a gray color, I should be able to have a neutral desktop that does NOT adversely impact anything else.

UNFORTUNATELY, creating that medium gray desktop causes horrendous color shifts in other applications. For example, in Lightroom (where I spend FAR too much time), the palette backgrounds go dead black, which makes it extremely difficult to make adjustments. As does the filmstrip background at the bottom of the screen.

In other tools, Photoshop for example, the ENTIRE SCREEN goes dead black. It should NOT be black.

If I, instead, use the limited palette of gray solid colors (of which there are TWO), the darker one causes the same black on a variety of applications. The lighter one causes the opposite in some applications - back to the screaming, blinding WHITE...

And it's NOT limited to other applications. If I use the sort-of medium gray from the Personalize and get a gray desktop, when I go to the Apps screen, the background is ABSOLUTELY BLACK. As is the metro screen. This is with one of the high-contrast themes, so that may be the problem. But, without using those, there's VERY limited adjustability for any of the windows color parameters.

I'm going to head over to the GTX 970 forum and see if there's something I need to do differently - not use the display port, change something in the monitor settings, SOMETHING, although I did exactly the same thing on the Windows 7 system and never encountered any problems......

Thank goodness I don't have to do any real work right now, 'cause if I did I think Windows 8 would already be gone.

 

[hannelius]

On my Win 8.x machines I also use an additional toolbar, the Programs Toolbar. The Programs Toolbar has links to every installed program, very similar to the Start Menu. To create the Programs Toolbar, right-click on the Taskbar and select Toolbars->New toolbar.... Enter this as the folder to point to: "%PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" (no quotes). This will create a menu structure on the right-side of the Taskbar that will look like this:

thank you for this and the folder path too...
just tried it...

it'll take a lot of cleaning up but at least i got a menu
and it's on the right where my hand is anyway
looks like i can ignore the start screen completely
except for the pretty desktop picture
which is the only thing i see...

(i have hundreds of beautiful pictures
and they cycle every five minutes...)

 

[10soonerlater]

@GracieAllen

I think third-party software companies have, like you and I, ignored the high-contrast themes because of the color adjustability of previous windows OS. With 8 and 8.1, that ignorance has come home to roost. As more and more users find high-contrast themes to be somewhat of a relief, problems not dealt with in the past are biting us now. The problem you described has to be shouldered and solved by the third-party programmers. Or windows 10 gives us back complete color adjustability. Either side has to concede or we will continue to suffer the color vagaries of the user interfaces.

 

[GracieAllen]

10soonerlater, you may well be right. I don't know if the problem lies in Adobe's control or not, but as the 800 pound gorilla, I sure HOPE they do something soon to get around the, to me, VERY unfortunate limitations I'm hitting with 8.1. I suspect however, they'll just point a finger a Microsoft, who will point back, and the urination festival and blame game will be in full swing!

At the moment, I'd had to dump the high contrast scheme and go back to the "normal" one, and when I calibrated to 100 cd/m(2), I wound up at a brightness of 38% and a contrast of 51%, so I'm pretty much blind while staring at these screaming white windows...

I'm about to start wearing sunglasses when not in the editing software!

 

[GracieAllen]

Did an iterative calibration (iterative because on a full reset with the first calibration at 100% contrast it takes a couple passes with decreases alterations on each pass to get it to where the calibrator reads the same on successive passes) on both monitors last night/this morning, and based on the measured brightness in my work area - even in daylight it's in the 14-15 cd/m2 range, I calibrated everything at 80 cd/m2. Primary monitor brightness is 8%, contrast is 61%, and the color calibration is set to display adobe RGB. I checked with a customized color chart and I'm getting visible colors well beyond the normal sRGB. I also used one of Eddie Tapps gray scales and on the 256 color grayscale I can pick up the different between 247 and 255 and between 8 and 0.
So, all that is set about as well as the color munki can get it.

The windows are STILL blinding as far as I'm concerned! I'm gonna rummage around and see if I can find something that'll let me tone done the ugly while NOT screwing up the editing software.