After seeing viper post about it several times, I finally decided to update from Win 8 to Win 8.1.
Restarted computer and then got told I had no boot disk. Tried a bunch of different things (automatic repair, restore, etc.) but none of them panned out.
Then when I was looking up this issue online (many places were trying to suggest to people their hard drive had died after installing 8.1...), I saw a suggestion that I should unplug my other HDs (leaving only the one with Windows installation). Sounded silly but I tried.
That's what successfully allowed me to use my computer again. I guess if it isn't broke...don't fix it? :D
That said - I do like that it seems to scale my desktop better - making fonts way easier to read.
Thanks for this. I will remember not to update to 8.1.
I will remember not to downgrade from 7 to 8.
Didn't have any problem upgrading on my computers, except one, but I discovered it was a faulty motherboard.
Quote from: sbr on May 18, 2014, 10:51:19 PM
I will remember not to downgrade from 7 to 8.
8 seems faster than 7. With Classic shell installed you can have start menu/desktop view.
Quote from: viper37 on May 19, 2014, 01:10:53 AM
Didn't have any problem upgrading on my computers, except one, but I discovered it was a faulty motherboard.
Apparently it isn't so uncommon* and has something to do with computers failing to recognize the appropriate drive (and hence in this case, me unhooking power to my other drives).
Either way, I was close to cursing about you. :D -_-
*though bizarrely most sites I found didn't seem to have a good answer on what to do.
To be fair, the boot issue has been happenning with all versions of Windows since Win 98.
It has never handle multi-hdd at installation scenarios well.
Quote from: Grey Fox on May 20, 2014, 07:38:01 AM
To be fair, the boot issue has been happenning with all versions of Windows since Win 98.
It has never handle multi-hdd at installation scenarios well.
Gotcha.
Well the other negative I noted is that I think it screwed up my display. I realized everything is easier to read - mainly because I'm forced to adopt a smaller resolution. My old resolution either hangs off the screen or several of them have wavy lines that run up the screen. Unfortunately, I can't do much as my tv/monitor doesn't have any ways to change screen position (to correct overhang) and my oem computer doesn't have anyway to adjust position either. <_<
Is your PC connected to your TV with HDMI? Rename/Configuration the HDMI slot on the TV to PC/Computer if it is possible.
So I realized it hadn't been. I was actually connected computer to tv on DVI/VGA. I had the HDMI cord for my PS3, so went ahead and tried connecting with that cable instead.
That wasn't very good as it only let me have settings of 1280 x 720 @ 60hz (bad as not really an ideal resolution size though picture quality was clear) or 1980 x 1080 @ 30hz interlaced (not usable as there was some general vibrating of image - just bad).
At this point I'm start to think that I either: a) need a new video card, which would free me from my OEM settings and/or b) get a new television, as my current one is 7 years old and screen was starting to go.
Though at the moment, I'm just sulking as this new issue emerged from the 8.1 upgrade. -_-
Yeah, that must really suck.
:hmm:
I walked at lunch to the nearest store (the fabulous Best Buy...). TVs are way cheaper and way lighter than they were 7 years ago. I remember my main limiting factor was that I wanted something I could carry up to my apartment by myself (and wouldn't eat up my new paycheck). It looks like options have really opened up these days.
Yes, TV could only grow so big. Not a lot of people feel like owning a 90 inches. 4k or not.
Quote from: garbon on May 20, 2014, 02:24:56 PM
(the fabulous Best Buy...)
:(
Did you buy any redundant warranties or absurdly overpriced mithril-plated cables? :sleep:
No, I didn't purchase a thing. -_-
Quote from: garbon on May 19, 2014, 12:40:43 PM
Quote from: viper37 on May 19, 2014, 01:10:53 AM
Didn't have any problem upgrading on my computers, except one, but I discovered it was a faulty motherboard.
Apparently it isn't so uncommon* and has something to do with computers failing to recognize the appropriate drive (and hence in this case, me unhooking power to my other drives).
Either way, I was close to cursing about you. :D -_-
*though bizarrely most sites I found didn't seem to have a good answer on what to do.
Well, it is recommended you unplug everything but the OS drive before installing/upgrading Windows. Never you about that until recently. Now I understand why my office computer crashed after Win8.1 upgrade... unrecoverable crash, I had to reinstall Windows twice already, and I just realized I made a mistake that last time, didn't boot into UEFI. Fuck it.
So if I'm building a new computer and plan to install Windows 8.1 on a SSD, should I just plug that in for the installation, and plug the HDDs later?
I would suggest yes. :D
Quote from: Solmyr on May 21, 2014, 03:14:39 PM
So if I'm building a new computer and plan to install Windows 8.1 on a SSD, should I just plug that in for the installation, and plug the HDDs later?
Yes, it is the recommended method, apparently.
So will Windows 10 be a version worth buying? I mean, Windows 95 - no, 98 - yes, ME - no, XP - yes, Vista - no, 7 - yes, 8 - no, there's a pattern evolving.
You left out Windows 3.1 :(
Quote from: garbon on September 30, 2014, 02:29:13 PM
You left out Windows 3.1 :(
I never had the option to buy that as an upgrade, it came pre-installed on our first IBM.
I liked win2k too, so the pattern isn't obvious. :)
Win7 is probably the last windows version that I'll use on my home machines. Android and debian derivatives cuts down on my family support time so it's the natural way to go.
Windows ME was pure garbage in my experience.
Quote from: DGuller on October 01, 2014, 01:59:56 PM
Windows ME was pure garbage in my experience.
Seriously. It even killed the product tree, since they chose to develop 2K from the NT codebase instead.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on October 01, 2014, 02:55:41 PM
Quote from: DGuller on October 01, 2014, 01:59:56 PM
Windows ME was pure garbage in my experience.
Seriously. It even killed the product tree, since they chose to develop 2K from the NT codebase instead.
I had Windows NT back in the day. It rocked as an OS (and was miles ahead of Mac OS 9 at the time :ph34r:)
Quote from: Liep on September 30, 2014, 02:26:32 PM
So will Windows 10 be a version worth buying? I mean, Windows 95 - no, 98 - yes, ME - no, XP - yes, Vista - no, 7 - yes, 8 - no, there's a pattern evolving.
Windows 2.0 - no, Windows 3.0 - no, Windows 3.1 - yes, Windows 3.11 - yes, Windows 95 - yes, Windows 98 - yes, Windows 98B - yes and I agree with the rest. Though tbh, Vista with Service pack #1 was ok. But seven was way better. And Windows 8 with Start8 is mostly great.
Windows 95 blew me away at the time... booting straight into a graphic interface and doing away with line commands? Hell yes.
(and don't tell me about MacIntosh, we had Macs at school and they sucked)
Quote from: celedhring on October 02, 2014, 04:44:41 AM
(and don't tell me about MacIntosh, we had Macs at school and they sucked)
Indeed, we had both Macs and Windows, it was hell when the teacher booked the Mac room for a writing session after she had booked the Windows room for the previous one. FORMAT PLZ.
It was worse in our school; the computer room had a majority of PCs and then a couple Macs. If you arrived late to class you'd be stuck with a Mac regardless of what computer you'd been working on before.
Yeah, my school went the Mac route. We had probably about 30-35 LC 575 units when I was between 3rd and 6th grade, when they upgraded them all to Power Mac G3.
The state had basically forced the school to build an expansion to a dictated spec, complete with a gym/auditorium with modular connections to run a lighting panel, which I pretty much singlehandedly ran between 6th and 8th grade. The board was awesome- about the size of a 61-key keyboard, had a floppy drive to run pre-programmed lighting sequences. Unfortunately, the program to generate the lighting sequences only worked in Windows.
Got me out of so many assemblies/school concerts since I was the only one who knew how to use the board and could say "sorry, I've gotta run the lighting." :D
Um...how do I shut down? :huh:
Alt-F4?
You don't.
Right Click the start button.
Just got a laptop with 8.1 on it. Haven't used Windows since Vista.
Quote from: Josephus on October 17, 2014, 03:21:54 PM
Just got a laptop with 8.1 on it. Haven't used Windows since Vista.
Alt-F4 always work.
All kinds of ways:
- Alt+F4 on the desktop.
- Right-click the Windows menu icon on the taskbar (again, in desktop mode).
- Click the Windows button, then click the shutdown icon in the top right-hand corner.
- From the charms menu (sidebar from moving the mouse to the top right corner), click settings, then shutdown.
- Ctrl+Alt+Del and then hit the shutdown icon in the bottom right corner.
- If you're feeling nostalgic for terminal commands, hit the Windows button+R and type in "shutdown."
It really is an "all roads lead to Rome" kind of situation. ;)
thanks.....seems to me like it was an afterthought.
It was.
You are not suppose to shut down. Hell, Windows 8 barely evens shut downs.
Quote from: Josephus on October 17, 2014, 03:21:54 PM
Just got a laptop with 8.1 on it. Haven't used Windows since Vista.
Buy Start8, 5$.
Fuck I hate Windows.
So after being a PC user for many years, after my last PC crashed a year and a half ago, I bought a MAC and have been happy. But over the weekend I bought I nice, spiffy, Windows ASUS laptop.
Yesterday as I went to shut off, it downloade some updates. Today I turn it on, it installed the updates. After that it's a black screen. Nothing. :( This is a $2000 machine. :(
I'm not especially PC literate, so I'm sort of panicking.
Edit: After a blank screen for 15 minutes, I decided to do a reboot.
It started up and it went back to installing updates. Seems to have worked.
But I remembered now the years of clenching my buttocks and praying to all Gods everytime I used to turn my old PC on. This will be my last Windoze product.
Appleheads sure are tiresome. So tiresome in fact that they have to spread their Apple bobble headness to non apple threads. <_<
Quote from: Josephus on October 20, 2014, 07:59:13 PM
Edit: After a blank screen for 15 minutes, I decided to do a reboot.
It started up and it went back to installing updates. Seems to have worked.
But I remembered now the years of clenching my buttocks and praying to all Gods everytime I used to turn my old PC on. This will be my last Windoze product.
Why did you buy a 2k$ windows machine? Take it back & buy a mac book air.
I wanted a gaming lap top. ;)
C'mon don't hate...I was venting....surely you can't blame me but this sort of stuff never happened to me with my other computer, the one named after a fruit.
Strange thing, I also have a cheap, tiny netbook, an Acer or something, probably spent $150 on it a few years ago...just wanted something portable to travel with...it runs on Vista and to be fair, it never crashed, or refused to start up on me.
this is what I got by the way:
http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JZ/
Woha, no wonder that's 2k$.
I want my old "Start" menu back. 8 sucks ass.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 21, 2014, 06:42:13 AM
I want my old "Start" menu back. 8 sucks ass.
If you haven't managed to already to get that back, well that's on you.
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 21, 2014, 06:21:37 AM
Woha, no wonder that's 2k$.
And no wonder I get angry when it doesn't work. ;)
It's working has intended.
A black screen after it updates forcing me to hard shutdown and reboot is intended? :huh:
Yes.
(joke)
Quote from: garbon on October 21, 2014, 07:03:45 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 21, 2014, 06:42:13 AM
I want my old "Start" menu back. 8 sucks ass.
If you haven't managed to already to get that back, well that's on you.
I turned it off and back on, and made sure all my connections were connected.
Tiresome.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 21, 2014, 06:42:13 AM
I want my old "Start" menu back. 8 sucks ass.
I got a new PC just a couple of weeks ago that came with 8.1. It was confusing as heck at first, but it didn't take too long to figure out how to get things done.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 21, 2014, 06:42:13 AM
I want my old "Start" menu back. 8 sucks ass.
Start8 (Stardock), 5$, let's you switch (with the Windows button on your keyboard) between traditional and Windows 8 style.
If you're a cheap ass, than go with Startmenu8 (http://www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8.php), it's free, but the interface is weird.
Why not suggest classic shell which is free and looks no different than Win 7 (/also lets you pick XP look)?
Quote from: garbon on October 22, 2014, 09:59:34 AM
Why not suggest classic shell which is free and looks no different than Win 7 (/also lets you pick XP look)?
I don't like classic shell at all, it won't let me switch between Windows 8 and Win 7 style like Start8 does. A few of these Win8 apps are quite nice...
Start8 has a pretty interface, it works well, it's not too pricey. If you can't 5$ on a 2k$ rig, you are beyond cheap :P
I know some people who swear by it and hate Start8, I'm just stating my preferences. Anyway, the point was, it's pretty easy to get the Start button back, CdM only needed to use Google :)
Quote from: viper37 on October 22, 2014, 10:19:38 AM
I don't like classic shell at all, it won't let me switch between Windows 8 and Win 7 style like Start8 does. A few of these Win8 apps are quite nice...
:hmm:
If I move my mouse to the top left of my screen and then click once little preview window appears, I'm back in Win8 mode. Similarly I can move to right and when charms appear there is option to go back to Win8 mode.
Quote from: garbon on October 22, 2014, 10:28:12 AM
Quote from: viper37 on October 22, 2014, 10:19:38 AM
I don't like classic shell at all, it won't let me switch between Windows 8 and Win 7 style like Start8 does. A few of these Win8 apps are quite nice...
:hmm:
If I move my mouse to the top left of my screen and then click once little preview window appears, I'm back in Win8 mode. Similarly I can move to right and when charms appear there is option to go back to Win8 mode.
didn't notice it. Tried to configure it to use my Windows button like Start8, never got around to do it, so I uninstalled the app.
Anyone notice a couple subtle changes to windows 8.1? Not sure when but I just noticed a "power" button and search icon on the top right of the start screen, right besdie your name.
Or has that always been there?
Download Windows 10 if you want a more classic Windows look.
Quote from: Josephus on January 19, 2015, 07:02:55 PM
Anyone notice a couple subtle changes to windows 8.1? Not sure when but I just noticed a "power" button and search icon on the top right of the start screen, right besdie your name.
Or has that always been there?
They just pushed out a new patch.
Quote from: Josephus on January 19, 2015, 07:02:55 PM
Anyone notice a couple subtle changes to windows 8.1? Not sure when but I just noticed a "power" button and search icon on the top right of the start screen, right besdie your name.
Or has that always been there?
it's always been there in Windows 8.1. It wasn't in Windows 8, though.
New laptop arrived today; not very expensive, for casual non-gaming use.
My very first experience with Windows 8(.1)
I'd like to say that it took me 20 minutes to decide I hated Windows 8.1, but it'd be a lie.
It took me less than five minutes from first switching the power button on...I think it crystallised when I was getting messages suitable for a five year old while Windows was setting up whatever it was setting up while flashing through the colour spectrum in a most annoying fashion.
Roll on Windows 10.
And now to get one of those "Apps" that give you a proper start menu...
Just download Windows 10 and install it.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on January 30, 2015, 12:18:51 PM
Just download Windows 10 and install it.
Have you already done that? If so is it stable and is everything compatible, pretty much?
I use it at work.
I found pretty stable, not sure about compatibility. Be aware that it is a Technical Preview & they log everything.
I wish microsoft would offer a ~400 surface & stop competiting with Apple for the Macbook air market.
:shrug:
Quote from: Grey Fox on February 03, 2015, 11:41:09 AM
I wish microsoft would offer a ~400 surface & stop competiting with Apple for the Macbook air market.
:shrug:
Agreed. I love the Surface Pro 3, but I can't justify buying that sucker when I spent $700 less than a year ago on a laptop/tablet hybrid.
Quote from: Caliga on January 31, 2015, 06:58:40 AM
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on January 30, 2015, 12:18:51 PM
Just download Windows 10 and install it.
Have you already done that? If so is it stable and is everything compatible, pretty much?
Seems to be. I've used it mostly as a VM, but several co-workers have installed it as their primary OS. Though I did nuke one of their laptops by sendin g a simple KACE command to it.
Bought a real cheap windows tablet and it comes with 8.1 as I knew, I was expecting it to be quite like 8.1 on the phone, but that look is more a front end, imagine my surprise when I found this thing has a desktop and is really the full blown PC OS on a 7" screen. :hmm:
ouch. that hurts...
Quote from: viper37 on March 19, 2015, 08:17:53 PM
ouch. that hurts...
Oh I don't mind, just odd that my $90 is actually a 'desktop' pc, maybe I should get a mouse/keyboard for it and perhaps plug it into that old HDMI tv I just stuck in the loft? :D
Also, I think these things will update to Windows10 when it comes out?
Quote from: mongers on March 19, 2015, 08:40:51 PM
Also, I think these things will update to Windows10 when it comes out?
I am unsure about non desktop devices...
Ah, got it: (http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-to-launch-this-summer-with-free-upgrades-for-pirated-copies/)
Windows 8 will not support the upgrade. Windows 8.1 will, through Windows Update.
I grabbed one of those little Winbook things for 40 dollars yesterday. I'll chuck it in my bag and play around with it when I'm at a conference or class and it doesn't justify having my laptop out.
Quote from: mongers on March 19, 2015, 07:59:53 PM
Bought a real cheap windows tablet and it comes with 8.1 as I knew, I was expecting it to be quite like 8.1 on the phone, but that look is more a front end, imagine my surprise when I found this thing has a desktop and is really the full blown PC OS on a 7" screen. :hmm:
You were probably thinking of Windows RT. Honestly? Be grateful that you got the full OS, because RT sucks.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on March 20, 2015, 11:26:59 AM
Quote from: mongers on March 19, 2015, 07:59:53 PM
Bought a real cheap windows tablet and it comes with 8.1 as I knew, I was expecting it to be quite like 8.1 on the phone, but that look is more a front end, imagine my surprise when I found this thing has a desktop and is really the full blown PC OS on a 7" screen. :hmm:
You were probably thinking of Windows RT. Honestly? Be grateful that you got the full OS, because RT sucks.
No, I knew what I was getting, just didn't expect the non-tiles bit, to actually be a full desktop OS; intriguing to see if this thing can run windows 10 when that comes out.
Quote from: mongers on March 20, 2015, 02:25:00 PM
No, I knew what I was getting, just didn't expect the non-tiles bit, to actually be a full desktop OS; intriguing to see if this thing can run windows 10 when that comes out.
By all accounts, Windows 10 is going to be a lot leaner for embedded systems like tablets- there's even going to be a very basic version that can be installed on a Raspberry Pi.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on March 20, 2015, 09:03:25 PM
Quote from: mongers on March 20, 2015, 02:25:00 PM
No, I knew what I was getting, just didn't expect the non-tiles bit, to actually be a full desktop OS; intriguing to see if this thing can run windows 10 when that comes out.
By all accounts, Windows 10 is going to be a lot leaner for embedded systems like tablets- there's even going to be a very basic version that can be installed on a Raspberry Pi.
Yeah it sound intriguing; still haven't gotten around to buying a Pi. :blush:
I need a Pi to get some ancient Risc OS data and photos into modern formats and onto a modern machine, the Pi Risc port will be the ideal thing, but it's finding the time to do it.