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Windows 8.1 Impressions


Jody Thornton

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I'm not that good in words so i made picture to express my impressions of Windows 8.1

4vsgop.jpg

Actually i'm not good in image editing too :D , but that's how i feel about 8.1. :yes:

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Deprecating GetVersionEx? The people at MS are definitely out of their minds! :(

yeah, I already talked to the dev who made the code change. They wan't change this. You should now use the functions from VersionHelpers.h (part of Win8.1 SDK).

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  • 3 weeks later...

yeah, I already talked to the dev who made the code change.

Can I add a couple of attributes? :unsure: (I take the responsibility of course :yes:):

... to the mindless dev who made the senseless code change.

Now it sounds more appropriate. :)

jaclaz

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  • 4 weeks later...

MS announced that the 8.1 RTM is ready:

Readying Windows 8.1 for release

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/08/27/readying-windows-8-1-for-release.aspx

While our partners are preparing these exciting new devices we will continue to work closely with them as we put the finishing touches on Windows 8.1 to ensure a quality experience at general availability on October 18th. This is the date when Windows 8.1 will be broadly available for commercial customers with or without volume licensing agreements, our broad partner ecosystem, subscribers to MSDN and TechNet, as well as consumers.

:no:

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While our partners are preparing these exciting new devices we will ...

OT :ph34r:, maybe it is one of the false pairs with Italian :unsure:, but I rarely find a device "exciting" :w00t:, unless of course it is specifically aimed to sex or cybersex ;).

IMHO the adjective is being over- and mis- used.

Not unlike "cyber", just for the record:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cyber

Cyber is such a perfect prefix. Because nobody has any idea what it means, it can be grafted onto any old word to make it seem new, cool -- and therefore strange, spooky.

jaclaz

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If you put in the Windows 8.1 disc and the PC has Windows 8 installed, you will be provided with an option to do a clean install or an Upgrade. Well the "Upgrade" has a different looking setup but actually doesn't do an upgrade in the way you would expect. Instead it backs everything up to Windows.old and performs a clean installation of a fresh OS. No drivers, user accounts or programs are retained.

Other differences is that I noticed if you choose to do a recovery (not a refresh/repair/whatever) it now gives you 2 prompts. One if you are going to keep the PC (quick format) and one if you are giving the PC away. The giving away option does a long format and the GUI actually says it can take several hours. Original Windows 8 wouldn't give you the quick format option and would always just take hours to reinstall Windows. Note: the GUI doesn't specifically mention the terms quick or long format.

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If you put in the Windows 8.1 disc and the PC has Windows 8 installed, you will be provided with an option to do a clean install or an Upgrade. Well the "Upgrade" has a different looking setup but actually doesn't do an upgrade in the way you would expect. Instead it backs everything up to Windows.old and performs a clean installation of a fresh OS. No drivers, user accounts or programs are retained.

Other differences is that I noticed if you choose to do a recovery (not a refresh/repair/whatever) it now gives you 2 prompts. One if you are going to keep the PC (quick format) and one if you are giving the PC away. The giving away option does a long format and the GUI actually says it can take several hours. Original Windows 8 wouldn't give you the quick format option and would always just take hours to reinstall Windows. Note: the GUI doesn't specifically mention the terms quick or long format.

That's pretty bad. Both of these options are actually reinstalls. When they say "upgrade," wouldn't one expect it to keep as much of our data and programs and settings as possible while, um, upgrading the OS?

I can see customer anger and howls of anguish rising up if and when users try this "upgrade" and discover that everything's been lost, or hidden.

--JorgeA

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Yeah we already did the Upgrade install on a "fondleslab" and it isn't behaving very well either. The touch screen makes an cursor (arrow) appear on the screen when you touch it and if you use it enough the arrow kinda drifts around and isn't even where you are pressing. It will be reloaded later to see if it can be fixed. It really sucks that the Upgrade wiped everything out because we had it set up with Win8.0 Pro and was a demonstration model for our entranceway. Now it needs to be set up all over again. :thumbdown

Other "impressions" ... only using 8.1 Pro, the default wallpaper is some gaudy yellow painting. Also the default lock screen is some spiral design and is vibrant and all that, but really clashes with that yellow wallpaper. They should have kept it as the flower or something similar. Because on the Start Screen I couldn't immediately identify which tile was the desktop. OK Desktop tile icon can be see in this review. It is the yellow thing underneath the Mail icon.

http://betanews.com/2013/09/03/why-i-love-windows-8-1/

And here in a different position. and also 2nd picture is a small version of the actual desktop screenshot.

http://betanews.com/2013/08/29/inevitably-windows-8-1-rtm-leaks-on-to-the-internet/

another look at the wallpaper:

http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-81-pro-rtm-x64-has-leaked-web

And here is a link to what the default lock screen is.

http://www.windows8core.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Default-Windows-8.1-RTM-lock-screen-image.png

:no:

And Win 8.1 images cannot be serviced using Windows 7 SP1's DISM... so something else changed between 8 and 8.1 where a different DISM must be used. It also required Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5. Regular users can get the Windows 8.1 ADK on GA date. It may be possible that it works with 8.1 Preview or Windows 8 RTM ADK will work, but I never tried.

I think I mentioned the giant helper arrows in the Deeper Impressions thread. They are very annoying. You know how sometimes people get annoyed when those little bubble tooltip things would show up in Windows 7 and older OS? Its like that but a lot bigger.

You can see one example in the 2nd picture of this article:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046448/microsoft-tweaks-windows-8-1-again-to-help-new-users.html

I can't find any more pictures of these giant arrows.

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And Win 8.1 images cannot be serviced using Windows 7 SP1's DISM... so something else changed between 8 and 8.1 where a different DISM must be used.

Trip,

as a side-side note, there is now an entirely new (third party/Free) working approach for .wim managing, which in the tests done till now performed exceptionally well:

http://reboot.pro/topic/18345-wimlib-with-imagex-implementation/

I will cross-link the above with your news about *something* changed in 8.1, to make the Author aware of the possible need to update the tool.

jaclaz

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