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Windows 8.1 now available. DON'T DO IT!!


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XP will become "non supportable" soon. March or April I think

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Re: XP. That's what my ISP Tech Support told me when I said I'd just install XP.

Re: Win 8.1 Microsoft website now says they've yanked 8.1.

Meanwhile, I've figured out how to improve the volume on my laptop speakers and also get rid of a request for my password every time I booted the computer up!

EDIT: OOPS. I guess I'm wrong on the password thing!

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Back in the day apple was putting a revision of their OS several times a year and I spent a lot of time updating after waiting several mounths for all the bug fixes in the new OS and all associated drivers. After all these years the only thing that's changed is the frequency of the arrival " new and improved" :)

I am following the PC side as I am gonna build my own box soon, hate OS X, and will be using Win. whatever for base OS. My current 11 year old box is getting finicky booting onto OS 9, which I use for everything except internet, have to use OS 10.2.8 to get online.

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OOPS Windows 8.11 coming soon to the internet near you.

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I downloaded 8.1 on Thursday when it was first offered for free. It surprised me and actually works great and improved a couple of glitches I didn't like with 8.0. But before downloading it check the Microsoft website for system requirements and processor speed requirements. My system runs an I-7 processor,12GB of ram, 64 bit with a 3TB hard drive and was set up initially with windows 8. Apparently it can be operated on a less powerful system but expect problems as indicated by Derek. Explorer 11 was a bonus. BUT.... it's 3.2GB to download. Hope you have unlimited download with your internet provider..! It could get costly if your usage is metered.

B.

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I think I'm going to buy a hand full of Win 7 disks while I still can. Bought a new computer for the wife had a hard time finding a Win 7 OS. A year ago I bought a brand new computer I down loaded Win 8 upgrade it would not work properly called Microsoft the tech guy managed to kill the computer wiped out the graphic drivers among other things I sent it back to Amazon and bought another one with Win 7.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the warning. I'm a diehard XP fan (skipped win7 altogether) but a new laptop forced me into Win8. I've hated it since day 1. All the techies laugh at me and tell me I'm antiquated. I'll gladly take the label if I could have XP back. I was hoping 8.1 would make some Improvements like having the start page back. But after your experience, I'll stick with 8, at least for now.

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Here's my VERY LIMITED take on 8.1.

Sounds as though they released it while some computer's drivers were incompatible. Even with my non-tech status, it wasn't too hard to reset it to 'Factory Setting' (i.e. Win8). The only real hassle was that any programs I'd downloaded and installed (AVG, Firefox, etc) had to be downloaded again. So I guess if it's newly acquired, it might be worth trying 8.1 before you get too settled in!

It seems that much of the 'advance' with Win8 or Win8.1 is lost if your laptop doesn't have a touch screen.

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Win XP is a good OS I can say Win 7 is more stable. To me if you do not have a touchscreen of some sort Win 8 fairly useless and drab looking. Frankly I think Microsoft is going to be hurt by Win 8 they were trying to jump into the tablet market and were too far behind Mac and Linix. Like trying to reinvent the wheel.

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  • 5 months later...

I love the title of this post. All these months later Windows 8.1 still gives me constant problems. My laptop accidentally fell out of my car as I was driving and is destroyed. It was still under warranty so they are giving me full store credit. I think I will save a little more and buy a Mac.

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Yup I bought a supposedly top of the line window 8 machine and Vectorworks would crash it on start up. I picked up a mac and am so glad

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I bought a new laptop with 8.1 and I would love anything but 8.1. The Geek Squad at Best Buy dreads us calling because we have to get it fixed about once a week. Right now they will not work on it on line until we take it to the store AGAIN. Second time to the store and it is 50 miles away.

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I bought a new laptop with 8.1 and I would love anything but 8.1. The Geek Squad at Best Buy dreads us calling because we have to get it fixed about once a week. Right now they will not work on it on line until we take it to the store AGAIN. Second time to the store and it is 50 miles away.

So glad for this thread. I got a new laptop for Christmas and it keeps wanting me to upgrade to 8.1 for free but I remembered when Derek first posted this and refrained. Now I'm just not going to consider it at all

Linda S

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I bought an all in one computer with a touch screen it came with the win 8 upgrade offer. Dumb me said "I should try this". Loaded it and it did not work the software decided my computer was a good candidate and preceded by the time the wizzes at Microsoft played with it, it did not work at all! They of course said it had a "virus" and it would cost me XX to fix it. Interestingly it had not yet been connected to the internet yet except to Microsoft. They managed to delete all of the drivers as it black screen and at that point told me that I should send it to the manufacture to have it “repaired”. In my case it only cost me $36 to have it shipped back to Amazon for a refund and a call to Microsoft demanding my money back including the 18 something for the Win8 upgrade. It is getting harder to find Win 7 the one I have now and my wife’s has Win 7 installed and will stay that way. I find Win 7 to be a good OS it is quite stable and easy to use but Win 8 may just be a shot in the foot for Microsoft.

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  • 6 months later...

Help. My computer just upgraded to 8.1 without my permission. Just turned it on a couple of days ago and it went to restart mode and installed 8.1. It seems to work OK except I can't copy and paste anything to this site. No posting links to anything. Got any ideas how to fix this?

Linda S

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I'm wondering what the average person does for programs when they switch. Nothing but a huge pain in the a*s as far as I can tell. I got my start with computers with a DD system (Digital D.O.S), not Microsoft. Had every Window OS ever created and I still think, by far, XP Pro was/is the best. Windows 7 is very stable but does not support all the programs that ran on XP. Windows 8 does not support all the programs that ran on Windows 7. If you have a computer full of useful programs for sound, video, text, HTML scripting, Web hosting, etc. and "upgrade" - what do you do? Buy new programs? Seems a big waste of money to me unless the newer programs do things your old ones don't (which I doubt). Windows XP Pro was the last OS that could run just about every program written for older operating systems. Windows 7 started the trend of no-more backwards compatibility and 8 is even worse. And before someone brings it up - I am aware of the limited and covoluted "backwards-compatible" mode for Windows 7 ONLY if it's Pro and only if the motherboard has special hardware to support it.

We were travelling this spring when my wife's laptop died. I usually fix them but since we were on the road - we went to Walmart and bought a new one for $299 with Windows 8. Her dead machine had Windows 7. Her MS Word program and her Corel photo editing program would not work with 8. Both were fine with 7. I went to a nearby Staples store to buy a new Word program and got sticker shock. They don't hardly even want to sell the software anymore. They want to "rent" it to you with annual repayments. What a joke! Ended up buying the newer Corel program written for Windows 8 and "cheated" with the 'Word Suite which I won't go into detail about.

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I also had Windows 8.1 automatically install. The only downside I've noticed so far is that the volume on my laptop speakers is way down to the point I can barely hear audio. I've tried everything I can find with Google to improve things, but so far no good.

'Cut & Paste' is unchanged (with Firefox 33.0.2). I just opened IE11 and don't appear to be able to C&P. Looks like Bill's shot himself in the foot!!

Older software? Yes, I can't load my old versions of MS Office or AutoCad. I guess I'll be nursing a few of my older computers with these installed for the rare times I need to use them.

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Well I guess Firefox is the only way. I really don't want all the tracking that Chrome does. Funny though I can still copy and paste on the yahoo groups. Only here is zilch. I wonder if it's a security issue. 8.1 is supposed to have higher security. Damn I hate change

Linda S

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I think I read/heard that they're going to jump right to 'Windows 10'. God help us.

One of (or maybe the only) reason I upgraded my computer and internet service (to DSL) was to be able to Skype and watch Youtube videos. With barely any sound volume, I find myself watching videos with one ear about 12" from the screen. Skype conversations involve lots of "What did you say?" and I'm sure the others get lots of close-up views of my ear.

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I think I read/heard that they're going to jump right to 'Windows 10'. God help us.

One of (or maybe the only) reason I upgraded my computer and internet service (to DSL) was to be able to Skype and watch Youtube videos. With barely any sound volume, I find myself watching videos with one ear about 12" from the screen. Skype conversations involve lots of "What did you say?" and I'm sure the others get lots of close-up views of my ear.

Good one, my sister seems to have the same problem with hers.

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Windows 8.1 go into the control panel for sound adjust on system volume.

However one thing than can happen when you do an upgrade is the original drivers that control volume output on your computer are now outdated. Therefore you need to update those drivers. To do so you will have to figure out what sound components your system is using. To do that you will need to look at the list for your system devices and see what components you have. Then go to the manufacturers website to get updated ones. Normally you can also go to the maker of your computer's website and get the updated drivers needed for the upgrade to the new OS. But sometimes it can take up to a year before they obtain and list them in the support area on their website and sometimes they never do post them. Therefore I usually download and install the new drivers needed from the makers of the actual components. But Windows 8.1 has now been out long enough that there should be drivers released for all those audio components.

It took nearly a year after 8.1 was released for me to be able to find all the 8.1 drivers for the laptop I am writing this on, a Sony, and in a couple of cases they never did release an 8.1 driver but I was still able to use all the components if not all the Sony software management stuff. That's OK their software management program was a RAM hogging nuisance anyway. I normally have almost all automatic updates on all programs shut off because they interfere with the speed of my computer by launching themselves at inconvenient times when I am running a program that needs all the RAM I have available.

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Your post got me to thinking about the drivers being out of date so I installed a program I've used before called Drivermax that checks all your drivers and tells which are out of date/newer version available.

Anyway, it did a scan and in the list of drivers to do with Audio which were listed Up to Date.

Anyway, as I've done in the past with no problems, I figured I'd just work my way down the list of Out of Date drivers and install. Top of the list, I think, was Intel Graphics. All went as normal (as in the past) as the newer driver downloaded and installed until ..... the damned screen went blank. And it's still blank!!!

I hate Windows. Maybe I'll take my sons advice and look for an old Apple.

BTW, I'm now using my old laptop to just get online while I try to figure out how to fix the new one.

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Bill provided a way for you to create your own DVD or USB stick installation file for Windows 8

You will want to do this before you do an upgrade. You were in fact given the opportunity to do so as part of the process you went through when you upgraded. Guess you missed understanding what that particular step was all about.

Or you can order a CD copy mailed to you from the Microsoft website but that will cost you.

Here is how to do it.

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-a-windows-8-installation-dvd-or-usb-drive-505769939

Naturally the repair place was not going to tell you that you could have done it yourself ;)

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He would have had to make the recovery CD before the upgrade and in Derek's and my case the upgrade was done without our knowledge. No way to make one when you wake up to a new program already on your computer. No we were never given the opportunity to make one.

Linda S

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Linda,

you turn off rtf using the toggle switch on the left top corner of the reply editor.

Click on the toggle switch and you will be able to paste text into the editor.

the issue is a bug with php used for the forum, I think there is a bug fix out to correct it.

Hope that helps,

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