Windows 8: the first casualties

[Bikerdude]

Well, installed Windows 8 pro upgrade today, but had a few issues -

• Even though I had correctly partitioned my SSD under Windows 7, windows 8 was addimant that it had a MBR boot sector instead of GUID. I then told Windows to create one primary partition as I would under win7. But WTF it created 4 partitions instead of doing as it was told, Recovery, System reserved, EFI and Primary (primary being the opnly one I told it to create.
  
• I then get into windows and was pleasantly surprised the old win7 clean install trick works on win8 (I installed on a clean/empty drive)
  
• once into window I download and install "Classic shell2 to get my startmenu and start button back and start configuring windows so its more SS friendly, disabling various services etc.
  
• I finally get around to realising win8 hasn't detected my X-fi, so I go and find (after some bloody searching) the beta driver on "one of" creative's website's. Doesn't detect the sound card, which is fine as Win7 does the same thing. So I download the Daniel_k driver pack, not a sausage. I then try the PAX driver pack, still nada.
  
• Windows Aero is gone (which I expected) but I had hoped MS would have changed the bloody horrible pastel colours so that Windows explorer doesn't kill my eyeballs. But no, Its even worse than windows 7 its practically a fucking white out.
  

Thank god I have the forethought to do a disk clone of my SSD to my old 7200rpm laptop drive, so atleast I can carry on working while I fix/tweak Win8. I have to say as an engineer I was expecting win8 to have some teething problems, but not detecting or even allowing me to force install my known working branded sound card makes it a lemon. I have been thinking of upgrading to to either Xonar or a Recon, but only because I want to use of my PCI-e x1 slots. But isn't that what "they" want us to do...<sigh>

[Bikerdude]

Well I did something I have never done in 17yrs of being a computer engineer and that is to do a live chat with microsoft support. But I figgured I payed for the OS why not gewt the support. Anyway I found the problem, Win8 is mis-detecting the card as a " High Definition Audio Device" rather than unkinown of Xfi. Im still chatting with the MS guy as I type this...

 

Ok looks like I have found a reletivly serious bug with Win8 and the support guy I spoke to is passing my issue onto the Im guessing the WDDM engineering team. In the meantime Win8 is using a generic sound driver, so I get stereo at least. :-)

 

[update] I came across some info I was previously not aware of, the 'SB' number of the card (SB0770) isnt in creatives list of Win8 supported cards. For years I have only ever thought of the card as an Xtreme music, but it turns out I might have an Alienware Xtreme OEM card.

And as an aside looking the same page on creatives website they dont even have a stable driver for their latest card the "Recon". I think this is def the time to possibly kick creative out the door once and for all..

[Bikerdude]

Found a couple more nails for the proverbial coffin:

• Windows 8 boot time is abysmal compared to Win7, it takes roughly a third to twice as long.
  
• Deleting and or moving small files takes several seconds compared to 1+ seconds under win7. This is compounded by the insane amount of prompts, for example just moving a shortcut on your start menu involves being asked 3-4 times if you want to f****** move said shortcut. And deleting or renaming some shortcuts needed the windows file and security to set...<sigh>
  
• Cant adjust vertain parts of the UI like you can under Win7, eg window border padding - its ridiculously large under Win8. And the lack of Aero just compounds this.
  
• The speed of my Samsung 830 SSD has dropped significantly
  

Win 8 - and this is with the latest Intel RST driver <yawn>

4k Random 20MB/s/50Mb/s

Sequential - 430Mb/s/404Mbs

 

Win7

4k Random 26MB/s/82Mb/s

sequential - 505Mb/s/450Mbs

 

Thus far I am increasingly coming to the conclusion of "its a good job I 'only' paid £24.99 for this POS" As a friend of mine has pointed out, this is the new Windows Millennium/Vista...

[jaxa]

• Windows 8 boot time is abysmal compared to Win7, it takes roughly a third to twice as long.
  

 

But you can boot straight to Metro!!! Woohoo!

[Bikerdude]

Found a couple more nails for the proverbial coffin:

• Windows 8 boot time is abysmal compared to Win7, it takes roughly a third again to twice as long.
  
• Deleting and or moving small files takes several seconds compared to 1+ seconds under win7. This is compounded by the insane amount of prompts, for example just moving a shortcut on your start menu involves being asked 3-4 times if you want to f****** move said shortcut. And deleting or renaming some shortcuts needed the windows file and security to set...<sigh>
  
• Cant adjust vertain parts of the UI like you can under Win7, eg window border padding - its ridiculously large under Win8. And the lack of Aero just compounds this.
  
• The speed of my Samsung 830 SSD has dropped significantly
  

Win 8 - and this is with the latest Intel RST driver <yawn>

4k Random 20MB/s/50Mb/s

Sequential - 430Mb/s/404Mbs

 

Win7

4k Random 26MB/s/82Mb/s

sequential - 505Mb/s/450Mbs

 

Thus far I am increasingly coming to the conclusion of "its a good job I 'only' paid £24.99 for this POS" As a friend of mine has pointed out, this is the new Windows Millennium/Vista...

[Bikerdude]

But you can boot straight to Metro!!! Woohoo!

heh, I assume your mocking Microsoft in that regard :-) taking long to boot and then only as far as metro is an epic fail.

[ungoliant]

I think this is def the time to possibly kick creative out the door once and for all..

Glad someone is finally drawing the same conclusion I did.

 

• [...] insane amount of prompts, for example just moving a shortcut on your start menu involves being asked 3-4 times if you want to f****** move said shortcut. And deleting or renaming some shortcuts needed the windows file and security to set...<sigh>
  

Fixing that has been SOP since at least Windows 7. (i skipped over vista, so dunno). If it's anything like previous versions, a quick trip to "change UAC settings", ratcheting down that slider, and then Folder Options solves both those issues. I suspect the true issue here was that M$ got sick of providing tech support to people who had no business running an Administrator acct, so they started putting up prompts to protect people from themselves.

Edited November 1, 2012 by ungoliant

[Radiant]

@Bikerdude: About moving a shortcut with 10 questions asked, if you really like to move it: Have you set the UAC to a minimum?

Maybe the SSD speeds will get to their old values, when Samsung optimizes them.

 

Thank you very much for your tests. I now know, that this system will never get installed on my Desktop PC. I have also read that the metro screen needs 1-2 watts more than an idle Win 7 desktop screen. - What a shame for tablets.

So... if I want to buy a new Win 8 x86 tablet as replacement for a laptop, perhaps I should just go with Win 7 and search for a nice metro like application? - Any suggestions?

Edited November 1, 2012 by Radiant

[Bikerdude]

If it's anything like previous versions, a quick trip to "change UAC settings", ratcheting down that slider, and then Folder Options solves both those issues.

 

• @Bikerdude: About moving a shortcut with 10 questions asked, if you really like to move it: Have you set the UAC to a minimum?
  
• Maybe the SSD speeds will get to their old values, when Samsung optimizes them.
  
• So... if I want to buy a new Win 8 x86 tablet as replacement for a laptop, perhaps I should just go with Win 7 and search for a nice metro like application? - Any suggestions?
  

• As a computer engineer the first thing I did is disable UAC
  
• No they wont, if they are this bad already they will only get worse.
  
• yes and no, win7 is not really optimised for tablets, but its still better than win8 if you want windows compatibility. Also it depends on what you want to do, if its just a bit of browsing and the odd tv show then get an android tablet.
  

[ungoliant]

well if you can't disable "would you like to" from UAC or anywhere else, i'm not touching win8 with a 10 foot pole, lol

[Bikerdude]

I think your missing what Im saying :-)

 

Even with UAC fully disabled, you still get multiple prompts from within the progress pop-up window when deleting or moving any file. Here are some of the images of the prompts.. We get this one a few times because windows 8 security then has an issue and will prompt you with this pop-up 2-3 times and then fail to copy the .ini or some other irrelevant f*****file.

 

 

So a minimum of 4 prompts just to move a short cut on your startmenu, or on your desktop, or a file from one drive to another.... each and every time... FFS.... aaaararrggghhh.. <sigh>

[MoroseTroll]

Heh, I was using Norton Commander (and am using its open source clone, FAR Manager, whereas somebody else prefere a commercial one, Total Commander) since 1990, so I just don't give a shit on Windows Explorer's interface . Almost all operations are binded to the hot keys, so I can easily perform them even without looking. The interface of that family of programs is pretty comfortable and has not been changed since 1986, and I'm quite sure it never will. So, if you guys will try to use, say, FAR Manager or Total Commander, there is a strong chance that you'll use them for the rest of your life .

[lost_soul]

I'll bet the reason your SSD is slower is because it needs time to "heal" after the fresh install. You know, garbage collection, resetting unallocated spaces to zero, cleaning etc. That sucks to hear about the file moving being slower. I remember in Windows 95, if you moved a file from one folder to another on the local disk, it was like "boom! done"

 

Also, if I end up with an unbootable system just by doing something simple like setting SATA from IDE to AHCI in Windows 8, I'm gonna be pissed. Other OSs can handle that change without flipping out, so Windows should too.

Edited November 1, 2012 by lost_soul

[Bikerdude]

• I'll bet the reason your SSD is slower is because it needs time to "heal" after the fresh install.
  
• Also, if I end up with an unbootable system just by doing something simple like setting SATA from IDE to AHCI in Windows 8.
  

• Nope, because when I botted back into Win7 that I had cloned to another hdd the speeds were back to normal. 24/82 MB/s
  
• Windows 7 is effected by this change and so will Windows 7 service pack 2, sorry Windows 8 be able too.
  

[SeriousToni]

If you ever want someone for a product test, I guess biker will be the right person for this duty!

[Bikerdude]

If you ever want someone for a product test, I guess biker will be the right person for this duty!

Sure am

[SeriousToni]

[lost_soul]

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/no_directx_11_1_for_windows_7.html

 

(insert evil laughter here)

[ungoliant]

http://www.guru3d.co..._windows_7.html

 

(insert evil laughter here)

They're going to have to work a lot harder than that to force me to upgrade. And if at any point I feel like I'm being forced to upgrade because they held important features hostage, i'll pirate the fuck out of it, 100%, no if ands or buts.

[lost_soul]

Remember back in the Windows 95/98 days, they released up to and including Direct X 8 for Windows 95 and Directx 9.0C for 98. That was back when OpenGL posed a threat. The Quake engines were at their prime in those days. Now that most devs use D3D, MS can pull stunts like the above.... just like how IE6 stagnated for years when there was no alternative in the early 00s.

 

But I read Valve is making a new engine and I'll bet it will use open standards so they can target tablets, the PC, Mac, and of course their new-found interest in Linux. This should bring the competition I mentioned above.

Edited November 13, 2012 by lost_soul

[Bikerdude]

Descided to try again after I got my Xfi card swapped for one that has a win8 driver.

 

The boot time is now fast again, so what My mate (who i swappef Xfi's with) said might be true. he said that Win8 may have been detecting the sound card trying to figure out what it was etc...

 

And just to be more like a typical user than an engineer, I upgraded from within Win7 and to my suprise the install went without a hitch. All i had to do was google how to remove all the oldl windows files which is done by using disk cleanup manager in Win8.

 

Im just installing DR and all my other apps...

 

I'll test the SSD later, once its had time to settle down etc.