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One major improvement for me is Task Manager. I've always liked using it, and as far as an Operating System goes this is the sort of thing it should do well - not browsers etc which third parties can suffice with. Task Manager is much improved in Windows 8.
One oddity though is earlier today "System" was running disk usage of 99% for a good few minutes.
Wonder if that covers the defrag or indexing. I always disable the indexing service.
But I do agree with the way the new task manager is. Makes disabling boot up programs make easier.
Just discovered that Windows 8 dropped DVD playback :bulb:
Do not despair
http://lifehacker.com/5961825/retrou...egular-windows
silly question...
how do I turn off the apps that I tried out, but dont want to use (but don't want to delete) like the email app? Without logging out of the other apps?
edit:
figured it out, the right swipe menu changes per program :\
Two weird queries:
1: I've downloaded one app - a radio one TuneIn. When the app is on the screen its one volume but when I switch back to Desktop mode (to have the radio running in the background) the volume plummets so I have to turn the master sound up louder. Any idea if this is a function of the app itself for some reason, or Windows? Bit frustrating to have it blast out then whimper out.
2: Got some video files which are *.divx - fair enough for previous versions of Windows I've had to download DivX (which I don't like doing, they always want to spam loads of crap with it) but Windows 8 plays it natively. Great. Except it only plays it natively on the new Video app - *.divx won't be accepted as an extension on Windows Media Player (and if I force it to play on Media Player its not playing properly, has a green bar at the bottom). I don't understand if it has the Codec why have it as an option for one player but not the other?
For anyone that is tired of the shitway Windows 8 handles administrator access: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...r-activate.htm
That's how to make the admin account accessible, so if you trust yourself to not be a fucking moron with your computer, I can't help but suggest it.
I have spent days trying to get gamebooster, Star Wars The Old Republic and my Sidewinder X4 keyboard (a Microsoft product!) to work together. I finally gave up after I discovered that windows 8 wouldn't autolaunch the keyboard software at startup if I told the individual program to run with admin access. Logging directly into the admin account fixed all my problems.
Seems as if my Windows installation caught some crapware (uTorrent, I'm looking at you!) and now starting a browser/opening a new tab takes several seconds.
Will try the "refresh" method and see how that goes.
Probably not related but on startup as well as waking Windows seems to load almost instantly (don't know if that's due to 8 or the machine) but if you load Firefox, then the Firefox window appears but then "pauses" for upto 30 seconds. After that its fine for the rest of the session.
I get the hunch that Windows is starting before its fully ready (rather than leaving you waiting for a full boot) but then pauses things if need be until its finished in the background.
Well, that's usual for Windows. But my problem really was lagging internet browsers all over.
Refreshing did fix that. And while I was at it, I sym'linked the User folder to a different drive. Should spare some room on my SSD for programs (the process can hit one major failure mode, though, if you don't take care. It's not for the faint of heart!)
Okay, for the sake of diversity and not getting too cozy on any given platform, I'm going to check out a Microsoft store and see what this Surface is like.
OneNote is the killer app for any portable computer being able to use a Stylus, by the way. At least if you have to take notes on a regular basis.
We use OneNote at work to teach all our classes now :heart:
This is why Windows + client harddrives + app store won't work.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12...-app-purchases
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...gWindows8Games
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...hases-and-more
Not easy, but not hard either, from the way it looks.