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Obviously. You don't like something? Okay, let's talk about it. But the venom and hate some people like him constantly spew is baffling bordering on disgusting.

Yes, much like the venom and hate spewed toward those who don't like windows 8.

EasyBCD will fix any Bootloader issues. Free for personal use too.

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

I have EasyBCD already, but for the first time ever, it didn't work, no matter how many times I tried. I did get the old bootloader back eventually though. I went into msconfig > Boot and set Windows 7 to be the default boot drive while booted into Windows 8 RP. I tried doing the same thing in Windows 7 and for some reason it didn't work. Go figure, lol.

Are you able to install MSE?

don't know about RP, but I did on my current CP installation. don't see any reason for it not to work on RP.

That's right, it is, I don't think you can install MSE on Windows 8 because they should be the same code and engine, just with different names. MSE will be around for Win7 and Vista only from now on I'd guess.

But as far as finding it, without booting into win8 right now doesn't it come up if you just hit winkey and type defender? That should bring up the app, or if not I'm going to say you can find it in the control panel (the desktop one).

Exactly, you can't install MSE on Windows 8 RP because is exactly the same program as Windows Defender!

guys, don't claim that you can't do something if you didn't tried. I installed MSE without trouble. even if it's the same code, MSE is recognized as separate anti-virus (and installs into different folder) and so it turns off Defender when installed.

then reason I swapped Defender with MSE is that while Defender might be the same thing, it's quite a pain in the ass to deal with it's settings and quarantine/history list.

Still also getting those issues of a freeze followed by graphical artefacts everywhere

Anyone else getting this?

this kind of thing is either driver or overheating problem. or both. i had such problems many times in past due to GPU overheating

does anyone know how much memory metro apps use? The reason I ask is if you open a bunch then say go to Netflix and run a video the metro apps are still running and performance suffers

New task manager tells you everything about apps.

Also Metro apps don't work that way. There is only one App using CPU resources and the rest are automatically suspended. You can see this enabling the "View -> states -> show suspend state" in Task manager.

Enjoying so far, great to finally be able to use the Xbox apps along with the media ones.

Music app doesn't like Zune DRM through which is a bit of a let down

It should do - the music app is effectively a Metro version of Zune and plays it fine on my PC, and you can download & stream Zune Pass music from it. You might have to authorise your PC though, but other than that as long as you're signed in with your Zune Pass account it should work.

Most metro apps shut down virtually immidiately after opening. News, Sports, Weather and Maps in particular.

Actually Weather just shows that it's working but never changes to the local weather. Just the blue screen with the spinning indicator.

So far, this Release Preview is a step back from Customer Preview. CP was rock solid for me. RP is laggy and most metro apps do not work. :/

EDTIT: Uninstalled News, Sports, Weather and Maps. Reinstalled each, rebooted and still none work.

Anyone else having problems installing the release preview on a computer they had installed the CP on? Like it telling you the cpu "isn't compatible" (read: has been made incompatible)? Pentium 4 by the way. Guess it's old.

I'm going to try to do a clean install boot off the cd and see if it tells me the same.

Most metro apps shut down virtually immidiately after opening. News, Sports, Weather and Maps in particular.

Actually Weather just shows that it's working but never changes to the local weather. Just the blue screen with the spinning indicator.

So far, this Release Preview is a step back from Customer Preview. CP was rock solid for me. RP is laggy and most metro apps do not work. :/

EDTIT: Uninstalled News, Sports, Weather and Maps. Reinstalled each, rebooted and still none work.

So I did a PC Refresh with no luck. Considering how ridiculously fast Win 8 installs, I just did another clean install. All works well now. Strange.

Impressions

1) Nice nifty quick clean install

2) Cloud sync nice, especially when reinstalling clean

3) Speed all around but I'll withold judgments. All previous versions lose this extra speed when RTM'd at least that's how it's been in the past.

4) If it remains this fast, Metro will be a liveable annoyance.

5) Laptops NEED Apple's multitouch mousepad gestures, currently a scroll mouse is needed or this is unuseable.

6) Scrolling is inconsistent in Metro apps. All Metro apps and the Start Page should scroll the same.

7) Metro not as good as lovers would have you believe, not as bad as haters would have you believe.

8) Bring on apps please, real apps.

  • Like 2

After further use, metro still annoys me of course :p, but I think it COULD be pretty good, but its just not there yet in windows 8:

1. Reboot/Shutdown. Why is this under settings? It makes little sense and takes too many actions to get there. Why can't I hit the super key and search for reboot/shutdown? Why can't I add reboot/shutdown etc.. to the metro homescreen? (more on lack of homescreen customization later).

2. Metro start screen is not customizable enough. After using it for a while I think this is one of the main problems with metro. The start screen could actually be pretty cool if it was far more flexible. By default to view all my apps I have to right click, and then move my mouse all the way down to "all applications (this type of mouse travel can be tiresome on a laptop touchpad, and there is way too much of it in metro.) Why can't I put a shortcut to all applications right on the start screen? By default there is too little functionality on the start screen, and really no way to add much more.

3. Its confusing/hard to use with a touchpad. Navigating between different metro screens and the classic desktop can just be confusing. The gesture to get to the metro app switcher is a pain in the ass on a touchpad, this is true for the hotcorners as well. Trying to activate the charms bar with my touchpad makes me want to punch a baby. Hitting win key will switch between metro and classic desktop, quickly and easily.... Unless you have a metro app open, then it just switches between the metro app and metro homescreen, and to get to the desktop again you have to click it on the homescreen or use win + d.

tl;dr Metro screen could be pretty good if it had less awkward mouse/touchpad functionality and more customization features. It has potential with its good search functions and live tiles, but the metro implementation in windows 8 just isn't polished enough and makes the os feel inconsistent as a whole. IMO they really should have had an option to keep the start menu, until they improve the metro experience to a point where its more usable on the desktop.

After further use, metro still annoys me of course :p, but I think it COULD be pretty good, but its just not there yet in windows 8:

1. Reboot/Shutdown. Why is this under settings? It makes little sense and takes too many actions to get there. Why can't I hit the super key and search for reboot/shutdown? Why can't I add reboot/shutdown etc.. to the metro homescreen? (more on lack of homescreen customization later).

2. Metro start screen is not customizable enough. After using it for a while I think this is one of the main problems with metro. The start screen could actually be pretty cool if it was far more flexible. By default to view all my apps I have to right click, and then move my mouse all the way down to "all applications (this type of mouse travel can be tiresome on a laptop touchpad, and there is way too much of it in metro.) Why can't I put a shortcut to all applications right on the start screen? By default there is too little functionality on the start screen, and really no way to add much more.

3. Its confusing/hard to use with a touchpad. Navigating between different metro screens and the classic desktop can just be confusing. The gesture to get to the metro app switcher is a pain in the ass on a touchpad, this is true for the hotcorners as well. Trying to activate the charms bar with my touchpad makes me want to punch a baby. Hitting win key will switch between metro and classic desktop, quickly and easily.... Unless you have a metro app open, then it just switches between the metro app and metro homescreen, and to get to the desktop again you have to click it on the homescreen or use win + d.

tl;dr Metro screen could be pretty good if it had less awkward mouse/touchpad functionality and more customization features. It has potential with its good search functions and live tiles, but the metro implementation in windows 8 just isn't polished enough and makes the os feel inconsistent as a whole. IMO they really should have had an option to keep the start menu, until they improve the metro experience to a point where its more usable on the desktop.

1 - shows up in settings when you search. One could argue that the power state of your PC is a setting, but I'm not going too. :p

2 - If you're going into all apps often, just pin those apps you want in there onto your start screen.

3 - I find the gestures quite simple on a touch pad. I just do a sweeping arc gesture - (well, more diagonal and then up/down rather than a curved arc), but it works everytime, the same for both the app swticher and charms (diag-left then down for switcher, diag-down-right then up for charms :p) And you can click in the top left corner to flick between apps (to quickly get back to desktop if it's recent)

1 - shows up in settings when you search. One could argue that the power state of your PC is a setting, but I'm not going too. :p

2 - If you're going into all apps often, just pin those apps you want in there onto your start screen.

3 - I find the gestures quite simple on a touch pad. I just do a sweeping arc gesture - (well, more diagonal and then up/down rather than a curved arc), but it works everytime, the same for both the app swticher and charms (diag-left then down for switcher, diag-down-right then up for charms :p) And you can click in the top left corner to flick between apps (to quickly get back to desktop if it's recent)

1. Doesn't show up when just hitting win key and searching though. Hitting win key, clicking settings, and THEN searching is still too many steps.

2. I don't all that often, but having to right click to bring it up is still annoying.

3. I do the same gesture, but the travel on a touchpad is REALLY annoying. In windows 7 I can do all these things with less steps and mouse travel.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • AMD RX 9070 GRE AI, Blender benchmarks vs 9070 XT, 7800XT, Nvidia RTX 5070, 4070 by Sayan Sen Earlier this week, we shared the first part of our review of AMD's new RX 9070 GRE. It was about the gaming performance of the GPU, and we gave it an 8 out of 10. As a follow-up, similar to how we did with the 9070 XT and non-XT, we are doing a dedicated productivity review for the RX 9070 GRE as well, where we compare it against the 9070 XT, 9070, 7800 XT, as well as Nvidia's 5070 and 4070. This will include AI, rendering, compute, and more benchmarks. AI performance, especially, is a very important metric in today's world, and AMD also promised big improvements thanks to its underlying architectural improvements. We will be pitching it against the data we already have for the RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT, but also the Nvidia 5070 FE, MSI GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 2X 12G, and Gigabyte Radeon RX 7800 XT GAMING OC 16G as they are in a similar price class, but also because we do not have a comparable 5060 Ti card lying around here that we can compare it against. Before we get underway, this is a collaboration between Sayan Sen and Steven Parker, who lent me his test bed. Also, there was no editorial input from AMD. First up, the specs of the RX 9070, 9070 XT, and 9070 GRE, which were given to us by AMD: Radeon RX 9070 GRE Radeon RX 9070 Radeon RX 9070 XT Boost Clock: Game Clock: up to 2.79GHz up to 2.20GHz up to 2.52GHz up to 2.07GHz up to 2.97GHz up to 2.40GHz Stream Processors 3,072 (48 CU) 3,584 (56 CU) 4,096 (64 CU) Ray Accelerator 48 56 64 AI Accelerator 96 112 128 ROPs 96 128 Texture Mapping Units 192 224 256 Memory 12 GB GDDR6, 18Gbps Clock, 192-bit Bus 432 GB/s 16 GB GDDR6, 20Gbps Clock, 256-bit Bus Effective Memory Bandwidth: 640 GB/s Infinity Cache 48 MB (3rd Gen) 64 MB (3rd Gen) Card Bus PCI-E 5.0 X16 Output 2x HDMI 2.1b 2x DisplayPort 2.1a Power consumption 220W 304W Recommended PSU 650W 750W Slot width 2x 3x Price (SEP) $549 $599 As you can see from the specs above, it is less than the standard RX 9070 in every way that counts, except for slightly higher Boost and Game clock speed. Design Moving on, the RX 9070 GRE we were given is an XFX Swift triple-fan, dual-slot design with two 8-pin connectors. At 30cm (self-measured), it will fit in most systems easily. There is no RGB either. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by XFX from all angles. Test system Our test system consists of the following: Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini V2 Flow (Amazon|Newegg) ASUS Z890 ProArt Creator WiFi (Amazon|Newegg) Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus (Amazon|Newegg) Thermal Grizzly KryoSheet - 44x37 (Amazon|Newegg) 2x 16GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB (7200 MT/s in XMP) (Amazon|Newegg) Sabrent Rocket4 Plus 2TB SSD (Amazon) Windows 11 25H2 (Build 26200.8246) AMD shared a press driver based on the recently released Adrenaline 26.5.2 that we were required to use. We now move on to our benchmarks. First up, we have Geekbench AI running on ONNX. For some reason, the 9070 GRE does exceptionally well here in both half-precision (FP16) and single-precision (FP32). It manages to beat the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 non-XT, and is only behind the 9070 XT. Since Geekbench runs in short bursts instead of continuously hammering the graphics card, it seems the GRE's faster boost clocks are helping here. Next up, we move to the UL Procyon AI test suite, starting with the image generation benchmark. We chose the Stable Diffusion XL FP16 test since it is the most intense workload available on Procyon. The Nvidia cards do very well here, as even the 4070 out-muscles AMD's best fairy easily. The positive thing about the GRE is that it gets quite close to the 9070 non-XT in this test; this indicates that the VRAM does not play a very big role here, as SD XL relies on float16 (FP16). So this is something to keep in mind again. If you wish to work with float32 AI workloads, graphics cards with larger than 12 GB buffers would likely emerge as victors. Regardless, the gains are still massive on AMD's 9000 series compared to the 7000 series. Following image generation, we move to the text generation benchmark. This is one test where the 9070 GRE struggled, quite a lot. It seems that the 12 GB VRAM and lower memory bandwidth of the new Radeon 9070 GRE are hurting it quite a bit; the split is massive, especially in a test like Llama2, which packs 13 billion parameters. As such, in all the tests, the 9070 GRE is the slowest of the lot. Next, we tried Blender, and here the AMD GPUs were beaten by Nvidia. Rendering is something the Green team has always had a lead over the Red side, and it has not changed so far. On the positive side, though, the 9070 GRE shows significantly better results than the 7800 XT, which means AMD is on the right path. Catching up to Nvidia, though, will require a lot more effort. And we hope HIP and ROCm can keep improving. Wrapping up AI testing, we measured OpenCL throughput in the Geekbench compute benchmark. The RX 9070 GRE alongside the 9070 did not fare well here at all, even falling behind the 7800 XT. Interestingly, even the RTX 5070 could not beat the 4070 on OpenCL, so perhaps this suggests that OpenCL optimization may not have been a priority for either AMD or Nvidia in the modern era. Conclusion We reached the end of our productivity performance review of the 9070 GRE, and we have to say it's a mixed bag. Unlike the 9070 and 9070 XT, the GRE excels in some areas while losing ground fairly easily in others. Similar to how it happened in gaming, any time the card's memory subsystem gets hammered, it tends to fall behind the others. This was the case with text generation, wherein we saw the VRAM sometimes hit its maximum available 12 GB of usage with larger model sizes. So what do we make of the RX 9070 as a productivity hardware? It can certainly be used, but you have to know it has its limitations. For those looking for a GPU that can deal with more, AMD recently unveiled the Radeon AI PRO R9700, which is essentially a 32 GB refresh of the 9070 XT with some additional workstation-based optimizations. On a similar note, the new Ryzen AI Halo platform is something you can consider if you want to set up a local AI processing station. Considering everything, we rate AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE a 7.5 out of 10 for its productivity performance. Price is less of a factor for those looking at productivity cases compared to those considering the GPU for gaming, and as such, we felt it did quite decently on many occasions and can be handy if you need a 12 GB GPU and, for some reason, don't want to get Nvidia. Purchase links: RX 9070 / XT / GRE (Amazon US) As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • Does anyone here know if these updates are integrated into the UUP dump isos?
    • Motrix Next 3.9.4 by Razvan Serea Motrix Next is a modern, open-source cross-platform download manager built as the official next-generation successor to the original Motrix project. It has been completely rewritten using Tauri 2, Vue 3, TypeScript, and Rust, while still relying on the powerful Aria2 download engine for high-speed multi-protocol transfers. The app supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent, ED2K and magnet links, offering advanced features like multi-connection acceleration, task scheduling, bandwidth control, and batch download management. With a significantly reduced install size (around 20MB), it focuses on being lightweight, fast, and resource-efficient compared to traditional Electron-based download tools. Designed for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Motrix Next delivers a clean, modern UI inspired by Material Design 3 principles, with smooth animations and a minimal workflow. It improves usability through better download organization, system tray integration, and enhanced torrent handling including selective file downloads and tracker management. Motrix Next features: Multi-protocol downloads — HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, Magnet, .torrent, ED2K, and Metalink tasks BitTorrent — Selective file download, DHT, peer exchange, encryption controls, metadata caching, GeoIP peer flags, and tracker probing Browser extension integration — Embedded Extension API with independent authentication, download confirmation, smart auto-submit, filename hints, referer/cookie forwarding, and real-time controls (Chrome Web Store · Edge Add-ons) Safe filename handling — Content-Disposition, RFC 2047, non-UTF-8, percent-encoded, and extensionless URL resolution with path traversal sanitization Download organization — Favorite and recent folders, optional file-type categorization, stale-record cleanup, and completed history backed by SQLite Concurrent downloads — Independent controls for active tasks, HTTP connections per server, segments per file, and BT peer limits Speed control — Global and per-task upload/download limits with day-of-week and time-of-day scheduling System integration — Tray operation, optional tray speed display, macOS Dock badge/progress, protocol handlers for magnet://, thunder://, and motrixnext:// Lightweight mode — Destroys the WebView on minimize-to-tray while Rust keeps the engine, task monitor, notifications, history, and extension routing alive Notifications and power options — Native task start/complete/failure notifications, keep-awake during downloads, and optional shutdown after completion Network controls — Scoped proxy support for downloads, app updates, and tracker updates, plus system proxy detection Auto-update channels — Stable, Beta, and Latest Across Channels policies with separate download and install phases Diagnostics — Structured logs, exportable diagnostic ZIPs, database integrity checks, automatic DB rebuild, and Linux GPU rendering fallback Personalization — Light/dark/system theme, 10 color schemes, 26 languages, and first-launch system language detection Motrix Next 3.9.4 changelog: Motrix Next 3.9.4 promotes the 3.9.4 beta cycle to stable. This release refreshes bundled engine binaries, improves task detail readability and copy actions, expands link handling for magnet and ED2K workflows, polishes responsive navigation and text wrapping, updates browser extension documentation, and refines network preference controls. New Features Task Detail copy actions — Added copyable values for task metadata and reusable render functions for long text fields. Magnet and ED2K lifecycle support — Added task lifecycle handling for magnet and ED2K links. History cleanup for deleted tasks — Deleted tasks can now remove matching history records. User-Agent management — Added user-agent management and improved related network preference controls. Browser extension documentation — Added the Firefox Add-ons link for the Motrix Next extension. Improvements Engine binaries — Updated bundled binaries for supported architectures. Task Detail readability — Long task names, URLs, tracker values, and copyable metadata now render more clearly. Deletion messaging — Refined localized task deletion text for clarity and consistency. Text wrapping — Improved URI input wrapping and task name multiline display. Navigation layout — Improved sub-navigation responsiveness. Disk allocation default — Changed the default file allocation method to trunc. Proxy controls — Improved proxy button styling in network preferences. Download: Motrix Next 64-bit | ARM64 | macOS ~20.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Website | macOS / Linux | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • NVIDIA officially supports Ubuntu, as linked above with the GeForce NOW Hands on I did in collaboration with Paul Hill.
    • TO be clear I am not running linux today, however I keep thinking about it. And I want to make sure there are minimal obstacles if I decide to make that switch in the coming months.
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