win 8.1 Poll: Windows 8.1 Preview Experience (How do you like it?)

[tkyoshi]

- Sysprep/Audit Mode at least for me appears totally broken, was hoping to make a WDS image to test out on a couple comps.

- Client join for WS2012 Essentials also got hung up trying to configure

[George P Global Moderator]

No, I mean, opening a fresh session of IE and not just links.

 

 

So clicking the IE tile in the start screen opens up the desktop version for you?   Maybe somehow the desktop version because the default and left out the metro IE?   I find that weird tbh. 

[Dot Matrix]

IE 11 has to be THE buggiest son of a ***** ever. :/

Is it a live tile? It would be really sweet if it showed the news feed. :p

 

No. Doesn't seem like it. Maybe that's something for Neobond to look into? :/

[muffinsyay]

Anyone know how good the AMD 8.1 Preview drivers are? I updated my 8 PC with no issues, but it's running the Win 8 drivers.

[Shad0w480]

I installed the update from the store and my pc started to have issues with the internet... pages not loading and stuff like origin... maybe it would work if i install a clean copy from the iso... but atm i think i will wait till full release

[mygeotecnik]

In general I liked it. Of course there are some bugs and annoyances, like the fake start button and the lack of consecrated features, but after some customization it's fair.

 

:rolleyes:

[Dot Matrix]

How is the Start Button fake? It does what it was designed to do... Take you to Start.

[Noir Angel]

Install was very fast, performance seems to be great, and so far all my drivers have worked. Compatibility is fine apart from Avast (just a matter of waiting for an updated version that works), and Advanced Uninstaller pro which thought it was running in compatibility mode for some reason.

 

Features: Still not a lover of the start screen, seems much the same as Windows 8 on the desktop side

[xankazo]

My biggest complain is when entering the Start Screen the "cursor" repositions itself to the first Tile (like a micro-second after opening) when moving around with the keyboard. It makes me open the wrong apps.

[George P Global Moderator]

My biggest complain is when entering the Start Screen the "cursor" repositions itself to the first Tile (like a micro-second after opening) when moving around with the keyboard. It makes me open the wrong apps.

Where would it default to though?  Or is the problem the small delay it has in doing so?   I think it's expected behavior that it goes to the first tile.  Of course when you're on KB hitting winkey and just typing what you want to open still works best.

[johnporter29]

I have a WIndows.Old folder from when I installed 8.1 which I'm trying to delete, but I get an error: 

The files name(s) would be too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again, or try a location that has a shorter path.

The file name(s) go something like 0-Namespace-https=$$next-services.apps.miscrosoft.com$browse$6.2.9200-1,$............ they are really long file names.

 

Anyone know how to get rid of these? I can't rename them or anything, the rename option etc isn't available for some reason.

[spaceelf]

I have a WIndows.Old folder from when I installed 8.1 which I'm trying to delete, but I get an error: 

The files name(s) would be too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again, or try a location that has a shorter path.

The file name(s) go something like 0-Namespace-https=$$next-services.apps.miscrosoft.com$browse$6.2.9200-1,$............ they are really long file names.

 

Anyone know how to get rid of these? I can't rename them or anything, the rename option etc isn't available for some reason.

Disk Cleanup can get rid of the win.old folder.  I know the manual way and still use it too, but that's the easy way.

[Noir Angel]

On a more annoying note, Media Centre still seems to take an age to start (sometimes I have to press the button 2 or 3 times to make it launch, and no my remote is not malfunctioning) and sometimes seems unresponsive to button presses which is incredibly irritating.

[xankazo]

Where would it default to though?  Or is the problem the small delay it has in doing so?   I think it's expected behavior that it goes to the first tile.  Of course when you're on KB hitting winkey and just typing what you want to open still works best.

It should default to the first tile, but there's a split second lag. For example, if I want to open the third tile to the left on the Start Screen: I press WinKey, then the left key twice and then press enter. All done very fast, (the way I've been perfectly it on Windows 8) but on W8.1, before pressing enter the cursor moves back to the first Tile.

 

I don't know if you get me, English isn't my first language. 

[George P Global Moderator]

It should default to the first tile, but there's a split second lag. For example, if I want to open the third tile to the left on the Start Screen: I press WinKey, then the left key twice and then press enter. All done very fast, (the way I've been perfectly it on Windows 8) but on W8.1, before pressing enter the cursor moves back to the first Tile.

 

I don't know if you get me, English isn't my first language. 

 

No, I understand, the problem is with the delay.  I never noticed it but I'm running 8.1 in a VM using virtual box and the performance on it's own isn't that great in the end.  

[johnporter29]

Disk Cleanup can get rid of the win.old folder.  I know the manual way and still use it too, but that's the easy way.

 

Chhers, Randomevent, worked a treat, one function of Windows that I'd totally forgotten about there.

[Evolution]

Ever since I've upgraded I've been getting DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION BSODs. Has anyone else received this? I'm guessing it either has to do with the Radeon preview drivers or Bitdefender 2014.

[IanHead]

Seems that they "fixed" the part where you can have a taskbar of any color while keeping the window borders white. Setting the EnableWindowColorization to 0 does not change anything.

 

I've just noticed this too and it's annoying the hell out of me. Restarting DWM after changing the value to 0 resets it back to 1 now. Is a black taskbar and white window borders too much to ask, Msft? Y u hatin?

 

Brilliant set of new features and tweaks though, otherwise. It's been more or less solid as rock for me too, except for a single BSOD when I was futzing about with my graphics drivers.

[George P Global Moderator]

I've asked this a few times but has anyone noticed if Intel has updated it's Atom drivers/firmware yet?   No way to test the preview on my Ativ smart pc 500T till that gets worked out.  But at this rate I might as well just wait for the RTM.

[coth]

Installed Preview on VirtualBox... Feels like localization was done by robot. Lots of meaningless words, significant lexical errors, bloated strings... In old times MS always been very good on localizations. But this time it's just disaster...

[George P Global Moderator]

Installed Preview on VirtualBox... Feels like localization was done by robot. Lots of meaningless words, significant lexical errors, bloated strings... In old times MS always been very good on localizations. But this time it's just disaster...

 

Those are probably the last things they work on, and I wouldn't worry too much about it in the end. 

[gate1975mlm]

I am still happly running Windows 7 Home SP1 64 Bit all all 4 of my computers. But I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about this new Windows 8 OS. So I went ahead and installed the Windows 8.1 Preview ISO on my Notebnook. And to be honest the only thing I really find better about it then Windows 7 is the new App store and the under the hood improvments. If I could get the App store and the under the hood improvments on windows 7 it would be the perfect OS! I think the new Start Screen in Windows 8 is nice to have however it's not a good replacment for the Start Menu in Windows 7. I would rather say it's a nice addition to it and thanks to software like Start8 you can have both and they work really nice together. Also in some ways Windows 8 downgrades some features. To many to name for sure but one example is in the Network and Sharing Center you can no longer click on the icon and change the name of your network any longer. Now in Wondows 8 and still in 8.1 you have to do a registry hack to change the name :( It's the little things like this that also get on my nerves about Windows 8.

 

Also I don't know if its becasue this is only a preview build but Windows Defender really slows down the OS performance when it's running. I don't understand why Microsoft can not improve the performance of Windows Defender to where it does not cause any slow down like with other Anti Virus software Avast for example. I also had an issue with the  AMD Catalyst drivers which would not let me resize the screen when hooked up to my HDTV. I am sure these bugs will be fixed once Windows 8.1 is final. And I also noticed a strange issue where when I dragged a file from a folder on the network to my notebook there was some big time lag. Like it took maybe 30 seconds or more to bring up the Move to/Copy to menu. Not sure if this is a bug in the 8.1 or perhaps the video drivers was causing this?

 

Anyway after a few hours of testing out Windows 8.1  I ended up imaging back my Windows 7 to my notebook. Overall I think Windows 8.1 is nice minus the bugs and what not. But I do not think it's worth the upgrade from Windows 7 paid or free for that matter. I just dont think it's worth the trouble of having to start over installing all my software. Even though I do like the new App store a lot I think I am going to stick with Windows 7 for at least another year and more then likely finally upgrade when Windows 9 is released hopefully in 2014.

 

If Microsoft will listen to what most users want then Windows 9 should turn out to be the best of 7 and 8 making it the best Microsoft OS ever that's my hope anyway :)

[Noir Angel]

I also hate Defender with a passion, that bug that causes system slowdowns when you open a folder with a lot of EXE files in is still present, even though it's been known about ever since Microsoft first released the product... about 5 years ago now?

[Undead Steve]

The installation process over all was even faster and more streamlined than even Win 8 (which was improved over 7). Did run into 1 problem though. When I first tried to install it onto my laptop (clean install) - the only thing that worked was the login screen. As soon as I logged in all I got was a black screen, a few error messages, and the mouse. I believe this is because I actually mounted the .iso from another computer over my network (which I don't know if that is even suppose to work at all :rofl:). So I just burned the .iso onto a disk and clean installed again and it's run perfectly even since.

 

As far as bugs go, the install on my laptop is flawless. Haven't run into any major bugs yet - maybe a few crashes of IE11 at best. My Surface RT however is quite a lot more buggy - My main annoyances being with IE11 (again :/) and few other apps having strange problems (Metrotube won't work at all, other apps are inconsistent in load times, sometimes opening instantly, sometimes taking minutes). The new features make it more than worth fighting through the bugs though! :D

[Dashel]

Yea, I'm still surprised by how many more sites are breaking in IE11 even compared to IE10 (including sites that finally had some measure of support for IE10 to begin with)