win8.1 32 Windows 8 features that don't get enough credit.

[Eric Veteran]

Please stick to the topic. If you don't want to discuss the news article then choose a different thread.

[chrisj1968]

I really have NO use for most of those. I mostly use just the boot to desktop feature. that's it!

 

I think a serious issue is, MSFT and people think everyone needs what they themselves need. go ahead and put the features in there.

 

I'm one of those simple meat and potato kind of guys. Heck even if I had the Windows Vista UI, I'd be happy.

[Andre S. Veteran]

DirectComposition and the huge overhaul to the GPU driver model are big wins for all applications, but of course that's not the sort of feature that users actually notice.

[T3X4S]

I like the GUI when you are moving a file, showing the graph for the transfer speed.  Thats cool.

[PGHammer]

Good List although there are 4 that caught my eye

 

10) Fast boot, resume

 

Windows 8 does boot faster, but it also does the stupid shutdown / hibernation hybrid. I wish they wouldn't do that. Just yesterday I wanted to restart a customer computer that I was setting up. The only options I had was shutdown or restart and install updates. Well I wanted to do a restart to finish the Uninstall of Norton and the prerequisite kb for 8.1. I didn't want to do a shutdown because thats not an actual restart, and I didn't want to choose restart because I was going to install 8.1 out of the gate, I didn't want to have to wait for it to install 64 updates before it would restart. Blah. The computer also had one of those slow AMD CPU's so I just instructed him how to install 8.1 and did a restart in which it started installing 1 of 64 updates as I was leaving.

 

17) Simple recovery and repair options.

 

I agree Windows 8 does have some simple recovery and repair options, but at the same time they made the most basic repair option a pain and sometimes impossible to get to, SAFE MODE!

 

26) Windows Defender

 

It's better than nothing I suppose.

 

28) Swipe down to close. Use it enough and you wonder why desktop apps don?t close when swiped down.

 

Um.... I think the X is easier with a mouse

10.  As far as the shutdown/hibernatiion hybrid, why is that necessarily a problem?  That is better by far than typical desktop shutdown (yes; I said DESKTOP shutdown) where the chipset has not supported a proper Hibernation mode under any previous version of Windows.  (A shocking example of THAT is the corporate-stable/consumer-stable Intel G41 chipset - one of two rather frustrating flaws the chipset has is a lack of proper hibernation support pre-8; the  other is RAM capacity issues.)

 

17. Safe mode as we had known it died with XP; Windows 7 (not Vista or 8) did a number on Safe Mode.

 

26.  It's System Essentials/Forefront Endpoint carried forward - basic protection at no cost.  It's not meant to be comprehensive (for any number of reasons - mostly having to do with government interventionalism) - however, it can work alongside software from other companies, as long as the third-party software permits; that is certainly more than I can say about Kapersky.  (Have Kapersky and Malwarebytes stopped their feud yet?)

 

28.  The "swipe" feature is common on trackpads, and dates back to Vista and 7 - it has nothing to do with touch-screens, at least on PCs.  What Windows 8 did was moved support into the OS core - so now any trackpad can utilize it.  With 7 or Vista, you needed an overlay.

[PGHammer]

HyperV and Windows To Go are more appropriate than 90% of that list if we're going to say "don't get enough credit."

 

But on exporting start screen to XML, I actually think this is indicative of one of it's biggest weaknesses, the inability to easily manage and customize the Start Screen in an controlled enterprise environment without a lot of cumbersome effort that in lieu of where we were with Windows 7, is an unnecessary waste of time that MS made necessary. That's negative points. Needs to get fixed.

Hyper-V would likely get MORE credit if newer hardware sold - and no, I'm not kidding.

 

Every AMD APU supports it, and every Core i-series CPU from second-generation out supports it - however, that is exactly when the recession kicked in.

 

My biggest frustration factor is that Hyper-V and Genymotion (which is based on, and requires Oracle VirtualBox) are unmixy - which is the OTHER reason I have Server 2012R2 installed - when I upgrade to hardware that WOULD allow me to use Hyper-V on Windows 8.1, I'll have to pass, due to my usage of Genymotion (Android OS evaluation) on the 8.1 side.