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[surly]

My main complaint right now, is the lack of customizations on the Start screen.

Is there a way to control the layout of tiles?

Example:

I have a bunch of desktop games in Start. I added them alphabetically, so that's how they were added. Unfortunately, Start wants to do everything in 2 columns. So they're sorted top to bottom, with the first 2 columns in order.

Is there a way to control the number of columns in a group?

You can control the number of columns in each group of apps. Let's say that you have 2 groups of apps, each made up of 2 columns. If you drag a shortcut from one group to the other, that shortcut will appear at the bottom of one of the columns, but when both columns are full, a third will be created and so on. Obviously, you can re-order apps within a group by just dragging them about with the left mouse button.

To create a new group of app shortcuts, just drag a shortcut to the right of an existing group. You will see a dividing line appear on the screen and if you place a shortcut to the right of that and release the mouse button, the shortcut will be the first of a new group.

If you press the little - button in the bottom-right of the screen, you can zoom out, right-click on a group of apps, then give it a name. You can also left-click on a group of apps and drag them around as a group, so it's handy if you have groups of apps like Games, Social Networking etc. as you can easily change the order without having to drag one shortcut at a time.

 

[stktt]

The slapdash podacast metro app is pretty decent for managing podcasts. Also helps that there is virtually no competition to it.

Pushpod.

 

[Zizbuka]

It doesn't really create a new group unless you force it to by dragging a tile out of the group. And the number of columns in a group should grow as you add apps and fill the columns

It's hard to get across here. Put 36 tiles on your screen, not grouped. Try arranging them, and you'll see how it does everything in columns of 2.

 

[KernelPanic]

I'm shocked by how much faster W8 is after enabling AHCI (and getting NCQ I imagine)

I've never had this on

 

[Lynn616]

Pushpod.

Thanks, trying it now. I like it so far.

By the way, I am loving how easy it is to stream video from the store apps to my 360. Works great, just like Airplay.

 

[TheExodu5]

I'm shocked by how much faster W8 is after enabling AHCI (and getting NCQ I imagine)

I've never had this on

Big improvement for me as well after enabling AHCI. Either that or secure erasing my SSD made a huge difference.

 

[mike23]

Anyone been using File History?

I've had it going for about a month now. I haven't had any reason to go back and restore anything yet, but it's nice to have all my important stuff copied.

It's pretty wasteful though. The total size of the files it watches is ~12GB and I have it set to run hourly and it says it has 638 versions. All together it takes up 142GB on my file server. My server uses ZFS so I had Windows put the file history into a deduped folder and the dedupe ratio is at 3.67x. So it's basically using 142GB of space to store ~39GB of unique-ish data.

Big improvement for me as well after enabling AHCI. Either that or secure erasing my SSD made a huge difference.

Windows 8 also has a utility that will run trim on the free space. Search for "optimize drives" in settings

 

[kitch9]

Yea, I guess it'll be right for me. I'll use it for web browsing, documents and programming websites and databases - that's it. I wonder if I can play old games like Mafia on W8 but it's not a gaming machine really.

If you like playing with and learning new stuff then you'll be fine. Just don't try to run everything from Start as some appear to be doing, use Start and Desktop pretty much as you normally would and apart from the odd useful app its not actually that much different. I did hate it for the first 20 minutes of so though, but once I figured it out I realised there's actually nothing to hate...

My mrs, who is a computer retard LOVES it!!

Commander Riker again?

Do you think he'll ever get round to actually trying it or is the banging of the internet jungle drums enough for him to hate it?

 

[SteveWD40]

Do you think he'll ever get round to actually trying it or is the banging of the internet jungle drums enough for him to hate it?

Like I said in his "thread", he is one of the many people who decided they hated it a long time ago, now it's not about it being good or bad, it's about him being right.

Add in a healthy smattering of people who hate any kind of change (lets all stick with Dos shall we?) and Apple fans who love to lampoon Windows and you have yourself a good old fashioned NeoGaf Circlejerk Hootnanny.

This forum is a small representation of tech snobs, the average person will go "this is weird, oh, that goes there, ooooh that's nice" and then done, they know the UI and are fine with it.

 

[JaggedSac]

For anyone interested, Plex now has a Windows 8 app with ARM support. I'm definitely grabbing this thing.

http://elan.plexapp.com/2012/12/04/announcing-plex-for-windows-8/

http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/647bfcf7-7f87-4a72-ad86-2e6274f969e3

 

[Totakeke]

Nice!

Also the store now has a Top Paid section.

 

[Zeppu]

My dream right now is for XMBC to split the 'player' and the 'browser' into two separate parts. I'd want the player to be running as a service of sorts, with default output for video and audio and only to be triggered with any browser component, which would all be able to plug into it.

So you'd have XMBC installed, running as a service or whatever, doing background library updates and whatever is necessary. Then you'd have what is essentially a remote/library browser as a Metro app, or whatever you like, which sends commands via the JSONRPC API to the service which starts playing. That would be amazing on so many levels.

 

[Totakeke]

My dream right now is for XMBC to split the 'player' and the 'browser' into two separate parts. I'd want the player to be running as a service of sorts, with default output for video and audio and only to be triggered with any browser component, which would all be able to plug into it.

So you'd have XMBC installed, running as a service or whatever, doing background library updates and whatever is necessary. Then you'd have what is essentially a remote/library browser as a Metro app, or whatever you like, which sends commands via the JSONRPC API to the service which starts playing. That would be amazing on so many levels.

Huh? Explain in terms of how a user would use that please.

 

[Pachimari]

For anyone interested, Plex now has a Windows 8 app with ARM support. I'm definitely grabbing this thing.

http://elan.plexapp.com/2012/12/04/announcing-plex-for-windows-8/

http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/647bfcf7-7f87-4a72-ad86-2e6274f969e3

Fabulous. I love Plex.

 

[Zeppu]

Huh? Explain in terms of how a user would use that please.

You open up a remote/library app. Whether it be on the PC itself, a web interface, an phone app, etc which communicates with the player service. When you select play it plays on the service. The point of it is so that you could have, in a dual screen system, the player on the TV and the remote/library on the main monitor, or easily play items from your phone by connecting to the XBMC player service which is constantly running.

 

[stktt]

I should probably wait until I hit member status before getting snarky in Windows 8 threads.

 

[Totakeke]

You open up a remote/library app. Whether it be on the PC itself, a web interface, an phone app, etc which communicates with the player service. When you select play it plays on the service. The point of it is so that you could have, in a dual screen system, the player on the TV and the remote/library on the main monitor, or easily play items from your phone by connecting to the XBMC player service which is constantly running.

Oh. It's not really what you're looking for, but I remember seeing one of the XBMC apps had the option to send to XBMC through the devices charm.

 

[JaggedSac]

You open up a remote/library app. Whether it be on the PC itself, a web interface, an phone app, etc which communicates with the player service. When you select play it plays on the service. The point of it is so that you could have, in a dual screen system, the player on the TV and the remote/library on the main monitor, or easily play items from your phone by connecting to the XBMC player service which is constantly running.

Look into Plex man. It is a branch of XBMC.

It basically consists of a Plex Media Server. Free and easy to set up. Handles serving up your media either through direct play or transcoding.

Then you have Plex Clients that can browse and play content from your PMS through the browser or platform specific clients.

I have about 300 movies on my server that I can access from anywhere. Gonna get this new app so my Surface can now have a native client instead of the flash based web client to watch my movies from.

 

[t-ramp]

If you like playing with and learning new stuff then you'll be fine. Just don't try to run everything from Start as some appear to be doing, use Start and Desktop pretty much as you normally would and apart from the odd useful app its not actually that much different. I did hate it for the first 20 minutes of so though, but once I figured it out I realised there's actually nothing to hate...

I hardly spend any time in the Start interface. Just now I used the Music app to download a couple albums, but otherwise most of my time is in Firefox in Desktop mode. At some point I might browse the App store, since it is quite neat having one built into Windows.

 

[Zeppu]

Oh. It's not really what you're looking for, but I remember seeing one of the XBMC apps had the option to send to XBMC through the devices charm.

Look into Plex man. It is a branch of XBMC.

It basically consists of a Plex Media Server. Free and easy to set up. Handles serving up your media either through direct play or transcoding.

Then you have Plex Clients that can browse and play content from your PMS through the browser or platform specific clients.

I have about 300 movies on my server that I can access from anywhere. Gonna get this new app so my Surface can now have a native client instead of the flash based web client to watch my movies from.

No this is not exactly what I want. I don't want the media to be played on other devices. There would be one player on my main PC, set up to always play on my secondary monitor (the TV). The clients wouldn't play the media themselves, but rather be a GUI to control the main server player.

So let's say I have an HTPC running XBMC Server/Player. Using the HTPC you wouldn't know, cause it's running in the background, but any machine on the network can act as a client for my library. So I could have a W8 app, an Android remote, an iPad, whatever, and every one of those would be able to act as a remote. Basically exactly the same as you can do now with the remote apps, but having the library browser and library maintenance/player separated completely. The advantage being that the browser/remote, being completely independent can be simultaneously visible (and interactable) on the PC with the player and can be styled even better.

 

[JaggedSac]

No this is not exactly what I want. I don't want the media to be played on other devices. There would be one player on my main PC, set up to always play on my secondary monitor (the TV). The clients wouldn't play the media themselves, but rather be a GUI to control the main server player.

So let's say I have an HTPC running XBMC Server/Player. Using the HTPC you wouldn't know, cause it's running in the background, but any machine on the network can act as a client for my library. So I could have a W8 app, an Android remote, an iPad, whatever, and every one of those would be able to act as a remote. Basically exactly the same as you can do now with the remote apps, but having the library browser and library maintenance/player separated completely. The advantage being that the browser/remote, being completely independent can be simultaneously visible (and interactable) on the PC with the player and can be styled even better.

Ah, so you just want to browse content on other devices, but play it only on one device? Sort of a SmartGlass type thing?

 

[Jobiensis]

Add in a healthy smattering of people who hate any kind of change (lets all stick with Dos shall we?) and Apple fans who love to lampoon Windows and you have yourself a good old fashioned NeoGaf Circlejerk Hootnanny.

What about the Windows 8 apologists who can't recognize or acknowledge that the OS falls short on many metrics?

This forum is a small representation of tech snobs, the average person will go "this is weird, oh, that goes there, ooooh that's nice" and then done, they know the UI and are fine with it.

Average person is getting an iPad. Win8 tablets are for tech snobs.

 

[Lynn616]

Anyone using Nextgen Reader have their live tiles broken with this last update?

Edit:

Working again.

 

[yn-neko hates a cat]

What about the Windows 8 apologists who can't recognize or acknowledge that the OS falls short on many metrics?

I'm not sure I've ever seen any supporters of Windows 8 arguing it's a perfect OS. Their opinions range from its good to its really good or great. What people like you hear is "It's perfect!" because you have conflicting opinions or false assumptions (typically borne of ignorance). Making progress in software (particularly an OS) doesn't mean getting every aspect of it correct for each version, and also, sometimes you may have to change the way things are done to introduce new ideas. You fundamentally have to understand this before you can move forward. When you form an opinion and then oppose all ideas that challenge this with little to no attempt to adapt then you are simply being stubborn.

Does this sound apologetic to you or does it sound like a different perspective?

 

[t-ramp]

Average person is getting an iPad. Win8 tablets are for tech snobs.

And people who realize Win8 tablets, especially ones with the full version, are very different than iPads. Sure, your average person might be confused by a $1000 "tablet", but a bit of research will make it more obvious what you're getting for your money.

 

[Anton Sugar]

What about the Windows 8 apologists who can't recognize or acknowledge that the OS falls short on many metrics?

Which metrics and compared to what?

I don't think W8 is perfect, but I don't think it's worse than W7.

 

[Jobiensis]

I'm not sure I've ever seen any supporters of Windows 8 arguing it's a perfect OS.

Really??

1) These people don't want to change.
2) These people are Apple fanboys.
3) These people haven't used the OS more than 10 minutes.

I've seen responses like these reiterated ad nauseum.

There are several people that seem to respond to any criticism of Win8 using veiled indirect personal attacks. The problem isn't the OS, it's you. Oh look there are instances of it on this page. Dream-visions post in the other thread was dead on.

As for the other part of your post, yes that is apologetic. You assert that your opinion is correct, that this direction is the right direction, and anyone that disagrees is being stubborn and unwilling to change.

And people who realize Win8 tablets, especially ones with the full version, are very different than iPads. Sure, your average person might be confused by a $1000 "tablet", but a bit of research will make it more obvious what you're getting for your money.

This is all fine and dandy, and I agree. But, Microsoft needs to get the iPad people to save their shrinking market.

Which metrics and compared to what?

I don't think W8 is perfect, but I don't think it's worse than W7.

It is worse than 7 in some respects

Metro is different than the Start Menu. It doesn't do everything the start menu did, it displays less information, the Windows key is no longer the do anything key. Metro has additional capabilities, but to pretend it is Start menu+ is disingenuous.

The UI is disjointed and confusing. Some items go to Metro, some to desktop. Some of the UI elements are hidden when there is little logical reason for them to be on a desktop computer.

Boot times are meaningless when every time you boot you need to wait 5 minutes for updates.


It isn't the most awful OS in existence, but the things that have been added have some caveats, and some people like to glaze over them and act like it is just like Win7 but better, and that isn't the case.

 

[xJavonta]

Really??

1) These people don't want to change.
2) These people are Apple fanboys.
3) These people haven't used the OS more than 10 minutes.

I've seen responses like these reiterated ad nauseum.

There are several people that seem to respond to any criticism of Win8 using veiled indirect personal attacks. The problem isn't the OS, it's you. Oh look there are instances of it on this page. Dream-visions post in the other thread was dead on.

Some of these are true, more often than not though. I've actually encountered countless numbers of people in real life that after using Windows 8 for 10-15 minutes, declare that it's shit because of how differently it operates at first. That's not valid criticism, and 95% of the time, the shit you call "criticism" is someone saying "I hate this OS, how do I get back to Windows 7?" without any elaboration as to what exactly it is that they don't like about it.

 

[Jobiensis]

Some of these are true, more often than not though. I've actually encountered countless numbers of people in real life that after using Windows 8 for 10-15 minutes, declare that it's shit because of how differently it operates at first. That's not valid criticism, and 95% of the time, the shit you call "criticism" is someone saying "I hate this OS, how do I get back to Windows 7?" without any elaboration as to what exactly it is that they don't like about it.

Yes, and it is also true that some people are complete fanboys and will defend any of the Win8 UI and decisions. That shouldn't excuse a barrage of flippant, condescending remarks to anyone that has a positive thing to say about the OS.

 

[LukasTaves]

Metro is different than the Start Menu. It doesn't do everything the start menu did, it displays less information, the Windows key is no longer the do anything key.

How so?

 

[t-ramp]

How so?

The traditional Start Menu has links to Documents, etc., programs, search, and power functions all in one consolidated area. Even though the new Start UI supports all these functions, I can't defend it in terms of ease-of-use.

 

[xJavonta]

Yes, and it is also true that some people are complete fanboys and will defend any of the Win8 UI and decisions. That shouldn't excuse a barrage of flippant, condescending remarks to anyone that has a positive thing to say about the OS.

Touche, however I don't see that happening in this thread. If someone has a problem with W8 in here, usually they're asked to elaborate and then others help them find a solution to their problem to help ease their transition.

 

[Enco]

The traditional Start Menu has links to Documents, etc., programs, search, and power functions all in one consolidated area. Even though the new Start UI supports all these functions, I can't defend it in terms of ease-of-use.

The metro menu has more flexibility. It has everything you mentioned and you can add whatever you want to it. To search you just start typing. It beats the Start Menu search too. It's a lot more detailed and better organised.

 

[t-ramp]

The metro menu has more flexibility. It has everything you mentioned and you can add whatever you want to it. To search you just start typing. It beats the Start Menu search too. It's a lot more detailed and better organised.

Yes, no doubt. It's vastly more expansive than the old Start Menu, so you can't even compare them in that respect. And visually it's more customizable and in some respects a better presentation. Even saying that, I don't see how leaving in the traditional menu on the Desktop would be anything but an improvement. Switching the whole UI just to search and launch another program doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Jobiensis]

How so?

The filenames are truncated in Metro much shorter than they were with the Start Menu. Start Menu can display more items at once. (edit: Admittedly the more items isn't really the correct description, I can scroll through the items without pagination)

The metro menu has more flexibility. It has everything you mentioned and you can add whatever you want to it. To search you just start typing. It beats the Start Menu search too. It's a lot more detailed and better organised.

It has more customization options, but loses simple functionality.

Win7
Win key - type in a command with command line arguments
Win key - type in a control panel option
Win key - type in a program name
Win key - type in a file name

Touche, however I don't see that happening in this thread. If someone has a problem with W8 in here, usually they're asked to elaborate and then others help them find a solution to their problem to help ease their transition.

On the very page of that post are people writing off anyone that doesn't like Win8.

 

[Pachimari]

I noticed the icons are real big on the desktop, can I make them much smaller by adjusting the screen resolution?

 

[Anton Sugar]

I noticed the icons are real big on the desktop, can I make them much smaller by adjusting the screen resolution?

Can you explain what you mean by big? I don't think they changed it from W7, but I could be wrong. Maybe some of your accessibility options are enabled?

 

[LukasTaves]

The filenames are truncated in Metro much shorter than they were with the Start Menu.

Okay... I never noticed it so i can't say, but really, is a longer name actually something useful? I probably identify a tile/icon by it's picture a thousand times before i read even the first letter of the name xD

Start Menu can display more items at once.

No way. I have a lot more tiles than i had icons at once on the start menu and each of them show more info too...

Plus i can organize them to promote apps i use the most to appear first on the grid, which is also a much better way to organize than a vertical list like on start menu.

 

[StudioTan]

Some of the UI elements are hidden when there is little logical reason for them to be on a desktop computer.

See, therein lies the crux of most of the "you don't like change" arguments. Previous versions of Windows are filled with hidden UI elements. There is nothing in Windows 7 that tells you that you can right-click in various parts of the UI to perform a myriad of functions within the OS. Nothing. Yet in Windows 8 there are a few UI elements that are no hidden in the corners and suddenly it's "Windows 8 is illogical and goes against good UI design, I'm going back to Windows 7!".

The truth is that users like us know all about right-click menus, it's second nature. Users like my father don't know when to right-click, when to left-click and when to double-click. You double click to open a program on the desktop, but move your mouse a little lower to the taskbar and those open with a single click. Does that make sense?

Microsoft's metrics show this as well. Many many people are baffled by right-click menus. They are the reason that the ribbon was introduced.

Windows 8 seems to have a lot of double standard criticism. People will go on and on about how a specific function requires an extra click or 3/10ths of a second wait time because of an animation but ignore the dozens of other aspects of the new UI that make things faster. Windows 8 doesn't do EVERYTHING better than Windows 7, but it does a LOT of things better.

 

[Enco]

It has more customization options, but loses simple functionality.

Win7
Win key - type in a command with command line arguments
Win key - type in a control panel option
Win key - type in a program name
Win key - type in a file name

You can do that in 8?

Press win key and just start typing.

One thing I don't like is the awful file browser in metro apps. Attaching an email document is ridiculous and SkyDrive looks stupid.

 

[Jobiensis]

Okay... I never noticed it so i can't say, but really, is a longer name actually something useful? I probably identify a tile/icon by it's picture a thousand times before i read even the first letter of the name xD

Yes, knowing whether the folder is Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2008 is fairly useful.

See, therein lies the crux of most of the "you don't like change" arguments. Previous versions of Windows are filled with hidden UI elements. There is nothing in Windows 7 that tells you that you can right-click in various parts of the UI to perform a myriad of functions within the OS. Nothing. Yet in Windows 8 there are a few UI elements that are no hidden in the corners and suddenly it's "Windows 8 is illogical and goes against good UI design, I'm going back to Windows 7!".

The truth is that users like us know all about right-click menus, it's second nature. Users like my father don't know when to right-click, when to left-click and when to double-click. You double click to open a program on the desktop, but move your mouse a little lower to the taskbar and those open with a single click. Does that make sense?

Microsoft's metrics show this as well. Many many people are baffled by right-click menus. They are the reason that the ribbon was introduced.

Windows 8 seems to have a lot of double standard criticism. People will go on and on about how a specific function requires an extra click or 3/10ths of a second wait time because of an animation but ignore the dozens of other aspects of the new UI that make things faster. Windows 8 doesn't do EVERYTHING better than Windows 7, but it does a LOT of things better.

Sure there are inconsistencies in all UIs, but those UIs are at least convention. I don't quite see how right clicking even slightly relates to certain control panel or tile applications launching in completely disparate environments. Pretty much my point, instead of admitting the UI is confusing, it's because I'm resistant to change.

You can do that in 8?

No you can't, you have separate shortcuts for each search and you cannot specify command line options from Metro search.

 

[Pachimari]

Can you explain what you mean by big? I don't think they changed it from W7, but I could be wrong. Maybe some of your accessibility options are enabled?

The folders and icons on the desktop look very big in videos. I would like to see a screenshot of smaller icons on the Wndows 8 desktop.

 

[StudioTan]

Sure there are inconsistencies in all UIs, but those UIs are at least convention. I don't quite see how right clicking even slightly relates to certain control panel or tile applications launching in completely disparate environments. Pretty much my point, instead of admitting the UI is confusing, it's because I'm resistant to change.

You just said it yourself, those inconsistencies are convention so they're A-OK! Meanwhile you find it confusing that Metro apps launch in Metro and desktop apps launch in the desktop? I don't find it the least bit confusing. There are 2 types of programs and they run in different environments. And? The reasoning behind WHY they run in two different environments is quite clear to me and it makes sense.

The UI isn't confusing. I've never felt confused using Windows 8. There have been a couple of times I didn't know how to do something, so I looked it up. Now I know. Problem solved.

I'm looking through the Metro control panel and I'm not seeing anything in there that I can't do in the regular control panel except for stuff that relates specifically to Metro. So I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

 

[Iadien]

Setting up a homegroup is not going so well for me. I'm trying to connect a windows 7 and windows 8 machine through homegroup, but they appear to hate each other.

 

[MCD]

My favorite Chinese wallpapers app (Love Wallpaper HD or something) just got pulled from the store.

 

[Windu]

Setting up a homegroup is not going so well for me. I'm trying to connect a windows 7 and windows 8 machine through homegroup, but they appear to hate each other.

strange, should be pretty easy. what issue are you having?

 

[Iadien]

strange, should be pretty easy. what issue are you having?

several issues. I have tried setting up homegroup on both computers.

- Password comes up as incorrect when attempting to join a homegroup
- If I do manage to connect to a homegroup, I still cannot see the other computer for long, or at all
- I have to restart the computer with win 8 if the computer with win 7 created a homegroup to be able to see that a homegroup exists

 

[Windu]

several issues. I have tried setting up homegroup on both computers.

- Password comes up as incorrect when attempting to join a homegroup
- If I do manage to connect to a homegroup, I still cannot see the other computer for long, or at all
- I have to restart the computer with win 8 if the computer with win 7 created a homegroup to be able to see that a homegroup exists

try to see if this will diagnose the problem http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Why-cant-I-create-a-homegroup

edit: oh lame, the thing isn't there anymore.

edit2: try the built in troubleshooter http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/homegroup-problems-in-windows

edit3: also homegroup guide http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/homegroup-from-start-to-finish

 

[Iadien]

try to see if this will diagnose the problem http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Why-cant-I-create-a-homegroup

I tried that a bit ago, it came up with an error though. Says the troubleshooter is invalid and sends you to www.microsoft.com/fixit

 

[Windu]

dropbox metro app will be released soon. http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/12/05/dropbox-to-launch-new-modern-ui-app-for-windows-8/?fromcat=all