The Windows 8.1 Preview - what Windows 8 should have been out of the box

[Joelist]

I have installed the Windows 8.1 Preview (the RTM comes in about a month and is a free download). All told it takes about 45 minutes to download and install, and in most scenarios it preserves your settings and applications.

So, why the comment in the title?

Basically, because 8.1 not only fixes some annoying bugs it adds a LOT of needed functionality and also configurability. Just some of the changes:

a) If you don't like the "Modern" Start UI then you can now with a simple procedure set the OS to boot straight to the desktop. It's just a right clock operation on the taskbar of the desktop and the dialog you get gives you a bunch of customizing settings.

b) If you do like the Modern UI, the Start experience has been cleaned up a good deal. The app store is far better organized now and the "apps" screen is easier to access.

c) Split Screen now works properly and is actually useful. It supports three applications at a time (you can have as many running at once as you wish - the three is the number you can see at one time). Split Screen auto triggers (unless you turn it off) when you click a link in an email or other similar scenarios - I really like this because I can see the source and destination of the click at the same time.

d) IE 11 is rather faster than IE10, which was already very fast. Even better, the Metro UI for it is no longer a red headed stepchild to the desktop UI - they both expose the same functionality just Metro's way is touch friendly.

I am sure I will discover more over time.

Windows 8.1 is not a "required" update that gets delivered by Service Release. When it is ready it will be advertised in the Windows Store - just select it and follow the directions. I highly recommend that anyone on Windows 8 install it. As to the Windows 7 users, in my opinion 8.1 addresses almost all of the objections Win 7 users had to moving up to Win 8.

 

[Overmind One]

I have installed the Windows 8.1 Preview (the RTM comes in about a month and is a free download). All told it takes about 45 minutes to download and install, and in most scenarios it preserves your settings and applications.

So, why the comment in the title?

Basically, because 8.1 not only fixes some annoying bugs it adds a LOT of needed functionality and also configurability. Just some of the changes:

a) If you don't like the "Modern" Start UI then you can now with a simple procedure set the OS to boot straight to the desktop. It's just a right clock operation on the taskbar of the desktop and the dialog you get gives you a bunch of customizing settings.

b) If you do like the Modern UI, the Start experience has been cleaned up a good deal. The app store is far better organized now and the "apps" screen is easier to access.

c) Split Screen now works properly and is actually useful. It supports three applications at a time (you can have as many running at once as you wish - the three is the number you can see at one time). Split Screen auto triggers (unless you turn it off) when you click a link in an email or other similar scenarios - I really like this because I can see the source and destination of the click at the same time.

d) IE 11 is rather faster than IE10, which was already very fast. Even better, the Metro UI for it is no longer a red headed stepchild to the desktop UI - they both expose the same functionality just Metro's way is touch friendly.

I am sure I will discover more over time.

Windows 8.1 is not a "required" update that gets delivered by Service Release. When it is ready it will be advertised in the Windows Store - just select it and follow the directions. I highly recommend that anyone on Windows 8 install it. As to the Windows 7 users, in my opinion 8.1 addresses almost all of the objections Win 7 users had to moving up to Win 8.

Ill be honest...I am starting to like Windows 8 a lot. Not because it is better with a keyboard and a mouse, because it still SUCKS using it that way. But with more touch based use on my part is allowing me to navigate and do things much smoother than with the mouse and keyboard, and since I was unfamiliar with the input method it seemed like a barrier. Now, I am using it so much with touch that I sometimes accidentally do the touch gestures on my work computer screen and it is not touch.

What made this appeal to me? This touch based thing? It was a paid app I got in the Windows Store called LCARS UI. It is an actual Star Trek LCARS UI with integrated media player, weather, alarms, complete log system (for video logs, text logs and audio logs) which are tagged with date and time like your own personal kino episodes. It has a file browser too, which opens the external program to open the file and a simple left to right sweep with your finger from the left will put you right back into LCARS. You can personalize stuff in the display like the name of the display, and size of type and interface. Also, the video below does not show you that the media player actually plays within the interface like the ones in the show do. You can watch any movie inside that interface.


It is more fun than truly useful, but it certainly gives you a great touch experience. I am using my touch based gestures in Windows 8 more because of that program. All of my home computers have Windows 8 on them now, but I have Stardock's Start8 installed. I also found the Windows 8.1 Preview here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-download I may go ahead and give it a try.

 

[Joelist]

Start8 does a lot of what the 8.1 customization menu does. It also gives you a Win 7 style Control Panel while 8.1 does stick to the Start Menu. The other additions in 8.1 of course are specific to 8.1.

I tend to agree overall on windows 8 - as a TOUCH OS it kicks butt and takes names especially in a tablet form factor. As a desktop OS it was kind of like Frankenstein's monster. Where 8.1 helps this is it makes the keyboard/mouse experience a lot more pleasant.

Were I Microsoft I would offer the user the choice of two experiences during initial bootup - call one desktop and the other touch. Make desktop basically the same as Windows 8 with Start8 in place. Make touch the Modern UI all the way - no desktop. Use the new split screen together with windowing a la a VM for applications when they open. Do a little video to help people choose and also offer a SIMPLE way in the UI to switch back and forth as desired.

On a different note, with the Intel Atom mobile SOC (System on a chip) delivering much better performance than expected plus the upcoming Haswell CPUs I do think that the RT variant will be much less useful to people, as the new Atom's actually outperform most of the ARM CPUs in raw cycles (it's the GPU area where Intel still stumbles) and power efficiency. Atom as x86 allows you to run regular Windows on your tablet.

 

[Illiterati]

I've got 8.1 on my Surface RT. Got it the day it became available. Still just using 8 on the Pro.

I like the improvements on 8.1 a lot, I must say.

 

[Joelist]

Word of note on running 8.1 - keep checking Windows Update regularly.

Microsoft is being VERY aggressive about bug fixes and feature adds on this and in fact have released updates to 8.1 three times already since the preview went live. I like this approach as it is more proactive about getting 8.1 into full fighting trim.

 

[Overmind One]

Word of note on running 8.1 - keep checking Windows Update regularly.

Microsoft is being VERY aggressive about bug fixes and feature adds on this and in fact have released updates to 8.1 three times already since the preview went live. I like this approach as it is more proactive about getting 8.1 into full fighting trim.

Funny, I am more concerned with these "updates" as an invasion of my privacy. It is known that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 DO "phone home" to report the state of the OS and they do it at regular intervals. This was to be part of the Xbox platform OS but was scrapped recently. But it remains in Windows 8 and 8.1 makes it even more intrusive:

http://www.businessinsider.com/8-secret-features-in-windows-81-2013-7?op=1

Google is tracking for advertisers, but I like the way they do it and I am clear on why and how they are doing it. I can even opt out. But in Windows and most recent Microsoft products including Windows Phone, Windows RT and Windows 8, you have this tracking and a new demand of you to have a somewhat "persistent" connection. I will run a sniffer on it...but what if it can no longer sniff? (encryption). Be afraid.

 

[Joelist]

They aren't slipstreamed onto your PC - if you don't run update you won't even know they are out there. The more aggressive update schedule is a good thing not a bad thing as users don't have to just live with bugs for extended periods of time. As to them "phoning home", Windows 8 does not require any type of network connection to function at all.

Test it out though. Set up an 8.1 box and run a sniffer on the connection over a day or 2. If you think Windows will block the sniffer run its internet connection through, say, a Linux box and put the sniffer there.

 

[Bluce Ree]

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421733,00.asp?fullsite=true



Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Joelist]

Well since Apple is one of the parties suspected of collaborating, and Microsoft is in court right now to get records unsealed so they can publically show exactly what has been going on (and Google is also in court trying to get data released) I would not put stock in the rantings of an ABM nut who has told whoppers before in his columns and who is a laughingstock in the tech community for his constant worship of Apple.

 

[Overmind One]

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421733,00.asp?fullsite=true

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Precisely. This is what is being discussed in my IT circles. The "updates" are disguised as "enhancements" which are actually further compromising your personal privacy as well as the security of your computer. The requirement for a "persistent" connection is very disturbing. And Joe is wrong about Windows 8.1 not needing a connection. If the connection is idle for a given length of time, Windows 8.1 will still collect the information it wants to send back, and will transmit it during the "updates" process. When will end users realize that it is not their computers which are being updated, but really Microsoft's usage/information databases? Microsoft is not to be trusted. Windows 8.1 is not an end-user enhancement as much as it is a back-end intrusion.

Im starting to wonder if Joelist is working for Microsoft! How can anybody defend Windows 8 or Microsoft in light of their past and present direction? The entire Military is run on Microsoft software at the moment, as is the CIA and NSA and the entire Pentagon. Even the International Space Station was running Windows computers until recently when they switched to Linux:


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...rom-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability

I am going to virtualize my Windows 8 machines and run them within a Linux host so I can run my sniffers on the network packets. Guess what...most packet sniffer programs are now incompatible with Windows 8...wonder why?

 

[Overmind One]

Well since Apple is one of the parties suspected of collaborating, and Microsoft is in court right now to get records unsealed so they can publically show exactly what has been going on (and Google is also in court trying to get data released) I would not put stock in the rantings of an ABM nut who has told whoppers before in his columns and who is a laughingstock in the tech community for his constant worship of Apple.

Im going by what I have seen for myself here. I am a Microsoft trained professional, and the majority of my experience and skillset is based in Microsoft products. Because of this, I know that Microsoft is more like Big Brother than Best Buddy. Server 2012 not only phones home, but the new pricing structure now charges separate CALs for VMs running within a Windows Server host. It reports the state of the machine, what operating system is running on it, all of its vital stats (version, disk drive space, last accessed dates, server load). The rest of what it is reporting I dont know because I CANT SEE IT (encryption). Please dont try to tell me that Microsoft is a Good Guy because it is not. They have become more and more draconian as time goes on, because the government still thinks Microsoft has the market locked down. They can claim 80% saturation with Windows of some version or another. They are correct. But people and entire enterprises are leaving Microsoft because of Windows 8 and Windows Phone and Windows Server 2012.

The biggest brother, however, is Google. They have the most cloud connected users, the largest video upload database, the most integrated cloud platform and the widest reach. HOWEVER, the culture of Google does not lend itself to government coercion and intrusion. They ARE the Good Guy. They would rather expose the demands for intrusions than give in to them. Google does not need the money, Microsoft does. They have their lucrative government contracts to protect and Google does not need those contracts.

 

[Overmind One]

Microsoft's cyber-whore mouthpieces like ZDnet are trying to discourage people from using private clouds, saying they are "hard to justify" in terms of cost. Really?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/service-o...vendors-not-enterprises-microsoft-report/6149

And, they add, in light of the advantages of using public cloud services, private clouds will also be difficult to justify. Public cloud offers advantages over private clouds in terms of 80% lower total cost of ownership for data center assets, a 40-fold cost reduction for SMBs, and a 10-fold cost reduction for larger enterprises, Harms and Yamartino point out. A private cloud data center of approximately 1,000 servers will cost 10 times more than the same capability delivered via public cloud. "As more and more work is done on public clouds, the economies of scale... will kick in, and the cost premium on private clouds will increase over time.... Supply-side economies of scale which allow large clouds to purchase and operate infrastructure cheaper; demand-side economies of scale which allow large clouds to run that infrastructure more efficiently by pooling users; and multi-tenancy which allows users to share an application, splitting the cost of managing that application." Issues such as security and performance are also effectively being addressed, they add.

The main reason people should use personal clouds is because of SECURITY. Convenience is secondary. Think of it this way...would you rather live in your home for free, as long as you allow a Federal Agent to have his own private bedroom and phone to live there with you 24/7? Nah, I choose to have my home private and pay the premium. Microsoft is banking on the "fast food" mentality to offer people "free" cloud services, as long as you realize that your data is open to scrutiny by the NSA.

 

[Joelist]

I don't work for Microsoft. I just dislike ABM style lynchings and quoting low grade sources like Dvorak. Remember I am only using an Apple tablet temporarily right now because my Nexus 7 got lost.

As to the ISS, the went from XP (why on earth were they on XP) to Linux specifically because they wanted to make core customizations to support their experiments. More power to them.

And in the tech giant world there really are no good guys per se. You have a group of large companies who all have to kowtow to the government to survive. They also all get extorted by bodies like the EU - they extorted Microsoft and now are starting in on Google. The villain in the NSA situation is the NSA and Federal Government for not respecting privacy.

However, this is all a digression anyway from the original intent of the thread, which was to note that Microsoft on Windows 8.1 is going to a more frequent update schedule (a la Apple) rather than waiting 6 months and releasing a large update. I suspect the idea is with a lot of people using the preview this lets them loop changes back out quicker and then get feedback on those changes.

On sniffers, I found a good number that work with Windows 8. However, I think if you want to be totally sure then the best bet may be to either is a VM like you are suggesting or run the internet connection from the Win 8 box through another box where the sniffer is.

 

[Joelist]

Public versus Private Cloud has nothing to do with Microsoft per se. In fact the biggest cloud success story there out there is Salesforce.com, which has no Microsoft dependencies at all.

Really the Private cloud argument is bunk in a lot of ways. I had to research this when we were reviewing the RFPs from Salesforce and Oracle. Oracle offered private cloud and made a lot of the same "security" arguments seen in that blog post (and by the way ZDNet is far from a pro MS Source, historically they among the worst ABM FUD spreaders out there and have more than once had to do retractions when they published FUD and got caught). The arguments turned out not to hold any water and in fact a lot of the assertions made by Oracle were fiction (now if you want to talk about a REAL bad actor in tech Oracle is the one).

Salesforce and Google both run public cloud multi-tenant and are just fine security wise.

 

[Overmind One]

I don't work for Microsoft. I just dislike ABM style lynchings and quoting low grade sources like Dvorak. Remember I am only using an Apple tablet temporarily right now because my Nexus 7 got lost.

As to the ISS, the went from XP (why on earth were they on XP) to Linux specifically because they wanted to make core customizations to support their experiments. More power to them.

And in the tech giant world there really are no good guys per se. You have a group of large companies who all have to kowtow to the government to survive. They also all get extorted by bodies like the EU - they extorted Microsoft and now are starting in on Google. The villain in the NSA situation is the NSA and Federal Government for not respecting privacy.

However, this is all a digression anyway from the original intent of the thread, which was to note that Microsoft on Windows 8.1 is going to a more frequent update schedule (a la Apple) rather than waiting 6 months and releasing a large update. I suspect the idea is with a lot of people using the preview this lets them loop changes back out quicker and then get feedback on those changes.

On sniffers, I found a good number that work with Windows 8. However, I think if you want to be totally sure then the best bet may be to either is a VM like you are suggesting or run the internet connection from the Win 8 box through another box where the sniffer is.

That is my point...the update schedule is ALREADY more frequent. Its every Thursday at 2:00am. How do I know this? Because my domain controller restarts after these updates and they are recorded in the Event Logs as "security updates". There are sometimes more than 200 of them. What you are not seeing, is what those updates really are. WHAT is being updated? Your operating system does not need a frequent update schedule. Windows XP runs fine and reliably WITHOUT ANY UPDATES, until you install Service Pack 3, and then it is updated each week. WHAT is being updated? The answer to that question leads to a place you dont want to know about.

 

[Overmind One]

Public versus Private Cloud has nothing to do with Microsoft per se. In fact the biggest cloud success story there out there is Salesforce.com, which has no Microsoft dependencies at all.

Really the Private cloud argument is bunk in a lot of ways. I had to research this when we were reviewing the RFPs from Salesforce and Oracle. Oracle offered private cloud and made a lot of the same "security" arguments seen in that blog post (and by the way ZDNet is far from a pro MS Source, historically they among the worst ABM FUD spreaders out there and have more than once had to do retractions when they published FUD and got caught). The arguments turned out not to hold any water and in fact a lot of the assertions made by Oracle were fiction (now if you want to talk about a REAL bad actor in tech Oracle is the one).

Salesforce and Google both run public cloud multi-tenant and are just fine security wise.

How can Oracle truly offer "private cloud"? No company can offer you a real private cloud. If you cant lay your hand on the machine managing your private cloud physically, then it is not private. If you are paying a fee to somebody for a "private cloud" you are not getting what you are paying for. When I refer to "private cloud". I mean that the cloud server will be in my home and I can actually push the OFF button with my own finger. Just like I was hosting my own websites and like I run my own mail server right now.

 

[Joelist]

I just checked mine. I am not getting auto-updates weekly or in fact at all. I can like up every event log entry to when I pushed updates.

However, this could be a fun experiment to run. I downloaded and installed a sniffer and will let it run for, say, a week. I will not push updates during that time to keep the report clean and then I can look and see if there is any communication occurring when I am not doing things online but the machine is still on.

 

[Joelist]

How can Oracle truly offer "private cloud"? No company can offer you a real private cloud. If you cant lay your hand on the machine managing your private cloud physically, then it is not private. If you are paying a fee to somebody for a "private cloud" you are not getting what you are paying for. When I refer to "private cloud". I mean that the cloud server will be in my home and I can actually push the OFF button with my own finger. Just like I was hosting my own websites and like I run my own mail server right now.

This is how Private Cloud is commonly defined:

http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/private-cloud

What you are doing is more akin to personal server I would think.

Oracle proposal had us in their "cloud" on our own dedicated boxes. Salesforce does not offer private cloud for performance and pricing reasons. They use multi-tenanted cloud with each customer logically partitioned to themselves. So we run in the public cloud on our own full logical partition which means no other tenant even knows we exist and cannot access us in any way.

Really, the Salesforce stuff has proven faster and far more flexible than Oracle. And we actually save money because we can run our SaaS without the need for an ISV. For Oracle even their SaaS pretty much required consultant help.

 

[Overmind One]

This is how Private Cloud is commonly defined:

http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/private-cloud

What you are doing is more akin to personal server I would think.

Actually, its Personal Cloud. There is absolutely no difference between the Dropbox/SkyDrive/GoogleDrive services and Personal Cloud software. I can do the exact same things with the software. The biggest difference is that it serves only me, is running on my machines and is 100% under my full control. Personal servers run this software which provides the cloud services through a webserver on the machine.

Oracle proposal had us in their "cloud" on our own dedicated boxes. Salesforce does not offer private cloud for performance and pricing reasons. They use multi-tenanted cloud with each customer logically partitioned to themselves. So we run in the public cloud on our own full logical partition which means no other tenant even knows we exist and cannot access us in any way.

Its not the tenants in that server that you need to worry about. Its the hackers who understand the cloud computing infrastructure and thus know how to hack it. Essentially, every cloud service is merely a website. The "multi-tenant cloud" is a fancy way of saying "shared webhost".

Really, the Salesforce stuff has proven faster and far more flexible than Oracle. And we actually save money because we can run our SaaS without the need for an ISV. For Oracle even their SaaS pretty much required consultant help.

We use it at our company too (Salesforce). We also use Trello and Zendesk and Corporate Dropbox as well as the full suite of Google Apps for Business. But for my own personal shit, I will be moving to a Personal Cloud.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Actually, its Personal Cloud. There is absolutely no difference between the Dropbox/SkyDrive/GoogleDrive services and Personal Cloud software. I can do the exact same things with the software. The biggest difference is that it serves only me, is running on my machines and is 100% under my full control. Personal servers run this software which provides the cloud services through a webserver on the machine.



Its not the tenants in that server that you need to worry about. Its the hackers who understand the cloud computing infrastructure and thus know how to hack it. Essentially, every cloud service is merely a website. The "multi-tenant cloud" is a fancy way of saying "shared webhost".



We use it at our company too (Salesforce). We also use Trello and Zendesk and Corporate Dropbox as well as the full suite of Google Apps for Business. But for my own personal shit, I will be moving to a Personal Cloud.

No wonder they pay you the big bucks there, bro. You really know your shit inside and out.