|
Post by Admin_Vistamike on Mar 3, 2015 19:52:13 GMT
Love it Wolfgang, slap my wrist!!
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 3, 2015 20:14:41 GMT
<abbr class="time" title="Mar 3, 2015 13:24:09 GMT -5" data-timestamp="1425407049000">Mar 3, 2015 13:24:09 GMT -5</abbr> whs said: Irv, The good part about 8.1 is the full Apps page. In W10 they ruined it again and integrated it in this ill designed start menu. On the full page it is a lot easier to find a program than in All Programs. I only wish they had put them all into one single alphabetical order. Why do I have to know that Wordpad comes under Accessories. It should come under "W". I toggle the W8.1 start screen in W10 because I think that this is the best. And I think all those 'helpers' into the past like Classic Shell are for the birds. W8.1 offers enough old and new UI that this is really not necessary. And if you use this stuff, you will never become an 8.1 expert. Bill, to me that IS not a good part. Organization SUCKS. For instance, I like seeing Microsoft Office and then the cascade of the apps, same for any other producer, like CyberLink, and others. EVERYTHING related to that application is on the cascade, even UNINSTALLs if they have one. On top of that ONE mouse click for the START, a mouse hover for ALL PROGRAMS, and another to see the selection choices. For Win8.1's default, either a click or Windows key to get to the Metro Start screen, another to show applications and then HUNT for what you want. Don't forget, in Win8.1 you CAN bypass the Metro/Live Tile Start screen and go directly to the DESKTOP... and most people do NOT like having to start to the LIVE TILE screen and then select Desktop. That is why MS added this setting to the taskbar properties under Navigation. Do you think they did this for ANY OTHER reason? BS, I and anyone else can become a Win8.1 expert (whatever that means). It is just an OS, not an application! Not the same as being a Word formatting expert os a whiz on how to do things with Excel! Once you can get W8.1 to do what you want, that is all that counts. TOOLS exist so you can CUSTOMIZE Windows to look and feel how you want it to be! You don't want to use them, fine, but don't tell others how they should use it. Teaching them to use NEW features is one thing, teaching them how to do what they did before (and worked) is another thing. BTW, who really uses WORDPAD? Great for simple note taking but most will use WORD if they have it anyway. That is LEFT OVER from DOS and is ancient. Matter of fact, I use WORDPAD but I've set .TXT to open it, don't need to hunt for it. I'm sure many others use it this way too.
|
|
|
Post by Admin_Vistamike on Mar 3, 2015 20:22:49 GMT
GETTING THERE!! Still can't be dealing with it though.
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 3, 2015 20:25:17 GMT
Well, first thing a NEW user of W8.x should CREATE the Restore DVD! A must, especially if the vendor DID NOT ship media with the system. As for Restore Points, I personally find them ALMOST useless and a waste of space. Same goes for W8's File History and Refresh Your System. In each case they are limited and DO NOT do a full back-up or in the case of Refresh, you'll lose some applications. 1/2 baked for sure. I tell everyone to get another hard drive or shrink the one they have and create a NEW partition. Then get a BACK UP program and routinely back-up the drive partitions. Not only will you SAVE all files, you can have more than one version. On a laptop, use a USB External drive. Over-all the best solution possible.
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 3, 2015 20:28:37 GMT
GETTING THERE!! Still can't be dealing with it though.
Mike, just set it to go DIRECTLY to the DESKTOP and forget about the Live Tile Start screen. Unless you have a tablet or touch-screen it is really of little value.
|
|
|
Post by Admin_Vistamike on Mar 3, 2015 20:35:12 GMT
Irv, you are right, my point referred to a new system being created from the box, a restore point here is quite useful...When the new machine is up and running then imaging is of paramount importance.
Also in the UK some machines do not have that facility, create restore DVD. Our lenovos did not, so I just made an image of each machine
In the UK, no machines are supplied with dvd media.
EDIT: thanks Irv, our machines boot directly to the desktop
|
|
|
Post by warlock on Mar 3, 2015 21:01:36 GMT
Good tip Irv, keep sending in suggestions. Many might have seen or used them, not me though. First experience with W8. will look at all suggestions.
|
|
|
Post by whs on Mar 3, 2015 21:44:00 GMT
Irv, You should be able to create a recovery drive (flash drive preferred because of size). If you type "Recovery" into the start page, you should see this:
PS> I quoted the wrong post, sorry.
|
|
|
Post by whs on Mar 3, 2015 21:51:11 GMT
Good tip Irv, keep sending in suggestions. Many might have seen or used them, not me though. First experience with W8. will look at all suggestions. Here is a ton of excellent tutorials (even some of mine non-excellent ones, LOL) www.eightforums.com/tutorials/
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 3, 2015 22:34:12 GMT
Irv, You should be able to create a recovery drive (flash drive preferred because of size). If you type "Recovery" into the start page, you should see this:
PS> I quoted the wrong post, sorry. Well, the word 'recovery' isn't always what you think it is in MS's version of 'recovery'. Check these links please: windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pcwww.pcworld.com/article/2364269/how-to-reinstall-windows-like-a-pro.htmlwww.pcworld.com/article/2041569/how-to-create-a-bootable-windows-8-recovery-tool.htmlIn all cases, the user better UNDERSTAND the difference between RESET, REFRESH, RECOVERY POINT, and SYSTEM REPAIR DISK. None of these 'trump' an imaging of a drive or drives. Oh, one can forget about the Start Screen entirely unless it is a tablet or you like it. All searches can be done from the desktop. Either from the start icon or placing the mouse in the upper right of the screen and selecting the SEARCH charm. Unless one has an applet on the Start Screen there is NO NEED to use that screen for the 'old' desktop user. That said, I do use it, for some sports, news, and weather apps when I'm too lazy to open a browser and go to the SAME sites that provide the same info via a Metro tile. Now on a tablet, those 'live' tiles can be an asset. On a desktop, not so much, and on lower powered machine they suck of CPU cycles. As I've said before, MS didn't change how W10 (W8.1 for that matter) works on machines with mice for no reason at all.
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 3, 2015 23:01:12 GMT
Good tip Irv, keep sending in suggestions. Many might have seen or used them, not me though. First experience with W8. will look at all suggestions. Our computers have been on W8 since it was out, one bought that way, the other (mine) upgraded to W8 and now both on W8.1. I had NO problems of course but I've worked on Multi-tasking OS's for a long time. Wife had not of course and going from XP to W8 was a 'chore' and got me to 'teach' how all over again. She still can't find some things, but basically once I made it work like XP she got over it. Replacing W8's Start button with a program that would allow boot to the desktop and the old XP menu's helped greatly here. W8.1 helped even more. Just Sunday I got ANOTHER taste of this. A neighbor finally got fed up with Vista. The computer was over 5 years old and 'slow' by today's standards. She procrastinated on getting a new one for months. Was totally afraid of W8 from what she heard but was having h/w problems and Vista just didn't cut it. The thing that pushed her over the top! She calls me and says something happened to her fonts. She can hardly read doc files (she used MS Works, so that should tell you the level of need). I was too lazy to go over and look (3 blocks away) so I connect via TeamViewer (I love the application). Sure enough I see it... letter are not complete, broken, etc. I start playing with font sizes and different fonts. So I get it 'reasonable' but I wasn't happy. Search later and lo and behold, an MS update messed up fonts ( windowsitpro.com/patch-tuesday/patch-tuesday-font-corruption-kb3013455). Backed that out, but that set her off, she needed a new computer. Dell just happened to have a great sale on an XPS 3.6Ghz Intel i7 system like I have. She ordered it. Now the fun started. I went over, connected it, and booted it. One look on her face made it clear to me this wasn't going to work and I needed to do a lot of 'customization'. First problem, the boot screen asking for p/w. OK, fixed that, NETPLWIZ. Next was the Start Screen and the need to always click on Desktop... taskbar setting fixed that. Now I needed to install TeamViewer, Firefox, Thunderbird, and brought over the old folders for FF and TB and made sure nothing was lost. Then I installed the web cam and real Skype and tested that. Last thing since the Dell came with a trial version of Office 365, I installed Open Office. She's been playing with it now and doesn't even think it is any different from Vista except that it is MUCH faster. That said, I do NOT know how any person with little PC knowledge could have set that system up? First when Windows Update first ran it said 85 files needed to be installed. It took forever to d/l and appeared to 'stop' occasionally (I assume large d/l for that specific file) as the only update you'd see is the increment of the d/l file after it happened. Now the 'scary' part. We both have NVIDIA video cards. My driver was updated last week. I started Windows Update and allowed that to be installed. I left the room and when I came back in my monitor was BLACK... some flashing and I could see the disk light flickering. After 20 minutes I gave up and power off and back on. Windows did its update 'dance' rebooting a few times. Check of Windows Update said everything installed and program Add/Delete showed the video driver was updated as well. Well on her machine we're watch on the screen goes black and then starts flashing. Waiting a good amount of time HOPING the screen would return but it didn't. Thought about calling Dell but decided since not much was done we could restore the system if need be, I powered down. When it started again it did all the updates. Phew... Why the black screens, don't know. Anyway, you don't need to know how to be an expert on an OS. An OS should run programs. Yes, possibly to 'fix' or 'change' things you need to know what to do and HOW to do it, but casual users don't need to know that stuff. That is probably 90% of the end-users (consider users in a corporation or workplace, not home hobbyist, IT professionals, or people who fix computers or remove problems for a living).
|
|
|
Post by warlock on Mar 3, 2015 23:18:41 GMT
:DGreat story Irv, you had me laughing out loud for real. Story well told, it was as if I was there.
|
|
|
Post by whs on Mar 4, 2015 0:13:02 GMT
Irv, You should be able to create a recovery drive (flash drive preferred because of size). If you type "Recovery" into the start page, you should see this:
PS> I quoted the wrong post, sorry. Well, the word 'recovery' isn't always what you think it is in MS's version of 'recovery'. Check these links please: windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pcwww.pcworld.com/article/2364269/how-to-reinstall-windows-like-a-pro.htmlwww.pcworld.com/article/2041569/how-to-create-a-bootable-windows-8-recovery-tool.htmlIn all cases, the user better UNDERSTAND the difference between RESET, REFRESH, RECOVERY POINT, and SYSTEM REPAIR DISK. None of these 'trump' an imaging of a drive or drives. Oh, one can forget about the Start Screen entirely unless it is a tablet or you like it. All searches can be done from the desktop. Either from the start icon or placing the mouse in the upper right of the screen and selecting the SEARCH charm. Unless one has an applet on the Start Screen there is NO NEED to use that screen for the 'old' desktop user. That said, I do use it, for some sports, news, and weather apps when I'm too lazy to open a browser and go to the SAME sites that provide the same info via a Metro tile. Now on a tablet, those 'live' tiles can be an asset. On a desktop, not so much, and on lower powered machine they suck of CPU cycles. As I've said before, MS didn't change how W10 (W8.1 for that matter) works on machines with mice for no reason at all. Originally you said that you could not create a recovery drive - some UK special. That's why I posted that. Does that not work for you ??
|
|
|
Post by irvsp on Mar 4, 2015 0:27:13 GMT
Originally you said that you could not create a recovery drive - some UK special. That's why I posted that. Does that not work for you ?? No, I could but unless you took some extra steps you'd NOT be able to recover WHAT you had. You need to use RECIMG ( www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/create-a-custom-recovery-image-for-windows-8s-refresh-your-pc-tool/) to create what you want to refresh with. However even this is unworkable. It is NOT as good as making a back-up with an image program. Friend's Dell did NOT come with media, and neither did our 2. However we could make a bootable W8 DVD for restore purposes. Dell will also SELL you the media for $15 USD if you want it. W8 is NOT like older versions of Windows where you could do an 'in-place' install, that is just replace the Windows files during install and needed registry entries. W8 is a total replacement from RESTORE and REFRESH leave ONLY some files on the disk.
|
|
|
Post by whs on Mar 4, 2015 4:52:55 GMT
Originally you said that you could not create a recovery drive - some UK special. That's why I posted that. Does that not work for you ?? No, I could but unless you took some extra steps you'd NOT be able to recover WHAT you had. You need to use RECIMG ( www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/create-a-custom-recovery-image-for-windows-8s-refresh-your-pc-tool/) to create what you want to refresh with. However even this is unworkable. It is NOT as good as making a back-up with an image program. Friend's Dell did NOT come with media, and neither did our 2. However we could make a bootable W8 DVD for restore purposes. Dell will also SELL you the media for $15 USD if you want it. W8 is NOT like older versions of Windows where you could do an 'in-place' install, that is just replace the Windows files during install and needed registry entries. W8 is a total replacement from RESTORE and REFRESH leave ONLY some files on the disk. RECIMG is a lot of effort for little gain. Setting up your own images there and activating them is more work than just making an image with Macrium. Plus a refresh does not bring your programs back unless they are from the MS store and you lose a lot of settings too. I make the recovery drive out of habit and as a last line of defense when everything else fails. It is also handy to trigger image recovery of Windows images (if F9 does not work). Apart from Macrium I also make Windows images with this command: wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:X: -include:C: -AllCritical -quiet
Where you have to replace "X" with the volume letter of your backup device
|
|