Windows 8: update or not

[SJ_Digriz]

I don't care. Windows has always been for the amateur 'bedroom producers' who spend their day here on KVR wondering what plugin to buy to stop their music sounding like shit. Anyone who's serious about music is already running OS X.

lol, awesome troll!

But seriously... Windows 7 was awesome, Windows 8 looks set to be a bigger catastrophe that Vista!

It has the potential. The forced metro start screen is a real put off. But, to be honest, 8 is really good. Vista needed to be done to change the driver model. It was painful but necessary. 7 was really just a good version of Vista. 8 is a cleaned up and slimmed down 7. However, I am NOT a fan of tablet interfaces. So imagine how I feel when they are trying to force that paradigm to the desktop.

However, once you figure out how to use the window key in its varying combinations, it isn't a problem at all. We'll see how the marketing and completely ignorant rants fall out.

[Jace-BeOS]

Yeah, indexing can be customized...

But furthermore: I get so many ridiculously stupid Windows behaviors that I never see other people complaining about. I think I'm going to explicitly NOT try to "optimize" my next Windows installation and avoid customizing as much as possible. The fact that they provide features that don't work because the majority of users don't actually use them, just leaves me pissy. If you're going to make a feature available, make it effing work! It's the littlest things (like the Start menu closing when you delete a link or it not accepting the drag and drop changes you just made) and the most basic things (like Explorer views not loading file icons till after you've scrolled half a page and waited several seconds or, more annoyingly, like the desktop, folders and other things like the Programs and Features window refusing to automatically represent a current state without hitting F5 to force a refresh). Computer geeks and system tweakers act like these are normal behaviors because they're indoctrinated (sometimes by their own selves).

My experience is that the more I try to use features to customize my experience, the worst the overal system behavior.

[SJ_Digriz]

Yeah, indexing can be customized...

My experience is that the more I try to use features to customize my experience, the worst the overal system behavior.

The problem with this take is that Windows IS optimized for business/office users. And, that is terrible for a DAW. And with "cloud" integration being a major part of W8, it's even more of a problem now than before. W8 default is much slimmed down from an OS service standpoint. But, there are lots of cloud services just waiting to get rolling as soon as you click something. You can unslimdown (new word .. dibs on trademark) W8 accidently really quickly. And, those services are all polling types. So, they interrupt instead of just sitting there.

By choosing NOT to tweak, you are limiting your systems capabilities significantly.

I know those experiences you are describing seem to happen to some people and not others. It's too bad the experience can't be more uniform. But, with general computing and 20980918203912 parts to choose from ......

[Jace-BeOS]

Oh, and I've just learned that upgrading from Vista means losing all my program installations. If I was running Win7, this wouldn't be a problem. But I'm not, and it is. I'm talking gigabytes and hours of installations for games (several through Steam!!), plugins, DAWs and libraries.

I DO want a clean OS install, really, but I DON'T want to reinstall all this stuff. This is supposed to be a computer I'm moving away from and religating to yesteryear GPU gaming, not increasing my attention on it and its time suck. The interest in upgrading at all is to get a slightly saner OS experience (damn Vista takes forever to start and shut down!!) and practical experience so I'm not so behind on my PC tech knowledge. The way everything is architected on Windows... the effing registry ... downloaded installers... This is a great big pile of SUCK.

[Jace-BeOS]

SJ_Digiriz: got pointers for keeping the Win8 cloud crap from unslimming the system? I've zero interest in my Windows machine having anything "personal" going on other than my music and photography work, which is all about my own software installs. Even on Vista I am irritated when I have to wait a whole damn minute just to have the system react to an accidental click on a mail link by loading Windows Messaging or whatever the cluttered email client is called. I don't want Microsoft's end user ecosystem (yesterday's or today's). That stuff I'm doing on my MacBook (& except for the damned IMAP prefix bug in the Notes app, I'm actually ok with Apple's brave new world; please, DO "dumb it down!").

[SJ_Digriz]

SJ_Digiriz: got pointers for keeping the Win8 cloud crap from unslimming the system? I've zero interest in my Windows machine having anything "personal" going on other than my music and photography work, which is all about my own software installs. Even on Vista I am irritated when I have to wait a whole damn minute just to have the system react to an accidental click on a mail link by loading Windows Messaging or whatever the cluttered email client is called. I don't want Microsoft's end user ecosystem (yesterday's or today's). That stuff I'm doing on my MacBook (& except for the damned IMAP prefix bug in the Notes app, I'm actually ok with Apple's brave new world; please, DO "dumb it down!").

It take awhile to dumb it down completely. The easy answer is ... uninstall all the programs that are attached to the tiles on the initial login.

Don't create an online account when you install (it will try to get you to do this multiple times).

Search online for service optimization blogs posts. They will be coming soon with lists of the services that you can turn from "automatic" or "manual" to "disable". A lot of people think that Manual means the user has to go turn it on. This isn't true. Manual just means, don't start until something asks me to turn on. This can be triggered by a chain of programs calling down until something finally wants to use an online service. Disabling tells all those programs to F off.

Make sure you turn Real Time Protection OFF
Make sure to point indexing to the Documents Folders and off for everywhere else. Don't put anything to do with Your DAW in the documents folder.

Probably lots more, but that's a quicky.

[Jace-BeOS]

On systems that are freshly installed, right-clicking a broken link just opens a context menu. On my system, where the system services are customized, this causes a delay if up to 30 seconds, freezing whatever part of Explorer that link is being displayed in (taskbar, start menu, desktop, etc). This is just one of many reasons I'm disinterested in future customizations. The only way to remove an item from the modern start menu's "pin" list is right-click (dragging to recycle bin does nothing!!).

But thanks for the tips on Real Time Protection (I didn't know this kind of constant file molestation was added after Vista), the web service account creation refusal and removing stuff in the initial login's tiles. I'm expecting to never use anything in "the GUI formerly known as metro" (did they change the name or buy out the owner of the trademark?).

[Kees49]

http://www.steinberg.net/forum/viewtopi ... 59704e4b37

[Shabdahbriah]

...Don't put anything to do with Your DAW in the documents folder.

That one is rather difficult given that many (if not most) apps including Vst's with "installers", currently put tons of crap there.

Which is irritating.

[Jace-BeOS]

Exactly. The clutter of most software installers is obnoxious. Especially on Windows. Especially with the multiuser OS functionality. How many of us really use our DAW machine in a multiuser environment?? I sure as hell don't. Yet, the demo and such content of several packages is duplicated on the hard drive and "configured" to your user folders on first run. Then there's the extensive piles of crap left over after an uninstall. Uninstallers almost never remove EVERYTHING.

[SJ_Digriz]

...Don't put anything to do with Your DAW in the documents folder.

That one is rather difficult given that many (if not most) apps including Vst's with "installers", currently put tons of crap there.

Which is irritating.

Actually, that is the purpose of appdata and programdata. The installers will eventually catch up to that spec.

[SJ_Digriz]

Exactly. The clutter of most software installers is obnoxious. Especially on Windows. Especially with the multiuser OS functionality. How many of us really use our DAW machine in a multiuser environment?? I sure as hell don't. Yet, the demo and such content of several packages is duplicated on the hard drive and "configured" to your user folders on first run. Then there's the extensive piles of crap left over after an uninstall. Uninstallers almost never remove EVERYTHING.

I don't want to get in the OS argument, but just a few observations. Windows is written for business. In a business multiuser is essential. Windows chose to keep backwards compatibility FAR too long. It is one of the glaring differences between Win/OSX. However, the installer process on windows was developed a LONG time ago. It is a mess, but it is easy. The new installation specs/apis will clean a lot of that up. But, multi-user will remain because of the target audience. However, the ProgramData/AppData thing should stop the duplication (edit: I should have added it will stop it eventually as people figure it out).

[Vintage73]

http://www.steinberg.net/forum/viewtopi ... 59704e4b37

Thank you!

I've been considering buying Win8 while it's on sale and not upgrading until they at least put out SP1, whenever that will be.

[Improv]

Hate hate hate the gui (metro) and the ability to not turn it off without a 3rd party hack.

once you get to the desktop its win 7.. so why bother
Scott
ADK

Was just reading today that after you do the Win 8 install, a video pops up explaining how to navigate and use W8. Now if you need a video to explain an OS, it's not very user friendly.

I was never a big Apple fan, but their products are looking better and better.

[SJ_Digriz]

Was just reading today that after you do the Win 8 install, a video pops up explaining how to navigate and use W8. Now if you need a video to explain an OS, it's not very user friendly.

I was never a big Apple fan, but their products are looking better and better.

This is one of those ignorant posts I was referring to.