Windows 8 installation options - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2012, 04:19:56 pm
content: I've decided to take a punt on Windows 8 as it has only cost me £25 for the upgrade download. I would like to retain my present copy of Windows XP SP3 on a new hard drive either on its own or alongside Linux. I will be using Macrium Reflect (free version)http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspxTo clone my present hard drive onto the new one.This is where I'm on unfamiliar ground. What boot manager software do I use to boot into XP,Linus or Windows 8 from PC start up.I've only ever used 1 hard drive upto now and just put each OS on a different partition and used Linux GRUB. Cn anyone suggest a free Open source boot manager that can handle multi booting across more than one hard disk. I will also pay for software that does the job well. Any ideas/advice?David.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2012, 04:40:57 pm
content: GRUB supports that too.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2012, 05:23:22 pm
content: GRUB is the way to go, but to get two Microsoft OSes, you might have to do a little custom.Always install MS OSes first, then Linux. Otherwise, MS will blow away your Grub and you have to boot to LiveCD to restore.As unuseful as I expect Windows 8 to be, you might consider installing Linux then run Windows 8 in a VirtualBox. You could do that from XP as well.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2012, 11:04:39 pm
content: Yeah I don't understand dual booting. Why? Put them in virtual machines and run all at once. If you want to game just make win7 your main os or something.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 12:37:42 am
content: My option to install Windows 8, is to not bother at all. What a ridiculous UI. I don't care if the main OS is better if the UI is a cluster fuck. Microsoft and their every other failure.......Win 3.11 good, Win95 POS, Win98SE good, WinME lol, Win2000 great, WinXP wtf until SP3, Vista winme2, Win7, almost as good as 2000, Win8 aint great. Trying to force a phone/tablet UI on a desktop is a complete joke.Sorry to piss on your thread but I had to get it out!The problem with Microsoft, one of the multitude, is that they always try to make it hard to do what YOU want. I have had machine refuse to boot any OS sometimes once Microsoft gets its claws into an MBR. No I am not a newbie, I have much experience.My advice is to run a separate drive for each OS if possible and use the BIOS boot option to load which drive you want. A problem might arise when Microsoft tries to lock you out with UEFI if your motherboard supports it.My final advice is, don't bother trying W8 as it has some improvements in the actual background OS, but the UI and some other craziness isn't worth it. I can upgrade my OS for less than your price but that to me just points to the desperation of Microsoft to try and get people to accept this mess.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 03:47:37 am
content: Well I spent a couple hours this afternoon waiting for my machine to upgrade to ubuntu 12.10 and I must say so far it's great. I knew better than to go to 12.04, it's ironic but it seems their LTS releases almost always suck and the .10 release afterward is way better. It's been this was all the way back to 5.04 vs 5.11.The new UI is really, really nice. If only I could figure out how to make my dark themes have dark backgrounds on the main window. Weird.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 02:27:10 pm
content: It looks like you have some options of switching Win8 back to "Classic UI". But I will not beta test the OS that Microsoft rushed out. They should have released this on tablets, and released the next Desktop OS that integrated with it later.Touchscreen PCs do not work. You have to have an upper body like Mr. Universe to use them for any length of time.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 05:21:35 pm
content: Touchscreen PCs at the same time is rubbish. Most of them are appalling in every way.Let's see, 2000 dollar for a slightly lighter laptop that only has a processor that can be only described as a 1.5 litre hybrid engine (Prius)Appalling performance from the GPU, i expected more, for a Mobile HD4000 and that and then even loses to my 3 year old HD5430MThe GUI? Even worse, doesn't matter if you have a touchscreen or not, it's still bloody hard to useSearching for programs? No way. You'd have to pay 6 dollars for a app that will bring back the Win7 UI, none of that which makes any sort of sense to meAccessing the "Apps List"? You have to hit the button next to the 'Alt' button on the "Start Menu", for 10 years i have never hit that buttonIs the interface any faster? No. Fluid yes, but faster not.So we would think the ARM tablets would support the same "apps" as the x86 tablets? YOU'RE WRONG! They make a RT version for those tablets that only run Metro apps.How much do the x86 tablets start from? Nearly a thousand-dollah. *insert redneck accent*I refuse this garbage internally coded as "Windows 6.2" Yeah right, that's like GOING BACKWARDS. They should have named it Windows 4.2 instead, it's a heap of sh!@

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 08:46:57 pm
content: I will not beta test the OS that Microsoft rushed outROTFL. They worked on "Longhorn" an entire decade. What's the rush?Canonical has essentially invented a new desktop and made it very usable in less than two years. So did Google. Now an entire generation is going to be raised surrounded by devices that run iOS or Android or linux.Microsoft is doomed. They're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

author: PedroDaGr8
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 09:57:08 pm
content: OK maybe I'm in the rarity but I am starting to enjoy the new metro interface. I just got a new laptop (Asus K55a). When I started messing with it I outright fucking hated it. I mean I really hated it. WHere the hell is everything, ugh I can't do anything I feel stupid blah blah blah. Then I realized I sounded exactly like the idiots who complained about the Win7 interface and wanted to hold on to XP. I decided to give it sometime, explore it, find its strengths and weaknesses, etc. Truth be told, now I find the metroUI very useful as a media consumption interface. I can check things like wikipedia, email, etc. I can do all sorts of simple tasks very quickly. I really wanted to hate it but its growing on me.That being said, for mutitasking I still think it sucks donkey balls. For example, I would HATE to have to type a term paper in MetroUI. I also am finding that it relies on keyboard shortcuts a LOT more than the previous versions of windows. Time will tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.Quote from: T4P on October 28, 2012, 05:21:35 pmDo you know intel at all? Intel coudn't design a GPU if their life depended on it. My guess is they are just too entrenched in x86 thinking to ever get out of it. GPUs use a dramatically different methodology and Intel can't/won't seem to see it for what it is.As for touchscreen computers, there is an inherent design flaw that xerox (or was it one of the others back in the 80s) discovered. People fucking hate holding their arms up for extended lengths of time. Tablets are nice but they are inherently media consumption devices not computing devices.QuoteSearching for programs is SUPER easy. If your are in the metro interface just start typing and it will search for it.If you are on the desktop, its a bit harder because the start menu isn't there. You can use one of the free programs like StartMenu8. It adds the standard windows orb to the desktop view. It will even hook the windows key so that it behaves as it did in windows 7. You can also set it to run at startup and set it to take you straight to the desktop bypassing the metro UI Plus its 100% free.This is for if you get a computer with Win8 and hate the metroUI. As fpr is the interface any faster, it depends on how you mean this. Is it faster to get simple tasks done? Yes. Is it faster for complex stuff? hell no. Is it faster with respect to fluidity and not stuttering? yes. Is it faster to boot up? Yes.QuoteYou do know why this is right? ARM is ARM architecture and Intel/AMD x86 x86 architecture. x86 apps that run on the standard windows desktop are designed for the classic windows x86 environment. They include this environment to allow backwards compatibility for the old apps. The new Metro UI "shell" was designed to be architecture agnostic. New apps written for this shell are innately architecture agnostic because its built into the MetroUI shell. They don't expect x86 or ARM functions to be present. Older apps were not designed to handle this as they can (and do) call x86 specific features often. It just wasn't possible to reliably make the x86 apps run natively on ARM. Maybe I should rephrase that, its POSSIBLE but the overhead required would make them run like crap. ARM processors are not designed for brute power, instead being a trade off in efficiency. Therefore, no x86 apps on ARM. Now that's not to say that they couldn't have done it but can you imagine the bitching from people. "Hey I can't run Crysis on my ARM laptop it runs like shit. Man fuck win8 POS." Now thats not to say they are inherently benevolent, they are a company. There is NO fucking reason to limit MetroUI apps to their App Store, other than they are greedy. Plain and simple. So if you want to bitch, bitch about that, not that you can't run x86 apps on ARM PCs.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2012, 10:23:29 pm
content: I don't believe there is any requisite the app store apps actually charge money. But there are plenty of good reasons to run them from an app store. It has to do with one of the same reasons linux rocks - because you can just pull new programs in from a central repository. It gives MS more control but also gives them more accountability.I hate MS stuff because it's ugly, brittle and cheap. But some of the stuff they are doing is a direct response to the way everyone else has already been doing it because it works. If I pull an app down to my linux desktp it may have bugs in it, it may run like shit, but odds are very very good it will dosomething, and that's not a paradigm MS has enjoyed in the past.Isn't win8 just managed code? So it's CPU agnostic, it just needs the proper runtime. It's like pulling in a new python program.

author: PedroDaGr8
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2012, 02:38:33 am
content: Quote from: poptones on October 28, 2012, 10:23:29 pmI think the MetroUI stuff is managed code. It's the backwards compatible x86 stuff that isn't managed code.As for the App Store, there are benefits and downsides. It would be nice if like Android or Linux you had MULTIPLE app stores (repositories) to choose from. As for programs not running, I've had only one that I can think of that wouldn't run. It was a horribly coded mess. Most that I have problems with are buggy as hell and run like shit but they as you say do SOMETHING.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2012, 08:58:03 am
content: Quote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 28, 2012, 09:57:08 pmYou know what? Intel aimed to beat AMD in the GPU section back in 2008. None of that worked.Many people say Intel will eat up AMD in 3 years and i say that's nonsense, every year AMD's GPU and CPUs grow linearly and not a "tick-tock" approach where 1 year grows a little bit slower and next year a massive jump but the HD4000 is nonsensical, great if you enjoy web browsing, documents and spreadsheets and well playing 2011 games like it's from 2007 considering Intel's quality sacrifice on the GPU front and it's worse on desktopsSo everytime i see a brand new IB laptop i start laughing, my laptop that i paid 799SGD for 3 years ago still beats their laptops in gaming if they don't have a Nvidia GT640M (which is very very power hungry)Quote from: Tom's HardwareQuote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 28, 2012, 09:57:08 pmDidn't need to go vulgar but tablets are meant for 1 thing : Hippies and waiters, i don't even find them remotely useful for media consumptionQuote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 28, 2012, 09:57:08 pmThen MS should have at least made it easier to search, not having to figure out all the keystrokes by myselfQuote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 28, 2012, 09:57:08 pmWant to know what MS promised on day 1? Total backwards compability on both platforms without needing another "RT" version. That's what they said.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2012, 05:36:54 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on October 27, 2012, 11:04:39 pmYep, VMs are the best solution anyway. Since I moved all Windows installs into VMs I got no trouble with Windows anymore. It's also great for running old versions. Try to run 95 on current hardware :-)

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2012, 01:37:47 pm
content: Well, I've finally got W8,XP and Linux Mint 13 Maya installed. I'm not too impressed with W8 and would not have bothered upgrading If I had had W7 installed instead of XP.The only good things I can see so far are the improved security (built in virus detection) and recovery options. There are a few annoying things like the maintenance procedure does not show you what it's doing. The metro start screen is a non issue as you can hide it with classic shell (free open source software).I am really impressed with the way Linux Mint 13 just breezed through the detection of both XP and W8 on different hard discs.It just installed itself on the largest free space and configured Grub without any user input apart from asking do I want it alongside windows.Still playing with W8 so more later if anyone interested.David.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2012, 01:57:11 pm
content: Quote from: djsb on November 10, 2012, 01:37:47 pmmaybe this can be not a good thing. after m$ tried to dominate internet browser, now its antivirus software time. how much they will charge for virus database update subscription?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2012, 02:22:05 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on October 29, 2012, 08:58:03 amIntel GPUs are optimized for low power and video work, not 3D performance. Try comparing Ivy Bridge against even a high end Nvidia card for transcoding and you'll be surprised just how good it is. Too bad the software support for that feature is lackluster, I was hoping to be able to buy one of those for MythTV.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2012, 06:26:02 pm
content: Sure, quicksync is their weapon but you forgot one thing ... Intel skimps on video quality!And well, you want the HD4000? You have to step up to the i7-3570How about the times when you are not encoding? HD4000 is crap and as far as I KNOW, there really isn't a auto-switching iGPU to eGPU thingWait till the OpenCL video editing programs come and you will see who's the winner (AMD!)