yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows 8 General] garwynn:
To call me or anyone else that 6 letter word is clairvoyant of your personality. 18 years of using a start button doesn't go away quickly. Asking paradigms to change that fast is dang near impossible for most businesses. There should be at least a slight understanding of that.

In all fairness most of the big and powerful things you needed can be found in 8.1 preview by right clicking the Windows icon on the bottom right and does far more than I'll need. And with all due respect to your opinion, I have about 30+ different applications on my work PC that I use on a constant basis. Top 5 are in the toolbar (also having a challenge duplicating this in 8.1 preview - maybe someone can shed some light for me?) to avoid hitting that button. Rest of them are easily found because I set up my Start Menu to be as efficient as I need it to be. I'm trying to find a way to match that without having to go into Metro because honestly that takes more time. And please don't patronize me about going back to icons on the desktop - that's regressive to 3.1 and NOT progressive. Your power suggestions have also been around since at least XP so no new news there. I didn't know about being able to search for your apps within Metro and I will give that a shot and see if I reconsider. Moving the scroll bar on the bottom of metro to scroll to apps is VERY different than the touch response.

Notice I didn't trash the Metro UI concept, I think it's dead on for touch devices. I just think they can and should improve on the non-touch side where honestly most folks (and companies) do not need/want it... yet. Just like not every company embraces 64 bit OSes yet because they have yet to exceed the 4GB limitation. Again, just sharing my personal thoughts and those that I've heard at corporate levels so far. Not all of us are fortunate to be able to use the same OS at home and work. Many of us will always be behind the times in technology at the office - even if we work in IT.
[Windows 8 General] daniel-s:
Windows 9 or 99 - not a whole lot of difference

A side comment to the overarching theme of this thread: Windows 8.2 vs Windows 9 is purely a naming decision that has very little to do with what the actual product will look like. Certainly it has zero bearing on what features will go in.

It's almost certain that at the same time during Windows 8.1 development, the decision hadn't yet been made as to whether call the OS Windows 9, Windows 8.1 or what have you (hence the codename "Windows Blue").

Another good illustration of how naming doesn't mean a whole lot in Microsoft is the evolution from WinNT 6.0 to 6.1. On the client side the move was Vista -> 7 ("major" update), on the server line it was Server 2008 -> Server 2008 R2 ("small" update). But the magnitude of changes was of course very similar between both product lines.

Bottom line: don't get hung up on the naming aspect--it's like reading tea leaves. Look to the core of the product.
[Windows 8 General] daniel-s:
As far as substantive changes go, I can't predict the future, but I can say this. A few bugs can make a program completely unusable, but it doesn't mean that the program is necessarily total crap in its entirety.

Windows 8 isn't all bad. It has a few features which some users really don't like, but most of the new features aren't bad. They're good features solidly engineered. So it's very possible that an incremental release focusing on making these few problematic areas right could be a major hit.

A common perception is that Windows 8 is somehow so abhorrent that only a total rollback or a total redesign can possibly save the ship. I don't think it's an accurate assessment.
[Windows 8 General] dazza9075:
Its not a Blame game, its an observation from dealing with the public, in many cases for no justifiable reason or argument without substance a large portion of the geeky public/profession (note I am one as well) seem hell bent on slagging off anything MS.

It has its faults just as any organization does but some much of the tripe an miss information I have to wade through just to get to the root cause of the problem is staggering!! So no, its not about trying to partake in a childish game, its about trying to stop people being misled by so called experts and to make informed decisions based on fact

Sent from my Rooted Kobo Arc :D
[Windows 8 General] e.mote:
>A few bugs can make a program completely unusable, but it doesn't mean that the program is necessarily total crap in its entirety.

Win8's issue isn't about bugs, but more fundamental: its design and structure, which were radically changed to fit the one-size-fits-all scheme. Users have not warmed to this direction, and at this point I can't see any change to Metro that can make touch use viable for desktops. While some here may differ on the finer points (or affiliation), it's safe to say that none here has yet to use Metro exclusively as a desktop replacement. It's almost a year since release. There are no more excuses.

>Windows 8 isn't all bad. It has a few features which some users really don't like, but most of the new features aren't bad. They're good features solidly engineered.

What's "bad" or "good" is an opinion. What's not opinion is Win8--ergo, Metro--adoption rate. It's abysmal. One may be an optimist and hope for salvation in 8.1 (or perhaps 8.2). MS certainly doesn't think 8.x will do so great, else it wouldn't have opted for the reorg, Ballmer wouldn't have been kicked out, and Nokia buy wouldn't be a necessity.

Put another way, it's not any one person's opinion that matters, but the collective opinions of Windows users. They've spoken, and I don't see any miracle on the horizon to change their tune.
[Windows 8 General] mcosmin222:
People need to get the following in their head:

1) Desktop isn't going anywhere, stop dramatizing over the desktop vs metro bullcrap

2) Windows 8 does not force you to use metro, just the start screen, which is miles better than the old start menu.

3) Windows 8 metro works perfectly fine with keyboard and mouse. The R word is pretty much suitable for anyone who can't make the jump from start button to start screen. If you are that R, then you need to quit using a computer, that stuff aint for you.

4)Neither metro, nor the desktop will disappear in any subsequent versions of windows. Stop fearing/hoping.

5) it will probably take around 2 years until the next version of windows (9, momo, kiki whatever) comes along. Windows 8.1 is more like a service pack for windows 8.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
You don't know me nor my personality. I think my choice of word is justified, nor did I call you it. I have not used the start button for 18 years, only about 10, but 10 years of start button usage I was able to throw away like an empty chocolate bar wrapper

I am running 8.0 not 8.1. Toolbar is working fine here. I also prefer a clean desktop, always have done, I do have My Computer, recycle bin and my account folder otherwise its empty.

You dont have to move the bar along the bottom of the start bar. On a multitouch trackpad (as on most windows 8 laptops and a few 7 laptops too, or a USB one) a 2 finger horizontal swipe, alternately it will respond to the scroll wheel on your mouse (or the scroll region on non multitouch trackpads or a 2 finger vertical swipe) and a 3rd option is to simply move your mouse against the edge and as you try to move the mouse further it scrolls in that direction. This works in apps too (although a few apps don't respond to moving the mouse against the edge in my experience, most do though).

The search function has actually changed between 8.0 and 8.1. In 8.0 start typing at metro it starts searching your PC by default but segregates results in apps, settings and files. Most desktop applications with a proper installer get listed under apps, a few things like putty or minecraft which dont have proper installers get lumped into files. In 8.1 it goes back to the old windows 7 style search without segregating the results. Both still have individual searches for store, bing etc (actually, here on 8.0 google chrome is listed as a searchable app too which is kinda neat, never noticed that until now). I find it incredibly quick to find things this way, just hit the windows key and type "beam" and its already listed Start BeamNG.Drive and Uninstall BeamNG.Drive as launchable applications, if I was searching for minecraft (pinned to start) I would need an extra click unfortunately but on 8.1 I wouldn't.

My only major metro complaints are lack of apps, lack of serial port access in the WinRT API (whether that be hardware, USB or bluetooth, not that windows distinguishes), blocking of localhost TCP or UDP connections (or any other network connection) and that control panel and file browsing should also be available in metro if metro is to be a viable system. On this machine yeah, perhaps I would rather use control panel in desktop mode, but it should be available on metro too. Lack of apps isn't something microsoft can do much about, that is entirely down to 3rd parties. I went to make an app but sadly microsoft say no serial ports and my application required it, I had a workaround which was to make the app communicate with a desktop application over a network and have the desktop application use a serial port, but thats both a) awkward and b) limiting as localhost is no longer possible so the desktop app would need to run on a second device which kinda defeats the point. I think 8.1 adds bluetooth RfComm support, it is possible to build up bluetooth SPP support in user code atop RfComm so at least 8.1 would allow bluetooth serial to an extent.
[Windows 8 General] daniel-s:
Have you tried marshaling your data through the file system? Apps could communicate through metro app's local storage. It's hacky and it may require fiddling with permissions, but it could work depending on your latency requirements.
[Windows 8 General] garwynn:
Didn't say you meant it to me, just that there are a lot of people who would disagree with your thoughts. Please keep in mind - from a TS perspective we are outliers. From a corporate standpoint they have to look at the lowest common denominator - the users who muddle through using a computer just to get the everyday things done. They don't have a choice but to do that or not work. Not everyone even in Gen Y or the Millennials are tech savvy. (Women are sadly still behind the curve, something I'm going to make sure my kids avoid. Knowledge is power IMO.)

Your second paragraph is mainly targeting, again, a different segment than who I'm talking about. My concern is with the users that have box, wired KB/mouse and one screen and need it as simple as possible to do their job. These folks - some of which I am related to - are quite happy with their 2009 Core 2 Quad PC because it plays video and lets them browse the internet. Even if I build them another PC - and I did on the cheap recently - they have yet to touch it over the old system because they're comfortable with it. Ironic because you solve all their complaints and they still stick with what they know.

What were you trying to use via serial? USB storage access? If so I think they're trying to pigeonhole it to the sever (SkyDrive) as that seems to be the way that it goes. All the reason why I keep very few apps with data on my Note 2 - and those that I do keep data locally.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
Hacky indeed, but then so was my first thought. Latency is an issue, but file systems might *just* do it actually. Would have to think about that a bit more.

I've not heard of USB storage being done through an old fashioned serial/COM port which is what I wanted to use. Some people do still use their old RS232 ports or similar. In my case, I was initially aiming to have a serial terminal which could be attached to a raspberry pi, I was also planning a remote control type app aim at robots powered by arduinos and other microcontrollers. Communication from PC to microcontroller is almost always serial, even the arduino boards which supposedly have a USB port on them then have a USB>Serial adaptor before communication with a microcontroller (FTDI on the nano, an ATMega8U on the uno which is then programmed to bit-bang USB before comms with the ATMega328 powering the uno itself and a few others on 3rd party boards such as the CP2100 series IC's, a few boards don't have USB ports at all and require an external serial adaptor).

Linux can commonly be setup to display the shell over a serial port, the raspberry pi does this by default, by addition of a serial cable between the pi GPIO and another PC (with appropriate adaptors for the 3.3v TTL on the pi and whatever is on the host PC) you can run software such as PuTTY as an alternative to SSH. This is commonly done on servers connected to the internet which may have SSH disabled for security reasons as an attacker would be required to have physical access to the machines.
[Windows 8 General] garwynn:
Old AS/400 systems used a serial connection to get to the system controller and the fix was to use the USB to serial dongle. Made for a pain in the butt because very few devices keep a 9 pin serial port on them anymore. (Drivers were a pain to find though). Probably the only way you'll be able to pull that off going further - it seems very (VERY) few boards have the 9 pin serial anymore, even on docking stations.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
Oh I have no problem using a serial port from windows 8 desktop. Microsoft just don't allow its usage from a windows 8 app.

My desktop PC which isnt even 2 years old does actually have both a full RS232 port and parallel port. I also have an FTDI cable (USB > 3.3v TTL serial) which works fine with my laptop, desktop and the pi itself actually (full FTDI drivers under raspbian and windows 8). Both of my arduinos are arduino nano's so also use an FTDI chip (using the same drivers as each other and the cable I have). One of my other microcontrollers is a bit of a pain but you can get it working with windows 8 too, have to disable driver enforcement before you can install them. Regardless, all 3 microcontrollers and on my desktop its native port are listed in device manager as usable COM ports, all of them work fine too.

One place you will still regularly find a DB9-RS232 port is scientific hardware. Many sensors/probes/data collection devices for use with a PC communicate via serial. Older devices (and a few new ones) from a full RS232 connector, some now use 3.3v or 5v instead and a few are advertised as being USB but in reality have USB>serial adaptors of some sort contained within.

Many android devices have a serial port available (usually 3.3v) via the headphone jack (often just sticking a resistor between mic and ground to trigger left and right audio function changes) or USB port (similar technique as the headphones) or more rarely the microSD
[Windows 8 General] SharpnShiny:
If anyone is interested in the podcast I mentioned, Windows Weekly, the URL is: http://leoville.tv/podcasts/ww.xml

In the lastest episode, Mary Jo Foley of here: http://www.zdnet.com/topic-windows/

tends to tell what's going on inside Microsoft. If you listened to back episodes she was talking about Blue right after 8 was released, she spills details really early and they do come true.

The other major host is Paul Thurott on the podcast, who writes here: http://www.winbeta.org/

The last thing they said, just as e.mote calculated, was that the company is in disaray and will slow down significantly since the Nokia acquisition and that it could have been an 8.2 but for a brand refresh they could skip to 9. 9 in that case would be a mixture of returning some of the key 7 features and polishing 8. I'll post here if there's any more, same if you guys know anything! I'm interested to see how this develops.

I remember going to the Win 7 launch at the time. One of the first things the Micro guy said on stage was that 7 was 'Vista fixed'. I couldn't believe he said that on stage. So instead of a fixer service pack they jumped to 7 and it was partially a brand refresh. Who knows now?
[Windows 8 General] DIXES:
I knew this command "Dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:W:\YOURIMAGE.wim /ApplyDir:k:\ /index:1 /WIMBoot",

but I don't know how to apply the "custom.wim" created by "Dism /capture-customimage" which uses for capturing a customized WIMBoot Windows, like installed some softwares.

And after doing "Dism /capture-customimage", using "Dism /get-wimbootentry" will show two wim in the list, 1st one is the original wim, and 2nd one is custom.wim (it is a fixed name not naming by user).
[Windows 8 General] ivicask:
I can try help you and/or provide info to users who are interested of making wimboot installations for their PCS.

But can you open a new thread in proper section and provide more detailed info on what you want to do , because we are going kinda offtopic here, @ tag me and ill check it when you open it.
[Windows 8 General] GoodDayToDie:
Surface (RT) at $300 for the model that launched at $500 probably would have lost money on every sale, and still stood a significant risk of not seeing much adoption (because the OS is crippled). They might have made the money back on the store, but I'm skeptical due to the limitations of Store apps.

Those limitations aren't just the "inability" to use full Win32 (you totally can, it's just not "allowed"). That's a part of it, of course, but not the whole story. The bigger problem is the lack of permissions (capabilities) to do a bunch of things that an app really ought to be able to do. (This should have been obvious from my post, I thought.) If you want a clear example, look at the number and range of capabilities Android apps can have. Compare that to the paltry handful that WinRT apps can have (and even there, some of them - like Documents folder access, or association with certain file types or URI schemes - are restricted!)

You don't have to "sign up as a MS dev", just run a powershell command and enter some Live credentials (they don't have to be any *particular* credentials; could be a brand-new throw-away account even). It takes, oh, probably around 3x as long as finding the relevant checkbox in Android and tapping it. If you just run the install script that comes with any .APPX and you haven't done this step yet, it will even begin it for you! This is not difficult or complex.

The Win8 dev forum is pretty boring, because XDA isn't the usual place for people to post WinX software (for any value of X). The RT dev forum is pretty boring because there's currently no jailbreak for RT 8.1; once there is, it'll pick up again. Note that the first jailbreak for RT required sideloading a Metro app just as I have described; it was nonetheless popular and heavily downloaded, although a version that was entirely desktop-based (and much simpler) followed it shortly.

In both cases, there's not a lot of Metro app excitement because, surprise, Metro apps on PCs suck. The vast majority of people who could use Metro apps can (and would rather) use traditional Win32 desktop apps, so that's where the halo effect is. The vast majority of things a non-jailbroken RT user might want to do with their tablet (other than jailbreak it) that aren't covered / aren't allowed by the Store are more easily done by firing up regedit or mmc or even just explorer that by creating a Metro app and telling users to go fix all the relevant ACLs manually so the app can actually *do* anything.

By the way, your claim about Google making Android free is incorrect. The open-source code is and was free, but that was not the OS that most people saw on their phones. They always charged licensing fees for the "gapps" stuff (Gmail, Maps, Store/Play, etc.) that was (supposedly) exclusive to Open Handset Alliance members.
[Windows 8 General] GoodDayToDie:
Those are many excellent points. I doubt either of us have the resources to even make a truly educated guess at whether a cheaper Surface RT would have resulted in MS losing more or less money, although I will grant that your argument has merit. Pushing the ecosystem at the early stages - and MS is no stranger to selling at a loss initially, then making it up in attach rate and economy of scale - could have done the trick. In fact, I think there's a decent chance it *would* have done the trick... if Microsoft had been willing to enable the things to run better software. By all means, sell it through the Store and collect their cut, but they had to offer something better than what WinRT was initially capable of unless they could bring the cost *way* down.

Unlike the jailbreak, dev registration of a Win8 (including RT) system is a documented, built-in feature. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "advertised" but it's not hard to find on Microsoft's website, and they added a PowerShell command explicitly for the purpose of doing it. It was intentionally made easy to support Metro development (the purpose of the feature is to test apps in development). Now, having said that, MS *could* add restrictions if they wanted. The equivalent feature on WP has a limit on the number of sideloaded apps at once (2 for free accounts, 10 for paid) and requires a rather hefty SDK download. When WP7 first came out you had to use a Live ID associated with a (somewhat expensive) dev account; Win8/RT keeps the Live ID signing thing and therefore probably *could* require the "paid" part at some point without much trouble.

I don't think pointing out that, at least for a while, licensing an Adroid phone's software cost more than doing the same for a Windows phone. After all, you're the one who brought up OS costs. Yes, Android is moddable by the OEMs (just like WinMo was; in fact, HTC's "Sense UI" was originally on WinMo phones) but the only really commercially successful Android adaptation I know of that *doesn't* pay Google licensing fees is the Kindle Fire OS, although I suppose it's not *impossible* that Nokia's Android phones might become successful. I know there are others - third-rate budget knockoffs, usually using very vanilla AOSP and bloody awful specs - but I've never seen one that could be called "successful".

Anyhow, I'm not sure what Microsoft needs to do to stem their tide of (relative, with occasional absolute) failures, but I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to be found here anyhow. Also, I think you might be a *little* too gloom-and-doom about it; MS is still hugely profitable and even things like WP8 aren't doing as badly as somebody reading your post might think (for example, Samsung has released or announced a handful of new WP8 handsets, as has Huawei and possibly some others besides just Nokia).

I'm with you on wanting to see what happens with Windows vNext (8.1 Update 2? 8.2? 8.5? 9? Chartreuse?), though.
[Windows 8 General] KJ98653:
There will be another form factor soon for the surface line and I assume you know already what's in the rumor mill. All other notable windows tablets had a "paper launch". The only Windows tablet that did not was the original Surface RT. Based off of Intel's Q1 report the total market likely performed roughly equivalent to two ARM-based Surfaces. Also, AFAIK the Surface Pro is still best in-class in its segment. Therefore, you cannot lead until you outperform someone who isn't really even trying to compete with you.