The Glade 4.0

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In time, this too shall pass.

There is a reason I mentioned "Windows 8.1 Pro."

It's to differentiate it from RT. Your link mentions "metro apps." The word "metro" becomes irrelevant if you have Windows 8 Pro...as you have available pretty much the entire library of Windows applications from Windows 95/NT4 through to now. (And honestly, if I have a choice between a "metro" version of an app, or the desktop version of the app, I pick the latter. The interface is better.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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Hell, my phone is more powerful than my slightly older tablet at this point. I'm curious if they're holding back from a Pro phone in an attempt to get more developers to create for the phone OS.

Trying to use "Desktop" (Legacy?) windows apps on a small trouchscreen without a mouse is frustrating in most situations, especially if you have big hands/fingertips.

I use my tablet(s) in situations where I'm mobile (in my car, on foot, etc... i.e. away from the luxury of my desktop environment and my keyboard and mouse). Trying to navigate an application designed for mouse/keyboard input while I'm sitting in my car, or standing in line at a car rental counter, etc... isn't practical. I and do this with my N7, which is small enough to fit in a jacket or jeans back pocket, and still large enough to be useful.

That said, I got out my Surface RT the other day and updated it to 8.1. Update, and spent a little time exploring the "Store". I was pleasantly surprised to find app availability was improved. I could almost see myself using the thing over my Nexus tablet at some point. There still seems to be a lack of decent traffic and route plannings apps, which is one of the main things I use my Nexus 7 for.

If the improvements continue, a Surface Pro 2 with LTE might actually be a viable portable tablet (for me). However the fact costs four times as much as my Nexus 7 LTE would probably make me want to keep it locked in a drawer for safety. :p

Saw this and thought of this thread:

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Did Microsoft ever release that more-desktop friendly release of Win8 beyond 8.1?

It's called Windows 9 and not yet.

Yep, they've admitted to themselves that the windows 8 brand is unrecoverable at this point, so they quit working on sp's for win 8 and they're rushing win 9 to gold.

Let me start by saying this - I LIKE Windows 8. Or at least, I want to.

The Metro UI is cool, even though I rarely use it. I hardly ever used the "Start" button in Windows anyway, so that loss really didn't bother me. I'm a keyboard shortcut kinda guy, so there's not much need of a start button for me anyway.

Also, all of my games are noticeably faster in Windows 8. Anywhere from 10 to 20% faster in most cases, judging from the framerates I'm getting.

With that being said, I wish I could continue using Windows 8, but I just can't. I'll be downgrading to Windows 7 this week.

The main reason we downgrade all of our new PC's at work to Windows 7, is because there are several 'compatibility' issues that we have. VPN clients not working, legacy software not installing/working, local printers not transferring across remote sessions, etc. All of which, I'm sure, could be fixed with patience and the time to research the issue. Time which I simply do not have at work. It's much easier for me to just install Windows 7 and call it a day, since these issues do not occur on our Win7 clients.

As for my personal issues, Windows 8 has been very 'quirky' for me. I have several programs that I need to uninstall, but Windows 8 refuses to do so. Add/Remove programs just results in a generic error message. And then there's the fact that I cannot disable Windows Firewall, or make changes to allow a program through the firewall. Attempting to 'click' on either of these options in Control Panel does absolutely nothing. So I open services.msc to stop the Firewall service, and all of the services listed give a “Failed to Read Description. Error Code 2″ message.

Image spoilered for size

Most of the services are still running, but I can't stop/start/restart any of them. Nor can I view the properties of any service, because I get another error, "The System cannot find the file specified."

WTF?

A quick Google search shows a few possible solutions for this problem, most of which seem to be related to a registry entry. But the point is, I shouldn't have to resort to a registry fix/hack to view or edit the services running on my PC. And this is the the 2nd time this has happened to my Win8 PC. The first time resulted in a wipe and reload of the OS.

So despite the nice performance gains I'm getting from Win8, I will be switching back to Win7. Where I have never had anything remotely close to these unnecessary headaches. Here's hoping Windows 9 will be better.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Those are weird bugs and not something I have ever seen in any of my Windows 8 installs, which I've been using since Beta/RC1, probably over a dozen installs. How long have you been using this install of Windows and how often do you format?

I've had Win8 on my laptop at home for a year, and on my work PC for about 6 months. I also briefly (about 3 months) had Win8 on my gaming desktop at home.

My laptop was formatted once already, about 3 or 4 months after I got the laptop. This is the one that has given me all the issues with Services and uninstalling programs. Judging from the posts/entries from my google search, this is a fairly common issue with Windows 8, but both times it happened to me almost immediately after upgrading to 8.1.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Win 8 Update 1 if a fine operating system, including the Desktop UI.

I'm still not a Metro user at all, but the Desktop interface is more than usable in the latest update.