The Windows 8 thread - post your experience here

[Beany]

Originally Posted by Paul in SoCal

It's a very good touchpad, but you really want to use it with Win 8, where it has a lot more gestures and you can even program your own. On Win 7 it's a lot more limited.

Ok, thanks for that. Might write a letter to Santa then...

[kneelie]

Thank god someone at Microsoft snuck in a way to eliminate metro and the screen hogging ribbon. It requires altering the registry.
Windows 8 Registry Hack | Modern Windows Task Manager

[kneelie]

Originally Posted by Paul in SoCal

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just not upgrade to Win 8 if you don't like the modern UI?

Well Yes.

I have kept up with the development of Windows 8 and have experimented with it since its beta. I have watched the MSDN Build 2011 sessions on Windows 8 - BUILD2011 | Channel 9 there are numerous performance enhancements under the hood.

The only problem is the interface to use the system. Thankfully there are ways around the poor UI design. If it did not have performance benefits it would not matter. In my prospective Windows 8 would just be a continuation of Microsofts trend of botching every other OS. Vista had a bad UI and poor performance and was never worth a second look, 7 is great, and Windows 8 offers a lot of performance enhancements under the hood and the ability to delete metro and eliminate the ribbon and revert to standard menus rectifies 95% of the UI issues and makes Windows 8 a worthy upgrade.

[Jay-]

I have to say the new security features in W8 SUCK for audio.
Disable that malware and built in features as it will grind down to a halt scanning for virus.

[Mr. Wilson]

Well I was running W8 and PT 10.3.2 with fair success until last Cyber Monday when I nabbed a copy of Slate's VCC. For whatever reason it kept throwing DAE errors -7054 and -7401 at me. I tried several reinstalls of the plug and the ilok client to no avail...that drove me back to W7 which did not exhibit the problem. I don't have time right now to post on the Slate Forum and I didn't see any W8 users reporting there, so the W8 experience is shelved for the time being. Too bad since one big thing I was hoping for is better mem management. Already going back to W7 I have one session that eventually won't save due to the mysterious and undoable "Give more memory to Pro Tools" popup and crash.

[Masaaki]

Win 8 Pro 64 bit OEM disk came yesterday. Installed in my "experiment" machine, which is EVGA P55LE, i5 760 CPU, with 8GB RAM, Crucial M4 128GB.

Installation took ~25 minutes, while struggling to read the license number (I had to use magnifying glass!!). No drama, just as easy as Win 7 installation.

In 30 minutes, I was kind of feeling comfortable, so tried to turn it off and let my kids to figure out other stuff tomorrow.....then, I couldn't find an easy way to turn it off. 5 min google led to this article (for beta).

How to, uh, turn Windows 8 off | Microsoft - CNET News

ah....can I just turn off my PC? no....I have to click this, that, then, this, then move cursor to 'shut down'.

That's the moment I wanted to pull the power cord out from the wall (obviously I didn't).

[CharlesEdward]

Lol! I was also at it for like a half hour trying figure out how shut down windows 8 the first time round. I know I could of just looked it up online, but my pride wasn't having it.

[Psychlist1972]

Originally Posted by Masaaki

Win 8 Pro 64 bit OEM disk came yesterday. Installed in my "experiment" machine, which is EVGA P55LE, i5 760 CPU, with 8GB RAM, Crucial M4 128GB.

Installation took ~25 minutes, while struggling to read the license number (I had to use magnifying glass!!). No drama, just as easy as Win 7 installation.

In 30 minutes, I was kind of feeling comfortable, so tried to turn it off and let my kids to figure out other stuff tomorrow.....then, I couldn't find an easy way to turn it off. 5 min google led to this article (for beta).

How to, uh, turn Windows 8 off | Microsoft - CNET News

ah....can I just turn off my PC? no....I have to click this, that, then, this, then move cursor to 'shut down'.

That's the moment I wanted to pull the power cord out from the wall (obviously I didn't).

Actually you can just turn off your PC. Every modern commercially available PC (including desktops) has a soft off button which actually suspends with a short press. That's why the "shutdown" button isn't in your face in the UI, because most people (remember, almost all new PCs are laptops) don't use it anyway. They close the lid or hit the hardware power button.

Pete

[CharlesEdward]

Originally Posted by Psychlist1972

Actually you can just turn off your PC. Every modern commercially available PC (including desktops) has a soft off button which actually suspends with a short press. That's why the "shutdown" button isn't in your face in the UI, because most people (remember, almost all new PCs are laptops) don't use it anyway. They close the lid or hit the hardware power button.

Pete

Thats cool for laptops, but most people that use desktops have it somewhere off to the side, and I personally would have to crouch underneath my desk and reach all the way to the back of my workstation just to turn off my PC, and that would definitely lead to some thrown out back muscles, I ain't complaining though, I'm just saying.

[Psychlist1972]

Originally Posted by CharlesEdward

Thats cool for laptops, but most people that use desktops have it somewhere off to the side, and I personally would have to crouch underneath my desk and reach all the way to the back of my workstation just to turn off my PC, and that would definitely lead to some thrown out back muscles, I ain't complaining though, I'm just saying.

True. Mine is behind two 30" displays and takes a good reach. I never shut my PC off though, unless I'm going away for a few days. On my three laptops, I just close the lid. On my Surface, I either close the cover, or hit the power button on the top.

Those of us with giant desktops just aren't the norm anymore, though. It's basically reserved really serious gamers with multiple video cards, and people like us who do things with other specialized hardware.

Many of the consumers who want something bigger than a laptop are going with all-in-one PCs, and those typically have power buttons on the display.

I used to see keyboards that had power/shutdown buttons on them. Haven't seen that in a while, but maybe it'll catch back on with the Windows 8 changes

Anyway, just hoping to shed a little light on it.

Pete

[Masaaki]

Thanks Pete for chiming in. I'm pretty sure somebody will make a 'shutdown' app, which can be clicked in the start menu. I was a collector of these small free/shareware back in DOS/Win2 days until XP, but these days, I just don't have time and most of the tasks are well included in OS or major apps.

Anyway, it's good to have somebody who could potentially pass our words to the manufacture of the OS, and I'm sure Win 8 will be a great OS in the long run after SP1 or maybe SP2.

I'm not usually an early adopter, but this time, I want the hybrid tablet/ultrabook so bad. So I just bought the Win 8 and installed in a desktop just to learn ahead of time, so that I don't have a heart attack when I get the hybrid stuff.

[CharlesEdward]

Can anyone chime in as to why my pc keeps waking up by itself after I put it in sleep mode? This is a custom i7 3770k build on a gigabyte mobo. I went into bios and turned off the wake up from Lan power options, so I don't know what could be causing this. The only peripherials I have connected are my display,2i2 interface,keyboard and mouse, and two midi controllers.

[Psychlist1972]

Originally Posted by CharlesEdward

Can anyone chime in as to why my pc keeps waking up by itself after I put it in sleep mode? This is a custom i7 3770k build on a gigabyte mobo. I went into bios and turned off the wake up from Lan power options, so I don't know what could be causing this. The only peripherials I have connected are my display,2i2 interface,keyboard and mouse, and two midi controllers.

Is the mouse bad? Most computers will wake on keyboard press, a mouse shake (move in two directions, or click), or Ethernet. Some even have a wake on USB which you may want to check.

Check the power options in the control panel.

Pete

[zlaya]

I have been messing with it at work when I have some free time. It seems as if UAC cannot be turned on. I will go to another platform altogether before I submit to UAC. Until they let me turn of the UAC, Windows 8 is irrelevant to me. I was on XP until a few months ago anyway, so im hoping to be on 7 til about 2015 or so at least.

[nosleepPDX]

Thought I'd share:

Just read this post about Windows 8 on the Cakewalk blog, written by Noel Borthwick, CTO of Cakewalk / Dude That Knows Alot About Windows.

POST : http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a...-applications/

They do some benchmark testing in Sonar towards the end of the page; otherwise he talks about what he likes / doesn't like about the new system.
Obviously the benchmarks were on just one system, and this information may or may not reflect what win8 means for your environment.. so .. as always ..

YMMV

--a

[CharlesEdward]

Originally Posted by Psychlist1972

Is the mouse bad? Most computers will wake on keyboard press, a mouse shake (move in two directions, or click), or Ethernet. Some even have a wake on USB which you may want to check.

Check the power options in the control panel.

Pete

Maybe its the mouse as its a refurbished microsoft 4500 comfort mouse I bought from bestbuy for like ten bucks. Will also check to see what other wake from options they got in the bios. Do you think it could maybe be the wifi/bluetooth card. I turned off wake from lan, but not sure if that applies to wlan.

[Psychlist1972]

Originally Posted by zlaya

I have been messing with it at work when I have some free time. It seems as if UAC cannot be turned on. I will go to another platform altogether before I submit to UAC. Until they let me turn of the UAC, Windows 8 is irrelevant to me. I was on XP until a few months ago anyway, so im hoping to be on 7 til about 2015 or so at least.

I don't understand the logic here. UAC is there to protect people. Folks can't say "Windows is full of viruses/malware" and then say that they won't buy the OS because of the feature which fights that. Not logically, anyway.

But, philosophy aside, UAC only affects you when you install software. Unless you're installing new things every single day, this is very rarely in your face.

Anyway, the UAC implementation in Windows 8 is almost identical to that in Windows 7, and you have the same level of control as with Windows 7. I leave UAC on at the default level, but I could dial it back just as I do with Windows 7.

Pete

[Red Black]

Originally Posted by nosleepPDX

Thought I'd share:

Just read this post about Windows 8 on the Cakewalk blog, written by Noel Borthwick, CTO of Cakewalk / Dude That Knows Alot About Windows.

POST : The Cakewalk Blog

They do some benchmark testing in Sonar towards the end of the page; otherwise he talks about what he likes / doesn't like about the new system.
Obviously the benchmarks were on just one system, and this information may or may not reflect what win8 means for your environment.. so .. as always ..

YMMV

--a

Wow! There's some major improvements there, especially at low latency settings. I did not expect that.. definitely worth a read!

RB

[godphaser]

I must say that having to click on "parameters" to shut down the computer was a huge WTF moment to me.

And I had to google to know how to close a tiled app.

Quite weird for someone who started with gem desktop and had most of Windows versions since. But I think it's the whole point, a forward push, they clearly want the world to feel the need for a touch screen or a tablet.

Apart from that, very good OS, def an enhanced Win 7, not a Me or Vista at all.

Audio wise I wait to have more experience before sharing with you but so far so good.

[CharlesEdward]

Originally Posted by CharlesEdward

Can anyone chime in as to why my pc keeps waking up by itself after I put it in sleep mode? This is a custom i7 3770k build on a gigabyte mobo. I went into bios and turned off the wake up from Lan power options, so I don't know what could be causing this. The only peripherials I have connected are my display,2i2 interface,keyboard and mouse, and two midi controllers.

Figured put what the problem was. Had to go into device manager and turn off allow device to wake computer for my wifi/bluetooth card. Also turned off this option on my mouse for good measure.

[Masaaki]

Called Microsoft Technical Service, and spent 30 min on the phone. I was having a problem activating the new license key of the Win 8 Pro 64bit, OEM version. I got 0X80072F8F error when I tried to activate. Turned out to be, the error was due to incorrect date/time setting. Once I fixed the date and time, activation went through. I remember I reset the CMOS battery of the motherboard, and the date/time was screwed up, so it was my fault. But if the OS gave me an error message, something like "date/time doesn't look like current", then I probably found the solution myself.

Anyway, MS tech support was nice, and spent great deal for me on Saturday. I hope this information helps somebody in a similar trouble.

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by Red Black

Wow! There's some major improvements there, especially at low latency settings. I did not expect that.. definitely worth a read!

RB

And as a counter balance

Read in Here

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by Paul in SoCal

MOTU drivers incompatible with Win 8. That seems to be the ONLY example where Windows 7 outperforms 8. Incidentally, MOTU drivers for Windows traditionally suck.

Theres more to it than that , the MOTU driver issue is only one aspect , and if you read thru the thread you will see I use RME HDSPe as my reference hardware. The issues with MOTU is highlighting that as much as some want to sugar coat the Win 8 transition, it isn't that smooth for all. Ask any FF400 owners how they are finding it for example, oh thats right, the hardware will not work on Win 8 without a signed legacy driver !

Show me a quantifiable example where Windows 8 is outperforming Windows 7 , and please don't point back to the Cakewalk Blog.

Re MOTU driver sucking on Windows, hmmm, their PCIe based cards are a right up there with the best of them, so lets not make blanket claims.

[Psychlist1972]

Originally Posted by Paul in SoCal

MOTU drivers incompatible with Win 8. That seems to be the ONLY example where Windows 7 outperforms 8. Incidentally, MOTU drivers for Windows traditionally suck.

I'm using my MOTU 828mkIII hybrid via FireWire on my main Windows 8 machine. I have a TI Firewire chipset, not the other cheaper one, so maybe that's why it works.

I haven't done any performance comparisons.

Pete

[nosleepPDX]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

Theres more to it than that , the MOTU driver issue is only one aspect , and if you read thru the thread you will see I use RME HDSPe as my reference hardware. The issues with MOTU is highlighting that as much as some want to sugar coat the Win 8 transition, it isn't that smooth for all. Ask any FF400 owners how they are finding it for example, oh thats right, the hardware will not work on Win 8 without a signed legacy driver !

Show me a quantifiable example where Windows 8 is outperforming Windows 7 , and please don't point back to the Cakewalk Blog.

Re MOTU driver sucking on Windows, hmmm, their PCIe based cards are a right up there with the best of them, so lets not make blanket claims.

Well

A. In the interest of being diplomatic, even if it was just MOTU interfaces that would still be a bummer

B. there are reports on the RME forums of stability with their interfaces in windows 8

C. I tried to subnote the post off of the cakewalk blog by saying obviously ymmv considering your specific setup.... Why isn't this quantifiable? Their tests were and usually are good.. It's not like he is trying to sell you sonar.. Also, he's a noted windows expert, I thought it would be a helpful link

D. The first issue from that thread was simply a permissions issue (eg no big deal..)

As always, just wanna be helpful. Also excited to hear more from you about this.

--a

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by nosleepPDX

Well

B. there are reports on the RME forums of stability with their interfaces in windows 8

Not getting your point ?

I noted one RME interface which has been a staple for many right up to and including Win7 , where it simply will not work under Windows 8 without hacking in the the legacy FW driver, which due to it being unsigned is deleted again on reboot.

I have had no issue with FF800 or the HDSPe cards , I didn't say anything about a blanket issue with RME in Win 8.

C. I tried to subnote the post off of the cakewalk blog by saying obviously ymmv considering your specific setup.... Why isn't this quantifiable? Their tests were and usually are good.. It's not like he is trying to sell you sonar.. Also, he's a noted windows expert, I thought it would be a helpful link

The Cakewalk tests are using a Metric that is difficult if not impossible to correlate to Real World DAW performance IMO , its simply a scale of a meter used by internal development for measuring background processes. How that actually translates to performance is the real question. Spitting out % improvements via a meter metric that has no direct quantifiable correlation to actual achieved DAW performance is of little value.

There has been lengthy debate already on this and I have gone into great detail on other threads , presenting my own quantifiable data based on test that are in the public domain that anyone can duplicate if they had the time and energy. I have also tried to engage the Cakewalk devs after I was dragged into a thread over at their forums , where I have asked them to detail the correlation and relevance of their meter metric.

Its pretty much the sound of silence since I entered the thread.

Draw your own conclusions.

Now understand I am not saying that Win8 performs worse than Win7, what I detail is that there is no performance advantage.

Whether end users prefer the tiles is totally up to them, but from a performance / compatibility perspective , I'll stick with the tried and true.

[CharlesEdward]

Ok. Point Dexter.

[Joshua531]

Main use for PC is music work else just internet, email and media. Whilst initial positive impressions definaterly quirky in respect to workflow with mouse vs W7.

[nosleepPDX]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

Not getting your point ?

I noted one RME interface which has been a staple for many right up to and including Win7 , where it simply will not work under Windows 8 without hacking in the the legacy FW driver, which due to it being unsigned is deleted again on reboot.

I have had no issue with FF800 or the HDSPe cards , I didn't say anything about a blanket issue with RME in Win 8.



The Cakewalk tests are using a Metric that is difficult if not impossible to correlate to Real World DAW performance IMO , its simply a scale of a meter used by internal development for measuring background processes. How that actually translates to performance is the real question. Spitting out % improvements via a meter metric that has no direct quantifiable correlation to actual achieved DAW performance is of little value.

There has been lengthy debate already on this and I have gone into great detail on other threads , presenting my own quantifiable data based on test that are in the public domain that anyone can duplicate if they had the time and energy. I have also tried to engage the Cakewalk devs after I was dragged into a thread over at their forums , where I have asked them to detail the correlation and relevance of their meter metric.

Its pretty much the sound of silence since I entered the thread.

Draw your own conclusions.

Now understand I am not saying that Win8 performs worse than Win7, what I detail is that there is no performance advantage.

Whether end users prefer the tiles is totally up to them, but from a performance / compatibility perspective , I'll stick with the tried and true.

I disagree (respectfully) and think that there are possible performance advancements.

Could you point me to these threads?

Also, it wouldn't be any more quantifiable if any of the cakewalk developers, in any thread, gave you any response vis a vis measurement<-->real-world-reference. There's numerous reasons to pay attention to this sort of test. But in the end, no matter how the test is performed in this situation, there will always be outlier systems (sometimes those will be ones that actually work, rather than the opposite!)

At the same time, of course take it with a grain of salt. It's just not a worthless grain of salt.

Peace
--a

[Red Black]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

And as a counter balance

Read in Here

Yeah.. that thread paints a more complex picture. I think I'm just gonna wait a year and let the dust settle!

Cheers..

RB