Windows 9 will be for rent

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 07:29:08 -0400, Caver1 wrote:

On 06/14/2014 10:50 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:37:24 -0400, Caver1 wrote:

In 8.1 if you set it up right you never have to see Metro or it's apps.

Thanks, but that wasn't very helpful. I've been "setting it up" for about 18
months now, and I still get dumped into the Modern UI unexpectedly.
I whack each mole as I find it, but how hard would it have been for MS to
give me/us a button that selects one UI versus the other?


Make sure all accounts are local accounts.
Download and install Classic Menu.
Choose your Classic menu style.
In Classic Menu options set it to start up Windows in the desktop. The
other options are up to you.
Delete all of the Metro apps.
I never see the Metro side. In fact I can't even get into it.

Again, thanks, but I'm talking about Windows functions, not apps.
At least, not deleteable apps, and not without taking a machete to the OS.
I appreciate the effort, but I'm not going to do that. I shouldn't have to.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 10:36:22 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jun 2014 21:59:15 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:42:11 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

That tiled screen is entirely optional, as I said.

Ken, you keep saying "entirely optional" when I'm sure you mean mostly or
partly optional. I don't think "entirely optional" means what you think it
means.


I mean "entirely." Neither I nor my wife, nor many other people I know
*ever* see the tiled Metro/Modern interface.



The biggest problem is that Microsoft has done a terrible job of
letting people know there's a choice of interfaces or how to use the
desktop interface.

Like I and others have said, the biggest problem is that Microsoft didn't
simply let users pick an interface *and stick with it*.


They *did*.


I would love to use
the desktop interface all of the time, but so far that doesn't seem to be
possible.


It *is* possible. I do, my wife does, and many other people I know,
use it *all* the time. If you don't, as I said, you should ask
yourself what's wrong with your setup.

I thought about how to reply to this bait, or even if I should reply at all.
I thought about providing some assumptions about how I think you and your
wife use your systems versus how I use mine, and I realized I'd be sounding
a lot like BillW50, so I shivered, I shuddered, I threw up a little in my
mouth, and I decided to simply steal a line from one of your previous posts:

We all use our computers differently.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:14:03 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In the last episode of ,
"Ken Blake, MVP" said:

As far as I'm concerned, what Microsoft did wrong is not make it at
all clear that Windows 8 has two interfaces, and you can use either or
both.

Something Windows 8.1 fixed.

Not true. I upgraded to 8.1 (and .1U1) when it became available and it
didn't get me any closer to being able to use only the Desktop UI.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:28:07 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In the last episode of ,
"Ken Blake, MVP" said:

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:14:03 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In the last episode of ,
"Ken Blake, MVP" said:

As far as I'm concerned, what Microsoft did wrong is not make it at
all clear that Windows 8 has two interfaces, and you can use either or
both.

Something Windows 8.1 fixed.

I don't agree. For example, in their advertising, they don't show or
even mention the desktop interface.

And yet it's the default interface if you're on a desktop or portable
without a touch screen -- Marketing rarely reflects reality.

Not true. My laptop, for example, doesn't have a touch screen and the Modern
UI is/was the default UI. In fact, this is the first time I'm hearing that
the Desktop UI might be the default UI for *any* system. That simply doesn't
appear to be the case.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:50:24 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

Even run Linux as a VM, as its as easy as a copy to a USD drive to
back it up.

Oh man! What is up with you VM people? I don't get the idea of running a
host OS that can't do what you want just to run another OS as a VM which
does do what you want? What is the point? Why not run the OS that does
what you want and forget that VM nonsense to begin with?

It puzzles me too. Running a "system within a system" must slow
everything down, and can evidently slightly alter the way some things
behave too, judging by the demos I've seen on youtube. Multiple
booting straight from the hard drive (or SSD) is simple enough.

Currently my test machine has seven different systems installed, just
to try them out - Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint
Cinnamon and Mint Mate. When I have one of these systems running I
know I'm only seeing the behaviour of that system, not its interaction
with any other system.

Rod.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:50:18 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

My XP machines will never become obsolete. In fact, I just purchased
another XP machine just yesterday. Linux, sure you could load Linux, but
what good are they? I have two Linux machines right here and all they
are good for is browsing and not much else. My Android tablets can do
that. Heck they even play WMV and WMA files poorly. So not good in the
multimedia department either.

They may become obsolete if you ever need to replace a hard drive and
reinstall, and then find that you can't activate the new installation
because it's not a supported system.

Rod.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:45:32 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

I'm not sure I follow you, here Ken. I wanted the Metro interface as my
default on this computer, but since it a notebook that doesn't have a
touch screen, I had to change the parameters installed by 8.1U1 so that
it once again defaults to the Metro UI. Since it is possible to do that,
how is the default interface *not* chosen by the user?

Once you've chosen something, it's no longer a default. A default is what
happens *before* you make a selection. That is, of course, assuming you're
even able to make a selection.

True, unless you choose something that then leads to a further choice.
The first choice may have been fixed by you, but if it's followed by a
further choice of options one of which will be chosen by the computer
if you don't intervene, then that second choice is a default.

When my main computer starts it offers me a menu with a choice between
Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Windows 7. Windows is already selected, so if I
don't do anything during the 10 second countdown Windows is what will
boot. That makes Windows the default system, even though I previously
selected it as the default. If I had not previously changed the
default to make Windows the default, then the default would have been
whichever Linux was installed last, which would have made it the
"default default". :-)

Rod.

In ,
Char Jackson typed:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:50:18 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

My XP machines will never become obsolete. In fact, I just purchased
another XP machine just yesterday. Linux, sure you could load Linux,
but what good are they? I have two Linux machines right here and all
they are good for is browsing and not much else. My Android tablets
can do that. Heck they even play WMV and WMA files poorly. So not
good in the multimedia department either.

I hate to chime in on a good rant, but I thought I'd point out that
WMV and WMA are arguably at the bottom of the list of test candidates
when it comes to judging AV playback capability. You might as well
use AVI. (OK, that was a low blow. No one uses AVI anymore, but then,
no one uses WMV/WMA anymore, either.)

Really? Premium audio streams use asf format all of the time. And asf is
very much the same as wma. In fact, I capture asf streams and do no
converting and just rename them as wma files. I must have about 300GB
worth of WMA files now.

I have three AverMedia analog/digital TV tuners. They also have a FM
tuner as well. And using it as an analog tuner, it saves either in MP3
or WMV. The radio or if you want to record just the audio portion of a
TV program, you have either MPG or WMA formats. And both WMA/WMV are far
better than MPG. As a bonus, you can record and stream at the same time
with WMA/WMV. So while one machine is recording, you can watch it from
any other computer on the network. I haven't found any other format that
you can do that with yet.

A much better test is something from this century, such as Matroska
(MKV).

My Android devices and Linux systems, cousins to each other, all do
wonderfully with MKV.

Hmm... I think I ran into MKV once with XMRadio on an Android. As you
could download shows so when you were offline you could play them. I
tried to find a MKV player for Windows and the only one was on a Chinese
website and it was all in Chinese. It was too scary going through the
install and answering questions in Chinese. It could have asked do you
want this malware and that malware installed for all I know. If this is
the same format, I didn't find it very useful without a decent Windows
player for that format. Not even VLC would play them.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2300 1.66GHz - 4GB - ATI X1400 - Windows XP SP2

In ,
Roderick Stewart typed:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:50:18 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

My XP machines will never become obsolete. In fact, I just purchased
another XP machine just yesterday. Linux, sure you could load Linux,
but what good are they? I have two Linux machines right here and all
they are good for is browsing and not much else. My Android tablets
can do that. Heck they even play WMV and WMA files poorly. So not
good in the multimedia department either.

They may become obsolete if you ever need to replace a hard drive and
reinstall, and then find that you can't activate the new installation
because it's not a supported system.

Two cures for that. Use branded OEM disc or clone drives for backups.
Branded OEM auto activates and requires no Microsoft server activation.
I love these the best. Nor do they seem to trip with major hardware
changes either. My guess is they are always happy unless the BIOS
key changes.

Cloning... I prefer cloning vs. backup/restore mainly because I had
backup/restore failures. I also had cloning failures too, but if you use
the clone drive and put the original one away, you find out very soon if
something went wrong using the clone. I don't think I ever saw changing
a drive trip the XP activation again. Maybe that isn't a problem if you
don't switch drives too often.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2300 1.66GHz - 4GB - ATI X1400 - Windows XP SP2

Per DK:
Then could you kindly describe exactly what it is that you did?

+1.

I've got that five-dollar "Start" add-on and it works quite well - but
every so often I still wind up looking at the tiled interface. No
problem because I've got one beeeeeg tile that says "Desktop"... but I
do see the tiled interface occasionally, albeit very briefly.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 23:11:11 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:


Unlike others (possibly Ken's wife too) my wife who rarely ever used the
Start Menu on 95,98,XP, 7 prefers the Modern UI and want to know why
exiting Outlook and Photo Gallery doesn't return to her preferred Modern
UI mode since those programs were launched from their respective tiles
in that mode.

Exactly. I think a lot of people would have been happier if MS had given
users a 3-position switch:
- Use the Modern UI
- Use the Desktop UI
- Let Windows decide

Each choice could still have been customizable, but at least users would
have had a choice as to the starting point.



We agree completely on that.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 01:25:06 GMT, (DK)
wrote:

In article , "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

I mean "entirely." Neither I nor my wife, nor many other people I know
*ever* see the tiled Metro/Modern interface.

Then could you kindly describe exactly what it is that you did?


Nothing special, other than running Start8.

Ken

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:26:03 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per DK:
Then could you kindly describe exactly what it is that you did?

+1.

I've got that five-dollar "Start" add-on and it works quite well - but
every so often I still wind up looking at the tiled interface. No
problem because I've got one beeeeeg tile that says "Desktop"... but I
do see the tiled interface occasionally, albeit very briefly.



The only time I ever see it is if I accidentally hit the Windows key.
If I don't press it, I never see it.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:41:47 -0400, "...winston"
wrote:

Neil wrote, On 6/15/2014 9:51 PM:
On 6/15/2014 8:15 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

Yes, and that's one of the things that I object to. Since not everyone
has the same kind of computer, the default interface should be chosen
by the user.

I'm not sure I follow you, here Ken. I wanted the Metro interface as my
default on this computer, but since it a notebook that doesn't have a
touch screen, I had to change the parameters installed by 8.1U1 so that
it once again defaults to the Metro UI. Since it is possible to do that,
how is the default interface *not* chosen by the user?

I also read Ken's statement and wondered the same since configuration
options are available to default to the Modern UI (Windows Taskbar
properties on the respective Taskbar and Navigation tabs).

Then I thought that he might be objecting to not having a single option
on first setup or in the Personalization settings to to automatically
default to one or the other modes.


Sorry to have not been clear. Yes, that's what I meant.

On 06/15/2014 09:50 PM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
DK typed:
In article , "one"
wrote:
http://www.techradar.com/news/softwa...9-release-date
-news-and-rumours-1029245

What the collective has heard exactly is that a prototype version is
in the works in which a barebones version of Windows 9 will be
available for free. For additional functionality, users would have
to pay up through a subscription.

According to the leaker group, the core of Windows 9 will live in
the given system's BIOS, while the rest of the OS will reside in the
cloud, ready for picking via various apps and services. (Exactly how
much of the standard Windows functions would be left out is what's
worrying about this rumor.)

Okay then. In about 5 years, when my XP becomes obsolete, I will
finally stop dual booting and switch full time to Linux. None of that
crap is worth learning how to deal with another round of MS inanities.

My XP machines will never become obsolete. In fact, I just purchased
another XP machine just yesterday. Linux, sure you could load Linux, but
what good are they? I have two Linux machines right here and all they
are good for is browsing and not much else. My Android tablets can do
that. Heck they even play WMV and WMA files poorly. So not good in the
multimedia department either.


Ubuntu doesn't adds formats like wma, wmv, quicktime, etc to restricted
formats due to their license restrictions. run the following command in
a terminal which enables support for restricted formats

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras



--
Caver1