SillyDog701

[James]

Indeed. And if memory serves, I "think" Melinda Gates (before her marriage to Billy) worked on that project. Not sure it was very successful although her marriage turned out to be. I know Clippy was a pain in the backside, but I always found the dog and cat to be sort of ... well... tolerable. LOL

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[DJGM]

Just for a bit of fun:

For the LoLz ... !



Yes ... I'm still on the Consumer Preview, as it seems to be a hell of lot more stable than the Release Preview.

I had an installation of the Release Preview, on a separate partition, which was installed clean, and I'd been
in the process of recreating my existing setup from the Consumer Preview, using Windows Easy Transfer,
and reinstalling all of my programs. The trouble is, everytime I had got a few minutes into doing anything,
the whole thing just locks up and becomes totally unresponsive. The mouse cursor still moves around,
but nothing is clickable at all, meaning I have to force a hard reboot via the reset button.

I thought, "OK, not too much hassle really while the Consumer Preview still works OK." I'll go back to that.

Earlier, I decided to do a fresh re-install of the Release Preview. I reformatted the partition the previously
unstable installation was on, inserted the USB pen drive on which I had created a bootable Windows 8
setup drive, as it's faster to install Windows from that, rather than from a DVD.

About 30 or so minutes later, I came back to the PC, went through the first time setup wizard, and was
presented with the default Metro Start screen as I'd expected. I switched to the Network section of the
standard Control Panel and set up the network connection to get on the internet.

Then I thought, "While I'm here, I'll have a quick look at the XBox Live Games app on the Start screen."
I fired it up, logged in to my XBox Live account, had a quick look around for a few minutes, looked at
some of my Achievements in GTA IV and Saints Row: The Third, then decided to return to Desktop,
so I can make a start on recreating my setup from the Consumer Preview.

Unfortunately, Windows 8 Release Preview had other ideas. I clicked and dragged the XBox app out of
the way so that it'd close. Well, it certainly closed, but then left me with a screen with a rather plain
dark blue background, and a static busy cursor. The damn thing had locked up ... again!

This, ladies and gents, is a fresh clean install of Windows 8 Release Preview, with NO extras installed.

Windows 8 Release Preview, is the official release candidate build, therefore NOT classed as a beta,
and it seems more unstable than the Windows 8 Developer Preview, especially if it decides to just
fall over and die within less than ten minutes of use, and with no third party apps installed!

Hell, even Windows ME was more stable than the Windows 8 Release Preview seems to be.

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[James]

Wow! This really doesn't sound good for MS. I've heard very few positive experiences related to date. Not good at this late date.

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[DJGM]

Well, I decided to give the Release Preview one last chance. I reformatted the partition again, downloaded a
fresh copy of the Release Preview ISO image from the official download page. The previous copy of the ISO
that I'd downloaded was from my Microsoft Technet Professional Downloads subscription.

(Both ISO files from either source are essentially the same except for their file names.)

I created a new bootable installation from the new ISO file on a different USB pen drive than I'd used before,
in case the earlier copy of the ISO and/or the previous USB pen drive had a combined problem that was
causing the Release Preview to freeze up so soon after installation. Although, when anything like that
ever happens, the installer stops part way through the process with an "install failed" error.

Generally, I'd expect that to happen if the ISO file was from an unauthorised source such as a torrent site.

So, I set about running the installation from the bootable USB, created from the freshly downloaded ISO.
I restarted the computer, booted up from the USB, and followed the usual prompts on the setup wizard.
The usual suspects ... select language/keyboard, enter product key, accept the license agreement,
reduce heat, and leave to simmer for approximately 20-30 minutes ... time for a brew!

25 minutes later, the install is done, AND the "first time setup wizard" is again ready for my attention.
So far so good. After following the prompts and answering its questions, the garish coloured Metro
tiles of the Windows 8 Start screen appear. OK, now to get to work methinks. I wonder how far it
might let me proceed this time? Could everything be OK now? I've used a new ISO, installed it
from a different USB pen drive than before. Surely there's no reason for it to lock up?

I then set about running the Windows Easy Transfer program, to transfer the settings and stuff it has
managed to grab from the Consumer Preview setup. This is going to take a while, so I'll go catch up
on last Thursday's edition of The Late Show that I hadn't seen yet. Yeah, that's right ... Letterman!

45 minutes later, I come back to the PC ... and the transfer has completed ... sort of. I still have to
reinstall all my programs. Oh well, here goes. This could take a while ... but I'm sort of used to it!
No wait, Windows Easy Transfer wants me to reboot the computer. OK, not a problem.

I install Classic Shell to reinstate the missing Start button and a proper Start menu. Not a problem.
I install QTTabbar, to add tabs to Windows 8 Explorer. Not a problem. Windows Explorer now has
a feature they should've added ages ago without the need for a 3rd party add-on. (Now, Microsoft,
why can't you add tabs to Explorer, instead of that stupid, bloated, cluttered Ribbon thing?!?)

I install SeaMonkey. Not a problem. I install Firefox. Not a problem. I then run MozBackup to put
the backed up browser profiles into place. Not a problem. Looks as though it's all going to plan.

I install the Adobe Flash Player plugin. Not a problem. (I'd rather not TBH, but it's a necessary evil.)

I decide to come here to post a progress report. I load up SeaMonkey, click the relevant bookmark
to bring up this site, and I'm just in the process of logging in, and BOOM ... everything locks up!

It's at this point, the air in my room turns bluer than the default colour of the Windows XP taskbar!
The cursor is still movable, but it's stuck on the pointy link hand, not the regular arrow pointer.

I can't win. Despite running a clean install no less than 3 times, and using different install media
on my latest attempt, it still seems utterly unstable to the point that it's completely unusable.

Yet the Consumer Preview (which is still a BETA) works perfectly fine. Not a problem!

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[James]

This is really disheartening. I'm sticking with Windows 7. I have no intentions of screwing up this box. Thanks for the updates. Things look really bleak right now.

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[DJGM]

Here's a couple of screengrabs of my setup in Windows 8 Release Preview before it last froze up . . .


Windows 8 Explorer, customised with tabs (QTTabbar) and with the crappy Ribbon disabled:


Windows 8 System Properties ... within the same tabbed Explorer window:



Regarding the freeze ups ... there might be a glimmer of light glowing just over yonder.
I ain't beaten that easily! I haven't quite given up on this stubborn beast yet!

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[James]

Keep us updated. I have no intentions of going out and buying a touch screen so I'm more interested in how this OS handles with a non-touch device.

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[DJGM]

From my experience of Windows 8 so far, while I've been using the Consumer Preview as my default OS since
early March, it actually works quite well on a regular PC, with a standard non-touch LCD monitor. The Metro
stuff on the Start screen, is either easily ignored, or you might find perhaps one or two things on there
that might be useful. It's a "take it or leave it" sort of thing, although judging by many posts on various
forums out there, the consensus seems to be mostly "leave it" ... but it is still early days . . .

Although it's primarily designed for touch, all this Metro seems to work fine with a standard scroll mouse.

Of course, once certain add-ons like Classic Shell, QTTabbar, and Ribbon Disabler are installed, it seems
like a refined and slightly snappier updated Windows 7. This is on the W8 Consumer Preview of course.
I've yet to try the Release Preview properly, although I am now strongly suspecting there might be a
hardware driver issue causing the Release Preview to keep going belly-up.

If you have a spare PC that meets or excels the system requirements for Windows 7, then it's worth
giving it a go on there if you're concerned about buggering up your main PC with a pre-release OS,
and there's always the choice of trying it in a sandboxed VM within VMware or VirtualBox.

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[DJGM]

FINALLY! I've found the solution to the problem of Windows 8 Release Preview locking up at random intervals.
As I was suspecting more and more, it was a driver issue. Despite what I'd said before, deep down I thought
that surely, even at this late stage in development, possibly only a few weeks away from Microsoft signing
it off as completed, finalised, RTM and ready to go into the retail channel on brand new PC's, surely the
core of the actual OS can't be so unstable that it requires frequent hard reboots! It sure felt that way.

Anyway, I've installed the latest AMD Catalyst graphics drivers specially made for Windows 8, and now the
system is about as stable as it ought to be. I've been running it almost non-stop for two days, transferred
most of my settings across from the Consumer Preview, and re-installed most of the programs.

So, warning to anyone wanting to try Windows 8 Release Preview ... make sure you install the very latest
hardware drivers as soon as possible, direct from the manufacturers websites. DON'T rely on the default
bog standard drivers bundled with the OS, otherwise you might experience severe instability issues.

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