No issues here with that!

Are you sure you didn't miss hit a key (I)..... which definitely would trigger the filter?

I'm guessing mobile phone predictive text

I'm guessing mobile phone predictive text

 

Predictive text: What a piece of shut!

I've been using it for a few months now, sans touchscreen (Relying only on a keyboard touch pad), and have got used to it.

 

I'm no fan of Microsoft, in fact there aren't many occasions during a 'puter session when the image of Bill gates and Steve Balmer being used as separate munitions in oppositionally targetted rail guns is far from ones thoughts . . .

 

However, I find having a totally user configurable  and well-ordered front-end is really useful and being able to access my popular/most frequently used applications from the desktop by means of a desktop "App"  is convenient and time saving - who wants to dig-through a stack of menu trees and child windows to get your favourite application program or have a conventional windows desktop cluttered-up with application icons in order to achieve the same effect.

 

I think the reason it seems so complicated and frustrating to use is that it represents Microsoft dipping their toes into a "Mobile" type OS front-end market for desktops  and, it looks like, the designers were told to keep a foot in each camp i.e. keep the old desktop screen and add an the mobile "App" based front-end to it - presumably the aim is to get the coffee-table/loose women computing set using a windows driven tablet/laptop.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the downside of  combining both approaches to a front-end is  firstly you can end up with a desktop with a mixture of open app "windows" and conventional Windows, each of which operates slightly differently and, secondly,   that the conventional  windowing system allows you to open a tree of parent/child windows to a greater depth than a mobile app would normally allow, so, in both cases, there's loads of potential there for forgetting which belongs to what and closing down something inadvertently.

 

Strikes me that they could do well by recruiting some good conceptual thinkers to think these things thru before releasing them.

 

 

Nick

Edited 5 June, 201412 yr by Clunkclick

MS long term plan is to get everyone onto an app based subscription model with a walled garden MS controls and skims off the cream. It's basically what Aplle does and MS wants some too.

 

But it won't work, most people just aren't THAT stupid. Expect some frantic back pedalling win Win9.

We're running Windows 7 Prof @ work and are unlikely to transfer to 8. I've used it on a laptop and truly hated it.

 

However my Lumia is on WIn 8 and it's great!

Ultimately there's more money selling "Ice-cream" desktops to plebes  . . .

 

Professional computing is another market and the day of the  serious home user/hobbyist influencing the cut is well on its way.

 

Just think of how populations are economically structured now in developed countries - the professional computing market  is a declining one.

 

 

Nick

Edited 5 June, 201412 yr by Clunkclick

I think the Windows 8 presentation has virtues, which in its current format are best suited to the domestic  "Coffee table/kitchen screen/home control" environment - that's got to be the bigger market - hence Microsoft's change of direction (Some say belatedly !).

 

For professional users, I'd say a less "In-your-face" interface is needed. Perhaps an audio/visual one, where you can call up (Or click on ) , ideally more effectively than  the existing voice recognition control system, your favourite/most used application programs.

 

So that you can have a entirely clear desktop, except for permanently displayed list boxes in each corner of the screen   showing, say, your favourite apps, 10 last used apps,  in one, a limited display of diary entries in another, and perhaps a couple of user configurable boxes - say for printer/mobile phone/fax/video conferencing access and, perhaps, a personal interests box ! -If allowed.i.e.a design similar to what shareware  of the DOS era, 30 years ago, provided ! 

 

Nick

Edited 5 June, 201412 yr by Clunkclick

I use Win8 on a Lumia as well and it genuinely works great there. Still waiting on my 8.1 update on it.

MS picking up market share on Win8 mainly though selling very good phones very cheaply.

I  showed mine to an IT pro and semi-pro photographer and even he was impressed with it.

 

Win8 is a busted flush on the desktop. Works well on tablets but it's lost the eye of the market no one will want it now no matter what they do to it. Win8 is also poor in enterprise which is stupid since business is MS core market. MS is still the best OS for working. I'm aware of large organisation where iPads are being handed back now. The novelty has worn off and the reality of trying to work on them has hit. They're all getting Win7 laptops again. Stupid amount of money wasted on issuing people with toys.

 

Change of CEO and maybe MS might look back to working on the core of their users who do boring but important stuff.

We're running Windows 7 Prof @ work and are unlikely to transfer to 8. I've used it on a laptop and truly hated it.

 

However my Lumia is on WIn 8 and it's great!

 

If you have Windows 8 Professional, you can legally 'downgrade' to windows 7 for free from Micro$oft. You also keep the use of Windows 8 for future use. This is what I want to do when I eventually decide to buy a laptop.

Have to say that 8.1 isn't a bad OS - it is what should have been brought out in the first place.

 

"Metro" there for touch users and desktop for "power" users with both easily confugurable as the "main" access point depending on use.

 

As happened on Vista though, the initial launch version was crap and that has left a bad taste with a lot of people who will now never go near it despite the improvements.

 

BTW I am no MS fanboy - just find that it is actually a pretty decent OS (I used classic shell on Win 8 soon after it came out so it acted like Win 7 but had the power of 8)

It's all change and no one likes change really.

 

I must say I find it okay but it is a bit different.

As happened on Vista though, the initial launch version was crap and that has left a bad taste with a lot of people who will now never go near it despite the improvements.

 

 

I had Vista on MSDN on pre-launch. It sucked then, and it still sucked when it was replaced. Didn't matter how many "improvements" M$ made to it, it was still trying to polish a turd. The Mojave project was an awful PR exercise to try and help polish the turd, but a turd it remained nonetheless. The only M$ OS that sucked more was ME (the Mistake Edition) and thankfully that is dead and buried now.

Hi, been running Win8 since it was released and hated it at first, then bought the Stardock's Start button application and another of their applications, Modern Mix. Now I don't have to run the Metro interface at all and I can start the modern UI applications in separate windows. Total cost is $9.98 and brings out the best of the 8 ...

Are you sure you didn't miss hit a key (I)..... which definitely would trigger the filter?

 

 

Shuts down

 

 

No issues here with that!

 

 

I'm guessing mobile phone predictive text

 

 

Predictive text: What a piece of shut!

 

Hehehehehehehe... Fat Fungers more luke 

 

(see what I did there)

I use Win8 on a Lumia as well and it genuinely works great there. Still waiting on my 8.1 update on it.

 

Register as a 'Developer' with Microsoft/Windows Phone (don't need to develop anything!!), then download the Developer App... Should get the Update(s) come through straight after that!!!

Edited 9 June, 201412 yr by Simoneale1973

Register as a 'Developer' with Microsoft/Windows Phone (don't need to develop anything!!), then download the Developer App... Should get the Update(s) come through straight after that!!!

 

Good try but they're charging £12 to register as a dev. I'm not that desperate for it ;-)

 

[Edit] ?You can get it for free but you can only get the SDK for Wph 8.1 on Windows 8. I'm running 7.

Edited 9 June, 201412 yr by Aspman

Good try but they're charging £12 to register as a dev. I'm not that desperate for it ;-)

 

[Edit] ?You can get it for free but you can only get the SDK for Wph 8.1 on Windows 8. I'm running 7.

 

Eh? I don't think you've quite got the right end of the stick...

 

http://www.techienews.co.uk/979427/getting-windows-phone-8-1-developer-preview-now-final-version-day-released-microsoft/

 

Just register on website as developer. then install app to phone, then update bits for about an hour and away you go! Done it on my Lumia 820 and my work HTC...

Hmmm I got a different set of instruction when I tried to search how to do it. Involved getting an SDK on a win8 desktop and unlocking the phone for development.

 

I'll try again, cheers

I recently had a PC built for my business and before I even utter the words "can I have Windows 7 on it please?" the chap building it offered Windows 7 to me. in fact the last 5 pooters I have bought have all had Windows 7. It does what I need, unlike Windows 8, which does things I don't need (or want).

Hmmm I got a different set of instruction when I tried to search how to do it. Involved getting an SDK on a win8 desktop and unlocking the phone for development.

 

I'll try again, cheers

 

Let me know how you get on with it Aspman - I've just changed the 520 for 625, and from what I've seen 8.1 looks much improved. However the phone is a company one and really don't want to mess it up!

It worked last night. Still figuring out what has changed.

 

Most obvious change is you can have more tiles on the 'desktop'. That's find on my 920 which has a relatively big screen (4.5") but I don;t think it would work very well on anything smaller. Some options to put a picture behind the screen instead of a solid colour but I'd have rather had more control over each individual tile.

 

Links to wifi etc from the pull down now but still a bit unclear/half arsed. i.e. it has wifi, bluetooth buttons that look a bit like tabs. tapping the wifi buttons opens the wifi settings but in another window not under the tool bar thing. Tapping the bluetooth tab/button changed the colour but doesn't open the setting or even indicate if it's off or on.

 

Separate ringer and media volumes, yay! How MS missed that I just don't know.

 

Bunch of other odd enterprise type things.

 

No Cortana in the EU yet. I believe there is a bodge but not sure if I can be bothered. I don't use the voice function on my Nexus.

Sounds good - was reading about the swipe down for settings (a la IOS) the other day.

 

Did you follow/use the link that djswivel posted?

 

Eh? I don't think you've quite got the right end of the stick...

 

http://www.techienews.co.uk/979427/getting-windows-phone-8-1-developer-preview-now-final-version-day-released-microsoft/

 

Just register on website as developer. then install app to phone, then update bits for about an hour and away you go! Done it on my Lumia 820 and my work HTC...

Yup his link worked for me. I'd searched online how a how to previously and it came up with another set of instruction that didn't work.

 

Took about an hour to do it and you need to keep searching for updates. It wasn't clear when it was finished. After 20min and a reboot it came back to to Win8.0 which confused me but just keep going to 'check updates' and it gets there in the end.

WinPh 8.1

 

Fingswot I have noticed today....

 

It's got an FM radio now, I didn't even know there was hardware in the phone for it.

The App store is much improved. Not sure if there is a great deal more content but the organisation and interface is much better.

 

Some new data storage / usage apps