dubsdj

Two reasons: 1. Reality shows us that Metro on a desktop is less productive than the start menu. Especially for people who have to use many applications and for Admins that have to use many "tools". 2. The mere fact that you think staying with Win7 is an option tells most people here that you know very little about Win8. Based on your logic, MS Paint should be enough for everyone. Why install Adobe Photoshop, right? It's just a program, a tool. Get over it. 1. No idea how it is any less productive but ok 2. And you are the windows 8 expert obviously? 3. Get over what? From challenging an idea? Why ? That's what a forum is all about.

I'm not trying to be negative, sorry if I came over that way. I was just trying to understand why put a start button back .. Microsoft with all their years of development and experience must have sat there and thought long and hard about this and made a decision to move forward with the new metro style. I just think sometimes trying to put back all the things you liked about the previous version is simply going backwards.. I had the same dilemma when they ditched Dreamscene.. I loved that feature, but I got over it eventually and don't even think twice about it now. Same with Aero glass.. yes it looks nice but to be honest the right thing to do is stay with Windows 7 as that isn't going to go anywhere for awhile yet.. When you consider people are still using XP. My point was before I got shouted at was , why not stick with Windows 7 instead of hacking Windows 8 to make it look like 7? And who knows what that might do to the registry when windows updates come out.. it might cause more problems than it is actually worth. I do understand that ppl like to tweak and they must be really clever to do that, I don't doubt that at all.. Anyway that's my thoughts on it... Why can't I have an alternative opinion about it?

yes, putting the start button back and making it Windows 7 again. very good.

Why?? Just use Windows 7... Just don't really understand the point of removing the functionality of Windows 8 but I guess everyone has their own taste...

Solved it myself It's because I can't use the same roaming profile that windows 7 uses. I have had to create separate profiles for Windows 8 pcs using the computer profile policy in GPO management. Assigned that to windows 8 pcs and now background is sorted.

Does anybody know the fix when users get a black wallpaper. They can see their wallpaper in the tile but when they click on the desktop tile the wallpaper is black! If they go to personalize and double click on the default theme the wallpaper suddenly re-appears. I found a hotfix from microsoft but its Windows 7 only. does anybody know a workaround for this? Can some kind of forced refresh to default theme be achieved? thanks very much

Honestly, I'm surprised about how offensive ppl are when all I was doing was sharing some useful tips that I found. and I never said it wasn't a lockscreen, I was just trying to separate the fact that it also acts as the default logon background when on a domain environment... go try it yourselves if you think im talking a load of C%*p. cannot for the life of me undertstand why everyone gets so worked up about it... Won't bother sharing info in the future.. not worth it when I get nothing but abuse. PS. Can an admin change the post name to "CHANGE THE LOCKSCREEN" I tried to but can't find out how.. Just to make everyone happy.

Thanks, I'll replace it also until I or someone figure out how to disable the screen BTW, If you hate them user pictures replace all the ones in this folder with same size ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures I do it with $OEM$ folder on my unattended Cool thanks! I did something similar with windows 7

You know what... Can we agree to disagree...? is that ok? I know its not the lockscreen only.. not on a domain anyway , but you disagree and its been noted... that's fine by me.. I'm sure some ppl might actually appreciate my post at least.. lets forget about this conversation now. I'm tired of trying to explain myself

I'm not surprised at all. Microsoft have now realised that Apps are the way to go and they are trying to move into Apple's arena. If they could I'm sure they would forget about Windows 7 completely because it is now obsolete in their big plans for apps and tablets etc.. As much as I find it annoying that there are over 200mb of updates, I can understand why Microsoft are doing this.. Sooner they forget Windows 7 and move people onto Windows 8 and app stores etc the better.. That's where the future is... Apps.... They know it and Apple knew it a few years ago.

each user can set their own lock screen. this picture appears when you first power the pc on... and when users log out..

Hi no am not talking about the lock screen that's seperate. I'm talking about the actual logon screen.

What?? So what do you have in its place?? XP login screen or something? Nothing like classic

I thought to share my initial discoveries when using roaming profiles in a hot seat XP, Windows 7, 8 enivironment. I read somewhere that Microsoft said it cannot be done and windows 8 profiles would have to be seperated from the Windows 7.v2 ones... However I have been testing this and it works really well and makes use of the V2 profiles absolutely fine. ****EDIT I AM WRONG, NO IT DOESN'T... I HAVE NOTICED SOME REALLY ODD BEHAVIOR INCLUDING, MISSING REDIRECTED BACKGROUNDS AND MENUS NOT POPPING UP JUST TO NAME A COUPLE.. SO YES THE PROFILES MUST BE SEPARATE AFTER ALL* TO FIX THIS I HAVE CREATED A COMPUTER GROUP POLICY FOR THE WINDOWS 8 COMPUTERS WHICH POINTS TO AN ALTERNATIVE ROAMING PROFILE. THIS FIXES ALL THE PROBLEMS WITH USERS WINDOWS 7 PROFILES BEING MUDDLED UP WITH WINDOWS 8 PROFILES. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE THE SAME .V2 NAME, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME... PS.. ALL EXISTING LOCAL PROFILES STORED ON THE WINDOWS 8 COMPUTERS MUST BE REMOVED BEFORE TRYING TO REDIRECT WINDOWS 8 PROFILES USING GROUP POLICY... IMPORTANT..... THOUGHT I SHOULD EDIT MY POST WITH THIS NEWS ****** END OF EDIT some problems that I have noticed. PROBLEM 1 -------------------- start menu redirection gets broken completely. I had to redesign my way of doing this: Solution ------------- 1stly.. create 3 OU's (Well had done this anyway but) one OU called Windows 7 Workstations one OU called Windows 8 Workstations one OU called Windows XP workstations created a windows XP policy (loopback enabled,) linked it to WindowsXP Workstations OU created a windows 7 policy (loopback enabled, enforced) linked it to Windows 7 Workstations OU created a windows 8 policy (loopback enabled , enforced) linked it to Windows 8 Workstations OU The reason loopback is enabled is because XP user specific Policies with folder redirection causes all sorts of problems when applying to Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC's... I created a folder with the shortcuts in it and put it in a readable area. then made a batch file on computer startup gpo for both the Windows 7 and Windows 8 policy The batch file looks like this: @echo off copy /y "\\mydomain.local\NETLOGON\Menus\Start-Menu-Shortcuts-Windows-7-8\*.*" "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\" exit now roaming users can log into either Windows 7 or 8 PC's and get icons in the start / apps menu without a problem. And they actually work when you click on them! and because it's on the computer startup script it doesn't really interfere with anything and takes a fraction of a second to run... PROBLEM 2 ------------------- restricted users are able to install apps... This could potentially be a headache but I haven't investigated it enough yet.. That's it for now but I will post any other discoveries that I make...

If you are already fed up of that Seattle login picture for all users. Here is how to change it: browse to: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly\LockScreen_Z you will need to assign yourself permissions to get there. once you have got there, replace the picture in that folder with your new picture. Give it the same name and probably needs to be the same size. check the permissions of the picture and ensure you have given the SYSTEM user full control over the picture (or you will just get a blue background!) that's it! I've got the surface of Mars now..

Well thanks for that useful piece of information. 1. Active desktop needs to be enabled to redirect wallpaper in group policy ( as far as I was aware??). I had previously tried not enabling active destop but then you just get a nice black background on xp,windows 7 and windows 8 pcs.. Are you saying there is another way in group policy? Please share.. 2. Works fine in Windows 7

Yes true the only other way I have found that works is to do the following: create 2 files in your wallpaper folder 1 JPG 1 BMP in the active desktop > wallpaper setting in group policy, simply change the path to JPG and then next time BMP and so on.. so you just swap the name to JPG or BMP each time you update the wallpaper THIS WORKS and doesn't require any deleting of profile folders etc. it only takes a minute to go into group policy and change the path extension... but still it's annoying I know!! Hope Microsoft sorts this out... real pain this is!

Ok, I think I have found it! If I remove the folders c:\users\username\appData\LocalLow and c:\users\username\appData\Roaming This appears to fix the problem. I will test it more and try and find out exactly what file it is.

I used to get this with HP printers a lot.. and the fix was to remove the printers in the currentcontrolset in the registry and also remove all the drivers from the system32\spool\ drivers folder. then reinstall. I remember this all had to be done in safe mode. I think its the spooler subsystem crashing...

Hi guys and girls I am trying to set a logon background for my Windows 7 PC's. I have created my group policy preferences to firstly create a folder using the following: %winDir%\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds That works and I get the folder to appear but then I use the File group policy preference Source file: \\myserver\wallpapers\backgroundDefault.jpg Destination File: %windir%\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds Now you would think that should work... but ofcourse it doesn't because it keeps telling me access is denied.. How can I tell the folder to allow this preference to copy the wallpaper? has anybody achieved this without having to manually go around each pc logging in as the administrator and copying the wallpaper into the folder? thanks

Decided to just my Citrix Xen Desktop system which has 2 OS's available, XP , 7 user just needs to browse to our citrix website and login that way, quick easy and is a solution to the problem.

Seen that, broken profile renew the profile completely or create a new one. that's the only way so far I have managed to fix this.

Because I'm Able to download it from Microsoft MCP area. And why not test it?.. I would like to find out all the problems and try and work them out before its release! And to be honest, from what I've seen I won't be doing anything with it in a hurry.. I cannot see (ANY) benefits over Windows 7 on a corporate network at all.. So the good thing that came out of this is that I can warn anybody else that they are in for a pretty big headache with things like UAC and Active Desktop....

I have come across a really annoying problem with Active Desktop Wallpaper GPO on Windows 8 It is set to redirect to a wallpaper which is located in a dir on the server. when the user first logs onto a windows 8 PC, the correct background is applied. however when I change the background on the server... the user will still get the previous background on the windows 8 computers. If i click personalisation it shows the updated wallpaper but it simply won't refresh to it! The only way to get it to work is removing the users local / roaming profile and then the updated wallpaper is displayed! the wallpapers work fine on XP and Windows 7 PC's... I'm sure it's something in the users profile which needs removing on logoff but I cannot find what it is! Must be some reference or jpg file hidden i the users local / roaming profile.

Hi there On my network I have a couple of legacy applications (Dreamweaver MX 2004) being one of them. Anyway, when limited users log into the PC's on the domain they are unable to run this software because the UAC prompt will pop up and ask for an administrator password! I have tried using a scheduled task work around, however it won't run when you have selected in the scheduled task run whether the user is logged in or not... highest privalages. So this doesn't solve the problem as when the limited user is logged in they cannot run the scheduled task, it just won't open at all. I have tried granting full access permissions to the task in the windows\system32\tasks folder.... nope that doesn't work either! So I then tried creating the shortcut: C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:%computername%\Administrator /savecred "C:\Legacy Applications\Macromedia Studio MX 2004\Dreamweaver MX 2004\Dreamweaver.exe" this works but any users who tries to use the software I have to manually go to their computer and type the local admin password in 1st time... Hardly a solution but sort of a workaround.. I cannot disable UAC because Windows 8 relies heavily on it for its app store. So it appears there is actually no solution to this... It would be nice if there was a group policy that said allow certain applications bypass UAC? I can't believe that it can't be done. has anybody else hit a brick wall with this? thanks