osRe

Well, I don't know about the August updates. I just installed the July ones. One of them won't install. I found a suggestions to use SFC. SFC didn't manage to do its thing after a restart and is now stuck in a "pending" state. The update that won't install just disappeared from Windows Update, along with all August updates but one. DISM doesn't seem to work either, I think for the same reason that SFC is "pending". You gotta love the endless problems, tweaking, and research needed with Windows.

I find this has mostly become impossible to manage. There are multiple generic Windows processes that obfuscate the real functionality: svchost, dllhost, taskhostex, wudfhost, conhost, etc. While you can find what services are running under svchost it's usually not easy to tell which are needed, which are anyway only run-on-demand by the Task Scheduler, etc. Nevermind the problem of firewalling these EXEs properly (any firewalls that filter based on service?). Add to that an endless number of EXEs, with unclear functionality, that are run by each driver/support software for each hardware part. If you spend a lot of time you might be able to guesstimate what they do. Maybe. But then a new driver version is out and the whole set of EXEs changes. Examples: Intel graphics (3-4 EXE), touchpad (3-4 EXE), Intel WiFi (not sure, I uninstalled it since I didn't find any real functionality it provides over stock), Intel Bluetooth (likewise), Intel storage (likewise). Other common culprits: AMD or Nvidia graphics (worse than Intel if I recall), Logitech, 3rd party sound, ... In theory we shouldn't care. A set of drivers for a piece of hardware is there to manage whatever it needs, and it shouldn't affect anything else. It should be easy to disable or uninstall. In practice they tend to include auxiliary features that aren't needed, they tend to tangle with other things, introduce subtle and no so subtle problems, have problems with uninstall, don't provide means to disable unneeded parts.

The OS could be all L2/L3 cached, but only if it doesn't do much else beyond loading the OS. The actual amount of memory used by the OS and applications will be much higher.

They could call it Windows 8.2.

But you can add substantial features in shorter release cycles, since most of the "OS" is actually a bunch of unrelated pieces of software, utilities, subsystems that may have global effects but are still well-defined subparts with well-defined interfaces (say, font rendering), and so on. I wouldn't mind "rapid releases" as long as it doesn't break stuff, remove features, or radically change things without a good reason or a way to keep on using the old stuff. Though I do hate the rapid release style of Firefox and Chrome. Or actually, their versioning. It's impossible to tell quickly when a release has major implications, so since they started with their inflated version numbers I update much less often.

Once the start menu reintroduction was no longer planned for this update, why expect earth shattering changes? Just another monthly update. Regarding the "highlight" features, I wouldn't mind a good native touchpad driver. But this isn't it. And Miracast could be nice, but I'm more interested in sending than receiving.

Thanks. Yeah, it's mentioned in the first URL. No, it's not a real/complete cleanup.

Oh, it's just another one of those Win8 "features" or new "design language" ideas, I'm sure.

I surmised it might be a feature, I just never figured out what it was good for or how to use it. The above page explains it, but I don't recall it working like that for me. Scrollbars were never easy to use because the pointer didn't block on the right edge of the left screen (primary). It didn't always block on the left edge of the right screen, but when it did I didn't find an obvious way to unblock it other than alt-tabbing randomly. I also had the impression it was related to fullscreen apps. But now that I know what it's supposed to be doing I should pay more attention to its behavior and see if it really works.

I don't think there's anything illegal about it. Right now what happened is, more or less, that Microsoft gave you a choice between being robbed of $100 or spending hours, at least, on getting back to where you were.

No, nothing obvious does a real cleanup: uninstall of adapters from devmgmt (hidden included), uninstall from network adapter properties (the protocol/stuff list), unchecking filter drivers, netsh commands. This is all partial. I'm surprised I can't find on the web anything detailed on topic, other than a few netsh commands. I may have to look into registry comparing a fresh install against the actual install and trying to find all network related keys. I hope there aren't install-specific GUIDs involved.

Why rest of the day? And you definitely shouldn't have paid. After that kinda BS you should just use a crack.

At least in Win8.1, unlike 8, you can change the window title font size without skin editing. Well, as long as you disable multi-monitor DPI-aware UI scaling.

In Win8 Explorer (not sure if also in 7 or before) pressing the left and right arrows changes the selection to the various columns of the selected row: Instead of scrolling sideways you have to press multiple times to get first to the "edge" column. This isn't a spreadsheet. I don't see any functionality it provides. Any idea what's the point?

I think that's the same as "View\Show hidden devices" in devmgmt? But I don't mean in there, but in the GUI for configuring on each network adapter stuff like IP, bound protocols, etc.

Yeah, very very annoying and stupid. And if you have a lousy laptop TN monitor, like I do, it's sometimes even more difficult to tell the colors apart. You have to pause and analyze which item is the selected one and which is just the random place the mouse pointer happens to be. With all the people Microsoft has for UI and whatnot I don't understand how they come up with such glaring gaffes. I've found no registry way to disable this when I researched it a few months ago on Windows 8.0. Maybe sometimes changed in 8.1, but I doubt it. The only solution I found is to edit the Windows skin/theme to remove the hover highlight, and use an unsigned theme service (I think it was UxStyle?). I still need to do this after upgrading to Windows 8.1. By the way, there are two skin elements that need editing if you want it 100% solved: the hover on unselected items, and the hover on selected (i.e., keyboard selection focus; Ctrl-Arrows).

Maybe try safe mode booting, or booting with as few services and startup programs as possible. If it's better, try to pinpoint the cause.

That's the link I posted above. Something I found in the context of 2000 or maybe XP was deleting the value HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\Config and restarting. Haven't tried yet, but that's just another small aspect. The main problem might be untangling filter drivers from adapters/interfaces. There's a lot of stuff going on under, among other things: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\... HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\... HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\Uninstalled\... BTW, in the properties for network adapters, in the Networking tab, you can uncheck "items" to unbind them (or whatever you'd call it). Any idea how to do the same for adapters that don't show in Network adapters (some non-physical ones like Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter, Kernel Debug Network Adapter, etc.), or how to make these hidden adapters show in Network adapters so that they could be configured from the standard GUI?

Does anyone know a way to reinstall/refresh the whole network stack? Maybe even older NT6 or NT5 methods would do. I want to get to a fresh state. I recall in Win9x (I think) you could uninstall/reinstall something which lead to a total refresh. There are mentions of things that reset some aspects, but it's partial: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheNuclearOptionResettingTheCrapOutOfYourNetworkAdaptersInVista.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357/en-us

I believe he wants to be able to move it in the toolbar: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb774373(v=vs.85).aspx Edit: But after looking at the linked image, I'm no longer sure.

ralcool: Have a look at QtTabBar for tabs in Explorer, and other features: http://qttabbar.wikidot.com Too bad it's based on .NET, though. (And too bad the forum doesn't support simple tags properly, like [ u r l = ].)

Just wait for Win9 and you'll see.

Sure it can be done. Not sure many would want to go through the effort. Explorer was never great, but I think now it's just a lost cause. Waiting for fully a integrated Explorer replacement: more customization and control in both GUI and functionality, consistent between versions, with easy extensibility.

Submenu hover delay is a classic thing that's needed tweaking since 9x. I disabled the minimize/restore animation. There is some coolness factor to it, and I had it enabled for a while, but in some cases it just looked messy; like when my image viewer switches from fullscreen to restored and this animation triggered for that reason or another.

I'm still unclear on what benefits there are to UEFI booting instead of legacy. The only thing I recall is "quicker booting", but I didn't notice it with Win8. If there is a difference it's in the order of a second or two, on the single computer I tried it on. By now I have it disabled to have better compatibility in multibooting.