JorgeA

More details about Windows 8.1 coming out: Windows 8.1 unveiled: Lots of touchscreen tweaks; Desktop users will be dissatisfied [emphasis added]Hmm, what if I prefer having distinct start screen tiles for each different device according to the device's purpose? Would I be able to do that, or has Microsoft, in Their infinite wisdom, decided that I'm better off with a uniform start screen arrangement across all my devices? This actually sounds less convenient and useful than simple local search. Instead of your eye quickly locating the item you need from a couple of possible local search results, thanks to the addition of Web search now you'll have to pick it out from a mass of results. Again, I have yet to find out whether you can turn off Web search when you do a search in Metro. That seems to address a question I had a few posts upthread, about the number of Metro apps you can show on your monitor at the same time. Four is better than three or two... although it's still not six or twelve, as we can do (and sometimes actually need to) in the Desktop. This will be a festering sore an ongoing limitation for Metro-style computing when it comes to business or other serious PC use. --JorgeA

Integrating Bing web search with local search in Windows 8.1 raises privacy concerns, as a commenter to the linked article points out: Lovely. --JorgeA

OK, I'll try this concept one more time and see if it sticks: Metro Derailed Microsoft removes mobile UI from desktop PCs; 'We were looking in the wrong direction' --JorgeA

More from CNET: Dear Microsoft: Add folders to the Windows 8 Start screen According to the article, the MSFT gods are thinking of allowing customers to sort their tiles on the Metro screen by frequency of use. That would be a small step in the direction of improved usability. Allowing users to set up app folders, as the writer suggests, would be another step. --JorgeA

this sounds better to me : If he had been doing, umm, "test marketing" of his business concept over at MSFT, that would help to explain matters over there... --JorgeA

First experiment: I tried entering and posting on MSFN via Avant Browser. To my surprise, I was already logged in -- it seems to have picked up my login credentials off IE9. When I tried inserting a link or adding formatting tags, the same thing happened as before: the info shot up to the top left. In Avant, you can change the rendering engine. I had it set to IE. When I reset it to Firefox, I was able to enter the link and tags correctly. But the Arial Black font showed up as a Roman-family serif font. More seriously, when I then tried to submit the post, I got the following error message from MSFN: Aaarrgghhh!!! I've been getting "this upload failed" errors ALL DAY LONG on this board. Couldn't upload the JPG here in Win7 IE9, nor could I upload a different JPG to the "Deeper Impressions" thread over in Vista IE8. Anyway, the meat of the forum error is that "Your secure key, used to verify that you are posting the topic, did not match the one submitted. Please go back, reload the form, and try again." And I was logged out involuntarily. However, after closing the tab and re-entering MSFN, I was still (again?) logged in. It's getting late where I am, and this is annoying, so I MAY try what it suggests tomorrow. Next experiment was going to be trying to post via Pale Moon. --JorgeA

Well well, we may finally find out what they've been smoking up there in Redmond: Ex-Microsoft exec to create the Starbucks of marijuana? --JorgeA

News is that Windows 8.1 ("Blue") will feature a revived Start Button in the Taskbar. The question, as asked over in the "Deeper Impressions" thread, is whether this new button -- which reportedly cannot be disabled and only brings up a Metro-style full screen -- will make it impossible to use existing third-party Start Button/Menu replacements. Anybody who knows or can figure out whether we'd still be able to install our own, please let us know. If the new Start Button can't be disabled or replaced, it might make this whole sticky pointless. --JorgeA

Where there's no will, there's no way... --JorgeA

I mean let's get real here. The only thing they have listened to is the play toy zealots and their own egos. I am sure glad that I quit the upgrade treadmill with 2K and have since made a version of the Penguin my primary OS. I don't think I could even begin to try this abomination they call 8 or 8.1. Not even sure that I would allow someone to connect to my home network with it for fear of it leaving some social disease behind. But, I will say that their marketing department can certainly make a turd seem like something desirable to possess (sp?). B) Thanks for the link! And I agree, of course. Some highlights (with my comments): Great, so instead of a $1000 tablet (the Surface Pro) you can instead have a $500 or $800 or $1200 picture frame (the PC). Of the command line?? But I wonder if the user can change that search provider away from Bing to somebody else, like you can change your browser search engine from Bing to Google. I'm not sure if this is poorly written or if I'm overthinking it, but I remain unclear as to whether you can now have three apps showing at the same time if you have only one display. Whatever the case, the enhanced feature still doesn't hold a candle to the number, size, and positioning of windows you can have open in the Desktop. "Touch first" means Desktop second, in the back seat, relegated to second-class status. As we've suspected all along. Not quite abandoned yet, but definitely in the rear-view mirror. --JorgeA P.S. Two interesting questions down in the comments:

From the article: You can say that again! UX observation: Look at the illustration of the Apps screen that comes with the article. Notice how the app listings are thinly dispersed (low information density) around the whole screen in several rows and columns. Visually scanning this screen (not to say several screenfuls of them) for the program that you want is bound to be a distinctly slower process than using the Start Menu, where everything is tightly packed into a single column in one corner of the screen. (Less eye movement required.) Moreover, in the Start Menu the listings are black type on a white background, which offers much greater contrast -- and is therefore easier/faster to read -- than white type on a black background, let alone a background that's not black as in the Start Screen illustration. Score another point or two for the Start Menu over the Start Screen. Turnabout is fair play... --JorgeA

Here kid, grab my hand, let me help you cross the road safely : http://http//www.pcworld.com/article/2040247/new-start-experience-windows-blue-is-looking-more-like-windows-blah.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040247/new-start-experience-windows-blue-is-looking-more-like-windows-blah.html Thanks, j. Wonder how that typo could happen. Charlotte, don't you highlight the URL in the address box and then copy-and-paste it over to insert the link? I'd be surprised to learn that you were typing out these URLs by hand. (Maybe it's another "Weird forum posting issue" .) Oh, I see how it could have happened. Maybe you happened to press one of the arrow keys just before Ctrl-V'ing the URL into there, causing the default "http://" to remain in the "Insert link" box instead of getting replaced by what you copied in there. --JorgeA

Windows 8.1: Microsoft brings back the Start button with options to appease desktop users Not quite, as we have seen. A comment about one other new feature announced for Windows 8.1: Great, so now instead of the entire Start Screen obscuring the technical instructions I'm trying to follow off a website, only the mass of tiles across the Start Screen will be getting in the way. I guess that could count as improvement, of a sort. Microsoft bringing back the Start Button has been called their "New Coke moment." Basically what they're doing, though, is pouring New Coke into the bottles and slapping a Coke Classic label on them. --JorgeA

LOL The way they're marketing RetroUI is that you can either get it for free by signing up for it via your Facebook page, or you can purchase the Pro version for $4.95. I'd rather pay the $4.95 than have Facebook follow me all around the Web, as they're suspected of doing. (There are many free Start Menu replacements too, of course.) BTW, the link to the PCWorld "Windows Blah" article seems to be broken -- I keep getting the "cannot display page" error. --JorgeA

That repeated line about "we'll share more details in the future" sounds like a deliberate strategy: make a Big Announcement, promise to deliver actual information at some unspecified time, then move on to the next Big Announcement. The fanboy press and amateur bloggers will never get around to asking -- "hey, last time you promised to tell us more about the previous Big Announcement." And even if somebody stumbles on the obvious question, there's a ready-made reply: "Oh, that's last year's news, old-hat. Look at This New Thing, isn't it cool and modern!" But about the play to control the entire accessories market -- that will not go over well, either with existing manufacturers or with gamers who prize the wealth of choices they have today. Mark another contingent that MSFT has pushed into the enemy camp. --JorgeA

Thanks, dencorso. I will adopt your suggestion no matter which browser I end up going with. It's something I should probably do anyway before starting to work fulltime on the new PC. --JorgeA

Charlotte, the new pseudo-Start Button could be even worse than the current empty spot on the Win8 Taskbar. Mary Jo Foley reports in a second update to the article you link, that: Here's Thurrott's post on that topic. If this means what I suspect it means, then -- because it can't be removed -- it might become impossible to replace that fake button with a real Start Button that would call up a real Start Menu. I'll be happy to be persuasively contradicted on that point. I agree with you completely, though: this is a big middle finger by MSFT to its longtime loyal customers. It's almost like they're mocking Start Button users by offering form (the Start Button) without substance (the Start Menu). A couple of insightful comments below Thurrott's article (sadly, in each case followed by an ignoramus reply): --JorgeA

No, not really. An SSD is just another disk, for a byte-by-byte image... with the added advantage that it probably is 128 GB or smaller, so that the full-disk backup outweights the full-partition idea. How big is it, in fact? Cool, that's good to know. The SSD is 120GB, and is divided into a 100 MB "system" partition, an OS (C:) partition, and a Recovery (D:) partition. --JorgeA

jaclaz Funny , but what I was curious about was what software the "broken fence" icon represents. You know, in the same way that the "folder" icon next to it represents Windows Explorer. Somehow, I doubt that it's really nothing more than a "broken fence" icon with no other function than to look like a broken fence... --JorgeA

How about that, I actually found myself mousing over the "broken fence" icon in the Taskbar (the one that's two to the right of the Start Button) to see what it was... --JorgeA

That's good, as I am also not happy and it would have been unfair to be alone in unhappyness . This poll (I would say preliminary results): http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1679432 seems like confirming our thoughts. But I doubt that you (we) can stop the mindless from mindlessly go towards what they mindlessly think is the future. jaclaz Too bad, it looks like Opera will never even make it to my list of candidates for a new browser. This really looks like a computing trend now, to remove UI customization options and adopt a hard "take it or leave it" attitude. --JorgeA

I just finished reading through that thread. Sounds like my issue is trivial compared to the f-ups you and others have experienced! Especially "liked" the catch-22 aspect of your trying to report the problem in a new forum, where your first post won't be shown until it's approved by a moderator, yet the forum isn't read or monitored by administrators or moderators. --JorgeA

Sure. I was thinking along that line since I read your post where you say there is IE9 in the Add/Remove Software list. My take would be: create a full backup (yes, I mean a dumber-than-a-doorknob full-disk bit-by-bit image, but I'd settle for such an image from just the partition containing Win 7). Then remove IE9, and let's see how the restored IE8 behaves. As for other browsers, my recommendation is for PaleMoon (with PlainOldFavorites, RefControl and the User Agent Changer add-ons). PlainOldFavorites allows one to really share the Favorites folder between IE and FF/PaleMoon, and makes using both really easy. My sole issue with Opera is there isn't something like it for Opera. Extremely sensible advice, dencorso -- thanks a bunch. The Win7 PC has a solid-state drive for the operating system. Supposing that in the end I decide to downgrade to IE8 instead of adopting one of the alternative browsers -- is there anything special or different to keep in mind when doing a full backup of an SSD, or not really? --JorgeA

Unbelievable. Or, worse: believable. Given that MSFN works fine with IE8 (at least in the Vista machine), maybe downgrading the factory-installed IE9 to IE8 is another possibility. --JorgeA

Thanks jaclaz, you've given me a bit of reading to do, and I appreciate it! Although I have to admit that the situation doesn't look very hopeful right now. Sadly, it makes sense that the folks who produce forum software would be tinkering with it. Maybe (like Windows 8) this is yet another case of "fixing it 'til it's broken." --JorgeA