tomasz86

I'm not thinking of very old machines but rather portable devices such as Atom based netbooks or tablets running Windows 8. The CPU is capable of running the OS smoothly... but in case of emergency (ex. when a buggy application is causing 100% CPU usage) the new Task Manager takes a long time to start while the old one launches immediately. Probably the best solution

This is a very good observation, Tommy. You're right about the changes in the installer. In technical terms, the update.ver had been empty in the older versions. That caused the installer to install and replace all system files, regardless of their version numbers. Now update.ver is filled with files and their corresponding version number. The installer checks for file versions and replaces only those files whose version number is lower. That's why the installation process is much faster in your case. The reason for the change wasn't cosmetics though. There was a problem related to the HAL files which weren't installed at all when their information wasn't included in the update.ver. One possible solution could be to keep only the HAL files' information in the update.ver and remove the rest... but I think we should try to find the exact file that causes the sound driver issue and fix it instead of clearing the whole update.ver.

its not ripoff of Chrome, it IS Chrome ! I actually like the new Opera. Not necessarily the lack of customisation offered by the old one, but I like it better than Chrome. It's faster and lighter than the latter while offering basically the same functionality (except for synchronisation between different devices but it's going to be fixed once Opera Link has been reimplemented).

The new Task Manager shows much more information compared to the old one but is also way slower to launch. If there's is an issue and the CPU usage is 100% it may take ages for the new Task Manager to simply show up, especially on a slower computer. The old one doesn't have this problem.

This really depends... I also use Office 2003 on my desktop PC and it's fine... but have you tried to use Office 2003 on a touch screen and navigate with fingers? I have and can say that it was almost unusable. The main problem wasn't the UI which obviously isn't optimised for touch but rather the lack of smooth scrolling. When trying to scroll with touch the screen just kept jumping instead of moving slowly making it very difficult to move across different parts of the file. In case of Office 2013 there's no such problem. The UI changes are rather controversial but it's not that bad once you've changed the theme (I prefer the dark gray one).

The file was there but I forgot to change year in date so its name started with "2013..." rather than "2014..." :blushing: Now it should be OK.

That's probably the best solution for now. What I hope more for is a drop in price of the current devices in case new ones are launched this year

That's good point about Metro IE... but it seems that it's still possible to block ads system-wide using the hosts file: http://2in1pcs.com/block-ads-ie-metro-apps-hosts-file-windows-rt I will use mouse and keyboard for sure, but there are also many situations when I'll just want to just use the device as a tablet, and still be able to navigate the desktop without too much trouble. And as I said above, I need the Wacom pen for handwriting. I don't think pens made by other companies will offer the same experience

A new daily of UURollup-v11 is ready. Changes: added all new files from BWC kernel KB935839-v23l (not v23lG!)added hosts from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htmAs always, all new files from BWC kernel have been added. The second change is very experimental and may be controversial. I'm myself not sure whether ad-blocking should be built-in in OS. Let's just experiment and see how this goes. That's what the daily releases were originally intended for @jbclem I can't really give you any specific build number. The changes which have been going on in the daily releases are incremental. blackwingcat keeps adding new features to his kernel but he does it in small steps so there are no radical, sudden changes. If I were you I'd just make a backup copy of the system partition and install the newest daily release

Well, I'm not buying the tablet right now so I'm going to wait and see what kind of offers are available. I really don't think the CPU will make such a drastic difference though, especially since I need the tablet for lighter activities such as reading / writing / editing documents and browsing the Web.

The Samsung tablets use the same older Atom CPU. I understand that it's not the best performer on the market but it still should be enough for my needs. Sure I'd prefer the faster one but the lack of Wacom stylus is a deal-breaker in my case (I need the stylus not only for navigating the desktop but mainly for handwriting and annotating PDF files).

I personally can't really see any benefits of buying an ARM-based Windows RT tablet. As far as I know, there's no significant difference in battery life between the ARM CPUs and the new Intel Atom models. For me the ability to run x86 programs is one of the most important reasons for buying a Windows 8 tablet Even if you jailbreak a Windows RT tablet and run x86 applications through the emulator, everything is going to be extremely slow.

Thank you but the stylus for Dell Venue Pro 11 is made by Synoptics, not Wacom and it seems to be far worse then the latter: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/dell/60068-confirmed-fine-tip-bamboo-feel-stylus-wacom-bamboo-enabled-tablets-does-not-work-dell-venue-8-11-pro-s.html http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/dell/59296-dell-venue-8-11-pro-stylus-problems-possible-fixes.html On the other hand, the Dell Latitude 10 Windows Tablet is said to use the Wacom technology and has a 10" screen so I'm adding it to the wish list

Yes, I think I saw a similar issue. The icons were missing but I don't know when exactly they reappeared. For me this seems to be a bug in the system

I'm using a very old Pentium III-M based 12" mini laptop and even though over the years I've upgraded the machine to the max (put additional RAM and an SSD), I think the time has come to let this computer rest in peace... The CPU is simply too slow for anything else than editing Word documents. The battery is also completely worn out. Anyway, I hope I'll be able to have some additional finances next year and I'm considering buying a Windows 8 tablet PC. There are plenty of options on the market but there are several specifications that are crucial for me such as: 1. The size must be at least 10". Anything smaller is simply unusable in desktop mode. 2. The tablet must support Wacom digitizer. I find the Wacom stylus a must on such a hardware so I'm not going to consider any tablets without Wacom digitizer support. 3. Intel Atom CPU preferred. Battery life is more important than speed for me. 4. The price mustn't be too high... I know these tablets aren't exactly cheap but as far as I've seen there are some significant differences in price between the various models. That's basically it. I'm probably going to opt for refurbished / used hardware to save money. Are there any specific models that you could recommend? I'll ask the question differently - is there anything better than Samsung Ativ Tab 5 (XE500T1C) or Samsung Ativ Tab 3 (XE300TZC)?

Not really There are some drivers that might work out of the box but: 1. Some drivers are indeed compatible but their INF file has to be edited first so that Windows 2000 will accept it. 2. Some drivers will work only if you have BWC / WB kernel installed. 3. Some drivers won't work but blackwingcat created Windows 2000 compatible versions so you can just use the unofficial ones. 4. Some drivers won't work at all and there are no unofficial versions available. Generally speaking, I'd recommend checking in advance whether compatible drivers are available for your hardware before switching the OS. When I used Windows 2000 on my desktop PC the only real problem was with USB 3.0 for which no compatible drivers existed. The newer the hardware is, the more problems you will experience.

I've got no time to check the issue at the moment... Do you really need to use Adobe Reader? I myself prefer Foxit Reader which works fine in Windows 2000 (or SumatraPDF if you don't need more advanced functionality).

I hope to finally do something in the near future to simplify the whole process but at the moment updating Windows 2000 is unfortunately rather complicated The simplest method that I'd recommend would be either to slipstream the OnePiece update pack and then install the unofficial updates, or use Windows Update and let it install everything what's available there, and then apply the unofficial patches. As for UURollup-v11 (I really wouldn't recommend using v10 at this point), it does officially require UR2. Still, UR2 is just a compilation of the official updates and hotfixes so it's not absolutely necessary as long as you've installed all official updates already. Together with UR2 and UURollup I'd also highly recommend installing the latest IE cumulative update (that is the one released post-EOL). I've heard the installer in the new versions of Firefox isn't compatible with the Application Compatibility Launcher. How about checking Firefox Portable? It should work out of the box.

I generally don't trust this kind of websites. Of course, it's really nice of them that they provide easy access to previous releases of wide variety of applications. However, in plenty of times the system compatibility info is either inaccurate or simply wrong. When I was still using Windows 2000 as my main system the only way to be absolutely sure whether a specific programme supported the system or not was to install and check it by myself.

My comment was related to the original subject of this thread, nothing related to speed I'm just a big fan of those hybrid notebook-tablet devices. I can't see any OS other than Windows 8/8.1 that can be used on them and offer such a wide functionality (maybe except for full Linux distributions such as Ubuntu Touch but they're still not mainstream). I've myself been using an old Windows XP laptop and an Android tablet, and would be very happy to merge the two into one Windows 8 tablet PC (just a wish since I've got no money for such things now). When I was buying the Android device two years ago, there was no Windows based alternative so can't really blame myself for doing that... but if I was to buy a tablet now then definitely a Windows 8 device would be on the top of my wish list.

I really like Windows 8 on a tablet PC. It's very easy to navigate with touch, and for desktop stylus is enough to be able to operate comfortably without using a mouse. I don't own such a hardware myself but one of my friends does and when it comes to functionality it's way better than any Android tablet or iPad.

A new daily of UURollup-v11 is ready: Changes: added all new files from BWC kernel KB935839-v23k (not v23kG!)By the way, I haven't mentioned that before but there are some differences between the files included in UURollup and BWC kernel. I should probably make a detailed list later but what I can say at the moment is that UURollup uses newer versions of some of them, ex. msftedit.dll is newer, and also dpx.dll and expand.exe come from Windows 8 while BWC kernel uses the Windows 7 files.

Just do this: * { min-width: 0 !important;}This isn't the "proper" method since it's the slowest one but it will work I've added this style to userstyles.org. You can install it with one click as long as you've got the Stylish addon installed in your browser. http://userstyles.org/styles/96211/msfn-org-remove-min-width

The easiest method would be to use Stylish (it's and addon available for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera). In case of Opera (12.x or older) you can also use the built-in User CSS settings I personally use Stylish with Firefox on my desktop but the built-in User CSS in Opera is very cool as it's available in Opera Mobile too (the classic version), and I don't think any other mobile browser offers such a function.

At the moment you can "fix" the problem yourself by using custom CSS to modify the MSFN layout and disable the max-width settings. This way the site will shrink according to the size of your browser window.