NoelC

Imagine the rejoicing if, during one of these milestone updates, Microsoft were to do nothing more than adjust the desktop theme element colors (e.g., darken scrollbar thumbs a little or - God forbid - add some style elements back) to make it slightly easier to use again. People would hold parades for the new leadership. -Noel

I dunno, with the new and improved "release whatever's building in the trunk at the moment" philosophy at Microsoft, I thought maybe we'd see substantive new features come out from time to time. All we're getting are bugfixes. Perhaps with all the focus on the pipeline itself, they didn't actually put anyone on projects that were set to finish this year. Plainly, the accelerated release schedule initiative has failed. There's a certain minimum time it takes to do some things, and all the executives in the world can't make that baby come out in less. Not that I mind an OS that stays stable. Someone somewhere said the 3 year release cycle was "bad". I never thought so. Releasing software that's taken a few years to engineer and another to test isn't a bad thing. You get substantial work that way. Not whatever someone could whip up in a few months. Is anyone really scratching their head about why there's nothing truly fresh or new in Windows? Or why the documentation has fallen into disrepair? Short term thinking doesn't work with something this complex. -Noel

Heh heh heh. Well, it's a matter of whether one can derive value from an application or not. I find developing software in Visual Studio productive. I'd say it's delivering what it should. But as with everything, I've tweaked it a bit, I have a decent system to develop on, and almost certainly no two projects are organized the same way, so maybe the experience I'm getting isn't what others are seeing. If it's not just a general "Microsoft's broken" comment you're making, Andre, I was hoping maybe I could help; lord knows you've helped me a number of times. -Noel P.S. A glimpse of my VS2013 workspace...

How special of them. I hadn't noticed that before. Off to re-delete keys... -Noel

To be honest, at first blush I couldn't imagine how 400 MB of updates could be needed to make a system that was perfectly functional and stable for me before remain that way, and have the same performance. On reflection I can only guess a majority of the zillion bugs were in the Metro/Modern UI, since I don't use it, and in other parts of the system that I don't use much if at all. Windows certainly contains MUCH more complexity than any one user could possibly be involved with in one lifetime. A hint of what's in the "list of zillion" can be found here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f1664a35-919b-4fb4-b674-bf427009ad4c/update2?forum=w8itprogeneral Looking over that list, I really don't use much of what's affected. That's most likely because I've always found the "core functionality" stable and consistent. By "core functionality" I mean stuff that's been around for quite a few major versions, while I shun the not only the newest fangled Metro/Modern stuff but also the somewhat new like "jump lists" and "libraries". For a serious computer user who keeps a system organized and knows what a "disk" and "directory" are, they don't hold the promise of providing anything new or useful over the tried and true (e.g., a file folder, the start menu, and icons on the desktop) and they are generally buggy. Given all that, not surprisingly I wasn't hitting a lot of bugs before, and I'm not hitting a lot now. -Noel

Last night's backups completed successfully. I'd say the August Windows Update is sound (though it doesn't actually fix any of the Windows 8 design problems; we'll have to wait for Windows 9 for that I guess). -Noel

Perhaps I missed a prior message of yours on the subject, Andre... What's broken? -Noel

Never mind, I had an IE window with the F12 developer tools and network trace running. The "IE ETW Collector Service" seems to be involved with that. I closed that window and the ieetwcollector.exe exited. -Noel

Main workstation updated and rebooted. Everything's smooth and zero problems so far. Windows 8.1 with the fall update still seems to like ATI Catalyst 14.4. I forgot to do a performance benchmark. The Visual Studio install update install going in now may require a reboot; if so I'll do one after and report on whether the Windows Updates have helped or hindered performance. I just noticed a new process running that I have to investigate... The "IE ETW Collector Service" (ieetwcollector.exe). I wonder what ETW means... -Noel

http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#d-visual-studio-2013-update By the way, the ISO file is a 4 gigabyte download. -Noel

Nothing new or ugly has raised its head so far in my VM. I see Microsoft finally published the detail of what's in the optional update. Apparently it contains some of the fantastic new features Jaclaz mentioned (e.g., "Precision touchpad improvements"). Seems odd indeed that Microsoft would consider flagship new features optional. As usual after every IE update it asked if I want to switch to default settings (I don't; those I use are MUCH more secure). In no particular order... Tweaks and additional things I've found that are not broken by the updates... Changes to disable full row select (e.g. via Folder Options X) are still functional.Playing music (e.g., from the Pandora web site) still works fine.Windows Networking still seems to work on my LAN.The same Windows version appears to be reported to applications when they ask.Adobe software (e.g., Photoshop) still runs okay.IE still downloads things from the network okay (I downloaded Visual Studio Update 3).Avast Antivirus works okay with it.WizMouse works okay with it.ShellFolderFix works okay with it. I think I'll go ahead and update my workstation. More as I learn it. -Noel

Well, the VM took all the updates smoothly and successfully rebooted. It looks like BigMuscle's Aero Glass for Win 8.1 and ClassicShell still work fine. If I don't find or hear anything bad in a day or so my next step will be to update my workstation. -Noel

Yep, they're available... Step one for me: Determine what's in the updates, to get an idea of what to expect. Observations: Total of all available updates is stated as 399.0 MB. Depending on what system you look at, there are something like 14 or 15 important updates and one optional one. As happened back in July, the KB articles referred-to in several of the Important updates and in the Optional update point to as of yet non-existent web pages. Example. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2975719 Last month it took a few hours before the KB data appeared at the given link. Seems kind of stupid to me to publish the update before publishing the info on it. Last time around the Optional Update was the update that rolled up a whole lot of bugfixes. I'm hoping that's the case again this time. It's 171.1 MB, almost half of the total, so this is not insignificant. And, this update must be manually checked or you don't get it. As usual, there are a number of security updates amongst the Important ones. Looking them over in detail it's basically motherhood and apple pie... Vulnerabilities in IE, Flash Player, .Net, the installer, etc. Doesn't look like anything one wouldn't want. Step two for me is to install the updates on a Win 8.1 virtual machine to make sure they hang together. I made a pre-update snapshot and went for it... The downloads are not starting quickly - I assume because Microsoft's servers were heavily loaded. My findings when it's done! -Noel

I've no connection speed issues but I've always wondered what advantages BITS provides. Did you find a reference on what it's good for before disabling it? -Noel

It's supposed to be available starting the 12th. Sources claim it is supposed to be anti-climactic... http://www.cnet.com/news/windows-8-1-august-update-to-offer-minor-improvements/ I'll be interested to hear from others what it breaks. -Noel

Cool, glad I could help - and thanks for the follow-up with the other CSS elements. IE11 is sometimes a bit flaky running a few other forum editors (like Microsoft and Adobe, but thankfully not this one). Other than that I have been having a pretty good experience with it. -Noel

LOL, thanks for lightening things up, Larry. -Noel

Unfortunately the answer may not help you much, DosProbie, as the changes were pretty specific to my needs... 1. I had the Windows Fax service running, which I no longer need as we have switched telephone services and I now handle faxing a different way. 2. I also had a collaboration tool called RAdmin Server starting and running at bootup, and I don't need it running all the time - I'll start it when I'm preparing to work with someone and have them connect to my desktop. It had been starting more processes than I realized, a generic one (WmPrvSE.exe) which appears to have gone away. Net savings: 5 processes no longer sitting in RAM. -Noel

I guess I'll just chalk it up to yet another modern variant of "if you want to play you have to pay". -Noel

Very likely. The backup last night took only 35 minutes, so it's back to being incremental again. I've been watching a few DVDs on it just to take the edge off it costing more than I thought it should. As a bonus, because I was checking carefully what's running with the updated system, I found several more processes I don't need running (not new ones, but ones from before), and so my system is now running leaner than ever, and it's still perfectly stable. It's all good. -Noel

People serious about usability have known this for a long time. Unfortunately that's not what Microsoft is about. They're about manipulation, since someone apparently thinks it's too hard (expensive) to make the product actually better. Better to try to sell new versions through deception and setting what's "fashionable". Heh, Jorge, a page from my Windows 7 book, first published in 2009. Thought you might enjoy it in light of the above: -Noel

That implies two things: The person standing is "barely surviving" and that "there is a better place to go". I don't know about you, but outside of a recent silly extra cost endeavor to play DVDs on Win 8.1 I'm not just "surviving", I'm thriving! I use my workstation all day, every day, late into the night to do all sorts of engineering and documentation and anything else I can think of, and it just works. For weeks on end. With all the "survival tricks" in place I'm the master of this sucker, and enjoying every minute of the ride. To counter a prospective argument that it takes special skill to do that, I'll answer that I published a very good book on how to do it. You could do it too. And as far as alternatives, what do you suggest? Mac/Unix? Linux? No, I mean seriously. Yes, I did this "standing boldly" thing with Windows 7 as well - I mastered its butt too, and wrote the book! Right now I'm in the best spot to move forward from where I am, with more understanding, than if I'd stayed with Windows 7. "I will bend like a reed in the wind (then ram my knife up in the SOB's throat)." - Paul "Muadeeb" Atreides -Noel

There might be a case if millions of cars were downloaded, er, stolen with a hairpin. Plus I'm not saying there's merit to the potential for suit, just that Microsoft has clearly had to make legal agreements and business decisions we don't know about - or we'd have gotten Windows 7.1 with full media capabilities just like its predecessor. Who knows how they were written? I'm sure the system had no love for Microsoft's profits when it spit those agreements out. My point is simply that there may be more than meets the eye, as with so many things. -Noel

No argument there. I never run any Metro/Modern apps myself nor see the Start screen at all. The good part is that with tweaking to disable the new stuff and 3rd party augments like Classic Shell and Aero Glass for Win 8.1 the desktop can be betterified to where it's very nearly as good as with Windows 7, except that some applications just don't follow normal style/usage guidelines. Hopefully Microsoft is tracking back to the straight and narrow now with the development of the next version, and those of us who have weathered the storm will be rewarded with a system that's more prone to being useful again right out of the box. -Noel

Heh, don't get too used to using the "Charms" bar. I hear it's going away in the next version. There's nothing I can't do and I've disabled "Charms" entirely. :-) -Noel