NoelC

Remember the Thomas the Tank Engine series? All the little train engines strove to be Really Useful. I enjoyed that aspect of the show when my son was growing up back in the '90s. Perhaps we can learn from one another by describing some of the things we do that make our Windows desktops more useful for us. I'd like to hear what YOU do to make your Windows 8.1 desktop Really Useful. Here's some of what I do... 1. NEVER, EVER SEEING Metro/Modern screens decreases distraction, and thus increases the usefulness of the desktop. Not regularly having mind-numbing color and animated tiles overlay everything you're working on helps keep the mind focused on the problem at hand: 1a. I use the ClassicShell start button/menu replacement for when I need to search or run something I don't use very often, and I keep icons on the desktop for the things I do run a lot. 1b. I've run Vista Shortcut Overlay Manager to remove those stupid not-so-little arrow overlays from my desktop icons. Now I see the whole icon. It's amazing how much the arrows get in the way of recognition. 1c. I don't even have a Win key on my keyboard (a vintage Digital LK250), and I never, ever see the Start screen, not even accidentally (I could still call it up with Control-Esc if I wanted to, but I simply don't want to). 1d. I have disabled UAC, so Microsoft offers me no ability to run a Metro/Modern toy app anyway. Their loss for having that limitation, and my gain. I doubt that anything Really Useful will show up in the Microsoft App Store any time soon. I don't need distracting toys. 1e. I run Big Muscle's Aero Glass for Win 8.1, which beyond creating a glass effect that can help make the chrome around windows less intrusive and easier on the eyes, also facilitates the compositing of a significant drop shadow around windows via theme atlas replacement. I don't care what Marketing BS Microsoft is pushing about "skeuomorphism", a drop shadow helps differentiate one window from another on the desktop. Ever have a Win 8 pop-up show in front of what you're working on and you have trouble perceiving that it's there at first? There you go. 1f. Beyond Aero Glass, I've reduced the size of the chrome size around windows by importing a set of values under the that were created by running the desktop metrics control panel applet on Windows 7. Less chrome means more room to work. 1g. Even with the above chrome reduction, I have a big desktop running across 3 monitors. ATI Catalyst drivers help manage the space quite well. It's amazing how much easier it is to work on complex things when there's room to have a couple of reference documents/web pages open and completely visible while working. 2. I've tweaked File Explorer a number of different ways, since it's the great integrator of Windows file access: 2a. I use a tool called ShellFolderFix by Georg Fischer to pre-position my Explorer windows (depending on the path they're being opened to), and I have several different icons on my desktop for opening folders that I specifically use a lot, including the root folders of C:\, D:\, E:\. 2b. I have set registry entries to cause Explorer to show me General Items, Details View for all folders by default, though I occasionally switch some appropriate folders (e.g., those with photos/videos) to Thumbnails View. 2c. I have augmented Explorer with a commercial codec pack (FastPictureViewer codec pack, specifically), which provides thumbnailing and preview support for virtually ANY image file type, including raw camera files and PSDs from Photoshop. 2d. I use a combination of ClassicShell and Folder Options X settings to make the vertical density of things shown in Details view higher (more dense - more items showing in the same vertical space). To me it's amazing how much more useful being able to see more items in the list is - it's more like XP was in that regard. 2e. I've also removed the "full row select" using Folder Options X. Things like drag and drop just work better this way. 2f. I've installed Old New Explorer and also set Explorer configuration options to reduce the root namespaces in the Navigation (left) pane to just This PC and Network. All those other abstractions are just distractions. And beyond usability, Explorer actually does work better when run on real file folders than on abstractions such as Libraries or the user profile area. For example, refresh problems are a non-issue. 2g. I name all my drives using the form "drive letter - Computer name" with possibly some additional text after. For example "C - NoelC4 SSD" or "E - NoelC4 ReFS". At a glance - even over a network connection (mapped drive) - it's obvious what drive I'm looking at. I've done much more, but this is getting kind of long. I'd really like to know: What things have YOU done to your desktop setup to make it Really Useful to you? -Noel

George, please consider editing out the excess quoting out on subsequent responses, maybe keeping just the last one or two responses to you. It's not helpful to have so much. Anyone wanting to see the entire history of your conversation can easily look back in the thread. There are only two registry keys I know of from which Aero Glass for Win 8.1 gets control information that would affect the glass reflection intensity. They are listed in BigMuscle's guide (at least until that berlios site goes offline): HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM (global) HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM (per-user) If you have the same Aero Glass for Win 8.1-specific value in both places, I'd suggest removing the per-user setting. Diagonal lines come from the setting of the ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity registry value. If it's not there or it IS there but set to 0 you should not have any glass reflection. I run mine that way - clean and smooth. If you still have diagonal lines, then either you're not looking in the right place, you've spelled the registry value name wrong, or you have some other software or theme installed that's somehow overlaying a reflection graphic. It's as simple as that. If you don't have the skill to edit your registry directly, you really need to develop it to use this software. Once you've changed the registry, log off and on again to test it. -Noel

I could believe that. And let's not forget that the exact same hardware got higher scores with Windows 8.0's WEI measurement than with that of Windows 7. -Noel

Jorge, in a word: Yes! EVEN IF we accept that there's less processing going on now (which I don't since the borders are composited anyway), the amount of time spent by the GPU painting borders is tiny, virtually inconsequential. How often are you opening/resizing/moving windows that the system has to work on the chrome, as compared to the time typing or reading stuff inside the client area? But theory aside, no one has reported that a portable device got even one iota less battery efficient when they restored Aero Glass via Big Muscle's Aero Glass for Win 8/8.1 tools. Somewhere along the way, it's been deemed okay for Marketing to just make shit up and lie to us outright, which irritates me greatly and is why I started this thread. Unfortunately, we're kind of stuck with buying new versions of Windows regardless. In that case, wouldn't it just be better to just fire all the Marketeers who are trying to pull the wool over eyes of people a LOT smarter than they are? -Noel

Neat. I love it when people bring back things Microsoft deletes. Only thing is I'm not sure I want a WEI score badly enough to trust it not to have a malware payload hidden somewhere inside. I have stored copies of winsat output and can easily compare them looking for evidence of problems. Microsoft probably figures the majority of people don't need to know about the assessment, since knowing causes some of them to try to game it for bragging rights, which could lead to maintenance problems. Parts of the system do alter their behavior by the stored winsat results. -Noel

Thanks DosProbie. At first blush those seem more like "fixit" type tools more than pure benchmarking software. Bart's Stuff also looks a bit antiquated (latest date I can see on the page is 11 years ago). The latter (BootRacer) looks somewhat interesting, though I would tend to use Andre Ziegler's advice on tracing bootup time issues if I had them. I can time actual bootup time with a clock or watch, and as it is, boot time issues are really a non-issue for me since I only boot about once every few weeks. -Noel

It's possible you might find a 3rd party theme replacement that would eliminate the bottom and side borders entirely, though I haven't sensed much of a desire for that. I too like minimal chrome around windows, and so I have imported into Windows 8.1 an HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics registry key that I set up by using the control panel on a Windows 7 system. On the Win 7 system as I recall I set the Border Padding to 0, and the Active Title Bar and Caption Buttons sizes to 17. As you can see, when the Color Intensity is turned down in the Windows 8.1 control panel, the above borders become pretty non-intrusive on a dark background. They would be even more so if I didn't have a themeatlas.png replacement that lightens the outer edges a bit. -Noel

George, if you right-click your desktop and choose Personalize, then click the Color link at the bottom-center, have you tried turning down the Color intensity? What video card and display driver version are you running? -Noel

You *could* just hide one or both of them, and make your own shortcuts to do just what you want. Right-click on the desktop, choose Personalize, then click the Change desktop icons link near the upper-left of the Personalization panel. As far as the desktop icons becoming reorganized, I don't personally see that because I have a desktop in which all the monitors are permanently connected, but here's an idea that comes to mind (if you've not already tried it)... Arrange the icons the way you want them with both monitors connected, then log off or reboot with them connected. Then disconnect a monitor, rearrange the icons the way you want them with just the one connected, then log off or reboot with the hardware still in that condition. I'm thinking Windows should save each arrangement per the desktop size at the time of logoff. -Noel

You talking about removing the blurring? I haven't done it, but if I were to want to I'd probably look at the BlurDeviation registry parameter. BlurDeviation DWORD Standard deviation for Gaussian blur, default = 30 (which means σ = 3.0) Value 0 results in non-blurred transparency. -Noel

I found that the ATTO numbers don't vary much for me depending on the recent load on the SSD array. I'm not sure what it does differently, but again for the purposes of checking for developing system problems perhaps it's been the better choice. By the way, I've seen that the 4K AS-SSD numbers are (not surprisingly) greatly affected by RAM caching between the low level I/O and the hardware. For example, the Intel RST drivers integrate the Windows file system cache into their low level write operations, where my driver (from HighPoint) does not. You've also shown how a caching hardware controller affects them, TELVM. But that's just for low level I/O - applications in general use higher-level file system I/O and in that case the file system WILL use the RAM as a write-back no-wait cache for write operations if you configure it, thus speeding everything up. The best benchmark I've found for comparing real-world I/O performance is the Advanced Disk benchmark in PassMark PerformanceTest, which will create a threaded mix of read and write operations of different sizes in an attempt to simulate a real-world I/O load. The difference between uncached and cached I/O (the latter of which most application file I/O uses) is monstrous. By contrast to the above, selecting "normal" I/O type operations... -Noel

By the way, I've had two old Precision 470s just die in the past year - one after a 1 hour power outage (longer than its UPS could run it) and the other just while running. Apparently there was some capacitor problem in that model. I'm not sure whether that same issue might be in your 380 - it's one model newer. I noticed that when I took apart the 470s all the plastic parts were extremely brittle, and most catches, hold-downs, etc., just broke. I would have thought they were built better, but I got a reality check from that. Oh, and it's been another day of computer usage on this boot and still no glitches. It's a magical time for WIndows 8.1 stability. -Noel

Yes, but you usually can't do it in seconds, which (honest) is how long it takes with VMware. That opens up a whole new set of possibilities. -Noel

By the way, I noticed you have a 1.7 version of AS-SSD, so I went and downloaded the new version. I'm not sure we should be impressed by a benchmark that delivers better results when you run the latest version (compare these numbers to those I got before with 1.6). There's a certain feel good factor in that but I'm not sure it's useful. Or maybe it's just inconsistency - I've seen inconsistency from AS-SSD before. -Noel

I honestly think Passmark is worth paying for. It's cool for two reasons: 1. It's a decent way to monitor a system's performance over time, primarily because of its database features and screens on which you can compare past results with current. Assuming you leave yourself notes, you can see when certain things got slower or faster and you can easily watch for trends. 2. Their web integration makes it a VERY handy tool for doing research on what new systems are actually delivering re: performance. You kind of have to ignore the very top group of results, because they're either rabid rich folks looking to top the charts, or (more likely) just plain cheats by people looking to top the charts. But you can easily do things with it like ask for results from a particular kind or family of process or system, e.g., "E5-2687" or "Dell Precision", if you're looking to buy into something new and want to know ahead of time what it actually delivers. Enough different people use it that those results are very useful. It also tells you whether your setup is performing up to the levels set by others with substantially the same setup. Back a few years when they came out with version 7 I decided to buy it so I could use it long-term and I am glad I did. I paid for the upgrade to version 8 when they came out with it for use in much the same way. 8 happened to come out right when I got a new workstation, so I didn't have to worry about whether I was comparing version 7 results to version 8 results. I've been happy with it. Thanks for all the feedback, guys. Keep it coming! -Noel

Do you use an Areca controller? With what OS? Do you find it stable? The controller I have is a mid-level one with decent performance but no fancy cache features. Not that I find I wait for a whole lot, but faster is always better. Also, can you get to the raw SMART registers of the individual drives? I can only get to the standardized/normalized set, which isn't bad but I can't read things like total data written/read, etc. -Noel

Actually, though it's been a long time since I used Win 8.1 in a "vanilla" fashion, I do remember that it centers the title between the rightmost tab that intrudes into the title bar and the caption buttons. Perhaps it's a boon that I can't really see the title now. I can't sense it jumping. "That's not a bug, that's a feature". LOL :-) -Noel

Sorry, somehow I didn't connect that post with this. Long work day. :-) -Noel

So use it until you can't. Live life better while you can. Chances are Microsoft is going to screw things up in unimaginable proportions in the next version of Windows anyway (how can they keep calling it Windows?). It'll likely make anything we do now - even without Aero Glass - feel like the golden days of yesteryear. -Noel

I'd try sending a polite PM to Big Muscle, but I can't say whether he's granting requests for keys that way or not. He may be simply overwhelmed given that the berlios server going offline. -Noel

You only get the [Apply to Folders] button if you start the Folder Options dialog from an Explorer (excuse me, File Explorer) window that has the settings you'd like applied. The general idea is that you're copying the view you're currently seeing to all other folders of the same kind (i.e., with the same "Optimize this folder for" setting in the Customize tab). The options inside the dialog are applied system wide no matter whether you use the [Apply to Folders] button. Display a folder the way you like it, then press this button to start the Folder Options dialog: You should then see: -Noel

OK, I see what you're talking about. I suggest that perhaps ATTO is "blowing its gasket" above 4 gigabytes / second, not 1. 4 billion and change just happens to be the biggest number one can put in a 32 bit word. Coincidence? I think not. 32 bit is SOOOO last century. :-) What kind of I/O subsystem do you have that marches right up and passes 4 GB/sec? I like. -Noel

I appreciate your mad skills for sure, Andre, and thanks for your thoughts. But how do you know whether you are developing an "issue" if you don't get objective readings of your system performance from time to time? If you sense one, how do you know when it developed? Because they don't watch their performance numbers, most folks never realized that Windows 8.1 actually slowed down the file system performance (though thankfully that seems to have gotten somewhat better with the latest Windows Updates). -Noel

Hi TELVM, thanks for your response. Not sure what you mean by ATTO "blows a gasket"... It seems to work okay above 1000 MB/s to me. Note that AS-SSD uses uncompressible data, so it generally measures smaller numbers than ATTO does for drives that internally compress data before writing it. With drives from 2 or 3 years ago (the age of mine) that matters more than it does with modern drives. ATTO uses compressible data, which yields better write times and has in my experience been more representative of real performance. ATTO seems to me to be the tool to use to uncover developing problems (which so far, thankfully, I have not seen). Also, low level caching (such as is done by Intel RST drivers, which I do not use) causes AS-SSD to read higher values, while that does not appear to affect ATTO's measurements when ATTO is set for Direct I/O. Thanks for the tip on Aida64. I'll check it out, -Noel

I feel that occasional benchmarking helps ensure a system is working in peak shape. I benchmark my system after updates to ensure Microsoft or a driver manufacturer hasn't botched something up. Nowadays with Win 8 one no longer gets a direct WEI score from Microsoft (the old "7.9" type readout), though you can still get detailed results with winsat on the command line. There are some good system testing tools out there, many of which are free, or at least free to run for a short time. My own personal preferences for software to test and benchmark with are: Passmark PerformanceTest (great overview, but also some excellent advanced tests)ATTO SSD benchmarkRealTech-VR OpenGL Extensions Viewer What are yours? Don't be bashful to post your scores if you'd like. Such threads sometimes seem like a competition, but hey, show it off even if it isn't next week's new model. -Noel