Windows 8.1

[Kin Hell]

LOLz... I sucked up & bought an official version of Windows 8.1 Full from Scan.co.uk

Everything went okay with the install, laying it out on a 30GB mSATA device on my Asus P8Z77-V Premium mobo. Started the process @ 00.05 from a USB 2.0 stick & was @ Desktop for the first time by 00.12. Pretty impressive tbh.

Amazingly, whilst mooching around the new install, all of a sudden, my desktop set itself to the more usual 1920 x 1080 resolution I am accustomed to & looking in device manage, my dual GTX 670's had downloaded official nVidia drivers which are now out dated as of begining of this month. As a bonus, the nVidia website will not use it's Java driven front end to update. This could be an issue with Java or the new OS, but it f'ks up on both IE11 & Chrome.

Another issue is I can NOT install the INF update version 9.4.0.1026 from Intel dated 08/08/13. When I look in device manager, all System devices that belong to Intel are provided by Micro$haft & are dated 2006. :thumbsdown2:

& Chrome for a Browser? - Now loads in 4 seconds, Half my boot time from a crap IOPS 30GB mSATA device, but IE opens before you click the button. :lol:

This is utter BS for starters, though my SB X-Fi Fatality Pro sound card appears fine under 8.1, yet under Win7 X64, the card spent more time not working than it ever did working.....

I like the way 8.1 presents itself with half a Start Menu but some of the more deeper Driver issues are just utter BS atm. I have a Bios update to do, though there is no mention of support for 8.1 in the readme.

I will update once flashed.....

.... Kin takes a deep breath.....

brb..... :dry:

- - - Updated - - -

Finally managed to flash bios. Last Bios flash obviously retarded me to Noob Status after the last upgrade....ffs u dick-wads.... but finally I manage to update Bios to latest version, with notes about adding better Stabilty & nothing else there after, & still no Intel INF update will install???

I'm still on Intel PCI Bridge & such other System Intel devices pi$$ing around M$ 2006 Drivers??? - I am @ a complete Loss & sweeeeet FA on the Web about this cr4p........ :nuts:

"Anyhow Bill, after u f'kd me for another £75.00, at least I can now Map Network Drives again, but not get the best from my hardware other than you decide for what drivers I can install & what I can't?

2006 M$ Driver on a f'kin Z77 Chipset? :mad:

[Harrison]

When trying to install drivers are you running with administrator rights? Right click inf and select run as admin. Sounds like the OS is blocking them based on security user rules.

I've got a legitimate copy of 8 but not bothered trying it 8.1 yet as I'm happy to stay with 7. My wife's Sony laptop I'd running 8 though so I might update that to 8.1 have a play around.

I would highly recommend the unlikely start8 for any win 8 users though.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Kin Hell]

Sleeping on some things does bring fresh ideas H & you could be right. I was only endorsing the same thoughts over breakfast this morning after sleeping on it. Will be having a look around it later. UAC is already disabled for my account which does have Admin rights. Setup does not create an Administrator account though, much like Windows 7 so the account one usually creates for him/herself should already have these rights. What got me thinking was still seeing some actions prompting that an account with administrative rights was needed to complete the action. :hmmm:
UAE was turned off prior to seeing this; Its the first thing I do when I get to the desktop after an install.

[Harrison]

I read somewhere that win 8 didn't provide full admin access in the same way as 7 did. Annoying if true.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Kin Hell]

You're joking! -

& no, right clicking the inf update .exe & running as an administrator didn't install jack. :dry:

[Harrison]

Just double checked and it's true. For "security reasons" m$ disabled super admin rights in win 8, even on administrator enabled accounts.

To get it back try the following:

Press the Windows key to open the Metro interface.

Click on the bottom of page to access all applications.

Right click on the Command Prompt > Run as Administrator.

Enter the following command: net user administrator /active:yes

Validate by pressing Enter.

To disable this feature again if needed use the following command: net user administrator /active:no

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Phantom]

LOLz... I sucked up & bought an official version of Windows 8.1 Full from Scan.co.uk

Oh... that's the result of your age mate... :-D

[Kin Hell]

@ Phantom

Hiya matey. :)

Yeah.....you certainly do some daft things as you get older. :lol:


@ H

Nope, that has made no difference either......

Done some more tests & what I am seeing here is a serious Lie.....

This is my hard drive speed on current M$ 2006 drivers....

947

The graph is identical to windows 7, even WinXP without the Intel inf Drivers in place. I thought I'd try & be clever & install 9.3.0.1026 instead. It took 40 Seconds to throw this prompt up.....

949

40 f'kin seconds on an Ivybridge system???????

So even though I can not see the Intel drivers in Device manager\system devices, the OS is telling me they are installed & confirming the same when trying to install an older driver from Intel. The hard evidence here is the HD Tach graph. This picture is EXACTLY the same as Windows 7 or WinXP WITHOUT the Intel drivers being installed.....

- - - Updated - - -

Ho-ho-ho & FFS......

I did a re-install of 8.1 but copied the Intel INF update drivers onto the Pen drive I install from. At the beginning of the install, I chose to install other drivers, pointing it to the folder of INF files I had put on the pen drive. It took a while to suss itself out & I'd chosen to hide all unsupported hardware on this computer, so it just lists the relevant ones.

Bugger me, it worked. :)

Here's HDTach with Intel drivers in place......

950

However, everytime I reboot the computer or power off, the next time it gets to desktop, I have no sound from the X-Fi Fatality Pro card. - Where have I seen this sh!t before? - Oh yeah...under Win7 64Bit but fine under XP.....
If I launch the Creative interface that gets installed from the Web based driver package (I hate all the other muck Creative try to shove down my neck) clicking restore defaults gives me sound. This trick didn't work under Win7 btw & also, the MIC says it isn't plugged in when it actually is. :lol:

So it appears the Intel Drivers screw up how the Creative X-Fi card works & does it differently depending on which OS from Micr0$haft you use. Back along, one version of Intel INF drivers wouldn't work with Pioneer Optical drives so it looks like I'm going back to the shite on-board sound. :mad:

Cretins........

[Harrison]

Creative X-Fi cards are known to have issues in Windows Vista onwards due to the changes made in how the OS handled audio and no longer supporting certain protocols Creative always used. This forced them to rewrite the card drivers, but has left instability. Real shame as I was going to get one of those cards a while back, but was put off because of the driver issues.

[Kin Hell]

Creative have always had driver issues & long ago, DMA issues with IRQ conflicts. My concern is that I finally manage to get the Intel INF drives on Win8.1 & then it's a case of same sh!t, different day. If I don't install the Intel INF chipset drivers, I am not getting the best performance from my hardware. With the M$ 2006 drivers in place, even an OpenGL Screen saver starts to laggg up up bit when things become busy on screen. Back to on-board sound I guess. :eyebrow: *sigh*

I still think there is something wrong with either the Intel Driver package or Win 8.1.......

[Harrison]

That is really frustrating. Definitely issues with the whole Win 8 OS in my view. That's v why I'm sticking with 7, and using my copy of 8 just for testing.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Kin Hell]

I expect there will be some other patch or other to screw it up some more at some time real soon. Then there'll be another security update for the goof they just tried to patch, blah blah...... :eyebrow:

Anyhow, on a good note for now, until summat like above happens, I've enabled my on-board sound as well as having the X-Fi in there. So now I have headphones on the X-Fi and a working MIC on the on-board sound...... :shades: :lol:

Funny how the X-Fi lost itself once & now appears fine despite the Mic port not working? :hmmm:

[Harrison]

Well, the 8.1 update seems to be screwing up a lot of people's laptops during the update process. And the RT version was so bad that M$ pulled the update from the servers.

I'm not sure if it was this issue, but my wife's Sony laptop running 8 suddenly wouldn't boot yesterday. Shows the splash screen for a couple of seconds with the busy rotating balls, then it goes to a black screen and hangs there. The mouse pointer is visible and moves, but that is all.

I finally managed to work out how to get to the win 8 boot recovery screen. Normally you hammer F10 until it appears, but that wasn't working. On Sony's you have to hammer the assist key. Tried some recovery options, but doesn't seem to find a restore point and states it needs to do an OS reset, which will wipe all user files! WTF! Another reason for me to stick with 7. The old F8 boot menu worked ok and you could normally recover and repair from that, so why not with 8? Mad!

I'm going to create a Win 8 recovery usb stick and see if I can repair it from that.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Harrison]

Finally managed to make it start a system "refresh". Read up on it first and annoyingly it looks like this is the only option without a format and clean install. It's meant to retain all user data/files (as the last week's work wasn't backed up) but is a clean install so loses any programs you have installed, plus settings. Really annoying!

It's this works I will make sure it has a restore point created one everything is reinstalled, then make a backup image for instant restore.

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[Harrison]

Well, that worked. Windows now boots ok, and all user files are retained, even on the desktop. However it is like a clean install without any customisation of programs installed.

One issue I now have though is its refusal to change the UAC setting!
And I had plans today too, not sitting in front of Windows 8. Hmm.

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[Harrison]

Update. Wasn't as straight forward as it looked. It restored my ability to login to the desktop, but all permissions were trashed on the drive. No account had access to the root of the C drive, and only read access in the user directories. Nothing would run because the accounts didn't have permission and this includes not being able to change any settings in the control panel, not being able to run the command-line with admin permissions and not being able to install or run programs. Mad!

It did however allow access to user files so I plugged in an external usb drive, copied everything off to back it up and have now selected to reset Windows back to factory settings, which is meant to be the same as a clean install. This will lose all custom settings and files on the system.

If this fails the only option is format and clean install. I hated Windows 8 before, but why did they need to mess up the functionality and way of administrating the whole OS? NT based OSs have worked the same way since Windows 2000 and it worked, so why change it now and make it really hard, if impossible to do.

Also why do manufacturers feel the need to change how the OS works? Boot keyboard commands especially. Until 8 you pressed F8 to bring up the early boot menu, and that changed to F10 in win 8, but Sony disabled this and added an assist key above the main keyboard you have to press instead. Why?

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[Harrison]

Finally the Win 8 laptop is fully working again. Must have been a badly corrupt installation, and the refresh was the only way to sort it out, returning it to factory settings and clean install. As soon as it finished and rebooted I could tell everything was working again. Instead of only showing about 5 tiles in the start panel they were all back, and I could finally access admin controls again. Copied everything back and reinstalled Office etc.. and back to normal. What a waste of a day that was!

[Kin Hell]

OMG H.... complete ball ache & then some. I know you wanted all your user settings back but for me, format C would have been the best course & save a day in the process. I guess it's all about imoprtance about the PC @ hand. If mine rolled over & died now, it wouldn't bother me in any instance. :ninja:

[Harrison]

It was more because my wife hasn't backup ask her work from the last few weeks on it. Like school reports, planning etc. Then once I had backed that up the refresh actually didn't take Windows 8 too long (about 15 mins) and it was back to a clean install, but with all drivers and settings correct, so no need to mess around installing.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[Kin Hell]

Something changed for me today.....

I know I enabled Network File & Printer sharing when I finalised the Install; I could map network drives as well; ....But today, my network drives are not available & I am prompted do I want to turn on this feature again? As I clicked in bewilderment, I am then told that Network Discovery is now turned on? - Well that's funny, cos I haven't changed it since enabling it all @ install. :blink: :eyebrow: :dry:

I wonder what program install might have screwed with windows settings, if any? :hmmm:

[Harrison]

Any Windows updates happened? I'm convinced Win 8 does some updating and housekeeping in the background even if you get updates to manual.

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[Kin Hell]

One or two updates from first install & that's it. - I did notice that for selecting Important Updates Only @ the final set up of 8.1, it chose not to download them until I told it to check.... :rolleyes: