new to windows 8

but I love win 8.

I do, but I don't understand why sometimes in File-Explorer, it takes forever to read the file directory. That's its biggest fault, except for the Start button which you can bypass with the free ClassicStart shell. I can't say I'm sorry that the MS exec that decided to get rid of the Start button lost his job. 

Apologies for the late reply... Twelve hour days at work and the need to re-register a million VSTs is giving me little time to call back here.

Thanks for the many tips, there's plenty to go at there. So far I am liking Windows 8, despite its bad press. I'm not too bothered about losing the start menu to be honest, and even in Windows 7, or even Ubuntu, pressing the windows key and typing is a method I'm familiar with.

And for my MP3 playing needs, I'm using Windows Media Player, or there's even the XBOX player application, that seems to work okay in my limited test a few minutes ago. I've not had a chance to test any video files or DVD/Bluray movies.

Regarding the theme "issue." I dumped my "high contrast" theme reverted back to the default windows theme and tweaked that to suit, like replacing the background picture with a solid black and made the window borders a grey colour (ahem... I'm a fan of the Sonar scheme I'm afraid LOL). So now that I've done that Sonar is looking great again and I'm not going to mess much more with that.

I'll keep coming back to this thread, taking on the tips and updating you on my Windows 8 adventures.

many thanks

andy

Tom Riggs


I used win 8 and it worked fine for sonar. However I went back to win 7 because you must purchase or download a program to play videos and audio files. Even if the codec is installed. 

What does this mean?    Windows media player works fine when defaulted to the desktop application.
 
 

Been using w8 for about a year now.  I have it installed on 5 computers in the office/house.
And a bunch of clients have upgraded/purchased new machines.

As for tweaks:  There are a number of scheduled tasks that can interfere with happiness. 

The defragger starting late wed night was an interruption that was not obvious at first. Definitely disabled now.

The computer assessment tasks should be disabled. 

Windows updates disabled.

Only auto update I have running is for the anti-malware application.

Change all defaults to use the desktop versions: PDF reader (I use Adobe reader), windows media player,...

change the taskbar to never combine: combining adds extra clicks and time


A number of stupid windows 8 tricks are included: 

cannot copy shortcuts from taskbar to desktop.  So, have to right click on the start-wall icon and choose to open file location and then copy a shortcut to the desktop.

changing some of the wireless profile data requires command line knowledge (e.g. changing encryption type) This is the best stupidity so far.

can only add/change user password on with the user panel accessed from the charms bar

My music computer shows nearly 90 icons on the start-wall when I choose to show all apps.   This is a way stupid approach compared to the start menu.   

I used the windows explorer to add folders to the "start menu" folders to have the start-wall not be so arbitrary.   I have a shortcut on the desktop to open the start menu folders.

Also, I have folders on the desktop containing shortcuts by need: audio tools, windows tools, instruments, documents (links to the server computer that holds all the support docs),.... 

For DVD playback I use VLC, or you'll often get PowerDVD with graphics cards.  It was a bit annoying, but not as annoying as trying to register the full media player as I had W8 Pro.  That completely killed my registration and required a re-install of everything.

I have my W8 system setup very nicely with all 3rd Party apps and hardware working fine (including PS Faderport, Behringer BF3000, Cakewalk audio and Akai keyboard plus Toon track, Omnishpere and most of the NI stuff*).

* The NI Guitar Rig doesn't seem to want to be recognised in X2.  Which means I can't install Traktor either.  Pity as that was quite fun for glitchy dance stuff.

Well, I decided to spend all my spare time last night exploring W8 rather than working in X2. It was fun, although that will wear off shortly and I'll get down to some proper work.

I've unpinned almost everything from my Start screen. I'm not into all the live tile stuff and don't do "people" things. I've left the weather up, cos I'm british and we are obsessed with the weather, or so I'm told.

Shutting down the apps is easy. I just stick the mouse pointer up into the top left hand corner and right click on an app thumbnail and select "Close." Or I simply press Alt+F4, which has been around since at least Windows 3.0

My touchpad behaviour is a bit different... Scrolling is reversed, but I'm getting used to it and I actually believe it will become natural soon enough as I realise that it now emulates the expected action if I were using a touch screen.

There's more, but time is tight and work is beckoning.

I'll be back  

Synkrotron did you see tip 2 in the tip post of mine?

+ Eleventeen for Classic Shell

Then 8 is like a zippy 7

Aye John, I did, thanks . One thing though, and it may have been that I let go of an "app" before it got to the bottom, but it was still visible in Task Manager when I checked. The Alt+F4 option appears to be a bit more positive. It's easy to see how W8 would work great on a touch screen. And they try to emulate that on a laptop touchpad by enabling "edge dragging," but I turned that "feature" off last night because I kept accidentally activating the "charms" and jumping to the Start screen.

I'm done with experimenting with Windows 8 now though and I'm am quite happy with it thus far. So I'm back on with the task of getting my many VST effects and instruments working again. I'm so surprised that I have collected so much stuff since getting back on board the Sonar fun bus last year. It has turned out to be quite a chore, doing a clean install, remembering/locating all my many serials and passwords for so many websites LOL. I don't think I'll be doing that again in a hurry........