back to article Windows 8.1, which you probably haven't upgraded to yet, Already obsolete

Microsoft is urging users running Windows 8.1 to update their systems soon, since the company plans to drop patch support for early versions of the operating system. Redmond said that after May it would only issue updates for systems running the Windows 8.1 Update release and later. The move means that Windows 8.1 systems …

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  1. Greg J Preece

    I installed it on my laptop on release day, and the bugger killed all net access from TIFKAM. Still not been able to restore it, so I'm sure as shit not installing the update on my desktop.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Sod's law that shortly after posting that, I started my laptop up to find that my TIFKAM apps have net access again. (Don't care what anyone says, I like some of the TIFKAM stuff.) Haven't got the most radical UI changes yet, but I now have close/minimise icons for Metro apps now, which is welcome. Couldn't care less about getting the Start Menu back to be honest.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        It's funny how those MS haters hastily upvoted your first post but never care to read your correction...

        1. Spoonsinger

          Re:-"MS haters".

          It's a good point, however 8.1 does seem to have some weird problems when it comes to internal security settings for TIFKAM. My 8.1 upgrade went totally smoothly when it was released, however back in January all the TIFKAM stuff just stopped working, (including the store). Having searched the net for appropriate solutions and none of them worked, (MS site being somewhat useless - because everything works from their point of view or they say just do a clean install because your setup is not our problem)

          The solution was to download the system internals process monitor. Start a monitoring run - filtering just registry accesses. Then start a TIFKAM application which wasn't running, (store first). Stop the monitor as soon as the TIFKAM app failed and look through the logs for all the 'DENIED ACCESS' events. Then manually change the access rights on those registry settings which were being denied. Repeat for the rest of the apps. Took pigging ages, (but wasn't willing to give up/do a reinstall because I like the machine the way it is).

    2. big_D Silver badge

      I've updated all of our machines (2010 Sony laptop, 2011 Sony laptop and a Sumsung tablet), no problems to report here. Have you looked at security settings? Some firewall problem?

      If the desktop side is working, then it sounds like firewall or security rules might be a good place to start looking.

      Edit: posted reply to your first message, before reading your second. Any idea what caused it?

      1. Greg J Preece

        No idea at all, I'm afraid. I read a blog post or two that alluded to some security settings getting flipped in the bowels of the system, far beyond the GUI, and Fiddler being required to re-enable access, but the fix looked a little dodgy to me. Fortunately it seems to be OK now.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      clarification

      If you are saying TIFKAM internet access doesn't work anymore, change the network settings from public to private, I had that problem on several systems of mine.

  2. Arachnoid
    FAIL

    So........

    From giving patches to one and all [even unlicensed version of windows] to prevent mass internet mayhem we have now decided to give it to the few who do have a valid license.Lets see how long that one runs its course.

  3. Roger Greenwood

    Confused?

    I certainly am.

    Unless the reporting is completely wrong, this sounds like the best way to tick off your customers I have ever heard.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Confused?

      And still they come.

    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Confused?

      Microsoft is always correct. If you are dissatisfied, the fault lies with you.

    3. Mikel

      Re: Suspicious haste

      There must be something seriously wrong with the pre-update version.

      1. Daniel von Asmuth
        Gimp

        Re: Suspicious haste

        If nothing is seriously wrong with Windows, then Windows XP must be ideal: no more updates to install!

        I wonder how you could upgrade your Windows XP, if you haven't yet. Buy Vista on the second-hand black market, and run upgrade. Same thing for 7, then 8, then 8.1, but if you dont install that update Real Soon Now, you will always be vulnerable and miss out on Windows 9 and beyond for ever.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @roger

      "Unless the reporting is completely wrong, this sounds like the best way to tick off your customers I have ever heard."

      Agreed. However, this is Windows 8 we're talking about to pardon me for wondering: what customers would that be? ;)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @roger

        Microsoft is on first name basis with ALL their Win8 customers.

        They keep the names on a napkin in the sales department.

    5. Number6
      Coat

      Re: Confused?

      Unless the reporting is completely wrong, this sounds like the best way to tick off your customers I have ever heard.

      You mean apart from Windows ME and Vista? (And Windows 8 itself, given how well it's doing in the popularity stakes.)

  4. Frank N. Stein

    "the issue is likely only to affect a small subset of Redmond's customers..." Yes. This will only affect the 5% of Windows users who are running Windows 8. Everyone else can just relax. A rather cunning plan to try and get Windows users to re-enable automatic updates. The other side of it is that, Windows 8 is about to have a pretty short life, as more is cobbled onto 8.1

    1. Eddy Ito

      Oh no, it's more arsed than that

      From the linked technet blog:

      "For those users who are still using Windows 8 and Windows 2012 (and not Windows 8.1 and Windows 2012 R2) you are unaffected and will continue to receive updates as normal."

      So the only hosed folks are the ones who went through the painfully huge download like a relative of mine did on his painfully slow internet connection hoping his new Win 8 laptop would get better* under 8.1.

      *It did, for small values of better which is why it's now running Win 7.

  5. Someone Else Silver badge
    FAIL

    Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

    "Since Microsoft wants to ensure that customers benefit from the best support and servicing experience and to coordinate and simplify servicing across both Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1 RT and Windows 8.1, this update will be considered a new servicing/support baseline," the company said.

    Really? I mean, fuckin' really?!?

    "Since Microsoft wants to ensure that customers benefit from the best support and servicing experience can't be arsed to do a proper job maintaining our shit and to coordinate and simplify servicing across both Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1 RT and Windows 8.1 because maintaining backward compatibility is hard, and is fast becoming beyond our capabilities, this update will be considered a new servicing/support baseline," the company said.

    There, fixed it for ya. <sigh>

    1. Daniel B.

      Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

      It's even easier: They're giving vanilla Win8 the Vista treatment. IIRC Vista was EOL'd shortly after 7 came out. Probably justified as Vista remained in the under-10% range for most of its life, and 7 was basically "fixed Vista" so it made more sense for businesses to simply upgrade to 7 as "compatibility issues" weren't a problem if you already had Vista.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

        Yeah, but there is no in place upgrade from XP (which everyone was actually running at the time) to Win7, so you had to acquire VISTA, upgrade, then upgrade to 7 (or do a fresh install. I think there was a migrate data tool).

      2. Kunari

        Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

        Wonder what would happen if someone re-installs from the base Win8 media?

        1. southpacificpom
          Windows

          Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

          Install and reboot,

          Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer...

          Install and reboot,

          Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer...

          Install and reboot,

          Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer...

          Install and reboot,

          Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer...

          Install and reboot,

          Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer...

          Repeat, ad infinitum...

          1. John Tserkezis

            Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

            "Install and reboot,

            Windows is updating, please do not turn off your computer..."

            I know you say that in jest, but it's really like that. I have a work-supplied RT tablet, but never use it, as I can do more with my own laptop, and there is only a moderate tradeoff in weight. So, the win8 tablet never gets used aside from bringing it out every so often to do updates.

            I haven't actually used it for anything productive, it's just been updates, not only that, they're BIG updates every bloody time.

            This is what I'm eating my monthly internet bandwidth for?

          2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

            Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

            And then do it all over again as the different incantations (deliberate pun) of .Net get updated.

            Not everyone has the luxury of WSUS you know.

            What a load of old cock.

            MS couldn't organise a ... you know the rest.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

            Download 700meg patch and reboot, else reinstall and rebot.

        2. Chika
          Devil

          Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

          Always assuming that you had the base install media to do it with, of course.

        3. mediavets

          Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

          I would like to know too. I have an unused Windows 8 Pro license that I don't yet wish to use.

      3. BlueGreen

        Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

        A small pair of anecdotes about vista.

        Tried it on a mate's machine. Shut down, and it took a few minutes of it just spinning before I decided it must have crashed and physically pulled the plug. Found out later it took about six minutes to shut itself down, you just had to leave it, and leave it, and leave it...

        While there I also downloaded a smallish (few dozen meg) file. I had the option to get the compressed or uncompressed file. Both had the same contents. Obviously the zipped one is better, less bandwidth, be a nice net citizen etc. so I grabbed that one and it took just a few seconds. Then I tried to unzip it. Baaaad. The progress meter hovered around 40K *PER SECOND* for the unzipping. It would literally have been many times faster to download the unzipped file than get the zipped and unzip it locally. What a crock.

        1. Hans 1
          Windows

          Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

          That must have been Vista pre-SP1 ... and, no, downloading the unzipped file would not have been any faster ... I remember timing file duplication: a text file containing "Hello World", just that, no formatting - simple ASCII text (without double quotes ") - would take a whopping 5 minutes and 30 seconds to duplicate (left click, right click > Copy, right click Paste).

          They "fixed" it in SP1, it would only take 30 seconds - it takes millis on my underpowered, non-Vista-able Linux box, oh, and a click less - like on Windows XP and lower, but there you go. In Windows 7, it still takes like 100 times longer than on my Linux box, w7 on SSD vs Linux on PATA!! - not sure what it is doing.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

            "not sure what it is doing."

            It is long time ago now but I remember looking at what explorer was up to during a network copy across a slow link. It was doing something like:

            1. Initial view of the remote directory - copy all of the files (including all content) across the nice slow link to local memory - perhaps to just get the filenames/sizes to show in explorer

            2. Right click the remote file you want to copy - copy all of the file (including content) AGAIN across the slow link to local memory - getting properties maybe?

            3. Right click paste local - copy all of the file (including content) AGAIN across the slow link before pasting it.

            It was something like that anyway - at least 3 copies for every one. Don't know if local copies are the same but probably. It still does something similar on later versions.

            There was also something about explorer looking one level of directory down, I think during step 1 above, and if there were any zip files, unzipping them all too, despite them being on another machine and nobody looking at them.

            1. Brenda McViking

              Re: Does ANYBODY still believe this tripe?

              A program I've heard of that overcomes the copying issue is teracopy www.codesector.com/teracopy

              Of course this falls into the "microsoft messed it up and there is no way in hell that in a sane world this program should *need* to exist." But hey. It solves the problem because microsoft won't, so I'm leaving the link here in case anyone has need of it.

  6. Daniel B.
    Trollface

    But the real question is...

    Will this new update bring up the Start Menu? At least it seems that TIFKAM apps now get windowed mode...

    1. Daniel von Asmuth
      Facepalm

      No

      I heard a future update may return the Start menu. Why not stick with Windows 7? How long will *that* be supported?

  7. Mystic Megabyte
    Windows

    No

    I would not touch Windows 8 with a bargepole, thanks anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No

      Having tried it, I'm surprised you'd get THAT close.

      Maybe you plan on having someone else holding the bargepole.

      Someone you don't like

    2. Vociferous

      Re: No

      Possibly with a sharpened bargepole.

      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: No

        "Possibly with a sharpened bargepole."

        Or the type of modified bargepole known as a spar torpedo

        Icon, well, because that's what a spar torpedo does

    3. southpacificpom
      FAIL

      Re: No

      Alas, the bargepole would BSOD and fall apart if if got anywhere near Win8

    4. Old Tom

      Re: No

      Why not?

      When my old machine died, it was with a little resignation and trepidation that I had to take on Windows 8.1. Turns out I've had no problem with it at all.

      No start menu? I don't give a toss, it took seconds to create my own toolbar (which I called 'Start') containing shortcuts to all my utilities. BONUS- it only contains the ones I want!

      Shitty touch-centric UI - never see it, it boots straight to desktop.

      It even wakes in a couple of seconds from hibernation. Oh, and I like the charm bar.

      The only problem I've encountered so far is that I had to lie to it about the model of my ancient parallel printer that's connected to my NAS via a magic parallel/usb cable.

    5. Chika
      Happy

      Re: No

      Nor would I. But then I don't think that Windows 8 has a bargepole-touch-sensitive interface anyway.

    6. Avatar of They
      FAIL

      Re: No

      I wouldn't touch it with YOUR bargepole. No offence, but I am not evening considering using mine on it.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

        Re: No

        I emphatically fail to disagree with these comments.

    7. Dave K

      Re: No

      Microsoft got themselves into this mess and only have themselves to blame. Windows 8 was a decidedly half-baked release. Even the biggest fan of TIFKAM has to admit that the shutdown process for example was ridiculously convoluted and the whole interface was very immature.

      This has meant MS scrabbling to release updated versions to fix Windows 8's shortcomings, and now MS is stuck in the hole of either supporting multiple versions of its OS, or discontinuing support for them. If they'd bothered to ensure that TIFKAM was properly implemented in the first place, they wouldn't have this issue.

      And of course, a lot of Windows 8's problems from a perception point of view are down to the "stick" approach that MS used to push TIFKAM. They wanted in on mobile, so they made a deliberate decision to try and *force* it onto everyone. They went out of their way to disable registry hacks for beta versions of Windows 8 that re-enabled the start menu and decided that hitting with the stick was the right approach. You WILL use our new, convoluted and immature interface whether you like it or not.

      Call me picky, but if there's one thing I DETEST, it's a company dictating to me exactly how I should use their products, exactly how I must use their interface, etc, all to try and drive that company into markets which do not concern me. The result is a deep personal hatred for Windows 8. Not just from a technical/interface point of view, but from a point of view of what it stands for.

      The only thing MS can do to get around this really is to accept that Windows 8 and the stick approach has been a failure, add more options and customisability back into Windows (which they are slowly doing), and then kill off the Windows 8 brand altogether.

      Like I say, all their own fault. the more you hit with the stick, the more people will resist as a matter of principle. And now with multiple versions to support or abandon, they're riling up even the adopters.

  8. Tom 35

    Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

    Windows 8.1 Update?

    What Windows 8.1 Update? No not a Windows 8.1 Update. It's THE Windows 8.1 Update. But there are lots of things in my windows update history called Windows 8.1 Update?

    You would think that an update that "is a new baseline" would be at least 8.1.1 and there would be some way to tell it's installed other then there is a magnifying glass on your not-metro screen.

    What are they going to call the next one? Windows 8.1 MoreUpdate? Windows 8.1 Update Again?

    1. Fibbles

      Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

      Windows 8.1 Update 2: Electric Boogaloo

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

      Bride of Windows 8.1 Update

      Son of Windows 8.1 Update

      The Return of Windows 8.1 Update

      Back to the Windows 8.1 Update

      Windows 8.1 Update Revisited

      The Night of the Living Windows 8.1 Update

      Attack of the Windows 8.1 Update

      Debbie Does Windows 8.1 Update

      ...lots of possibilities.

      1. David Pollard

        Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

        Windows Reloaded

        Windows Revolutions

        1. Gray
          Trollface

          Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

          Waiting patiently for the Windows 8.1 Final Update ...

          soon thereafter to be followed by the final, final patched Final Update.

          Otherwise referred to as Windows 8.1 FU ... and Windows 8.1 FU2.

        2. Bob Asic

          Re: Who at Microsoft is making up the names... and why do they still have a job?

          How about Windows eXPerience or XP for short?

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