back to article Wait for it, waaiiit for it: We update an Atom tablet to Windows 8.1 Pro

If you own an Atom tablet and you’re pondering on upgrading to Windows 8.1 now it’s out in the wild, then there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that it installs fairly smoothly in my experience. That said, I would advise to send out for pizza and rent an epic movie, the longer the better, as the update takes an age to …

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  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Microsoft Time (sucks)

    I installed Pro on a Thinkpad T60 last night.

    I did the 'search for updates' this morning.

    What the hell have they done to it?

    you start downloading the patches and it sits there for minutes at 0% suddenly it goes to 78%. WTF?

    What is it with microsoft and estimating the time remaining for something? Can't they ever get it right?

    This is just really annoying and IMHO worse than Windows 7/Server 208 R2.

    The only positive thing is that it found all the drivers for the T60 including the fingerprint reader. Thankfully it is dual booted with Windows 7 and I suspect that 8.1 will only get an occasional boot.

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Microsoft Time (sucks)

      http://xkcd.com/612/

      Seems appropriate

      1. Philip Lewis

        Re: Microsoft Time (sucks)

        "Seems appropriate"

        Obligatory I would say. Beat me to it :D

    2. jason 7

      Re: Microsoft Time (sucks)

      I must admit this is the only thing that truly annoys me about Windows 8. Had many instances of initial or secondary update where the download counter sits at 0% for ages and ages.

      No clue whats going on if anything. A few reboots and retry gets you there eventually but it's not great.

      Seems it either works perfectly or just acts plain stubborn.

      On another note I installed 8.1 on my 8GB Athlon II X3 PC this morning. I just let it run in the background till it told me it wanted to restart. Didn't seem to take long at all, no longer than a usual Windows install.

      Maybe 45 minutes tops. All went really smoothly. No issues.

      1. Great Bu

        Just a Windows minute.......

        The phrase "Windows Minute" has become commonplace amongst my colleagues and I - when asked how long a task will take the reply "Just a Windows minute" equates to "I have no fucking idea, could be anywhere between one second and just after the heat death of the universe...."

    3. Duke2010

      Re: Microsoft Time (sucks)

      "What is it with microsoft and estimating the time remaining for something? Can't they ever get it right?"

      Oh dear, first world problems.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

    Don't you just love the windows update mechanism.

    Give me Yast, Apt, Yum or anything else please but not the torturously glacial windows update.

    1. Ross K Silver badge
      Gimp

      Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

      Don't you just love the windows update mechanism.

      Give me Yast, Apt, Yum or anything else please but not the torturously glacial windows update.

      *Yawn*

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

        You are only allowed to "yawn" if the same expedience can be reached than with a standard Linux upgrade.

        But at least you get epic foreplay in this case. You should be ready to blow the load on WinWord once the desktop comes up.

        1. Ross K Silver badge

          Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

          You are only allowed to "yawn" if the same expedience can be reached than with a standard Linux upgrade.

          Can't say that a Windows Update session has ever bothered me. Yeah after a fresh install you've got a 600-700Mb update-fest, but most normal people leave that run overnight instead of sitting there watching a progress bar. After that, it's a few patches a month...

          To be honest, I find the constant bleating of the linux fanbois more boring than anything Microsoft can throw at me.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Devil

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            "Yeah after a fresh install you've got a 600-700Mb update-fest, but most normal people leave that run overnight instead of sitting there watching a progress bar"

            Boss: I need a desktop with a fresh installation, ASAP, FOR YESTERDAY!

            You: Yesterday?? You mean *tomorrow* right?

            Boss: Yeah, tomorrow you dont need to come over!

            1. Ross K Silver badge
              Trollface

              Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

              Boss: I need a desktop with a fresh installation, ASAP, FOR YESTERDAY!

              You: Yesterday?? You mean *tomorrow* right?

              Boss: Yeah, tomorrow you dont need to come over!

              Oh ok, you're talking about a work scenario...

              I'd go to the storeroom and get one of the updated PCs I keep for just such an eventuality.

              Anything else?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Stop

                Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                It was a joke but you still dont get it. If you had to make a fresh install, while you wait for the updates on windows, you would have a linux box installed, updated, configured and ready for the user. Heck, even installed at the user's desk...

                1. AlbertH

                  Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                  I've just uprated a Windows 8 "Ultrabook" to Mint whilst reading this article and the comments! My only needed interventions were to tell the installer that yes, I do want to use the whole hard drive, that I'm in London, and I have a UK keyboard. It's done the rest, and is now installing a few applications that I like to have on board. Total install time? Just 25 minutes, including a comprehensive suite of applications.

                  Game Over, Microsoft!

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                I'd go to the storeroom and get one of the updated PCs I keep for just such an eventuality.

                Ohh, you mean the ones you had for such an eventuality … until the beancounters saw all these surplus assets and decided to flog them off for cash?

            2. El Andy

              Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

              "Boss: I need a desktop with a fresh installation, ASAP, FOR YESTERDAY!

              You: Yesterday?? You mean *tomorrow* right?"

              If you aren't patching your base install image, you're doing it wrong.

              Or is it that Apt, Yum, Yast etc don't support offline image patching?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Stop

                Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                "If you aren't patching your base install image, you're doing it wrong."

                The scenario was a joke but just to please you, imagine that the box was needed to test a new setup, something that never happens right?

                Anyway, I can have a new desktop configured with my full setups at home in 1 hour using linux and that while with an eye at the TV. I wont see myself waste such amount of time with windows, I have better things to do.

                1. largefile

                  Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                  Did a full clean install of 8.1 off of an TechNet ISO/DVD yesterday in about 25 minutes.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

                    I'm happy for you. No really I am.

                    You managed to install a 4 day old OS, and all the megabytes of patches it has accumulated over those 4 days, in 25 minutes. Now come back in about 6 months after it has accumulated a few patches and patches of patches and try it again. Then you will find they have patched the patcher module but the patcher module depends upon a previous patch so you have to install that patch, reboot, install the patcher patch, reboot install next patch set, answer a bleeding question half way through, reboot, patch some NET framework which depended upon some previous patch, reboot, patch everything that depended upon the NET framework, agree to some new license halfway through, reboot and then use your machine.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            > you've got a 600-700Mb update-fest,

            You have a multiple update fest. The last "fresh" install I did was W7, there were 5 different lots of patches so I had to check for updates, install them, reboot and the check again only to find a whole new set of patches.

            One lot of patch installs even stopped half way through (not at the beginning or end but halfway f@cking through) to ask me a question so leaving it untended isn't an option.

            1. Wensleydale Cheese

              Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

              One lot of patch installs even stopped half way through (not at the beginning or end but halfway f@cking through) to ask me a question so leaving it untended isn't an option.

              Yes, a new version of MSIE has been the culprit there on several occasions.

          3. Root-11

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            Have you ever worked with Linux?

        2. TheVogon

          Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

          "if the same expedience can be reached than with a standard Linux upgrade."

          At least you can do an in place upgrade of Windows. Unlike with say Red Hat or CentOS....

          1. keithpeter Silver badge
            Boffin

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            "At least you can do an in place upgrade of Windows. Unlike with say Red Hat or CentOS...."

            @TheVogon

            I saw what you did there...

            You are perfectly correct in stating that Red Hat require clean installations of each major version of their Enterprise Linux product, e.g. RHEL 5 to 6 (the currently supported versions) and to 7 (the version that will be released next). It is worth mentioning that major versions have a support life measured in decades.

            CentOS is of course a clone of RHEL, as are Scientific Linux, PUIAS/Springdale Linux, and Oracle Linux, so they follow the same process.

            Minor version updates (e.g 6.2 -> 6.3 -> 6.4 in my case) are unproblematic and occur as a normal part of the software update - I was able to carry on wasting my time on this forum when 6.3 updated to 6.4 on my CentOS laptop, then I was able to reboot into the updated kernel when appropriate. I imagine that systems administrators running production servers will disable automatic updates and will have a test box to check fine details of the minor upgrades.

            Other Linux distributions allow in-place upgrades. Obviously when there are major technology shifts it might be better to do a clean install, and some distributions set up a separate /home partition to make this process easier. At least one poster on the Debian forums claims never to have reinstalled since Woody, including in place updates and when changing hardware. He simply makes a tar.gz of the hard drive and unpacks this on the new hard drive and then reinstalls grub and runs update-grub. Some changing of config files is needed (UUIDs). This does actually work, and I have 'swapped' a Debian and a CentOS installation between a desktop PC and a laptop using this method. Saved a lot of time and downloads.

            Finally, some Linux distributions follow a 'rolling' model where packages are updated as and when and there is never a need to reinstall. These tend to be enthusiast oriented distributions as there will be issues regarding library compatibility and configuration changes.

            I get paid to use Windows, and the techs at work keep our system running very nicely with very little downtime.

            At home, the thing I remember most about windows was having to reboot continuously when installing and updating a machine. Interesting to see that seems to have continued.

            1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

              Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

              Quote: "At least one poster on the Debian forums claims never to have reinstalled since Woody, "

              My house server is like that. Since potato actually. When the time to do hardware swap comes along it is tarred, untarred onto a new RAID set in a new box to replace the old one. It has been in-place upgraded since some time in 1999. I have not had a single upgrade issue on it in 15 years (it has a full desktop software installation just in case too so you can run xterms off it). However this is Debian, not R00tH4t which has this polished to perfection.

              As far as the general install - I have a "packing list" for new machines so I just do an apt-get install with it after initial install and continue on whatever I was doing before it. Depending on the fatness of the Internet pipe and the freshness of the cache, a fully installed, fully patched and ready to use machine is ready between 30 and 90 minutes later.

              I have to do the same process at work every few months after the geniuses from IT deregister my Windows VM from the domain controller for lack of use. It takes (even with lots of magic incantations to get super-performance out of kvm on a 16G RAM box) half a day or more. It also fails half of the time because the 5GB ISO with the "latest" corporate standard happens to be 2 days out of date with the install server. After that it needs 1-2h to apply all updates. All of that just to have a fully compatible windows typewriter. Nuts...

          2. simpfeld

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            It true rhel shouldn't be updated in place updated between major versions. But its no big deal. No company would or should do an in place upgrade of a server or desktop. You install the new system and migrate. Anything else on a production system is asking for it. You can in place upgrade rhel just not supported, perhaps because its not really sensible in a corporate sense they don't want the support hassle it could generate (its not a key customer requirement).

            Yum on Fedora supports delta updates, so rhel7 too. So yes RH was a bit late to this one. But every OS is late to some feature or other. Look how long Windows took to get bonded NICs, windows 2012 and I heard recently that Dell had to write that for them. Wonder if that is true.

          3. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

            Actually, you CAN do an inplace upgrade, just that they won't support you if it goes titsup.

            A stupdendously stupid decision, but not exactly the only inanity built into Redhat.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

      "Give me Yast, Apt, Yum or anything else please but not the torturously glacial windows update."

      Windows update + WIndows installer are lot more powerful than those - e,g, Delta based updates, streamed installs, etc - so it can take a while in some cases. In others it is much faster than anything on Linux. For instance try installing the Microsoft free evaluation of Office 2013. It will launch the requested Office application within a minute of starting the download and carry on installing the rest in the background!

      1. Steven Raith

        Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

        Christ, always with the Office 2013 installer - you know, the one that shits itself 10% of the time and needs to be ripped out from the registry before it'll let you do a clean install. It's a piece of shit, sir, and I can quality that statement any way you want. And that's before you start talking about non Volume Licensed installations on more than three computers in a day. Because you can't. Because MS won't let you register more than three MS Office accounts per day, per machine - once again, shitting all over the SMB and VAR crowd.

        Anyway, you want installation efficiency? A few weeks ago, I was RDPing a couple of Windows servers and reading Facebook while waiting for progress bars to move on them, writing up a .doc file to document the processes on the servers - dong all that on a Linux installation that was in progress on a laptop.

        I finished the remote server updates, documented them, emailed them to myself through my office webmail, then rebooted the sytem into a fresh linux install.

        Take your Office 2013 steaming, er, I mean, streaming install, and come back to the party when you have something worthwhile to talk about....

      2. Fibbles

        Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

        "Windows update + WIndows installer are lot more powerful than those"

        I'd rather not be the bleating Linux fanboy but how on earth can you sing the praises of an update mechanism that will download multiple different versions of the same file (because they're encased in binary blobs,) so that it can install them over the top of each other in sequential order?

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

          I'd rather not be the bleating Linux fanboy but how on earth can you sing the praises of an update mechanism that will download multiple different versions of the same file (because they're encased in binary blobs,) so that it can install them over the top of each other in sequential order?

          To be fair, while appearing very stupid and annoying, this is to allow subsequent rollback and patch removal. Or to try to explain a better better: this isn't to allow the current patch in question to be removed, it's to allow subsequent patches of the same file to be removed, reverting to a "known good" combination of files and libraries.

          While sending diff's of the various files would be useful, having the version to apply the diff to in the first place is another problem. This problem is compounded with the signing of Operating System (or in MS's terminology, everything they want to bundle with the Operating System) - the signing of these files is a good thing but it does introduce further complexities.

          I'm sure they could do something to improve the situation, but sometimes simplicity is best, even if it is inefficient... but when was the last time MS actually did something efficient?

    3. Irongut

      Re: 2hrs 45minutes and still not done !

      Last time I installed Fedora it needed 405 updates post install. I don't know exactly how long it took but it was basically all night for the install and updates, say maybe 4 hours.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the balance of all evidence ..

    .. I think we can safely assume that the guy who wrote the progress bar code must have worked for London Transport before. They have the same, somewhat loose interpretation of the number of seconds that fit in a minute.

    On that topic, what annoys me more than randomised progress in a progress bar is one that keeps restarting. WTF? The idea is to see begin, end and where you are between those points so you can decide between getting a drink of a full 4 course meal before you have to pay attention again.

    Ah, that reminds me, irritant no 2: a loooooooooong install routine with additional questions somewhere in the middle of it. As evidenced in this story. Bad, bad, very seriously bad, because once you have fired off such a long process you should not have to babysit it until it has done whatever it needs to do.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: On the balance of all evidence ..

      "Ah, that reminds me, irritant no 2: a loooooooooong install routine with additional questions somewhere in the middle of it."

      And thus crushes the entire "leave it run overnight" witticism.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: On the balance of all evidence ..

        And thus crushes the entire "leave it run overnight" witticism.

        Answer Files are the "solution" here. However how many of us are going to bother to create a damn Answer File and slipstreaming this onto the update media or to download and apply the updates separately in order to apply the Answer File for <insert random friend or relative's name here>'s computer?

        Internet Explorer and Security Essentials are the chief culprits here when it comes to requiring an answer in the middle of an update. I've learnt to exclude these from overnight updates and to apply them, and the inevitable subsequent updates, more interactively.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But why?

    Why pray would one do this when Win 7 Pro runs fine on N450s? The fashion for all things new I suppose. You will have to pry my high res Dell 1012 from my cold dead hands when I am gone...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But why?

      You will have to pry my high res Dell 1012 from my cold dead hands when I am gone...

      Well, few would want to find their hands cold and dead before they pass on…

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But why?

      Your offer.... is acceptable.

  5. Big_Ted
    WTF?

    Most annoying thing for me

    It removes your anti virus etc and doesn't tell you.....

    That's right you have paid for and installed an alternative to MS and they delete it from your drive......

    Top that with the fact Kaspersky won't install unless you download the USA version with patch b ......

    What a total cluster fuck......

    Thanks MS, at least I read about it before I went on the bank website etc this morning.

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Most annoying thing for me

      It removes your anti virus etc and doesn't tell you.....

      After reading the article, and noticing the phrase "taking care of a few things" I was mulling over making a post suggesting that this might actually be a euphemism, and that the extra 4.5Gb free was due to "taking care" of some competing products that were on the disk initially. I'd meant it as a joke, but now I'm just gob-smacked ... MS couldn't be that obvious, could they?

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: Most annoying thing for me

        If it is "taking care" of all the crapware HP shovels onto their computers, then I have no objections.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      It removes your anti virus etc and doesn't tell you.....

      Considering how deeply AV software integrates into the OS installation, I'm not that surprised Windows doesn't know what to do about it.

      Side question; does W8 include MSE the same as W7 does? Always been good enough for me, coupled with the built-in firewall.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It removes your anti virus etc and doesn't tell you..... @JDX

        Sorry what is all this AV/MSE stuff you keep talking about ? Can't seem to find it in my Repos.

    3. AlbertH
      FAIL

      Re: Most annoying thing for me

      ...Of course a proper operating system doesn't need an anti-virus.....

      Shame that MS still can't get their heads around the basic concept of permissions and add properly granular access control to files and processes - like we've had in Linux since 1992.....

      1. mmeier

        Re: Most annoying thing for me

        I hope that was irony otherwise you are the dumbest troll I have seen in a decade.

        NT (since NT4) access control is quite a bit more granular than that of OOB Linux. Actually mapping Windows ACL to the rather course Unix ones is a major problem and the Posix ACL implemented in Linux since the early 2000nds was based on a withdrawn standard (Posix 1003-1e, withdrawn 1997). The NEW Posix ACL proposal - is based on NTFS (RFC 3010)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Most annoying thing for me @ mmeier

          Pity windows doesn't have a clue what file type something is until it's told what it is by three suffix letters.

  6. 404

    Yep - just about what I saw last night

    Updating an HP Elitebook 8440P from 12:05am to 1:45am this morning. Downloaded 3.47GB for Win 8.1 with Media Center over my satellite (thus the middle of night/no download limits from 12-5am).

    Went pretty much the same, although no HP tools to deal with - HP doesn't make 'em for older Elitebooks - Firefox crashed this morning while coming back from sleep, nothing amazing to report.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yep - just about what I saw last night

      While HP doesn't provide Win8 drivers for products that didn't ship with Win8 (including my Probook 6540b), the latest ProtectTools software installs just fine in older laptops. It can be found from the driver download page of newer products, eg. 8470p or 6570b.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So still an easier and quicker install than iOS7 was when it was first released. Damn iPad took over three hours to download and install a 650MB file.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      updating iOS

      "So still an easier and quicker install than iOS7 was when it was first released."

      On the first day of an iOS release it's always slow as so many people are tying to do updates simultaneously that the servers an bandwidth get hammered.

      Maybe MS could use this as a tag line for Surface "Updating your Surface RT to windows 8.1 will be really quick as you'll be the only person downloading it".

      ;)

      1. Tom 35

        Re: updating iOS

        "Maybe MS could use this as a tag line for Surface "Updating your Surface RT to windows 8.1 will be really quick as you'll be the only person downloading it"."

        Wrong it took ages. Even after the download (2.11 GB) it still took bloody forever to install.

        You think Google / Facebook is bad? Don't pick express settings (see the screen shot in the story!).

        Oh, and it wanted me to verify my MS account. By emailing me a code that I had to enter, but I could not get to email to read the code... lucky I have a real computer to check my email.

        1. Sandtitz Silver badge

          Re: updating iOS @Tom 35

          >Oh, and it wanted me to verify my MS account. By emailing me a code that I had to enter, but I could not get to email to read the code...

          You're in the wrong here. Win 8.1 wanted to verify my MS account as well, but I just clicked the "skip this for now" link below it and I wasn't bothered with the verification since then.

          However we can all agree that Microsoft has botched the verification process...

          1. Tom 35

            Re: updating iOS @Tom 35

            Must not have been paying attention and missed the link.

            I also did a fresh install of 8.1 enterprise on a laptop that will be joined to the domain. The "no I don't want a MS account" is hidden nicely. You have to click create new account before you get the link to skip it.

            The new features seem to be much more useful on the laptop then they are on the surface.

  8. Malcolm 1

    The whole process took about an hour on my desktop PC (4-year old core i7 upgraded a couple of years ago with a crucial SSD). It all just worked - no complaints.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "4-year old core i7"

      So what's that, about nine hundred times faster than a 2ghz Atom? :P

      1. mmeier

        CTrail series Atoms or more exactly the "pseudoSSD" they use are extremly slow. That is actually the bottleneck. Depending on the WLAN quality speed to get the data to the tablet pc is number two since quite a few don't go above 75MBit and have lousy quality.

        The desktop has no such problems even if it uses WLAN instead of cabel. Adding an SSD speed up even more. But on a "typical" core i5 with HDD the whole process took about an hour from "download" to "all done and working" here. Network is 25MBit ADSL and the box itself uses a good quality WLAN.

    2. qwarty

      40-50 minutes

      I set the 8.1 update installing on 3 systems simultaneously (4 year old core i7 and haswell desktops plus a three year old laptop with fairly slow hard drive. No SSD.). Downloading over domestic internet connection. The haswell finished first at 40 minutes and the laptop last after 50 minutes. Guess I must have been lucky hearing these stories of it taking over 2 hours.

      I dual boot the 4 year old using Windows 7 half the time so conscious of the Windows 8 performance benefits - nice to see 8.1 improves matters even further.

    3. jason 7

      Yep done it on three PCs now and all took less than an hour.

      Simple.

  9. Tzael

    Short movie

    Would have to be a short movie if you're doing the update on a Surface RT - took less than an hour including the download (2.11GB). A 45 minute episode of some TV show would suffice!

    1. Manu T

      Re: Short movie

      "Would have to be a short movie if you're doing the update on a Surface RT - took less than an hour including the download (2.11GB). A 45 minute episode of some TV show would suffice!"

      an old Porn flick? :-)

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Short movie

      Not what I experienced. Took something like 40 minutes just for the part after the first reboot. Don't know how long the first part took as I went to bed while it was still downloading.

  10. Dr. Ellen
    Facepalm

    Mickey Mouse

    I went to Disney World once, and got in line for "Pirates of the Caribbean". "The line isn't too long," I thought. I went around a corner, and there was an even longer line. Then I went around another corner. More line. Lather, rinse, repeat. It took for bloody *ever* to get to the actual ride. I have been told the Disney folks are the world's absolute best at making you think the wait is shorter than it actually *will* be.

    Perhaps Disney and Microsoft are having a technology exchange.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Mickey Mouse

      Perhaps Disney and Microsoft are having a technology exchange.

      The Disney's Mickey Mouse department seems to have have been involved in some inter-company projects with Microsoft's User Interface / eXperience department.

      Yeah, yeah, I know... I'll get me coat...

  11. Old Handle
    Facepalm

    Those meaningless progress messages look like a parody of the trend towards "user friendliness" at the expense of functionality.

  12. John Fielder

    only one problem

    upgraded from 8 to 8.1 on a desktop ans surface rt. the rt was a bit faster, took about three hours altogether. the only problem was IE11, which would not use iplayer on rt, and on day 2 IE on both machines started displaying googles search results in a very narrow column. fixed by turning off microsoft compatibility list tick box. this also fixed iplayer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: only one problem

      Same here for the Google issue - it was working yesterday after the update so I guess this is a Google screw-up.

      I just switched to Bing which seems to have improved a lot since the last time I used it. Better than Google in many cases I would have to say...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The good news is that it installs fairly smoothly ...

    ... The bad news is that you still have Windows installed.

  14. silent_count

    "Preparing to install"

    Does anyone even know what that means? Is it the CPU in deep, philosophical discussion with the BIOS about the meaning of the word 'install' and 'what it means, like really deep down' while the GPU is off in the corner getting high on petrol fumes?

    It's not that effing complicated! Check existing installation. Unpack downloaded files. Replace/modify as necessary. No vague, esoteric [lack of] progress messages are required. Just get on with it!

    </rant> I had the joy of installing VS 2013 on an EEPC this morning and had enough time to watch a movie while it faffed around so I can sympathise with the 8.1 upgraders' pain.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: "Preparing to install"

      It's something they learned from Adobe and Java: first you have to install an installer to install the installer for the REAL installer.

      Got it?

      You think I'm joking?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re: "Preparing to install"

        Yeah, and after it failed the first time because you downloaded the installer and the disconnected from the network, you'll be cursing them every time thereafter. I certainly do.

      2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: "Preparing to install"

        You missed the other Adobe glorious trick: Start installer, delete installer, fail for some reason (and it's important not to tell the user what the problem is), then leave user having to re-download the installer again to retry the install.

    2. WhoaWhoa

      Re: "Preparing to install"

      ""Preparing to install"

      Does anyone even know what that means? Is it the CPU in deep, philosophical discussion with the BIOS about the meaning of the word 'install' and 'what it means, like really deep down'... "

      I'd pictured it meditating to clear its mind of clutter before starting a quest. A sort of cross between a Samurai warrior and a Knight of the Round Table.

  15. WhoaWhoa

    File transfer progress bars are, in most cases, trying to express the ratio of the known amount of data transferred divided by the unknown amount of data (*) still to be transferred.

    As such, they are not even a reliable guess, just a form of feedback to reassure the watcher of never-boiling pots that something is still happening.

    The mistake isn't that the bars aren't doing their job; more in understanding what that job is.

    (Of course, a sudden jump from 0% to large % probably isn't the best choice of how to give the feedback. Something along the lines of a decaying exponential terminating in Done would be a more intuitive choice).

    (*) To repeat, in *most* cases.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Holmes

      "As such, they are not even a reliable guess, just a form of feedback to reassure the watcher of never-boiling pots that something is still happening."

      I find it interesting they work just fine on my Linux box. Why, I even get a list of the files being downloaded and installed in real time along with their real and accurate time status. On the desktop. While I do other things.

      Why is that, do you suppose?

      1. WhoaWhoa

        "I find it interesting they work just fine on my Linux box. Why, I even get a list of the files being downloaded and installed in real time along with their real and accurate time status. On the desktop. While I do other things.

        Why is that, do you suppose?"

        Yes, that tends to be the case for Linux installs via a package manager. I'm guessing, not having looked into the information held in the apt (usually, in my case) package database, that Linux packages come complete with metadata that includes their size.

        That's the sort of exception I had in mind when I said "in most cases".

        Is that what you'd suppose, too? ;-)

        (BTW, I also suppose that by "accurate" time status you are including a margin of error for factors outside your control... network speed / reliability, server and client responsiveness / load... that sort of thing).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Are you in Marketing?

      "trying to express the ratio of the known amount of data transferred divided by the unknown amount of data (*) still to be transferred"

      Here's an idea then. See if you can find a geek to explain it to you?

      When doing this kind of "long duration" operation, display the time the operation started, and leave it displayed.

      Once every ten seconds, display the elapsed time, and the amount of data shifted.

      If you do know the eventual total amount of data to be shipped, do some sums with it.

      Too complicated for marketing people (and most "shiny UX" people), I know.

      1. WhoaWhoa

        Re: Are you in Marketing?

        'Are you in Marketing?

        ...

        Here's an idea then. See if you can find a geek to explain it to you?

        ...

        Too complicated for marketing people (and most "shiny UX" people), I know.'

        Thank you for your kind words.  I respect your deep geekness and appreciate the time you freely gave to offer advice.  Let me join you in the spirit of friendly conviviality.

        I expect you know that, um, 30-35 years ago people were installing mainframe-based Unix systems which, in their time and for quite a few years, were the most powerful Unix systems available: a big jump up from the departmental "mini-computers" on which Unix had theretofore existed.

        (Simper.  Have to confess to driving to big city customers to do some of those dodgy late-night sessions myself.  Late Friday nights, though, bars sliding towards closing time!  You know those mainframe people... always touchy about when you could finger their hardware).

        Hmm, cast mind back a bit further...I've still got a (slightly treasured) copy of that Bell Systems journal (~1969?).  You know, the one devoted to Unix and C research papers, well before any commercial Unix systems were a glimmer in marketing eyes.

        ... Time passes ...

        And then one day I found ten years had got behind me.

        No one told me when to run, I'd missed the starting gun.

        And the world was full (well, you know what I mean) of people compiling their own "Xnix" systems from stacks of Slackware floppies (*1).  And a young whippersnapper student was adapting someone else's x86 architecture Unix system before replacing the 'U' and an 'i' with 'Li' and a 'u'.  Seems he always was a bit full of himself even in the days when he was, perhaps, more respectful of others (*2).

        ... Time passes ...

        Another ten years. (Copy of DSotM on CD as well, now). Shiny desktops (not really counting the birth pangs of config files and modprobes to get X working without burning out graphics cards) were flirting their way on to Linux systems (PCs gotta catch up with Sun workstations in the shininess race).

        Yes, you're right, though.  fsck yes! Perhaps I /should/ consult a geek.

        Oh, I forgot what we were talking about.  You completely distracted me from progress bars with your talk of elapsed time and amount of data shifted.  You know, those things that provide feedback based on division.  Only, more often than not (but not in all cases) they only know the numerator and tend to bluff a bit about the denominator.

        Elapsed time?  Amount of data shifted?  Kids stuff. What's needed is a little knowledge about the known unknowns.

        Tell you what, I'll try to find a competent geek to talk to about techie stuff and you try to find a Mystic Meg to consult about the amount of data still to come.

        (*1) Worked with a guy who ran a UK Linux bulletin board from his own satellite-network based server.  (Obvious way really, given he was a radio ham and the web wasn't yet flowing. Had to do something to relax the old grey cells after a day working on big iron).  Always liked Slackware.  Used to compile Linux most evenings to test bug patches he'd worked on after getting home.

        (*2) Some people just are a bit full of themselves; disrespectful of others.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Are you in Marketing?

          "those things that provide feedback based on division. Only, more often than not (but not in all cases) they only know the numerator and tend to bluff a bit about the denominator."

          Thank you kind sir.

          The sometimes unknowability of the denominator is indeed why I omitted talk of things needing a denominator (such as % complete, obviously).

          But if the Mbytes shifted is going up (whether it be MB downloaded or MB installed), you at least know something other than a silly WMV file (as in Windows Exploder file copy entertainment) is moving along.

          All we know with most of today's Windows installers is that installers are amazingly uninformative. Even when the knowns are known quantitatively, are any willing to tell you anything about what they do know? What is the unfortunate support person supposed todo?

          How hard would it be to do what the Suse installer does, allow user to switch at any point between prettified/powerpoint variant and informative/too_much_detail variant? Too hard for most, presumably.

          No mainframes here, but did do Venix on IBM PC and SysV on Convergent Technologies 68K, long before that Unix on x86 thing was trendy. RT11 was good fun before that, even if Cutler didn't stamp his mark on it. I'm not a proper dinosaur, I just play one on BBS's.

          Is DSotM out on CD now? I've still got a 12" with a blue pyramid poster, thank you. Is it worth owt (in best Marc+Lard "Classic Cuts" voice)..

    3. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Unfortunately there are many variables in even downloading and updating files, such as:

      Many small files take longer to download and update compared to fewer large files. This alone makes the "total bytes downloaded vs total bytes to download" calculation inaccurate.

      In order to optimise the delivery of small files, sometimes they are packaged up in a larger file. This larger file then needs to be unpackaged / decompressed to extract the smaller files, the speed of this is dependent on the contents, encryption and finally the creation of the many smaller files.

      Many download systems support on-the-fly compression, the compression of files in this way means the total bytes downloaded compared to the total bytes expected (once decompressed) can vary wildly, and some files just don't compress very well anyway.

      This is before the problem of actually updating and checking files comes into play? e.g. a good downloader will do a CRC check of some form of the downloaded file compared to the CRC that it expected. And to double check the CRC as well just for good measure. Again, the CRC check time varies depending on the number and size of the files involved, too many files and the CRC check files become a notable download issue all on their own.

      This is before the actual patching of files takes place, which given the ball-ache of anything .net / com / activex nature the process of scanning, registry mangling and horrible version control attempts adds an utterly indiscriminate amount of control to a given process, particularly when many libraries are inter-dependent where a full transactional update is required as a single atomic update just won't do the job.

      I'm so glad I don't have to calculate the install times... :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Nick, I don't think anyone would demand pixel accurate progress bars, and times that are to the second accurate, but it certainly is possible to make some estimates. Some installers I've seen are even intelligent enough to wait until they have processed enough data to base some sort of estimate on.

        The whole idea of a progress bar is to keep an eye on progress and give you an idea if the damn thing has stalled or is just slow, and to decide if you have the time to do something else in the meantime. The progress bars I like best are the ones that allow you to see the details of what's coming in so you can actually see something working - that is the one thing all Linux install GUIs get right.

        However, I think have just worked out why progress bars don't work on Windows (wait while I don a flame proof vest):

        Windows is no progress...

        :o)

  16. The Original Steve

    Fairly nippy

    Although bloody huge!

    3 year old rig. Some mid-range i5, 8Gb RAM and a Sammy 840 Pro SSD. Installed from VL ISO and took just shy of 20 minutes.

    Upgraded fine - everything seems to work and the improvements are overdue and appreciated in equal measure. Small tweaks makes it vastly more usable than 8.0.

  17. Russell Hancock

    Nice install

    Installed on a Lenovo IdeaPad 13 (core i7, 8GB, SSD) - took less than an hour and, as the article says, freed-up about 4GB on the SSD - not bad - wonder what they removed though (not my AV as others say as mine is still installed and running)...

    The only issue i had was the trackpad stopped doing the multi touch stuff (simple 1 min install from the Lenovo partition on the SSD with all drivers there) and Microsoft changing the display to low res - again about 5 mins but really shouldn't have had to!

    So far so good (but then i quite like win 8 so I'm probably too old and/or stupid to understand why it is rubbish!)

  18. Graeme5

    I gained around 8GB extra space after installing 8.1 which on my 128GB SDD is noticable

  19. This post has been deleted by its author

  20. Hooksie

    Love it

    Can't think of anything else to whine about so they write an article saying 'but it took ages to install on a realy low powered system and left me with more free space than I started' and. so . fucking. what. Took ages on my Dell XPS10 too but I just left it plugged in and left it to it. Once it was ready, I logged in and everything was where I left it. Brilliant.

  21. John Tserkezis

    If you're trying to convince me that Win8 (and the update) is a good thing...

    You're not doing a very good job of it....

  22. druck Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Windows 8.1 This application wasn't installed - view details.

    "Something happened and Windows 8.1 couldn't be installed. Please try again. Error code: 0x8007004"

    I really can't even be bothered typing in a stream of expletives.

  23. backbydemand

    8.1 does do good housekeeping, I did a fresh install of 8 and Office 2013, all the updates from desktop and Metro version, then ran disk cleanup with sys files - 25.9Gb of used space - then I ran the 8.1 update and when finished did all the updates again and a final disk cleanup - 19.1Gb used space - installing 8.1 saved me 6.8Gb of space and for an SSD that is like gold dust.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    consolidate all your downvotes into one convenient post

    Ms isn't really that bad

    windows 8 is ok once you get used to it

    the windows 8.1 update wasn't really as troublesome as this article suggests

    that should do it.

    1. Mike Tyler

      Re: consolidate all your downvotes into one convenient post

      sound likely

  25. Jess

    Re: windows 8 is ok once you get used to it

    (I know your comment is intended as irony, but thought it still deserved a comment.)

    I think WIn 8 is OK once you turn of all the metro crap (though I'm still dubious about all the activation crap, but I assume that's not much worse than on XP.)

    However, why would I want to pay for an OS that needs third party tools to remove parts of it that make it unusable? (Or is it now possible to remove all the metro on 8.1, without them.)

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Install is disk intensive. About just under an hour with a SSD for my setups, longer otherwise

    The install process is disk intensive.

    Very roughly, once the actual download was out of the way, the install process was faster on a SSD.

    Noticeably longer on a non-SSD disk on a friends machine.

  27. croc

    Does win 8.1 sideload the NSA buttdoor?

  28. Mevi

    Article reflects my experiences....

    ...on a Lenovo tablet 2.

    the download was interrupted a few times, but hitting retry resumed that.

    it all works apart from the Intel graphics driver crashing (and recovering) when coming out of connected standby. hopefully Lenovo will prepare a 8.1 driver for the Table 2, as Intel won't do that for them.

    I am also happy to see 6GB or so of extra eMMC freed up, even when I am a keen CCleaner user.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Advertising ID?

    You are not a number, you are your Advertising ID.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Advertising ID?

      Now the incredibly long install time makes sense. Most people will be so pissed off and eager to get things going again that they will go for the Express option in the licence agreement, giving their consent to MS dispersing their advertising ID far and wide. That's a nice little earner for MS.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    something afoot on my 60Mbs connection.

    Why do we need to know about your connection speed?

  31. rurwin

    Not just Microsoft, Linux and iOS

    I bought two new items from Amazon on Friday for my PS3.

    * A game -- Beyond: Two Souls (reviewed here, thanks Register)

    * A Blu-Ray -- Much Ado About Nothing

    Both of them have been released very, very recently. Like within days.

    The first thing Beyond did was to upgrade the PS3 OS. The second thing it did was download patches for the game. I can understand the OS upgrade -- I don't play many games, although a product as close to end-of-life as the PS3 should be rather stable by now. But patches to a game released ten days ago?

    Then when I had problems playing the film I tried updating the PS3 OS again, and it found an update to install. How come the previous upgrade wasn't sufficient?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not just Microsoft, Linux and iOS

      "patches to a game released ten days ago?"

      PHB: Is it ready to ship yet?

      Dev: No.

      PHB: Oh well, no problem, we'll ship it anyway and fix it later.

      Dev: OK. Same as last time then.

  32. murph70

    not so bad

    I don't know why it took so long.

    My Dell Latitude 10 took a little while but at most an hour id estimate.

    My Haswell i5 with ssd took under 10 minutes. I only started timing at 50% and from there it took 6 minutes approximately with my changing settings.

    I couldn't get a live account to set up on my tablet but I didn't want one anyway as I log in with the fingerprint scanner and I got the secure boot message on my Haswell desktop

  33. lurkbat

    Progress bars

    I quite like watching progress bars - there's something of an element of zen meditation in there. My Acer i3 took over 4 hours to update, with exactly the same completely meaningless messages (if you had (heaven forbid) to call Microsoft support after your install had crashed, what would you tell them? It was "attending to a few things" ?) However, having done all that it actually seems to work as advertised, which is fair enough (and no, I couldn't give a monkeys about the reappearance of the start button - after about 13 seconds I figured out how to cope with its disappearance when I first installed Windows 8).

  34. ChiefBoffin

    No VM upgrade option

    Like many others (I'm sure), I installed my copy of Win8 directly into a Native Boot VM for ease of backup. When I tried to upgrade to Win8.1 over the weekend - after waiting a very significant amount of time for the download to complete over a poor ADSL2 connection - I was cheerily informed that, despite Native Boot support being available since the launch of Win7, MS doesn't know how to perform the Win8.1 upgrade on a VM.

    With MS's massive push towards all things virtualised, this doesn't make sense to me. What to do now?

    1. Tim Bates

      Re: No VM upgrade option

      Hmmm. Here was me wondering if I should try reinstalling 8 on my home server (as a KVM VM under Proxmox) to see how the update goes, and get a feel for the new options and such.

      But reading that comment, and having never been able to get any of the leaked 8.1's to even boot the installer, let alone install, I really don't know if I can be bothered. Sounds like it's going to be a BSOD fest again.

  35. Jerky Jerk face

    Uninstall encryption please.

    Windows 8.1 NSA-pro-lite cannot see all your shit, please uninstall any and all security, take your pants down, and let the loading begin :D

  36. jason 7

    Just completed another 8.1 upgrade.

    2006 spec Toshiba Tecra M7 slate laptop. 2Ghz CPU, 4GB ram and 64GB Samsung SSD.

    From clicking 'Download' to reaching the new desktop took 59 minutes.

  37. Sporkinum

    Message at end

    "SecureBoot isn’t configured correctly."

    Aside from the Secureboot message, that message in the lower right of the screen looks like what happens if the OS isn't activated. For some bizarre reason, my machine needed reactivated after I installed the 8.1 update. That involves calling microsoft and reading in 40 or so digits, and then typing in the 40 or so digits that microsoft spits back.

  38. John 62

    The last screenshoot looked awfully like Windows 95 with that wonderful desktop colour

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