3 ms·

I have two machines running Windows 8: a 2-year-old laptop, and a Surface Pro tablet. I've never shut down either of them. The laptop just gets closed when I'm

I have two machines running Windows 8: a 2-year-old laptop, and a Surface Pro tablet. I've never shut down either of them. The laptop just gets closed when I'm not using it -- so it goes to sleep. If I leave it like that long enough it'll hibernate itself when the battery gets low. The tablet I either press the power button on, or if I have the keyboard cover attached, just flip the cover shut which has the same effect. It goes to sleep and shuts itself down after 15?30? minutes of inactivity. Win8 on an SSD cold boots to a working desktop with network connection in 7 seconds flat. Explicitly navigating to a software shutdown button just isn't part of a normal workflow on modern devices. The only time I think I'd use it would be to fix some kind of bug like a wonky driver. Desktops are going the way of the dodo -- my dinky little tablet can now drive a 2560x1440 monitor and run modern games. Adding one extra click to reach the old software shutdown button to keep the UX simple for what most people will be doing makes sense. Heck, if you have a keyboard with the new Win8 shortcuts, it's the same amount of clicks as it was in WinVista and Win7. Charm button -> Power button -> Shut Down, versus Start Button -> Arrow next to the power icon -> Shut down.

nwh 14y ago
> Win8 on an SSD cold boots to a working desktop with network connection in 7 seconds flat. Oddly enough, it's not booting. Clicking "Shut down" is hibernation in Windows 8.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ygra 14y ago
  It hibernates session 0 and the kernel, indeed. But that's a nitpicker's distinction. To the end user the result is the same, it just boots faster.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    It's not a nitpick when you're trying to use the high-success-rate "turn it off and on again" method of fixing problems.
    - raverbashing 14y ago
      That died around Windows 2000. Really Restarting a software is one thing. Windows? (Well, sometimes it locks up or reboots by itself, usually because of a bad driver or bad hardware)
      - Dylan16807 14y ago
        I'm worried about flaky drivers, really. Drivers lead to most of my reboots. If it only purges the user state then it's not resetting what I need.
        raverbashing 14y ago
        Yes. I'm skeptical with this "saves the state of drives" because that's not 100% possible, there's always some reinitializing that should take place So I'm assuming it redoes some things and doesn't just uses everything, so it's something like a partial reinitialization But maybe MS thought of that and you have an option to start/stop drivers (actually you can do that on any modern windows)
    - ygra 14y ago
      If you do a reboot (i.e. click Restart, not Shut down) it won't half-hibernate.
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    It is only nitpicking until it causes problems (e.g. driver XYZ tells you to "restart" your PC, so you "shutdown" for the night expecting it to do the job - but it won't). I have no issue with Fast Startup in Windows 8, but frankly feel like the way Microsoft is abusing terminology is borderline lying to people. They're trying to mislead people into thinking that Windows 8 has a better boot performance than Windows 7, when in fact Windows 8 and Windows 7 have very similar boot performance (from real cold-boot).
gordaco 14y ago
> Desktops are going the way of the dodo Frankly, I'm tired of reading this. Desktops are going to lower their market share, yes, but that's all. The desktop has quite a few advantages: modularity (i.e.: want a new graphics card or a bigger hard disk? No problem. Is some hardware failing? Just replace it, not the whole thing; it's much easier than on a laptop), compatibility with a LOT of software (including a whole world of office applications and games from a very wide range of time. Laptops also share this; tablets and phones, not so much), price (compare any PC with a laptop with the same specs, especially if you select each component instead of relying on a pre-made computer), etc.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  You're going to be reading it for a long time, because it's true. The desktop is going extinct, and it's going extinct at a faster rate every month. Q4 desktop sales were 6.4% lower than Q4 2011. The advantages you mention are largely irrelevant outside specific professional niches, the only place desktops will stick around for a while. The cheapest laptops are cheaper than the cheapest desktops in stores, and are cheap enough that it doesn't matter if you have to replace the whole thing if it's broken. Both laptops and tablets are compatible with the entire Windows legacy ecosystem. They're portable, they're what the workers and the managers making purchase decisions want to work on, and they cut the company's electric bill by more than half. Towers are going extinct.
  - Svip 14y ago
    So what you are saying is that they are not going to go extinct? They will likely still be used in work environments, by software developers and by gamers. Yes, these areas sure are professional niches.
    - bunderbunder 14y ago
      Corporate's taking away my desktop, and replacing it with a laptop. The old computer's being retired, and all of the computers on the menu of replacements I had to pick from were laptops. Developers like me who want performance get a beefy desktop replacement model that I have to admit is on par with what we'd have gotten in an actual desktop computer.
masklinn 14y ago
> Explicitly navigating to a software shutdown button just isn't part of a normal workflow on modern devices. It's not part of the normal workflow on older ones either, mine anyway: I only ever shut down my desktop computer when it nags me after updates, or when I go on extended holidays and shut off all devices in the house. > my dinky little tablet can now drive a 2560x1440 monitor and run modern games. Good joke, that.
- calciphus 14y ago
  Sorry, have to disagree with your little potshot. I can run Starcraft II and Diablo3 on my Surface Pro. Not with everything maxed out, but a damn sight better than my 2011 Macbook Pro. It drives my 27" Dell display with no difficulty.

nwh 14y ago

> Win8 on an SSD cold boots to a working desktop with network connection in 7 seconds flat. Oddly enough, it's not booting. Clicking "Shut down" is hibernation in Windows 8.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ygra 14y ago
It hibernates session 0 and the kernel, indeed. But that's a nitpicker's distinction. To the end user the result is the same, it just boots faster.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  It's not a nitpick when you're trying to use the high-success-rate "turn it off and on again" method of fixing problems.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    That died around Windows 2000. Really Restarting a software is one thing. Windows? (Well, sometimes it locks up or reboots by itself, usually because of a bad driver or bad hardware)
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      I'm worried about flaky drivers, really. Drivers lead to most of my reboots. If it only purges the user state then it's not resetting what I need.
      - raverbashing 14y ago
        Yes. I'm skeptical with this "saves the state of drives" because that's not 100% possible, there's always some reinitializing that should take place So I'm assuming it redoes some things and doesn't just uses everything, so it's something like a partial reinitialization But maybe MS thought of that and you have an option to start/stop drivers (actually you can do that on any modern windows)
  - ygra 14y ago
    If you do a reboot (i.e. click Restart, not Shut down) it won't half-hibernate.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  It is only nitpicking until it causes problems (e.g. driver XYZ tells you to "restart" your PC, so you "shutdown" for the night expecting it to do the job - but it won't). I have no issue with Fast Startup in Windows 8, but frankly feel like the way Microsoft is abusing terminology is borderline lying to people. They're trying to mislead people into thinking that Windows 8 has a better boot performance than Windows 7, when in fact Windows 8 and Windows 7 have very similar boot performance (from real cold-boot).

gordaco 14y ago

> Desktops are going the way of the dodo Frankly, I'm tired of reading this. Desktops are going to lower their market share, yes, but that's all. The desktop has quite a few advantages: modularity (i.e.: want a new graphics card or a bigger hard disk? No problem. Is some hardware failing? Just replace it, not the whole thing; it's much easier than on a laptop), compatibility with a LOT of software (including a whole world of office applications and games from a very wide range of time. Laptops also share this; tablets and phones, not so much), price (compare any PC with a laptop with the same specs, especially if you select each component instead of relying on a pre-made computer), etc.

dangrossman 14y ago
You're going to be reading it for a long time, because it's true. The desktop is going extinct, and it's going extinct at a faster rate every month. Q4 desktop sales were 6.4% lower than Q4 2011. The advantages you mention are largely irrelevant outside specific professional niches, the only place desktops will stick around for a while. The cheapest laptops are cheaper than the cheapest desktops in stores, and are cheap enough that it doesn't matter if you have to replace the whole thing if it's broken. Both laptops and tablets are compatible with the entire Windows legacy ecosystem. They're portable, they're what the workers and the managers making purchase decisions want to work on, and they cut the company's electric bill by more than half. Towers are going extinct.
- Svip 14y ago
  So what you are saying is that they are not going to go extinct? They will likely still be used in work environments, by software developers and by gamers. Yes, these areas sure are professional niches.
  - bunderbunder 14y ago
    Corporate's taking away my desktop, and replacing it with a laptop. The old computer's being retired, and all of the computers on the menu of replacements I had to pick from were laptops. Developers like me who want performance get a beefy desktop replacement model that I have to admit is on par with what we'd have gotten in an actual desktop computer.

masklinn 14y ago

> Explicitly navigating to a software shutdown button just isn't part of a normal workflow on modern devices. It's not part of the normal workflow on older ones either, mine anyway: I only ever shut down my desktop computer when it nags me after updates, or when I go on extended holidays and shut off all devices in the house. > my dinky little tablet can now drive a 2560x1440 monitor and run modern games. Good joke, that.

calciphus 14y ago
Sorry, have to disagree with your little potshot. I can run Starcraft II and Diablo3 on my Surface Pro. Not with everything maxed out, but a damn sight better than my 2011 Macbook Pro. It drives my 27" Dell display with no difficulty.