4 ms·

I tried windows 8.1 for a while on my gaming desktop pc. Aside from the awful metro garbage thrown on top of the OS (which can be removed / turned off) It was q

I tried windows 8.1 for a while on my gaming desktop pc. Aside from the awful metro garbage thrown on top of the OS (which can be removed / turned off) It was quite unstable, all my games would randomly crash, even the mouse exhibited weird behaviour and bugs. I went back to 7, everything is fine now. I get the impression windows 10 will be more of the same, this is just pushing me more and more towards using linux all the time, now that linux gaming is becoming more and more viable also. Also MS are starting to act like apple, intentionally crippling their software. For example to develop windows store apps, you need windows 8 or higher, you cant just download the sdk for windows 7 even though it has the same kernel as 8 and is essentially the same OS. Also the development process for windows store is horrible and unnecessarily complicated (compared to say android development which is very developer friendly). Also in order to force people to move to windows 8 MS have made some optimisations to directx that they have not released for 7 even though once again there is absolutely nothing preventing it except for their attempt to manipulate their users.

huac 11y ago
this is very much the same as apple gating ios development to apple products. playing video games on windows 8 (not 8.1) is fine anyways.
- everyone 11y ago
  Yeah, windows store development is as bad as iOS development. A very low bar. I've developed for iOS and I get the impression MS are following apples lead here. I cant abide when something pragmatic has its design intentionally made less useful for arbitrary reasons. As I said, I'm fine, I'm just going more and more towards linux, where the goal is to make the OS as useful as possible and most importantly empower the user rather than the other way around. I just still have to use windows 8 and osx in work.
orionblastar 11y ago
The trick to Windows 8.1 is getting the correct drivers from your OEM and not using the built in drivers. For me I had to go to my motherboard maker's website and download the 8/8.1 64 bit drivers, update the BIOS, and then get the Nividia drivers for my GPU and make sure they always update. GPU drives can break Windows 8.1 when it comes to video games. There are always updated drivers that fix issues with video games. This is because video game makers do mistakes with DirectX and other APIs and the updated drivers fix the issues with workarounds to avoid crashes. Windows 8.1 changes the way DirectX 9 works, for classic video games like Civilization II Gold Edition I had to apply the 64 bit patch and then extract the 2010 version of DirectX 9 drivers into the Civ2 directory to get DirectPlay support to play the game. It takes a lot of JiggeryPokery like that to get some of the classic games to work, and sometimes you have to choose the compatibility mode of a previous version of Windows to force it to work. The average person can't always figure that out.
- everyone 11y ago
  That sucks! The OS's job is to allow you do use the computer to do what you want and not get in the way. Having to implement various workarounds and fixes for many different applications (which I'm sure will conflict with one another at some stage) means windows 8.1 is a failure as an OS.
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    Microsoft broke their API model with Vista and 7. The last version of Windows that didn't have this problem was Windows XP. That is why so many businesses stick with XP because it runs their business apps without compatibility issues. Vista and above has compatibility issues and it needs workarounds like I explained to get things to work. Windows 7 added a better compatibility mode and fixed some of the flaws with Vista. It even added a Windows XP mode in the Enterprise and Pro and up editions to download an XP virtual machine. To get some software to work. But Microsoft abandoned XP support, and is forcing companies and people to upgrade. I know a lot of people and businesses still on XP/Vista because it came with their PC, and their software works with it so they stick with it. The whole reason why Apple sells a lot of Macs is that Windows has become so awful to support legacy apps that people don't mind paying more for an alternative that works better and apps just install without issues on a Mac. Some are going to Linux, and Linux as a web server does a better job than Windows Server 2012. Microsoft sells Azure services for people who can't figure out how to set up a Windows Server or a Windows machine. Microsoft lost $1.89B on Surface Tablets and Windows 8.X sales. It is the real reason why Steve Ballmer was forced into early retirement. They used the Metro/Modern UI which is confusing and they broke compatibility that needs tricks to get around it. They got rid of the Start Menu, etc. The changes made it worse to the average user experience. I really don't see Windows 10 addressing the compatibility issues, an the Start Menu they use is quite a bit different from the XP/Vista/7 Start Menu. I donated some money to the ReactOS project: https://www.reactos.org/ https://www.reactos.org/ It is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows based on XP etc. It uses source code from WINE, and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps.

huac 11y ago

this is very much the same as apple gating ios development to apple products. playing video games on windows 8 (not 8.1) is fine anyways.

everyone 11y ago
Yeah, windows store development is as bad as iOS development. A very low bar. I've developed for iOS and I get the impression MS are following apples lead here. I cant abide when something pragmatic has its design intentionally made less useful for arbitrary reasons. As I said, I'm fine, I'm just going more and more towards linux, where the goal is to make the OS as useful as possible and most importantly empower the user rather than the other way around. I just still have to use windows 8 and osx in work.

orionblastar 11y ago

The trick to Windows 8.1 is getting the correct drivers from your OEM and not using the built in drivers. For me I had to go to my motherboard maker's website and download the 8/8.1 64 bit drivers, update the BIOS, and then get the Nividia drivers for my GPU and make sure they always update. GPU drives can break Windows 8.1 when it comes to video games. There are always updated drivers that fix issues with video games. This is because video game makers do mistakes with DirectX and other APIs and the updated drivers fix the issues with workarounds to avoid crashes. Windows 8.1 changes the way DirectX 9 works, for classic video games like Civilization II Gold Edition I had to apply the 64 bit patch and then extract the 2010 version of DirectX 9 drivers into the Civ2 directory to get DirectPlay support to play the game. It takes a lot of JiggeryPokery like that to get some of the classic games to work, and sometimes you have to choose the compatibility mode of a previous version of Windows to force it to work. The average person can't always figure that out.

everyone 11y ago
That sucks! The OS's job is to allow you do use the computer to do what you want and not get in the way. Having to implement various workarounds and fixes for many different applications (which I'm sure will conflict with one another at some stage) means windows 8.1 is a failure as an OS.
- orionblastar 11y ago
  Microsoft broke their API model with Vista and 7. The last version of Windows that didn't have this problem was Windows XP. That is why so many businesses stick with XP because it runs their business apps without compatibility issues. Vista and above has compatibility issues and it needs workarounds like I explained to get things to work. Windows 7 added a better compatibility mode and fixed some of the flaws with Vista. It even added a Windows XP mode in the Enterprise and Pro and up editions to download an XP virtual machine. To get some software to work. But Microsoft abandoned XP support, and is forcing companies and people to upgrade. I know a lot of people and businesses still on XP/Vista because it came with their PC, and their software works with it so they stick with it. The whole reason why Apple sells a lot of Macs is that Windows has become so awful to support legacy apps that people don't mind paying more for an alternative that works better and apps just install without issues on a Mac. Some are going to Linux, and Linux as a web server does a better job than Windows Server 2012. Microsoft sells Azure services for people who can't figure out how to set up a Windows Server or a Windows machine. Microsoft lost $1.89B on Surface Tablets and Windows 8.X sales. It is the real reason why Steve Ballmer was forced into early retirement. They used the Metro/Modern UI which is confusing and they broke compatibility that needs tricks to get around it. They got rid of the Start Menu, etc. The changes made it worse to the average user experience. I really don't see Windows 10 addressing the compatibility issues, an the Start Menu they use is quite a bit different from the XP/Vista/7 Start Menu. I donated some money to the ReactOS project: https://www.reactos.org/ https://www.reactos.org/ It is an attempt that building an open source version of Windows based on XP etc. It uses source code from WINE, and it aims for better compatibility with legacy apps.