Bargain hunters beware

[chibaka]

First venture into Windows 8.1, couldn't resist the low price of an HP notebook for the wife at Costo..... Big mistake.
Hideously slow, can not change menu language to English for myself (wife is main user) despite what it says on the can.
Now I get this..... for the last hour. Trip to Costco for a refund this week me thinks.
Besides the PC being shit, who the hell at Microshaft designed Windows 8?

IMG_20150223_090622~2.jpg

[kurogane]

Hey,

I bought an Acer ultralight 11" laptop in July-ish for 3 man (tax free!). A lovely piece of hardware that comes with Windows 8.1 (I assume; edit: just checked. I have Windows 8.1). Possibly the worst working, hardest to use and most annoying piece of Shitware I have ever encountered (and I despise compooters and the shitferbrains dorkoid technoslaves that design them, so that is saying something).

I can't quite remember how I did it, but I also had long and frustrating initial initialising experiences that were eventually resolved. I only use the machine in Jpn, and was told that was all that is possible, which is fine with me. Since then the machine has worked well, the indescribable crappiness of Windows H8.1 aside. It makes the old Microsoft Paper Clip gremlin look like a benovelent angel: it consantly presumes any touch of the mousepad thingy is an attempt to work it like a swipe tablet instead of like the fucking laptop it most definitely is, and while my limited knowledge cannot help my occasional forays into the Control Panels lead me to believe it was all designed to make me do as I am told not as I want. I hope Bill Gates dies in excruciating pain before I do so I can deface his grave.

OTOH, the machine itself is glorious, so I am thinking of a new OS if I ever actually get frustrated enough.

So, condolences and hopefully a few thoughts to be thunked.

[Russell]

When Windows 10 is released, you can upgrade for free from Windows 8 any time and from Windows 7 for the first year after release.

Now waiting for Windows 10. When will it come?

[Coligny]

Or you can stick with XP and 7...

[Samurai_Jerk]

When Windows 10 is released, you can upgrade for free from Windows 8 any time and from Windows 7 for the first year after release.

Now waiting for Windows 10. When will it come?

I think 10 is supposed to be out sometime this fall.

As bad as 8.1 is 8 was even worse. And it took me forever to upgrade to 8.1 because of a corrupted file in the OS that MS wanted me to pay $70 for them to fix. I eventually figured it out on my own. I tried to avoid getting 8 but I got such a good deal on my PC I couldn't resists. Plus since I don't do much more than searching the Internet, streaming videos, and word processing I wasn't too worried about a shitty UI. However, even with zero expectations I was still amazed at just how shitty 8 was. I haven't found it to be slow though.

[chibaka]

Possibly the worst working, hardest to use and most annoying piece of Shitware I have ever encountered

Must be a candidate for understatement of the century right there...

It's no coincidence that all the packaging, paperwork, receipts etc are safely stored in the cupboard.... a decision made within 2 hours of returning home with the aforementioned PC just 3 weeks ago. I believe the words uttered at the time were "Wife, this is a steaming pile of shit, it's slower than your 20 year old Viao"....... and believe me that thing was fucking slow.

Recent interwebs investigation has shown that I am not alone with this frustration, one common cause being HP install too much bloatware. That and apparently drivers are out of date. It was while trying to remove some bloat that I got the blue screen. Anyway, took ages but it's working now... If I can't get better performance, it's going back.

As for windows 10 being free, if it's anything like the turd that is Windows 8/8.1, they can fucking keep it, free upgrade or not...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Recent interwebs investigation has shown that I am not alone with this frustration, one common cause being HP install too much bloatware. That and apparently drivers are out of date. It was while trying to remove some bloat that I got the blue screen. Anyway, took ages but it's working now... If I can't get better performance, it's going back.

I thought it might be something like that. My Dell which is about 2 years old is actually pretty fast.

As for windows 10 being free, if it's anything like the turd that is Windows 8/8.1, they can fucking keep it, free upgrade or not...

Supposedly MS has taken the criticism of 8 to heart and will correct a lot of the problems. I'm certainly not going to hold my breath though.

[matsuki]

I've got 8.1 running across 6 different machines and everything has been smooth sailing for me??

[kurogane]

Bloatware.........nice. That sounds like what I did. I jettisoned about 89% of the icons and such that were on my startup page (the annoying smartphoney page of useless googa above the Apps page) when I first bought it and it had a noticeable effect on the speed and ease of use.

So, why is the next worst thing going to be Windows 10 and not Windows 9? Just curious.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I've got 8.1 running across 6 different machines and everything has been smooth sailing for me??

Yeah, since I fixed the bug it's been fine. I still think the UI sucks balls though.

That bug was really fucking annoying. It prevented me from adding the English-language interface, updating any software, or upgrading to 8.1. Unfortunately I didn't discover it till after the 90-day or whatever it was warranty which is why they wanted me to pay for tech support to fix it. I spent close to three hours online with some MS tech support cunt asking me to do things I'd already tried and having her try the same things again with the same results, or lack there of to be more accurate, before she told me it was above her pay grade and I was past the warranty so I needed to fork over my credit card number for advanced support or be SOL. I thanked her for wasting my time and disconnected the chat. Eventually I found a free version of some kind of diagnostic software that didn't totally fix the problem with 8 but fixed it enough that I could upgrade to 8.1 which fixed all the other problems.

[matsuki]

UI I agree is just weird...but it makes plenty of sense on my "Surface." I switched to 8 from day 1 though....never experienced any issues on any of my machines.

[chibaka]

I've got 8.1 running across 6 different machines and everything has been smooth sailing for me??

Yeah, since I fixed the bug it's been fine. I still think the UI sucks balls though.

That bug was really fucking annoying. It prevented me from adding the English-language interface

One of my issues, I want Japanese for her, English for me. I understood/misunderstood from the Microshaft marketing/bullshit that multi language was finally available without the usual $$$ shafting?

I'll continue the clean up attempt, being plagued with messages about Macaffee is driving me nuts. Don't want it or any other pre-installed shite.

UI sucking balls is being polite I reckon, Balmer shouldn't have being pushed out, should have been fucking stuffed.

[wagyl]

I hate to sound like all those Linux fans but I've got to say that the end of support for XP was the best thing that happened to me, since it got me involved enough to look at the Linux options. Sure, it is a bit of a learning curve but so is going to 8.1, and it is not as though you can port easily from XP to 8.1 anyway. You can't beat the price, especially with Microsoft looking like they are really really interested in shifting people to a subscription model. I will admit that some software availability is lacking, but if your computer use is e-mail, internet, word processing and spreadsheets, photo editing, internet telephony, you are covered completely.

[Russell]

I hate to sound like all those Linux fans but I've got to say that the end of support for XP was the best thing that happened to me, since it got me involved enough to look at the Linux options. Sure, it is a bit of a learning curve but so is going to 8.1, and it is not as though you can port easily from XP to 8.1 anyway. You can't beat the price, especially with Microsoft looking like they are really really interested in shifting people to a subscription model. I will admit that some software availability is lacking, but if your computer use is e-mail, internet, word processing and spreadsheets, photo editing, internet telephony, you are covered completely.

But won't Windows 10 be for free?

[wagyl]

I hate to sound like all those Linux fans but I've got to say that the end of support for XP was the best thing that happened to me, since it got me involved enough to look at the Linux options. Sure, it is a bit of a learning curve but so is going to 8.1, and it is not as though you can port easily from XP to 8.1 anyway. You can't beat the price, especially with Microsoft looking like they are really really interested in shifting people to a subscription model. I will admit that some software availability is lacking, but if your computer use is e-mail, internet, word processing and spreadsheets, photo editing, internet telephony, you are covered completely.

But won't Windows 10 be for free?

For those who have already bought Windows 8, yes I think so, but I don't know the full details. But Microsoft are actively trying to encourage people to do their Office suite software by subscription in the cloud, always updating, and I can foresee the day when that model extends.

I don't think Microsoft are giving away the upgrade to 10 because they have melting hearts. I think they have seen how low the uptake rates for 8 and 8.1 have been and are scared of losing more customers.

[kurogane]

Narooheso.

Chibaka,
Microshaft............good un. BTW, thanks for the kick. Last night I went back through the bloatware and offloaded another ton of crap I had never seen, incl. that F'in McAfee Virus thing that was notifying me every 12 minutes. So something good came of this. Soldier on, my friend. Or just return the POS. If you do return, this newer Acer stuff is great. It's SSD (WTF that is) and super light and fast for me. For 30,000 yen it's hard to argue with. I have an 11" Aspire. My only complaint is it is quite light on USB and such portals, and has no dedicated HDML port, which is mildly disappointing.

BTW, I was really really quite happy about coming up with this MS H8 thing. Probably not the first, but still, as a Techno-NoKnow I am make feel happy happy.

Interesting to hear about Linus, and very nice point about having to learn how to use MS H8 regardless. This is a pig with glossy lipstick. That sounds like a good alternative security blanket. One serious fear I have is the compatibility issue: does Linus' word processing, etc. mesh seamlessly with the dominant OS' and software packages? Last year I had another of those MojiBake Matsuri events with a very large file I had written in MS Word and they had unloaded on Mac ware. That was 2014. I simply cannot do that sort of thing anymore, which is why I folded my Mac and moved to PC in the first place.

PS Death to Gates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not real death, of course...............

[chibaka]

Unfortunately, on my PC was pre installed Windows 8.1 Single Language (BR Portuguese) and I can't change the "display language" from BR-PT to US English because don't have any options; for that obvious reason, indeed. So, please: how can I install a new "display language" onto Windows 8.1 Single Language version?

So researching one of my issues, the promised/expected multilingual capability, you know, like everyone else has in 2015, I stumbled upon the above question.
Is this correct? Are these fuckers seriously still expecting payment for a simple option like dual language capability? Say it ain't so.....

I have this on my Ubuntu PC, and that OS cost me a grand total of..... fuck all.

[kurogane]

I bought mine from a duty free friendly bucket shop just north of Akihabara and he was quite quite adamant and concerned that I understood that This Machine Only Works in Japanese, so...............Yes?????

I assume that meant that if I want English interfacials I need to purchase and reload the relevant OS thingy. I was also warned several times by friends in the know that unless I was rather to really good with compooters to NOT download a pirate version. And Japanese OS works fine for me, coz it's not a language problem it's a Techknow-phobia problem.

And condolences, of course.

[wagyl]

One serious fear I have is the compatibility issue: does Linus' word processing, etc. mesh seamlessly with the dominant OS' and software packages? Last year I had another of those MojiBake Matsuri events with a very large file I had written in MS Word and they had unloaded on Mac ware. That was 2014. I simply cannot do that sort of thing anymore, which is why I folded my Mac and moved to PC in the first place.

To answer that question you have to take a good look at where those compatibility issues originate. Or to put it another way, ask it like this: "I have MS Office 2008, does Word mesh seamlessly with the output of MS Office 2013 or have they introduced yet another feature/component/docx extension which creates an issue?"

The common word processing software used on Linux is also able to be used on Windows, so you can download it for free and try it out. https://www.libreoffice.org/ or http://www.openoffice.org/

I wouldn't expect tracking changes and amendments to work, but otherwise you should be OK. I admit that I have a Windows 7 laptop as a backup. That laptop is now an 18 month old install and with the patching to the OS in that time I can almost brew a coffee while I wait for it to boot up. Linux doesn't seem to bloat up and bog down like that.

Otherwise, many versions of Linux have a virtual Microsoft emulator thingy called WINE which tricks software by pretending to be a windows machine, but not all software is fooled. I don't know if it plays nicely with Office, but I am happy with LibreOffice anyway.

I have this on my Ubuntu PC, and that OS cost me a grand total of..... fuck all.

One of your options, if you are happy to void your warranty, is to just install Ubuntu on your new machine. I seem to remember reading that another of the "features" of Windows 8 is that it doesn't play nice with dual boot systems, so it would probably mean abandoning Windows 8 altogether, but it might be the way to do this before your wife gets used to the new Windows 8 interface anyway.

[kurogane]

My initial response to that is:

Inglfbl gooblblop the Johnson Rod wanglfingl your deedlsmik..........



but at least now I have a glossary to work with as I try to figure out if I should or even want to. As usual, very lucid, thanks. I actually am attracted to this Linux idea because I am sick to death of Microshaft in every possible way and Apple seems to have adopted their Auld Enemies' business model, so feck them too. And if I actually put my back into it I might even learn something about these infernal machines, which would be very good because I can feel that I am rapidly approaching that last big set of rapids where I have to either finally learn how to paddle or pull the boat out of the water and give it all up.

[wagyl]

Extra clarification: the Win 7 laptop uses LibreOffice too. I have never bought a Microsoft Office licence or used the software in the last 10 or so years except when employed by someone else and using their machines.

The other good thing about Linux is that you can try before you commit yourself: many distributions will load off the DVD and run and you can see whether it does what you want it to do and what it looks like without yet installing it on your hard disk/SSD. My main issue was that there are so many flavours to choose from, deciding which one best met my needs took some research.

[chibaka]

One of your options, if you are happy to void your warranty, is to just install Ubuntu on your new machine.

It's the wife's, not mine. My only reason for wanting English UI is for troubleshooting when she has problems. Read Japanese she can, fix `puters she can not. Her old, but still working ASUS machine is J Win 7, no problem with it except no battery. I could navigate around that if it had the Klingon version of the OS. This 8.1 shite on the other hand.......

And she agrees it's slow.

[wagyl]

One of your options, if you are happy to void your warranty, is to just install Ubuntu on your new machine.

It's the wife's, not mine. My only reason for wanting English UI is for troubleshooting when she has problems. Read Japanese she can, fix `puters she can not. Her old, but still working ASUS machine is J Win 7, no problem with it except no battery. I could navigate around that if it had the Klingon version of the OS. This 8.1 shite on the other hand.......

And she agrees it's slow.

A similar issue to what got me into this project: I had an XP machine which worked perfectly well, my 80 year old mother overseas had an XP machine which worked perfectly well, but after 13 years Microsoft (reasonably, in my view) said that they will not offer security support any more. So, I chose a version of Ubuntu designed to look a lot like the Microsoft interface, called Zorin. Because I need a Japanese language environment as well as an English language environment here, I ended up choosing Zorin 6 which is based on the April 2012 Ubuntu which is both long term support to 2017 and seems to handle Japanese a little more stably, but while the start menu looks a lot like the Windows 7 layout the colour scheme reminds me of the grunge era. Oh well.

[Samurai_Jerk]

One of your options, if you are happy to void your warranty, is to just install Ubuntu on your new machine.

It's the wife's, not mine. My only reason for wanting English UI is for troubleshooting when she has problems. Read Japanese she can, fix `puters she can not. Her old, but still working ASUS machine is J Win 7, no problem with it except no battery. I could navigate around that if it had the Klingon version of the OS. This 8.1 shite on the other hand.......

And she agrees it's slow.

That's main reason I like to have the UI in English. Doing the trouble shooting takes at least twice as long if I do it in Japanese. You can change the UI to English for free but you need to install a language pack which you can download from MS. If it's not installing then you may have a bug in your system.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... y-language

If I remember correctly, installing the US English language pack also changed my keyboard to English setting by default (for example no more Shift+7 to get an apostrophe), so I had to change the setting of the keyboard back to Japanese.

[matsuki]

That's main reason I like to have the UI in English. Doing the trouble shooting takes at least twice as long if I do it in Japanese. You can change the UI to English for free but you need to install a language pack which you can download from MS. If it's not installing then you may have a bug in your system.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... y-language

If I remember correctly, installing the US English language pack also changed my keyboard to English setting by default (for example no more Shift+7 to get an apostrophe), so I had to change the setting of the keyboard back to Japanese.

1.) Language packs are free as SJ pointed out. There was no language associated with what I bought, it started up in English, was easy to change it all to Japanese.

2.) I used to purposely set the systems on my PC, keitai, etc. to Japanese as I figured it forced me to learn words/kanji.....but gave up on a few years ago because there were a few times I ran into issues while in a rush....and the Japanese txt/descriptions were either too vague or undecipherable.

[kurogane]

I do find doing anything technical in a Japanese interfacial to be time consuming; my knowledge in English is limited enough, but trying to figure out where the hyphen goes in the katakana term can be really aggravating when I need to look something up, esp. when I know it's a really simple little tweak.

[matsuki]

trying to figure out where the hyphen goes in the katakana term can be really aggravating

every-fucking-day

[chibaka]

You can change the UI to English for free but you need to install a language pack which you can download from MS. If it's not installing then you may have a bug in your system.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... y-language

Tried installing language packs, no cigar.... and that link goes to a page saying "Applies to Windows Vista" Another fecal masterpiece from MS.
I want a dual system, J for her, E for me, in 2015 it's not toooooooooo fucking much to ask?

[Russell]

I tried that in the past, installing such a "free" language pack, but I got a message that I needed some premium version of Windows for that. WTF, isn't Windows 7 Professional not enough already?

The only reason I still use Windows is because of PowerPoint, for which I rely heavily on animations for my presentations. But preparing those has become much more a pain in the ass since its new "user friendly" UI was adopted (was that since 2009?). Preparing PPT slides now takes me twice the time it did before. Word is not as bad, but I still do not like its UI.

Thanks Steve Balmer. They should infect you with Ebola.

[Mock Cockpit]

I tried that in the past, installing such a "free" language pack, but I got a message that I needed some premium version of Windows for that. WTF, isn't Windows 7 Professional not enough already?

The only reason I still use Windows is because of PowerPoint, for which I rely heavily on animations for my presentations. But preparing those has become much more a pain in the ass since its new "user friendly" UI was adopted (was that since 2009?). Preparing PPT slides now takes me twice the time it did before. Word is not as bad, but I still do not like its UI.

Thanks Steve Balmer. They should infect you with Ebola.

Windows 7 Ultimate is the only one that gets multiple languages as standard. I actually got given a nice little NEC desktop with Ultimate installed and the language switching between different users is pretty seamless. First computer I've ever had with an English OS, fuck me that's sad.