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Thread: Windows 8.1
Harrison 15:29 26th October 2013
That is really frustrating. Definitely issues with the whole Win 8 OS in my view. That's v why I'm sticking with 7, and using my copy of 8 just for testing.

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Kin Hell 06:50 27th October 2013
I expect there will be some other patch or other to screw it up some more at some time real soon. Then there'll be another security update for the goof they just tried to patch, blah blah......

Anyhow, on a good note for now, until summat like above happens, I've enabled my on-board sound as well as having the X-Fi in there. So now I have headphones on the X-Fi and a working MIC on the on-board sound......

Funny how the X-Fi lost itself once & now appears fine despite the Mic port not working?
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Harrison 10:14 27th October 2013
Well, the 8.1 update seems to be screwing up a lot of people's laptops during the update process. And the RT version was so bad that M$ pulled the update from the servers.

I'm not sure if it was this issue, but my wife's Sony laptop running 8 suddenly wouldn't boot yesterday. Shows the splash screen for a couple of seconds with the busy rotating balls, then it goes to a black screen and hangs there. The mouse pointer is visible and moves, but that is all.

I finally managed to work out how to get to the win 8 boot recovery screen. Normally you hammer F10 until it appears, but that wasn't working. On Sony's you have to hammer the assist key. Tried some recovery options, but doesn't seem to find a restore point and states it needs to do an OS reset, which will wipe all user files! WTF! Another reason for me to stick with 7. The old F8 boot menu worked ok and you could normally recover and repair from that, so why not with 8? Mad!

I'm going to create a Win 8 recovery usb stick and see if I can repair it from that.

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Harrison 10:49 27th October 2013
Finally managed to make it start a system "refresh". Read up on it first and annoyingly it looks like this is the only option without a format and clean install. It's meant to retain all user data/files (as the last week's work wasn't backed up) but is a clean install so loses any programs you have installed, plus settings. Really annoying!

It's this works I will make sure it has a restore point created one everything is reinstalled, then make a backup image for instant restore.

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Harrison 12:02 27th October 2013
Well, that worked. Windows now boots ok, and all user files are retained, even on the desktop. However it is like a clean install without any customisation of programs installed.

One issue I now have though is its refusal to change the UAC setting!
And I had plans today too, not sitting in front of Windows 8. Hmm.

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Harrison 15:12 27th October 2013
Update. Wasn't as straight forward as it looked. It restored my ability to login to the desktop, but all permissions were trashed on the drive. No account had access to the root of the C drive, and only read access in the user directories. Nothing would run because the accounts didn't have permission and this includes not being able to change any settings in the control panel, not being able to run the command-line with admin permissions and not being able to install or run programs. Mad!

It did however allow access to user files so I plugged in an external usb drive, copied everything off to back it up and have now selected to reset Windows back to factory settings, which is meant to be the same as a clean install. This will lose all custom settings and files on the system.

If this fails the only option is format and clean install. I hated Windows 8 before, but why did they need to mess up the functionality and way of administrating the whole OS? NT based OSs have worked the same way since Windows 2000 and it worked, so why change it now and make it really hard, if impossible to do.

Also why do manufacturers feel the need to change how the OS works? Boot keyboard commands especially. Until 8 you pressed F8 to bring up the early boot menu, and that changed to F10 in win 8, but Sony disabled this and added an assist key above the main keyboard you have to press instead. Why?

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Harrison 03:28 28th October 2013
Finally the Win 8 laptop is fully working again. Must have been a badly corrupt installation, and the refresh was the only way to sort it out, returning it to factory settings and clean install. As soon as it finished and rebooted I could tell everything was working again. Instead of only showing about 5 tiles in the start panel they were all back, and I could finally access admin controls again. Copied everything back and reinstalled Office etc.. and back to normal. What a waste of a day that was!
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Kin Hell 14:07 28th October 2013
OMG H.... complete ball ache & then some. I know you wanted all your user settings back but for me, format C would have been the best course & save a day in the process. I guess it's all about imoprtance about the PC @ hand. If mine rolled over & died now, it wouldn't bother me in any instance.
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Harrison 04:21 29th October 2013
It was more because my wife hasn't backup ask her work from the last few weeks on it. Like school reports, planning etc. Then once I had backed that up the refresh actually didn't take Windows 8 too long (about 15 mins) and it was back to a clean install, but with all drivers and settings correct, so no need to mess around installing.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
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Kin Hell 11:50 30th October 2013
Something changed for me today.....

I know I enabled Network File & Printer sharing when I finalised the Install; I could map network drives as well; ....But today, my network drives are not available & I am prompted do I want to turn on this feature again? As I clicked in bewilderment, I am then told that Network Discovery is now turned on? - Well that's funny, cos I haven't changed it since enabling it all @ install.

I wonder what program install might have screwed with windows settings, if any?
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