Windows 8 Tips and Tricks

[Hi-Grage]

I finally get my hands on Windows 8 upgrade. You start install from withing previous version of Windows (XP, Vista or 7), and after several restarts you could have a completely clean and fresh install of Windows 8. All your previous directories are end up under Windows.old directory that is not that easy to remove.

Windows 8 is basically a Windows 7 without a Start button. The Start button is replaced with an entire new interface geared toward touching and tablets. You can quickly fund everything by pressing Windows button.

Windows 8 auto-activated. There is no 60 days grace period like on Windows Server 2008, or 30 days grace period like on Windows 7, or 10 days like on Windows Server 2008 R2.

Try installing Office 2010 on a computer Windows 8. All your install and registry merge tricks are still working under Windows 8. All the templates and toolbars, and REG files are still working.

Windows 8 will install on older laptops (7 year old in my case – July 2006), but you will have a great dificulties to find a working video driver beyond basic 1024 x 789.

[2013-02-15 FR 09:15]  Take a look at a new Task Manager.  It was seriously re-mapped.  They finally removed “Always -on-Top” as a default option.

[2013-02-25 MO 15:41] Account picture is located at:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures\
and you can’t tell from the name or properties of the image (), where it came from on your drive.  Type of the object is *.accountpicture-ms.

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Did you notice that new IE 10 now has a built-in Spell Check.  Finally!

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Windows 8 setup log is located in:
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther\setuperr.log

My problem is that none of the tiles in a new Start area working, and they all marked with black “X”.  I tried to reinstall Windows 8 from within Windows 8, and installation goes nicely, and always fails at 90%.

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