Windows 8 PSA

[MH6~SPARTA~]

I'm not sure who exactly is running Windows 8 currently, but I'm putting out this PSA:

 

Windows 8 is great, but it has some issues that can seriously brick your system, especially in the first week of use.

 

 

Windows 8 Startup Repair is a piece of shit. It can, and will, corrupt your registry and fuck up your install. I'm talking full-on unable to boot, can't do a "refresh" (repair install) or "reset" (re-image). It corrupted my registry and locked my hard drive and I had no option left to me but to do a reformat. I literally could find no other way to repair the system--and that's new to me, because no matter how bad a Win7 install got, I could almost always fix it without resorting to a reformat.

 

Part of the problem was that RegIdleBackup, the scheduled task that backs up your registry, only runs every 10 days, and so the "backup registry" was empty after the initial installation of Windows. This means I could not repair my registry files. I could also not run a System restore, as it complained that the "Hard drive was locked". To be clear, I am running nothing that should result in a locked hard drive (i.e. BitLocker). Refresh and Reset both simply stated that they could not run, and no changes were made. No error message of any kind, just a simple "No". Way to go, Windows.

 

 

Tip #1:

Run RegIdleBackup as soon as you setup your PC how you want it. This will backup your registry files, which you can then use to restore the registry should it be corrupted. Hit Windows Key+X, select Control Panel/System and Security/Administrative Tools/Scheduled Tasks. You will find RegIdleBackup under Library/Microsoft/Windows/Registry. Select it and click the Run button. The files in C:\Windows\system32\config\RegBackup should go from being 0kb to a much larger number.

 

Tip #2:

Disable Windows Startup Repair. It runs automatically after two failed boot attempts (which, in my case, was due to me doing a hard reset to skip a disc check on a non-essential 2TB data drive). When it runs, it will brick your system. Now, my theory is that it will only brick your system if you haven't run RegIdleBackup manually or if 10 days haven't passed (so it runs automatically), as I believe it erased my registry files and replaced them with the empty backups. But that's just a theory.

 

To disable Startup Repair, open a command prompt as administrator, and type bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no

It should say the Operation was completed successfully. From here on out, instead of automatically starting the repair service, it will present you with a "Windows failed to start" screen, and then you can either continue to boot or elect to run the repair service manually. This is much better in my opinion, especially when you know Windows failed to start because of something you did (hard reset), not because Windows had a problem booting.

 

Tip #3:

Download StartIsBack. Disable Start Screen. Enjoy Windows 7.5 (Windows 8 without the Metro UI bullshit)

 

Tip #4:

Some drivers that install fine on Windows 7, won't install on Windows 8. Win8 may complain the hash signature is incorrect or possible give some other error. To get around this, disable driver signing verfication; run command prompt as administrator and type:

bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING ON

 

Reboot and install your drivers. Then you can turn it back off with:

bcdedit -set loadoptions ENABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING OFF

Also, a warning. Microsoft, in their infinite stupidity wisdom, has decided to decrease the disk check cancel timer from 5 seconds to 1 second, giving you literally no time to cancel a disk check if you don't know it's coming. This is what caused my issues in the first place, as I'm not waiting an hour for Windows to check my 2TB data drive at the boot screen when I can just as easily run chkdsk within the Windows environment itself and still use Windows while it does so.

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I like Windows 8. It's a little rough around the edges though. If I didn't love the start/shutdown times so much (it's so damn fast), I would have probably just installed Windows 7 instead of reinstalling Windows 8 when my original install broke. Hopefully, Microsoft will release a service pack that addresses the issues I've had so far.

 

P.S. - Since reinstalling Windows 8 and doing what I mentioned above, I've performed multiple hard resets during boot and have yet to experience any ill effects, including the issue I had originally.

[Pringle~SPARTA~]

There's no way in junk I'd put 8 on this machine, my only *dedicated* windows box. I am considering it as a VM on my mac though. Here's hoping it doesn't munge up my mac...

[niall]

this notice should come on the user manual

i know 2 people who bought a new laptop with windows 8 preloaded no windows cd and they're already staring at the blue screen less than 2 weeks after buying the thing. only option is to install ubuntu till they save enough to get windows 7

 

if windows == windows xp || windows 7

{

system.out.println "fine";

}

else

{

system.out.println "fail"

}

}

// satire

Edited November 15, 2012 by niall

[warzer0]

 

Don't get me wrong, I like Windows 8. It's a little rough around the edges though. If I didn't love the start/shutdown times so much (it's so damn fast), I would have probably just installed Windows 7 instead of reinstalling Windows 8 when my original install broke. Hopefully, Microsoft will release a service pack that addresses the issues I've had so far.

 

P.S. - Since reinstalling Windows 8 and doing what I mentioned above, I've performed multiple hard resets during boot and have yet to experience any ill effects, including the issue I had originally.

 

That's cause they cheated a bit with the boot times. Initial boot's only marginally faster then your typical windows 7 install but microsoft decided to be a bit clever and then store some of the system state into the hiber.sys file when you shut down, not much different then using the hibernation state of windows 7. So it's not so much booting 'faster', you've just never really shut off your computer, rather you've just hibernated it.

 

To be fair, it's quite a clever way of accelerating boot times. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx

Edited November 17, 2012 by warzer0

[MH6~SPARTA~]

That's cause they cheated a bit with the boot times. Initial boot's only marginally faster then your typical windows 7 install but microsoft decided to be a bit clever and then store some of the system state into the hiber.sys file when you shut down, not much different then using the hibernation state of windows 7. So it's not so much booting 'faster', you've just never really shut off your computer, rather you've just hibernated it.

 

To be fair, it's quite a clever way of accelerating boot times. http://blogs.msdn.co...-windows-8.aspx

 

Yeah I figured they were doing something like that.

[niall]

so what happens if the plug gets pulled or the power goes out?

[MH6~SPARTA~]

so what happens if the plug gets pulled or the power goes out?

 

Seems to be just as fast booting back up. Part of the speed is due to the new Windows Runtime, but I'm sure a lot of stuff is cached too, much like when a PC hibernates (albeit more advanced).