Windows 8 will be available Oct.26 2012

Err · Post by **Err** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:36 am

EvilHorace wrote:So far I'm having problems getting the iso folder unzipped to be bootable on either a DVD drive or an external USB HDD. My free winzip trial version isn't cutting it so far. The iso file in itself isn't bootable.
Try more tomorrow.

Try 7Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/

and

Image Burn: http://www.imgburn.com/

There is an option in Image Burn to make the disc bootable.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:48 am

Yeah 7-zip or WinRar. Winzip has a limitation that it can't handle zip files larger than a certain size. I carry around a portable copy of Zip-7 on my flash drive which is handy for encrypting and decrypting since it handles AES 256 (I zip all my client's passwords in Zip AES 256 using Winzip on my own PCs, but need to carry around something to use on someone else's PC).
7 Zip Portable: http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable

This is a nice Windows 8 tutorial to get you started. Jump ahead to 3:30 if you want to skip to how to use a mouse and old desktop instead of touch, although it's worth watching the touch tutorial to see how nicely this might work on a tablet.

I'm told by people who have already installed it that there are some good video tutorials that come with Win8, and that it's worth going through them because there's tips in there you'll likely never discover on your own.

I think instead of installing Win8 on the old laptop I've been running the pre-release version on, instead I'm going to install it on my work ultrabook that I carry in the car. That will force me to use it more and get more familiar with it, and I'll also be curious to see how much more battery life I get and how much faster it boots. It's a nice Acer Core i5 ultrabook with an SSD which already gets 8+ hours of battery life if I use the most aggressive power settings. I'm imaging the hard drive right now and after I go for a bike rise I'll try installing Win8.

I'm going to TRY to use it with the Metro GUI instead of installing the Classic Shell start menu hack.

<object width="853" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nh5JjErbXE8?ve ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nh5JjErbXE8?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="853" height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 11:27 am

I wasn't having much luck with the software linked above to create a bootable jump drive so I found this tutorial with SW link and it was not only easy and fast but worked like a charm and w/o adding any frick'n toolbars (that really burns me). It explains how to do it with the Win 8 preview but it works the same.
http://www.1800pocketpc.com/tutorial-in ... ive/32407/
Plugged in my 8gb jump drive, boot from USB and worked.

So far so good. Win8 seems to work well on the laptop with its new SSD. Just have to watch the tutorials still and get use to stuff.

Don't have all the desktop apps because the laptops videocard's highest resolution is 1024X768 so the desktop looks just like any previous Win desktop. At least so far. L. Lower corner does open them however.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 12:57 pm

Hmmm, Maybe why all the Win8 features aren't working like the video above is that Windows isn't activated.
I checked the messages in the taskbar and when I try to activate it using the key (which was also required during install), it gives me this:

Invalid Product Key
Code 0xC004F061

"The software licensing service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations"

Don't know how that's going to effect things, like upgrades, functions, etc but I gather that as-is, it'll have limited functions. OS does work however.

Wonder if I should try cloning my Vista drive to the SSD and then upgrading?

If so, best SW to clone the old HDD?

Besides a clone, upgrade task, so far all I'm finding is a workaround for Win7 which I won't assume will work with Win8:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31 ... rsion.html

It's just a matter of time and others will soon be running into this exact same issue.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:47 pm

OK.....Anyone know where to find the Windows-q folder? Apparently the start menu is gone in Win8.

Need to try this:

Activate Windows 8 Pro Upgrade

Windows 8 users who noticed that the operating system can’t be activated after the installation may want to try the following workaround that worked to activate when installing Windows 7 using an upgrade on a clean PC.

Open regedit by pressing Windows-q, entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.
Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.
Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.
Reboot Windows now.
Run the activation utility afterwards, enter your product key to activate Windows.

Source:
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/10/27/window ... -possible/

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:58 pm

There's no Q Folder and those instructions are incorrect. What they want you to do is press the Windows Key+R which brings up the Run menu.

Win8 uses a completely different activation system than Win7 so I doubt that will work.

I intend to do an upgrade from the old OS but to specify that I want a clean install with nothing from the old OS kept. From what I've read it looks like that will be an option.

For cloning I always use Acronis, but there are free options out there as well. You should be able to download a cloning utility from the new hard drive manufacturer's website.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:07 pm

Key+R which brings up the Run menu.

Cool, STILL works in Win8. I'm still new to Win7 so that was news to me too.

I intend to do an upgrade from the old OS but to specify that I want a clean install with nothing from the old OS kept. From what I've read it looks like that will be an option.

That's exactly what I did and it is an option BUT what they apparently fail to tell you is that unless it see's old Windows files on that particular drive, validating Windows isn't an option.

Being that nothing was previously on my new SSD, that's why I'm seeing this now. I know that others are also doing the same thing so if the trick above doesn't work, hopefully someone else will have a cure.

Everything seems to work, even Windows updates so the only known "problem" (IF it even IS a problem?) is that I'm unable to validate Windows and I can turn that message off too. Not sure it even matters?

I'm in no rush to clone my old HDD yet so I can wait.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:25 pm

No that's not what you did. If there was nothing on the SSD to start with then you couldn't have run the installer from the old OS as I propose.

I just started the process but then aborted it because I've got too much going on this weekend but I booted from the DVD I made from the ISO and I had two options: upgrade or advanced. The advanced gives you the option of deleting the old OS partitions and doing a clean install. I aborted it there.

If you can't activate it, then you can't get updates and likely it will stop working after a trial period so you're going to have to try doing a proper upgrade. It's useless using it the way it is.

I would recommend cloning the old drive just so you have the old drive as a fall back in case you need to go back to the way it was.

Go to the SSD manufacturer's website and there should be a cloning utility there. However, you'll need a SATA to USB adapter to connect the old drive to the laptop to clone it, unless you move both drives to desktop PC to clone them.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:47 pm

I think the method above will work but I'm snagged by this line:

Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.
Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.

I enter CMD and get the DOS screen with the command prompt but when I R click, I see no option to run as administrator there.

I tryed the

slmgr /rearm

command but it says I don't have admin right to do that.

How can I do that, run as admin?

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:44 pm

Fixed it!

Found the easy solution to run as admin, entered that command, rebooted and it worked.

Went to check, says it's activated.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:01 pm

Good to know. If it's activated you should be good to go.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:45 pm

I think that it's cool that for $40, you can get this and install it on any HDD (or SSD) whether or not that drive already had an OS on it.

So far, short of getting use to having apps on a Windows PC, the only issue I'm having is that I'm unable to change the desktop picture or use a theme. It's possible that it's due to not being able to run in high resolution on this machine. Via search, I've found that others have had this problem with Win7 but hopefully I'll find the cure for that too.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:24 pm

The problem may be the generic Windows 8 drivers.

Just installed Win8 on my Netbook. I booted from the DVD and instead of an Upgrade I chose Advanced, then deleted all the existing partitions (by this time the installer had already confirmed that there was a pre-existing install of Win8) and then told it to do a clean install on the blank drive (this is a 128Gb SSD).

Took 20 minutes from the DVD. I setup the stupid Microsoft login which is cloud based, but after the install I went to user settings in the Control Panel and changed my login to a local user account (ie: the old Windows user account system). I don't like the idea of logging into a cloud account. Yeah it synchronizes everything between devices, but I don't have a Windows phone or Xbox.

Nice lightweight install - only 15Gb. I must say it feels real snappy and IE 10 is quite fast. I'm just using the built-in AV and not installing a 3rd party one. I do rather like the news updates in the Metro tiles (they didn't have that fully working on the pre-release version.

While Win8 installed functional generic drivers, I'm not getting full functionality from the touchpad or battery system so I went to Acer's site and they have a full set of their drivers for Win8.

I'm going to force myself to use the Metro UI and not install a start menu hack for now. I need to get comfortable with the interface for working with clients. I'm already getting used to it since I'm a keyboard shortcut user anyway.

I do not like the Metro version of IE since it doesn't support full page zooming. It's intended for a touch screen so you can pinch to zoom in. Just another example of why the Metro interface is useless on a desktop PC. It's also pretty stupid that the desktop and Metro versions of IE apparently don't share cookies because I had to log in at PCAbusers again when I switched between them - so it didn't save a persistent logon cookie between the two.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:21 pm

WOW! Boot time is absolutely amazing. I made sure I did a full shutdown and not a sleep or hibernate, and tried it several times. Boot time is 12.8 seconds (I KID YOU NOT!). And that's not a desktop that's sluggish and unresponsive, that is a fully functioning desktop that's fully responsive with Wifi up and running and apps open instantly.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 8:03 pm

Well, that is one thing that I can appreciate.