Windows 8 woes

[Androcles]

Having a nightmare with windows 8, had it installed on a machine when it first came out and hated it so put windows 7 back on and decided never to touch it again. Just acquired a new laptop (got myself a brand new Lenovo g580 laptop with i3, 6gb memory and a 1tb hdd for £100, bargain!) which has windows 8 pre-installed so thought I better make an effort and learn how to use it, 4 days later I'm still messing around with setting the darned thing up and updating it!

It started off with normal updates, every single update downloaded and installed fine but when trying o configure them after a restart got stuck at 15%, failed retried three times then spent 30 minutes reverting the settings. After hours of research I finally found out that there's a conflict with windows and software that most prebuilt laptop manufacturers use for there licensing and I had to disable one of the windows services to get them to configure. Did that and all the updates worked fine, yay.

Decided to check out some apps, signed up for the accounts etc and chose a few only to sit there watching a list of apps stating they were downloading and never actually downloading, grrrr.... spent ages trying to work out why and researching it to be told it was because I had the previous service disabled, re-enabled it and it still wouldn't work.

After contacting Microsoft and spending literally hours being passed from pillar to post I was finally told it was a known issue with the app store and the only work around was to install windows 8.1.. ok i'll do that ... oh wait I have to do that via the app store .... nooooooooooo!

Anyway, I spent a ton of time just messing around with settings and services and finally (I have no idea how I did it) the app store let me download 8.1 and i clicked the install button all excited, half an hour later it gets to 84%, restarts, gets to 84%, restarts ad infinitum ...

I give up, going to buy and install windows 7 on pay day and hope that will work.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Having a nightmare with windows 8, had it installed on a machine when it first came out and hated it so put windows 7 back on and decided never to touch it again. Just acquired a new laptop (got myself a brand new Lenovo g580 laptop with i3, 6gb memory and a 1tb hdd for £100, bargain!) which has windows 8 pre-installed so thought I better make an effort and learn how to use it, 4 days later I'm still messing around with setting the darned thing up and updating it!

It started off with normal updates, every single update downloaded and installed fine but when trying o configure them after a restart got stuck at 15%, failed retried three times then spent 30 minutes reverting the settings. After hours of research I finally found out that there's a conflict with windows and software that most prebuilt laptop manufacturers use for there licensing and I had to disable one of the windows services to get them to configure. Did that and all the updates worked fine, yay.

Decided to check out some apps, signed up for the accounts etc and chose a few only to sit there watching a list of apps stating they were downloading and never actually downloading, grrrr.... spent ages trying to work out why and researching it to be told it was because I had the previous service disabled, re-enabled it and it still wouldn't work.

After contacting Microsoft and spending literally hours being passed from pillar to post I was finally told it was a known issue with the app store and the only work around was to install windows 8.1.. ok i'll do that ... oh wait I have to do that via the app store .... nooooooooooo!

Anyway, I spent a ton of time just messing around with settings and services and finally (I have no idea how I did it) the app store let me download 8.1 and i clicked the install button all excited, half an hour later it gets to 84%, restarts, gets to 84%, restarts ad infinitum ...

I give up, going to buy and install windows 7 on pay day and hope that will work.

Just reinstall windows 8? Don't see the point in spending £80 for windows 7 when the laptop was only £100

 

[SpyderTracks]

First thing you do after install and logging into a Microsoft account is upgrade to 8.1, then it's pretty seamless.

 

[TheGeeza]

Reinstall it like george said and then install startisback or something similar. That's why I do on my windows 8 machines

 

[mdwh]

Given how cheap it was, was this some second hand/refurbished job? A reinstall would be worthwhile - especially if it wasn't bought new, but even if it was, seems a way to fix up the mess it seems to be in now.

If a new PC I'd bought had a flaw such that it couldn't update due to manufacturing licencing software, I'd be returning it to the shop.

 

[amoshi]

Startisback, start8 or classic shell (my favourite) and Windows is just like it's supposed to be.

 

[Androcles]

Just reinstall windows 8? Don't see the point in spending £80 for windows 7 when the laptop was only £100

Reinstall it like george said and then install startisback or something similar. That's why I do on my windows 8 machines

Because windows 8 isn't working, I've tried reinstalling it multiple times and it ends up with the same issues. As to the price thing, I've gotten a Windows 7 through my work for £27 making the total £127 for a £400+ laptop, well worth it immo.

First thing you do after install and logging into a Microsoft account is upgrade to 8.1, then it's pretty seamless.

Wish I could, it won't let me update to 8.1 until all the older updates are done (won't even show in the store) and even then the store isn't letting me download it until I brute force it (just keep spamming the install button) and when it tries to configure 8.1 after I finally get it downloaded and installed just goes into a failed update loop, so not going to happen any time soon by the looks of it.

Given how cheap it was, was this some second hand/refurbished job? A reinstall would be worthwhile - especially if it wasn't bought new, but even if it was, seems a way to fix up the mess it seems to be in now.

If a new PC I'd bought had a flaw such that it couldn't update due to manufacturing licencing software, I'd be returning it to the shop.

It was brand new boxed, but out of warranty.

A friend of mine bought it from QVC just over a year ago and never even opened the box because he was given a gaming laptop at almost the same time for his birthday, he was going to see if he could return it but never got around to it, so he has sold it to me for £100.

It's not an issue with the manufacturers software, it's a known Microsoft issue with conflicting services on certain batches of OEM windows, but Microsoft won't swap it for me without me paying for a new license and Lenovo won't swap it because it's past warranty despite being unopened and "new", it can't be fixed by reinstalling. I probably could live with it and just have to disable services every time I want to update and never be able to use the app store, but that makes the whole Win8 thing not worth having, especially if I can't download Start8 because the app store doesn't work.

Besides, I've been using Win8.1 at work with Start8 for about 8 months and I still can't get used to it so I'll be happier with Win7

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Because windows 8 isn't working, I've tried reinstalling it multiple times and it ends up with the same issues. As to the price thing, I've gotten a Windows 7 through my work for £27 making the total £127 for a £400+ laptop, well worth it immo.



Wish I could, it won't let me update to 8.1 until all the older updates are done (won't even show in the store) and even then the store isn't letting me download it until I brute force it (just keep spamming the install button) and when it tries to configure 8.1 after I finally get it downloaded and installed just goes into a failed update loop, so not going to happen any time soon by the looks of it.



It was brand new boxed, but out of warranty.

A friend of mine bought it from QVC just over a year ago and never even opened the box because he was given a gaming laptop at almost the same time for his birthday, he was going to see if he could return it but never got around to it, so he has sold it to me for £100.

It's not an issue with the manufacturers software, it's a known Microsoft issue with conflicting services on certain batches of OEM windows, but Microsoft won't swap it for me without me paying for a new license and Lenovo won't swap it because it's past warranty despite being unopened and "new", it can't be fixed by reinstalling. I probably could live with it and just have to disable services every time I want to update and never be able to use the app store, but that makes the whole Win8 thing not worth having, especially if I can't download Start8 because the app store doesn't work.

Besides, I've been using Win8.1 at work with Start8 for about 8 months and I still can't get used to it so I'll be happier with Win7

You could download windows 8.1 onto a USB stick and install It that way, as long as you know the code

If you've already got windows 7 then fair enough.

 

[Androcles]

You could download windows 8.1 onto a USB stick and install It that way, as long as you know the code

If you've already got windows 7 then fair enough.

it's not the installation that's an issue, it's the configuration after installing it so it probably won't work from a USB stick either

Plus you can't get the Win8 codes off of this version, can't remember what it's called but it's a special license that covers any laptop by the company and the code is hard written into the bios, not viewable and won't work with non-oem versions.