This is a very good piece on how to navigate Windows 8 if you are into using the keyboard more than the mouse.. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8ProductivityWhoMovedMyCheeseOhThereItIs.aspx The guy also has a mega multi monitor setup too, so not everything will work for you as it does for him. However, it does show that Windows 8 can work for you, and can be fun. Since encapsulating Windows 8 in VirtualBox, I haven’t made too many sorties to it, but I will note some of what is in the article

.. is to be able to basically run it in order to support it in Microsoft Answers. As long as I know how it works and where everything is, it doesn’t have to be the primary OS. So, I have the option of dual booting, a procedure I have never liked, or Windows 8 Mode. Windows 8 Mode? For sure, Windows 8 in Virtual Box. It works well. I gave it 2gb of RAM, 32mb video RAM,  and set the box to ‘dynamic’. It is not like I will be using it for gaming or anything serious, and so don’t have to throw masses

Everything is back to normal, as in Windows 7 normal. I kept working with Windows 8 for some three hours after I posted the previous blog post, but I still couldn’t justify the losses and the awkwardness. They said that anything which would run in Windows 7 should run in Windows 8, but that is not true. It didn’t boot fast enough to be counted as a gain and the apps store, for all that was in it, left me cold. Unlike corporate employees and home users who have to take what is given to

It’s neat being able to install the latest Microsoft operating system before it becomes main stream. MSDN and TechNet account holders have been able to do it since August 15, but it is not all plain sailing. Microsoft’s infrastructure which will back up the operating system is not fully in place yet, and little things like the Windows 8 Update server are not online. This means that not only will Windows 8 updates not be piped through, and this applies to any Microsoft product updates which have traditionally

OK.. Stuff that still works.. All of the internal hardware Existing peripheral devices Networx Winpatrol Stuff that doesn’t work or is a pain All of my stress reducer games The traditional Windows games which are now only accessible via the UI formerly known as Metro (also used as stress reducers) My two favourite gadgets. Weather Network via Weather Center was the best, and a network monitor which showed which computers were online. VSL Lantoucher Network Chat Speedfan – It will not show in the

Upgrading to Windows 8 would have gone without a hitch were it not for a defrag utility called RAXCO PERFECTDISK 12.5 Windows 8 reported it as incompatible and asked that it be removed. Easy to do? Not hardly.. It very quickly brought back memories of removing Perfectdisk a few years ago. The trouble was it wouldn’t fully uninstall enough back then, and NOTHING has changed. Will a RAXCO product ever find its way onto a computer of mine in the future? Not a chance.. What should have been an easy task

Microsoft have rolled out Windows 8 to a third of their workforce to demonstrate that it can be done. See here.. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mscio/archive/2012/08/07/deploying-windows-8-within-microsoft.aspx Great stuff, but everybody knows that it can be done, but it requires planning and retraining to a greater degree than the transition to Windows 7. This is the point raised by corporates, the cost and time implementing the help, and this is exactly what the blog is about. Microsoft have set up a

.. it will be a real game changer for me.. Microsoft blocks Windows 8 Start button, boot-to-desktop hacks: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230024/Microsoft_blocks_Windows_8_Start_button_boot_to_desktop_hacks?source=rss_latest_content&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fnews%2Ffeed+%28Latest+from+Computerworld%29 A short while back, I wrote that as long as there were 3rd party ‘fixes’ for the lack of a Start button and traditional menu system

I was going to write about this yesterday, but the Euro reason for having to drop the name was not clear, so I deleted what I had written. My first thought was a clash with the Paris Metro. This is a stylish rapid transit underground system in Paris, but ‘stylish’ is not exactly a strongpoint of Microsoft’s Metro rapid access front end. Then I thought of the Austin Metro, a British car designed for rapid access around a city, not 100% reliable and prone to falling apart, so more than enough in common

I was at a birthday dinner last week. Throughout the meal, there was healthy conversation back and forth across the table, but there was another conversation going on underneath the table too. No, it wasn’t the toddlers who could no longer sit still. Two of the younger adults were texting to each other, but surreptitiously. I didn’t agree with what they were doing, but was too fascinated at the speed of messages back and forth. Yes, I know that the language typed is a kind of shorthand, but to see