Posted on 10/19/2013 1:06:03 PM PDT by dayglored
The much-anticipated Windows 8.1 update was finally released on Thursday. Since then, however, early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature. In response, Microsoft took its Windows 8.1 update offline until further notice on Saturday.
The Redmond, Wash. company posted the following a message to its website:
Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT device to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.... there are, as of this writing, no official instructions from Microsoft regarding the issue, Ulanoff said the company advised him download an ISO file to a USB stick as a possible recovery tool for his device. Unfortunately, when Ulanoff attempted to retrieve the ISO file that Microsoft provided, he was unable to download it.
So far, the problem appears to be limited to Windows RT devices. How long will those who attempted to update their Windows RT devices have to wait for answers? According to Microsoft's website: “We will provide updates as they become available.”
(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
Well, then, let's see if they can also "change"... in a way that sells product. Otherwise they're in deep doodoo.
Well, I’m glad someone finally indicated a factual reason to upgrade - tablet. Not sure why they seem to think that desktops need this kind of upgrade though, after all most of these upgrades would be there (at least I would think - maybe used to be anyway).
This would be an abomination for me on a desktop system!
Sounds like Bill Gates suffers from same issue as Obama. Me, well I love my Apple’s!!!!
Microsoft is too old and too fat and too slow to change...so get use to a new system in the future. Not good, but I can see the changes beyond my lifetime.
It's a disaster on a traditional desktop, or non-touch-screen laptop. Period.
I'm a System Admin by trade and you would not believe what it has been like, for the folks trying to move from XP to Win8. We've given up, and will now only allow migrations to Win7, on desktop and regular laptop machines.
The re-training time -- lost productivity in the office -- alone costs thousands of dollars, at a time business can ill afford loss.
To each, their own.... every day I use Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and BSD, nearly interchangeably. Each has its strong and weak points.
This is not a Bill Gates issue -- we can lay this one at the feet of Steve Ballmer, I'd say.
Wow, understand totally! I’m glad I’m out of that business! I really would hate to be trying to move customers to this release. The good side is that you might just have much more to do with those that keep upgrading regardless of cost and potential but of course that does also have its backside...heh. Good luck with your endeavors. You could be in business for an additional 20 years at this rate...ha
Take an old Windows 7 box - dual- or quad-core - with 4 to 8 GB of RAM, throw away the hard-drive and put a new one in. Then put Linux on it. I use Fedora 19 with the KDE desktop, Firefox, Evolution for email, and LibreOffice 4.x. Am good for another few years. And it only cost about $100. I have to use Windows 8 @ work. The kids at Microsoft have never put out such a garbled mess as Windows 8. They couldn’t decide what they wanted the system to be, but one thing it isn’t - it is NOT a desktop system. Am waiting to talk to the IT guys before updating to 8.1.
...early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature.I was going to wait until I had, uh, free bandwidth to do the update, so, once again, procrastination pays off big! :')
The mistake was in trying to cram a tablet OS down the throats of ALL Windows users, virtually all of whom have desktops or laptops.
It's truly a shame -- under the hood, without the damn Metro GUI, Win8 is a great OS, stable, somewhat faster than Win7, and would have a terrific future were it not for the awful user interface they grafted onto it.
But if that were the case, it would just be Win7 SP2, which doesn't sell new product.
Merging the tablet OS with the desktop may well be Microsoft's undoing. They keep stepping in dogs#!t with every move they make recently.
> the future of computers is in the mobile arena which does not play to Microsoft’s strengths
True, but it didn't have to be that way. They saw it coming in 2007 with the iPhone -- and Steve Ballmer laughed at it and dismissed it.
Steve Ballmer's stupidity and lack of ability to see what was directly in front of his eye, has nearly doomed the company he claims to love.
Ah yes, they all have their problems but I really like those that swear by Apple (and anything that they put out) - it has become such a cult. The new Apple operating system just might wake them up but not likely!
LOL! I knew there was a good reason I stayed in bed until noon! :)
The patch was developed to return Windows 8 usability, customer familiarity to be more reminiscent of Windows 7. Meanwhile, the future of computers is in the mobile arena which does not play to Microsoft’s strengths.Considering that this bricking was on tablets, probably you've understated it. :') Personally, I don't like 'em. I don't much like laptops, for that matter, that scratch pad mouse substitute just plain sucks, and gets in the way constantly even when I plug in a mouse (which is always). I really want a full size screen that rolls up to transport it, CPU & SSD etc (USB ports, no drives) inside a full-sized (slimline) keyboard, wireless (or wired) mouse.
Windows 8 locks up better than XP. It seems slower than older programs. They hid things so you could not finds making the program seem faster.
Progress, bigger and better mistakes.
I’m getting used to win 8 and upgraded to 8.1 this morning. I use the desktop interface but can switch off to the tile desktop when I need/want any of the programs on there. Hasn’t been too bad at all.
That works too, one guy who did that still had every picnic basket in Jellystone Park.
If I’m reading it correctly, the problem with the boot-from-USB isn’t the booting, it’s the non-availability of the ISO file.
I don’t use touch screen. So I have no use for Windows 8 OR Windows 8.1. Also, the new desktop is extremely ugly looking.
I have always preferred Windows to Apple, but there have been some difficult periods, and this is certainly one of them. I see no reason why you can’t have an underlying system that is topped off by two different desktops, for phone-size and laptop size computers, touchscreen and keypad.
The update lets the user have the machine boot straight into the desktop, instead of that tile thing. I don’t have any objection to the tiles, although it reminds me of the old Tandy interface...
I personally favor the CentOS distro, though I was a Fedora user for about 5 years as my main desktop. I found that the advantages of being on the leading edge with Fedora were not as great as the stability and wide support available for CentOS, which is RedHat Enterprise Linux, exactly same source, but without paid support. Anything that runs on RHEL will run on CentOS, and that stuff is pretty bulletproof.
That said, I still have Fedora around....
If I enumerate my active OSes (just the ones I use at home, all are multi-boot, with VM support):
At work I'm a System Admin. I can't begin to count the hundreds of various server systems I tend there....
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