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Just got a T-Mobile HD2? Read Jamie’s "New to WinMo and absolute newbie tweak guide"
I wanted to write this guide due to the number of “THE HD2 SUCKS!” threads I’ve seen floating around. Guys, what did you think you were getting into here? This phone runs Windows Mobile. The very core of running this OS involves tweaking it beyond recognition, but, however, once you do that it can run quite beautifully. I wrote this guide to appeal to beginners. I try to avoid things like, "Oh, edit this registry value...What does it do? No clue, but it saves battery life." Those types of tweaks are for a different guide.
About the phone and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is old. Really old. Try ten years old, and, sometimes, it really does feel like it's age is apparent.
The phone crashes. A lot. Get ready to soft reset a lot. Turning off Sense can help with the crashing, though.
The interface is called Sense. You can turn this off and revert back to Titanium, the default Windows 6.5 theme.
The HD2 is not like an iPhone. Get an iPhone if you want an iPhone. Apps that run on the iPhone do not work (and probably will never be ported) on Windows Mobile.
Yes, the screen is glass. It's scratch resistant, not scratch-proof. I hear mixed opinion on whether you can get away without using a screen protector, and plenty of people complain about how easy it is to scratch. It's your call, but keep in mind that glass is 6-7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Hardened steel is 7.5. Your keys will scratch the absolute hell out of it. Some partials of sand and grit can scratch it, keep that in mind. And a drop from only a few feet will completely spiderweb the screen. Don't drop your phone.
The phone ships with two browsers: Opera 9.7 and Internet Explorer. Yes, that is an older version of Opera, but I feel it works fine. Opera 10 does not support pinch-to-zoom, and to my knowledge there are no tweaks to enable it.
The HD2 comes with Voice Command. To activate it, hold the green call button until it beeps at you. Then speak your phrase. A guide to using it can be found here. Your phone can read your SMSes to you.
Don’t like a tweak or application you installed? Uninstall it, and it reverts back to how it was originally.
Please see the Flashing Rom section on the different versions of Windows Mobile (6.1, 6.5, 6.5.3, etc)
Contrarily to the desktop version of Windows, hitting the X button does not exit a program, it just minimizes it. Please see the section about task managers.
WAIT ONE MINUTE
Wait! Hold on. Before you complain about ANYTHING (especially about messaging, lag, a pink camera hue, etc.), please make sure you have the newest stock ROM. To check, slide all the way to the right to Settings, then to About Phone, then to Software Information. What does it say under ROM version? Does it say 2.13.531.1?
If it doesn’t, you owe it to yourself and your sanity to flash to the new ROM. It’s real easy, too. Just go here and follow the instructions. http://dl.htc.com/ruudownload/t-mobileUS/DeviceDownloads.aspx?pid=leo
If you notice some weird-ass screen sensitivity issues (I never did), you should try installing this cab. Hey, it’s the first sticky; you should know this.
How to install a .CAB (You’ll be doing this a lot): First, download it from wherever. DO NOT EXTRACT THE CAB. Connect your phone via Activesync (Or Windows Mobile Device Center) . Drop the file onto your phone somewhere. Open File Explorer on your phone, run the file and install it to the device or storage card. I normally install to the device because you have plenty of storage, and if you connect the phone via disk drive to your computer, you temporarily won’t have access to any programs on the phone if they are stored on the card. If you need more instruction on installing cabs, please see my post here.
Killer Apps (That means required)
Cookie’s mod: This is my favorite tweak for Windows Mobile, especially more so now that version 1.8 is out. Install Cookie’s mod and it makes your whole life easier. What is it? It contains a bunch of features, but its main feature is to customize your home screen. By default, it makes it looks kind of iPhoneish, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. You can edit the home screen with more icons, widget things like toggles and an MP3 player, different types of adjustable (in size and layout) clocks including analog ones, and so forth. But, the cool part is that if you swipe up on the home screen, it turns into this iPhone-like icon grid interface--actually--more like an amalgamation of the iPhone and Android. You can scroll left and right to access more pages. Fill up the 3+ pages with applications, contacts, toggles, widgets, and you have the easiest and most convenient way to launch them. You could fill up an entire page about Cookie’s mod, though, and it’s important to download the editor for the program. Without the editor there won’t be much editing going on.
Check out this picture for a basic example of what you can do with cookie's mod. Note: The top picture is what you switch to when you swipe down on the main home screen; the bottommost one is when you swipe up on the home screen, left screen is a swipe to the left, and so forth. That was kind of hard to explain. Please see the thread for all of the features, customization options, etc. This is what Sense should have been like from the start.
Any task manager: Okay, you really need a task manager to make multitasking useful while not slowing your phone down to a crawl. Touching the X on a program does not actually exit a program, it just minimizes it. Map one to a specific part of the screen or a button, and easily switch programs. Hey, it’s you real advantage over the iPhone here; stream some Slacker radio or Grooveshark while you edit that Word document. Personally I use Arkswitch, but there are other great ones like Duttys. Hell, here's another one. At least add the default Windows Mobile task manager to a quick link at the very least.
BSB Specific Tweaks
Okay, so you have the newest official ROM and Cookie’s mod and you still think this phone is a piece of junk? Don’t fear yet. My next recommendation is to install BSB Tweaks. Download it here. What is it? Basically a bunch of settings you can modify that you normally can’t edit without a registry editor. This program is literally a godsend as it allows you to change, like, 50 popular settings that you couldn't do easily.
Don’t like lock screen and wish you could turn it off? Slide the off switch on “Auto Lock”.
Want to access the Windows settings through the Start Menu? Slide “Windows Settings” to on.
This is my opinion, but you can turn off “HTC Vibration” to make typing on the onscreen keyboard a bit more accurate, and you probably save battery life, too.
If you don’t like the phone’s screen turning on whenever you get a text message, slide “SMS Wake Up” to off.
I recommend turning on “Album Close,” because I don’t see the need to always have it running in the background.
Do you feel that the back button is a bit too stiff, and backing out of texts with it is a little uncomfortable? Turn on “Manila Send Butt.” to get a nice graphical send button, and it changes the left softkey to “back”. Very handy if you’re a big texter.
I recommend adjusting the LED notifications to however you see fit. Personally, I like having it flash for SMSs, but not anything else. Your opinion obviously differs.
I hear turning on “Wifi N” apparently helps improves, well, everything. I’ve heard, “Oh man, it’ll load pages instantly,” “You’ll get a wifi connection faster,” and other stuff, but I haven’t really noticed a difference. But I hear enough clamor that it probably doesn’t hurt to turn it on.
I highly recommend turning on "Opera Tabs". By default, you are limited to 3, which is laughable.
You can tinker with the other settings. A lot of them are a matter of personal taste.
Touch Tools Specific Tweaks
You might be asking why you need two tweaking programs that are 90% similar, and the answer is that Touch Tools does some stuff that BSB Tweaks doesn't See this post for the differences. Beware that Touch Tools is a lot more powerful and not as user friendly.
Slim Volume Tweak : Like the volume bar you get in apps like Youtube? You know, that transparent one that doesn't completely obscure whatever you're doing? Go into the Touch Tools folder, go to Slim Volume, hit Add, open the app you want to change the volume bar in, and shake your phone. I like doing this to whatever plays music.
Battery Life Tweaks
Tweak #1: Okay, I have no idea why, but the battery on this phone doesn't last very long. I recommend turning the backlight off automatic mode and setting it to a nice low, barely visible percent. Hey, you got to make it through the day, right? To do this, mosey your slider all the way over to settings, then to Sound & Display, then to Backlight. Joking aside, I feel it is perfectly readable indoors at 20%.
But there is a problem: once you go outside into the sunlight (the light, it buuuurns), your phone’s screen is nearly unreadable. Now you could take the time to crank up the backlight or turn it back to auto, but an easier way is to install this cab, map it to a Quick Link, and bam, you can quickly switch the auto backlight on and off.
Tweak #2: Turn My Location off. I have no idea why, but turning this off helps greatly--apparently it uses the data connection too much.. To do so, slide the slider to settings, and then click on Location. Make sure you turn off Location Service Settings and not AGPS.
Tweak #3: Turn off the various data synchronization. This phone can sync with various emails, Outlook, Twitter, the weather, your medical records, Facebook, the monolith, Youtube, and probably some others I am missing. Turn them to manual or put them to sync every couple hours to save battery. NOTE: It is extremely annoying to turn Facebook on and off (contacts pictures vanish, etc) so I recommend against turning it off.
Tweak #4: Web browsing takes a truly crazy amount of power. If you are going to do a lot of browsing, enable WiFi instead of using 3G, but be sure to turn off the WiFi if you're not using it, however. Also consider using Opera Mini 5 to browse the internet if battery is a concern. It uses less resources (bandwidth, processor, etc) than Opera Mobile 10.
Other tweaks: If you turn off Sense (Settings Tab > Right softkey > All settings > Today > Items) you’ll gain a huge battery life increase. I, however, feel that turning off Sense goes against the spirit of the phone. I like the Facebook integration and all the eye candy. And most of the tweaks have to do with Sense.
Useful Tweaks
HTC Flashlight: For whatever reason, the stock flash light does this stupidly infuriating demo where it scrolls through the flashlight settings. I have no idea why it does this; it conveys no useful purpose. It feels like this takes an eternity to do when you’re just trying to find something under your bed. Download this to fix that problem.
Lock Screen Icon at the Middle or Bottom: Okay, so our phone has a giant screen. I have pretty small hands and it was a bit of a reach to unlock the phone when the icon was at the very top of the phone. Install one of these and you can have it at the respective location. Very…handy. See what I did there?
4 Row Start Menu: By default the phone’s start menu ships with 3 rows. In my opinion, this is a huge waste of screen real estate. Install this CAB to fix it and make your Start menu so much more useful.
Power off icon: Want an icon to turn the screen off that you can put in the Quick Links? Check out post #3 here.
Turn off Weather Animation: Holy crap, it must always be cloudy in Kentucky or something as my home screen was always filled with clouds. A bit of a roundabout way to turn these animations off is to click on an empty Quick Link square, and pick "Weather Animation On/Off shortcut". Now you have a nifty icon to toggle the clouds (maybe sunlight in your case) on and off, and maybe even save some battery. Want less clouds? Install this .CAB. Wait, you said you want more home screen animations that aren't weather related? Bam and bam.
Is Activesync or WMDC annoying the absolute hell out of you by popping up on your computer? If you want to charge your phone via USB and you turn the phone's screen on for any reason, it starts syncing which can lag both the phone and computer. The simplest way to fix this is to start up Activesync on your phone (it's probably in your task manager already, damn thing's like a zombie) without it being connected to a computer, and then hit the Menu softkey, and then go to Connections, and unclick the check box for "Synchronize all PCs using this connection." Yeah, your computer beeps whenever you turn the screen on, but you won't get the annoying pop up.
A word about the WiFi's Power Save Mode (Com Manager> Wifi > Advance > Power Mode): Yeah, it probably does save you battery, but it does this by limiting your download speeds. I don't like slow page loads so I recommend setting it to performance, but the call is yours. I just don't think sacrificing page load times for battery is worth it.
If you hold down the red end key for a while, a handy menu pops up with some options. Make it even more useful with this thread. It adds a bunch more features like the option to restart Sense.
Mimic an iPhone or Android device when browsing. Guys, like mobile sites? Yeah, not many support Opera 9.7 and if you go to the m.website.com, you usually get the mobile website designed for your "niece's ****ty eight-year-old Boost mobile phone". An easy way to get the more feature rich website is to trick sites so it thinks you have an iphone or Android browser. I recommend doing this for Android because there are many Android devices that support 840x480 while the iPhone does not and many websites appear kinda busted.
To do so, fire up Opera. In the address bar type only "about:config" (not http://about:config) sans quotes. Scroll down to User Prefs and go to Custom User-Agent and type in whatever one you want. I recommend using the Nexus One user agent, even if the iPhone usually has better mobile page support.
Nexus One:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1
iPhone:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3
Hate mobile sites with a bloody passion and would prefer the desktop version no matter what? Try using the desktop firefox user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Commonly Asked Questions
I want to enable pinch-to-zoom in X program: BSB Tweaks can enable a few programs to work with pinch-to-zoom. You can also add your own application, but the caveat is that it literally zooms onto the screen like a magnifying glass. Not too useful in my opinion.
How do I take a screenshot of the screen? BSB Tweak can do this, too. Just go into Menu, pick screenshots, and shake your phone whenever you want to take a picture. Very handy....literally.
I am going out of the country. How do I easily disable data? BSB Tweak.
I want to add rotation to X program: BSB Tweak.
How do I change the softkeys: BSB Tweak.
How do I increase the number of tabs in Opera? BSB Tweak.
How do I watch flash videos? Internet Explorer has Flash, Opera 10 has a setting to enable it, too, but I recommend using the Skyfire Browser to view Flash Content.
Wait, what is the best browser then? Oh boy. It depends on the person. Why not try them all? I primarily use Opera 9.7 (the phone ships with this), and it does a great job of rending pages accurate and relatively quickly. Opera Mini 5 uses server-side page compression so pages load extremely fast, but you get some screwy pages (Engadget), and pages aren't fluid. Skyfire also uses server-side compression, I think the interface is god-awful, and I do not like how it renders pages. However, it has excellent Flash support. There are other browsers like older versions of Opera, Bolt, and Uzard--which I think has great potential if it would actually work. I recommend sticking with the first three.
Awesome Applications
First off, we have a subforum dedicated to Windows Mobile Apps and Games. You won't find the cool programs on the Windows Market Place; they're here on XDA. Another site with a huge repository of software is www.freewarepocketpc.net. It's hard to find the real gems. It seems like half of the programs are high schooler's computer app projects or something. What follows are my recommended programs. I mean, you have this nice phone and you need some applications you can show off, right?
Slacker Radio: One of my favorite music applications, which comes with the phone, however, you probably need to update the software anyways. So make an account and enjoy streaming internet radio. It actually has, you know, working buttons unlike the Pandora application.
SciLor’s Groovemobile: This is an interesting one. Typing in the name of a song and it starts playing. Ridiculously cool. Guys, I promised myself I wouldn't post any registry edits as I feel they are beyond a beginner's level, but the music stops playing when you use the hardware key to turn the screen off. For people who know how to edit the registry, follow this post to keep the music playing in standby until I can find a .CAB for this.
Bing: So HTC finally decided to start making phones where the GPS actually works (I did a side-by-side comparison with the Touch Pro 2 and I felt like crying for the TP2). Take advantage of this with free turn-by-turn navigation courtesy of Microsoft.
Opera Mini 5: Yes, the phone comes with the full-fledged Opera Mobile 9.7 which I like a lot, but Opera Mini is ridiculous with how fast it loads pages. Very useful when you’re on an Edge connection, or if you want to web browse for a few hours because it is much less resource intensive.
Deluxe Moon: Want an application full of eye candy that you can show off like all those annoying-ass iPhone users? You want this. It shows the phases of the moon. It has very good aesthetics.
FpseCE: The famous PS1 emulator. While it only runs about half of the games I throw at it, nothing will wow people like playing Metal Gear Solid on your phone. Snake? SNAAAAAAAKE. Though, you have to donate to get the better version with multitouch for the HD2.
Morphgear: Not a fan of the PS1? Want to emulate nearly everything else? Download this modular emulator to get started. By default it only plays SNES games, and you have to pay for the other modules to emulate other system. It can get rather expensive, too. It is also a little difficult to set up. Check this post for a how-to.
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"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
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Sporty Pal: While I advise against bringing your HD2 cycling or running, this is an extremely nifty application to play around with. Walk around your neighborhood and it’ll give you a map of the area with a line of where you walked, various stats like top speed, and so forth.
MyMobiler: Install on computer. Hook up phone via Activesync, control phone from computer screen. Pro Tip: Select “zoom 50%” to actually have it fit on your computer screen. This makes texting your girlfriend with the slide-out qwerty keyboard soooo much easier.
My recommended MP3 player: I still haven’t found one that is as good as the iPhone’s. iMulator comes close to its feature set, but it crashes a lot for me. Yes, Sense does come with a built-in music player, but I think it is pretty terrible. Tweaks for this is for another episode--guide, I mean. Another great one is Nitrogen, which I tried out due to a suggestion. It is incredibly finger-friendly, but finding that one song you want to hear can be a chore. I also keep hearing this clamor for Pocket Player, but it is not free. I took that trial for a spin and it performed admirably. Finding a specific song was a breeze too. Lastly, don't forget that Windows Media Player does come with the HD2, and it's not that bad, honestly. You have to tell it to cache your library, but it performs rather well. It even works with voice command and all that cool stuff.
Dude, my phone still sucks. It lags, freezes, whatever.
My last suggestion is to flash a custom ROM. These are where people pretty much customize their own ROMs with newer builds of the default software, programs they personally like, their own tweaks, etc. You’ll find a lot of these are much more stable and responsive than stock ROMS. However, there is a small chance of bricking your phone, and it voids your warranty (although you can flash "to stock" and no one is the wiser. Get started reading about it here. And I mean read the damn thing. Don’t flash the wrong thing to your phone, brick it, and then make a new thread talking about it. If your SOP is to glance over the red, bolded text, maybe flashing ROMs isnt' for you? It really isn’t that hard if you just carefully read the directions, though. I guess there is always the option to wait for Android to be ported over.
Just for your information, the HD2 ships with Windows Mobile 6.5. There are newer versions out, namely 6.5.3 and 6.5.5, and these pretty much make the OS more finger-friendly (but you are using Sense which also tries to correct this). 6.5.3 has the bigger, more finger-friendly buttons and the remapped Start button. See this page for a picture. Personally I like this layout better, but it involves flashing a custom ROM to get. You also have your people who prefer 6.1, a really un-finger-friendly version of Windows Mobile.
I need more tweaks and applications!
Check out these threads here and here.
Part 2: Custom ROMs.
I really wanted to stay with the stock ROM, I really did. It worked pretty damn well out of the box. It was miles ahead of the Touch Pro 1. I appreciated nearly everything working without me having to immediately flash ROMs. I, however, began to get fed up with it more and more, mainly with the keyboard. As always, it just didn't seem to be able to keep up with me. Plus, the phone was freezing now and then. So I finally broke down, hard SPLed my phone, and flashed a new ROM only because I saw that a new version of the soft keyboard was much improved. And you know what? The keyboard finally worked how I wanted it to work. So on that reason alone it was worth flashing a new ROM. But there is another thing about flashing custom ROMs:
They fix things but break others.
Yeah, you'll hear people say nothing is wrong with their ROMs, but I think that is always nearly a lie. When I flashed that ROM a while ago I had several other weird bugs pop up. Like, if I received a text while in Opera, the keyboard would pop up with no way to remove it from the screen. Yeah, it seems like bugs are just the norm with Windows Mobile. It would also freeze frequently, sometimes several times a day, and picture messages would work with one build, but not the other. It seemed like community efforts to get MMS working completely failed. I flashed a few more ROMs, some older, some from different people, but I have finally settled on one I really like.
The newest ROMs seem to fix most of the freezing issues due to that new Tilt Sense version. I recommend getting one with that. Eventually these chefs will put newer Sense and Winmo builds in that are prone to freezing. That is nature of ROM flashing--you have to do it until you find a good one. I still have to put up with the keyboard popping up in Opera, but it's worth it to having a fast keyboard and it not freezing all the time. If I flash a new ROM, it may fix that, yes, but it will probably break something else.
Afraid to flash?
Yes, it does void your warranty. Yes, you can brick your phone. Yes, you can end up with a ROM that may be more buggy than you were led to believe. You, however, have been gifted with the ability to read and comprehended. It really isn't that hard if you read the instructions on how to do it. The T-Mobile USA specific ones.
I reccomend Nitrogen for playing music. Runs perfect on my HD2 running Energy Rom, with no stutters or skipping, or stopping once the screen turns off.
http://nitrogen.wmskins.com/
For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.
PoisonWolf said:
For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.
Stickie
sirphunkee said:
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I 2nd that!
awesome!!!! great post.
It's stuff like this that makes me really appreciate this forum. Thanks!
Absolutely brilliant post!
great post.
that's all.
This thread saved my life
I just bought my Tmobile HD2 on craigslist everything was fine until i rebooted it. I had never seen an HD2 lag the way it did like i mean where is the snapdragon when u need it my friend's HD2 on the other hand ran circles around mine. I don't think i've ever had a more painful experience of htc sense but thanks to this thread i found the answer to my problems it was running the older version of the stock rom
SD Card
For those people having lag problems with the HD2. Try formatting your SD card i noticed a great difference in speed when i formatted my card then did a hard reset also i would advise you to get a better memory card like a class 6.
Thank's very helpful and excellent tuto.
thanks
thanks very informative but I still dont know what to do with this phone
Thank you for taking the time to make this, its very informative, and a fun read.
super helpful post! thanks a million!
hmm
Quick question, (I apologize, I am new to the HD2 and winmob)
I have installed and set cookie + editor along with bsb tweaks and noticed that while texting, I dont have the ability to rotate the phone into landscape mode, in other applications (photos for instance) it works just fine.
I've looked over both tweaks a few times to see if I missed anything and cant seem to find the reason why.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Robbie
QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW
BatVette said:
QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the link until I can investigate further.
Edit: okay, so I found the .CAB here, a bigger tweak guide for the HD2.
Edit 2: Okay, I ran the file through http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus and it came up completely clean. I also ran it thorough 19 scanners here and it totally came clean: http://i49.tinypic.com/2wd3n9s.jpg. I honestly have no idea why it tripped. Can you share more details?
In conclusion, Anyone who is using it is probably safe. Check it out yourself, it's been in another guide forever. I think someone else would have said something about it if it really is a virus. Maybe the advertising on rapidshare tripped your scanners? Anyone else is free to try and verify, however.
I'm new to the T Mobile HTC HD2 phone how do I download the apps onto to my phone? I can't seem to figure it out
Just a list of some small things I've seen wrong with Win 8 so far. Go ahead and share anything you've noticed, or if you know a fix for someone else's problems!
cant rearrange tabs in chrome (the second you do, it splits off and create a new window, that cant be merged back with the original window)
never tells you how to exit a metro UI app. found out that you mouse over the bottom left corner.
all metro ui apps never seem to close for me, they are just forced into a "suspended" state. (I've been closing them through task manager)
apps dont even suspend for me. How do you suspend them? they just kept running and annoying the hell out of me -.-
They stay in the alt-tab switcher, but in reality they're just cached in memory. They don't use any CPU when suspended.
If you have touch, swiping from the right brings up the charms, which allow you to go back to the start screen, among other things. If you don't, bringing the mouse to the bottom-left corner of the screen does the same thing. Hitting the windows key on the keyboard will also bring up the start screen. What I really hate is hitting Settings on that little popup menu, and having to go all the way to the right to connect to a wifi network.
The only program I've had issues with so far is Firefox. I had to disable hardware acceleration because it kept rendering badly and freezing the system. I installed Office and Quicken, and they've been working great so far. I'm gonna be using this instead of Windows 7 for a while.
GHacks.net have a nice article on Win8 problems...
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/14/what-i-do-not-like-about-windows-8/
There's also alternatively a good article on the good:
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/14/5-things-i-love-about-windows-8/
Sleep\Hibernation Problem
Windows 8 seems to have some problems with coming out of sleep and hibernation, has anyone else noticed this yet? a hard shut down is often required to become operational again.(I did install over Windows 7 to preserve User data.)
above error has been in builds post 7800 for windows 8
disable tablet settings and it should work again
I find that an easy exit from metro and such to be the windows key. Some problems I found is that my mouse track pad on my laptop doesn't scroll along the side anymore, which is starting to get bothersome. And closing apps is awkward.
I'm annoyed by the fact that the metro ie and the desktop ie are two different things. They act as two different programs - probably because they are. Aparently the metro version will be plug in free - no flash - wtf? It kind of ruins the point of running a desktop os on a mobile device when you have to switch to the non finger friendly ui in order to get full functionality. You fail microsoft. Hopefully Mozilla will release a metro-fied version of firefox. I hate ie anyways.
I'm trying to make this more finger friendly. I've got it running very nicely on my aspire 5610 hybrid franken notebook (the motherboard came from a european version with a geforce 7600) I installed the synaptics multi touch track pad drivers but it's a bit sluggish using gestures. Two finger scroll is slow and imprecise and three finger swipe is hit and miss but it is better than nothing. I want to reach out and touch this os. Anyone know of a good way to add multi touch to a notebook? I've been hunting for a 15.4in capacitive overlay to tuck in the screen bezel but can't find one. Other than that all I see are camera based solutions that seem a little iffy...
This is Windows
I just mentioned this in another post, thought I would re-post for convenience.
alt+f4 closes metro apps and will shutdown windows. Just like it has in previous versions of windows. When you close apps you will need to window key back to the start screen but the apps wont be cached or suspended.
I have to disagree with the above, Alt+F4 does NOT close Metro apps. (at least not for me.)
Metro is most definitely a separate application, since Win+D forced it away and gave me the desktop I know and love. Since Xbox Live is coming I would guess eventually the Start screen is going to see some form of Kinect integration... (which is sad because I don't really like Kinect for more than perhaps pausing/resuming Netflix)
And as for problems, anyone tried to access a folder you have to give permission for first? I end up hanging Explorer because I can't click "Continue" on that dumb permission folder. And with the "new" control panel I can't find where to turn UAC off.
Does anyone have the preview and NOT want to download the RT when it comes out? I admit there are many things which annoy me with Windows 8, it simply takes too long to get many things done compared with Windows 7. I'll still give it a go though.....
phoneyericsson said:
Does anyone have the preview and NOT want to download the RT when it comes out? I admit there are many things which annoy me with Windows 8, it simply takes too long to get many things done compared with Windows 7. I'll still give it a go though.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that it works much more effeciently than before, ill defo be downloading it and testing it, in fact if its possible i might try an upgrade of Win 7 too this time to see how that performs
i'll try it, just so i can make an educated opinion about it.
i al really digging windows 8, at first it took a while to get sued to metro, but now there are some ui things that i really like about windows 8 and i am dieing to see what they are going to change in the release preview. There are a few complaints, but we all must remember this is a beta product and our judgements should be more geard for RTM and release preview
^^^ How about the settings though? It takes me really long to change different settings...I've had to pin so many things to the bottom screen because there's no Start.
Don't laugh now...I did try without the start and I will try again...but I have been using a mod to put start back...
I do like many of the UI changes though. Also I'm keen to seen how good my laptop battery is on it, Micro said it would be better than Windows 7...also, what do you all think of Micro Security Essentials for Windows 8? They claim it's far more advanced before with some mega anti-rootkit stuff that is not available anywhere else yet...
I would upgrade to windows 8 if there is at least some way to disable metro without breaking the OS in some way. I like the backend changes and the changes to explorer, task manager, and a few other middleware apps.
Rakeesh_j said:
I would upgrade to windows 8 if there is at least some way to disable metro without breaking the OS in some way. I like the backend changes and the changes to explorer, task manager, and a few other middleware apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this!
It doesn't break anything...you install this like a program and can uninstall it. You can change the start screen to look like Xp/Vista/7/other.
http://lee-soft.com/vistart/
phoneyericsson said:
^^^ How about the settings though? It takes me really long to change different settings...I've had to pin so many things to the bottom screen because there's no Start.
Don't laugh now...I did try without the start and I will try again...but I have been using a mod to put start back...
I do like many of the UI changes though. Also I'm keen to seen how good my laptop battery is on it, Micro said it would be better than Windows 7...also, what do you all think of Micro Security Essentials for Windows 8? They claim it's far more advanced before with some mega anti-rootkit stuff that is not available anywhere else yet...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What settings you want,? Almost everything you need is a right click on the bottom left corner of the screen away, instead of reverting to something that adds the start menu, just ask us, there isn't a real reason to use the start menu as everything is still there.
Sent from my HD2 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
I'll be installing it to a VHD for native boot. I've had a lot of problems with power management causing my laptop to shut down with the CP - so much so that I went back to running Server 08 R2 (I use my laptop for Hyper-V labs). Client Hyper-V in Windows 8 CP doesn't like my Atheros wifi anyway (why HP always puts in Atheros cards, even in its business-class machines, is beyond me).
Good..... But, the most annoying thing is that the start menu has been removed.
prime_225 said:
Good..... But, the most annoying thing is that the start menu has been removed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! Almost anything I try to do takes longer because the central point is gone! I am determined to give the new menu system a try and not having a start button.
(I have cheated and use a mod to reinstall the start button see my link above if you're interested.)
dazza9075 said:
I find that it works much more effeciently than before, ill defo be downloading it and testing it, in fact if its possible i might try an upgrade of Win 7 too this time to see how that performs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I probably won't bother. I did the upgrade with both the Dev preview and the Consumer preview and both times it cocked up in different ways. Give it a shot if you so please, but don't expect it to go smoothly, and do expect that you might need to do a clean install regardless
prime_225 said:
Good..... But, the most annoying thing is that the start menu has been removed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The start menu hasn't been removed, the metro interface page is the start menu, you can start typing your search queries on that page as you would in the start orb in vista/7.
Hope in better version, really hope, too many problems with previous release for me
MantisBoy said:
The start menu hasn't been removed, the metro interface page is the start menu, you can start typing your search queries on that page as you would in the start orb in vista/7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to this.
Start Search has been in Windows since Vista, and if you still don't know how to use it then there's no helping you.
I jumped from XP to 7 when one of the first developer previews became available, and couldn't be bothered to figure out the somewhat complex re-organization of the various Control Panel items. However, once I found Start Search that didn't matter at all and I was able to get stuff done faster than XP. Example: typing [Windows Key]-p-r-i-[Enter] to get to Printer Management is much faster than moving my hand off my keyboard to my mouse, mousing to the start menu, clicking Control Panel, waiting for the Control Panel window to open, finding and clicking on the category I want, and then finding and clicking on the menu item.
The only annoying thing at present is that Control Panel Start Search results in 8 are, by default, hidden in their own category that isn't focused or expanded by default, which makes it take slightly longer to get to Control Panel items via Start Search. Aside from that I honestly don't really notice the "lack" of Start Menu. I pin the handful of apps that I (almost) always have open anyways, and everything else I launch via Start Search on my keyboard.
Keep in mind this is on a non-touch desktop environment where my workflow and usage have remained 99% the same as with Windows 7. The main reason I jumped to 8 was the frankly ridiculous boot time.
A new mobo with UEFI BIOS+SSD+Windows 8=Usable desktop from cold boot in literally 10 seconds.
DivinityCycle said:
+1 to this.
Start Search has been in Windows since Vista, and if you still don't know how to use it then there's no helping you.
I jumped from XP to 7 when one of the first developer previews became available, and couldn't be bothered to figure out the somewhat complex re-organization of the various Control Panel items. However, once I found Start Search that didn't matter at all and I was able to get stuff done faster than XP. Example: typing [Windows Key]-p-r-i-[Enter] to get to Printer Management is much faster than moving my hand off my keyboard to my mouse, mousing to the start menu, clicking Control Panel, waiting for the Control Panel window to open, finding and clicking on the category I want, and then finding and clicking on the menu item.
The only annoying thing at present is that Control Panel Start Search results in 8 are, by default, hidden in their own category that isn't focused or expanded by default, which makes it take slightly longer to get to Control Panel items via Start Search. Aside from that I honestly don't really notice the "lack" of Start Menu. I pin the handful of apps that I (almost) always have open anyways, and everything else I launch via Start Search on my keyboard.
Keep in mind this is on a non-touch desktop environment where my workflow and usage have remained 99% the same as with Windows 7. The main reason I jumped to 8 was the frankly ridiculous boot time.
A new mobo with UEFI BIOS+SSD+Windows 8=Usable desktop from cold boot in literally 10 seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agree!
And I can't wait to try the Release Preview in June. Have some problems with my wifi drivers, but nothing hard to fix.
Demaar said:
I probably won't bother. I did the upgrade with both the Dev preview and the Consumer preview and both times it cocked up in different ways. Give it a shot if you so please, but don't expect it to go smoothly, and do expect that you might need to do a clean install regardless
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
interestingly its the only way ive been able to get a couple of drivers to work, theres some changes under the hood that's really buggered up older drivers, course that might be laziness on the developers side rather than MSs fault but we shall see, im keen on trying this refresh button as well, kinda wondering how much it will gut the crap out of the all the stuff ive installed and how much is left in place, so anyway, if an upgrade doesn't work too well (and I don't think it ever has on a previously used system) ill test the refresh button as well
IDEA - wait a second...the refresh feature...does that mean that when we buy a laptop we just click refresh and reset in 5 minutes? So...we can get rid of all the bloatware inf 5 minutes? Ha
phoneyericsson said:
IDEA - wait a second...the refresh feature...does that mean that when we buy a laptop we just click refresh and reset in 5 minutes? So...we can get rid of all the bloatware inf 5 minutes? Ha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly don't know, it suggests so but then its probably possible for OEMs to "edit" the files for the refresh somehow, we shall have to wait and see
still get morw things done
I still get a lot more things done than what I could on iPAD and android tablet. I appreciate x86 for the fiest time after trying win8.
I will stick to this and x86.
Basically. I'm only switching to W8 as long as I can get rid of that crappy start screen, add a start button, boot straight to the desktop so I can actually get stuff done quickly like I have for the...past 10 years
I've seen that you can add a start button, but is there anyway to remove any of the other crap?
Honestly I feel like I am better just using W7 till they get it right (hopefully) with W9. Or whatever they'll call it. But, I've heard it is faster.
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
paolo599 said:
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never quite understood the point of those apps. Windows 8 already has all of things that supposedly adds, so why use an app that needless duplicates those things?
rstat1 said:
Never quite understood the point of those apps. Windows 8 already has all of things that supposedly adds, so why use an app that needless duplicates those things?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some people can't stand the new visual layout (it looks like the app drawer of the SGS default launcher - app icon with a random background color). Also it is fullscreen.
JihadSquad said:
Some people can't stand the new visual layout (it looks like the app drawer of the SGS default launcher - app icon with a random background color). Also it is fullscreen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you need to see the desktop you could dual screen then its only on 1 so technically half screen lol.
This said I don't get the op about getting things done faster! the new start screen smashes the old on speed. Also he said about getting to the desktop on login I don't get why its so hard to press enter and why do they say it makes it slower when it logs in more that 4times faster then 7 so even with the single button press your in and on the desktop (don't know why cos you will have to launch a program so unless you like looking at your wallpaper this is a pointless pathetic and useless argument) much faster still,
This is typical moaning for the sake of moaning nothing more. I understand saying I don't like the look etc but to say its slower or less productive is just wrong! Why is clicking a small icon on your desktop any faster then clicking a square in the start menu????????
I really want to know as I simply do not get it!!!
You do realize you can customize the start screen layout right even group programs? You do realize you can pin documents as well as programs? you do realize you can just start typing to search? and that you can unpin any clutter then still get to it with a right click? I simply don't understand why anyone in the world thinks that having a start menu with a lng list of programs is in anyway faster then the new start menu.
If you think sticking with windows 7 makes you faster you are kidding yourself its like saying I will stick with a ford focus because its faster then a Ferrari just because you don't like the dash board. If you don't like the look that's fair play but don't try to make out that windows 8 is somehow slower or more clumsy then 7!
---------- Post added at 07:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 AM ----------
Not to mention that if you don't install metro apps the only thing that's changed is the start screen, Something used for starting programs and does much faster then a list that you should see for about 1% of the time unless your really unorganized and just leave software machine gunned all over it. You can even name your groups, i challenge anyone to load windows 7 on identical hardware and beat me at getting into a program or multiple programs and documents with me on 8, cos if you did you will get smoked.
Actually naff it i have a pc to rebuild today i will do a video to prove it!
lumpaywk said:
If you need to see the desktop you could dual screen then its only on 1 so technically half screen lol.
This said I don't get the op about getting things done faster! the new start screen smashes the old on speed. Also he said about getting to the desktop on login I don't get why its so hard to press enter and why do they say it makes it slower when it logs in more that 4times faster then 7 so even with the single button press your in and on the desktop (don't know why cos you will have to launch a program so unless you like looking at your wallpaper this is a pointless pathetic and useless argument) much faster still,
This is typical moaning for the sake of moaning nothing more. I understand saying I don't like the look etc but to say its slower or less productive is just wrong! Why is clicking a small icon on your desktop any faster then clicking a square in the start menu????????
I really want to know as I simply do not get it!!!
You do realize you can customize the start screen layout right even group programs? You do realize you can pin documents as well as programs? you do realize you can just start typing to search? and that you can unpin any clutter then still get to it with a right click? I simply don't understand why anyone in the world thinks that having a start menu with a lng list of programs is in anyway faster then the new start menu.
If you think sticking with windows 7 makes you faster you are kidding yourself its like saying I will stick with a ford focus because its faster then a Ferrari just because you don't like the dash board. If you don't like the look that's fair play but don't try to make out that windows 8 is somehow slower or more clumsy then 7!
---------- Post added at 07:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 AM ----------
Not to mention that if you don't install metro apps the only thing that's changed is the start screen, Something used for starting programs and does much faster then a list that you should see for about 1% of the time unless your really unorganized and just leave software machine gunned all over it. You can even name your groups, i challenge anyone to load windows 7 on identical hardware and beat me at getting into a program or multiple programs and documents with me on 8, cos if you did you will get smoked.
Actually naff it i have a pc to rebuild today i will do a video to prove it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I am pretty sure most people who complain about it have never tried it (just watched a video) or tried it but not for long enough. It takes a little learning, but then it is much faster than Windows 7 for getting most things done.
move on people! or stick to your current OS.
it is a shame that FUD spreads so easily, but the bigger shame is that there are so many gullible individuals that take everything they read as gospel without actually understanding what it is they are reading.
Im actually tired of daft comments like the OP here, Win 8 has its issues and yet almost all the Win 8 haters don't list any of them and instead become fixated on things that are not actually wrong or any different then what is with Win 7 just now. I have no problem with constructive criticism and good debate but mindless rants of regurgitated nonsense is tiresome
ive said it once and ill say it again, the biggest obstacle for MS launching Win8 and WP 7/8 isn't how good or bad the OS is, its the stupidity of the general population or more importantly the inability for MS to get its own marketing in gear
in answer to the OPs question, is it possible to avoid metro?
the answer is yes and no, you need to use metro as a start menu which is essentially EXACTLY what it is, then you don't have to use any metro apps. you could use a more inefficient start menu as mentioned above or if you don't want a third party program you can pin a shortcut to your start menu folder on your task bar, clicking on it will open up the "start menu" which doesn't have that much less functionality than the old start menu but is utterly crap compared to the new one
dazza9075 said:
it is a shame that FUD spreads so easily, but the bigger shame is that there are so many gullible individuals that take everything they read as gospel without actually understanding what it is they are reading.
Im actually tired of daft comments like the OP here, Win 8 has its issues and yet almost all the Win 8 haters don't list any of them and instead become fixated on things that are not actually wrong or any different then what is with Win 7 just now. I have no problem with constructive criticism and good debate but mindless rants of regurgitated nonsense is tiresome
ive said it once and ill say it again, the biggest obstacle for MS launching Win8 and WP 7/8 isn't how good or bad the OS is, its the stupidity of the general population or more importantly the inability for MS to get its own marketing in gear
in answer to the OPs question, is it possible to avoid metro?
the answer is yes and no, you need to use metro as a start menu which is essentially EXACTLY what it is, then you don't have to use any metro apps. you could use a more inefficient start menu as mentioned above or if you don't want a third party program you can pin a shortcut to your start menu folder on your task bar, clicking on it will open up the "start menu" which doesn't have that much less functionality than the old start menu but is utterly crap compared to the new one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yep a better argument against windows 8 is the lack of metro on multi monitors. Or how the Server tools will not load AD in 32bit mode meaning i have to run a vm to administer exchange 2003 (only thing i now cant do even vmware is now fixed (veeam needs update but if you dont use it vmware works)).
Delete
Again. I like the speed, and new things.
But the layout? Garbage. Change is NOT needed for things to be new. We've had the same layout for 15+ years nearly.
Hell, **** steering wheels. Let's add a small ball you turn with your head. Why not? Don't complain, accept change.
That's basically what some of you are saying.
Locklear308 said:
Again. I like the speed, and new things.
But the layout? Garbage. Change is NOT needed for things to be new. We've had the same layout for 15+ years nearly.
Hell, **** steering wheels. Let's add a small ball you turn with your head. Why not? Don't complain, accept change.
That's basically what some of you are saying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the current layout of the modern automobile came out it was really unpopular and people said it would never take on.
I don't get why you think the layout is garbage but each to there own. What I see is a way that is much much faster and easier to get to what I need quickly. In the old start menu I had to click all programs find the top folder open that to a sub list then find what I wanted. No its there straight away. That's 4 clicks down to 2 and I can lay it out by whatever means I like not in alphabetical order. For example my machine at work is separated into categories tools, programs, office, documents, personal (games and kindle etc for lunch break), remote desktops and power options. means if I need something fast its right there I can pin documents as well as terminal servers to my start next to my software.
I would really love someone to explain quite how they think a list with sub lists is a better more productive method because I really don't see it.
Locklear308 said:
Again. I like the speed, and new things.
But the layout? Garbage. Change is NOT needed for things to be new. We've had the same layout for 15+ years nearly.
Hell, **** steering wheels. Let's add a small ball you turn with your head. Why not? Don't complain, accept change.
That's basically what some of you are saying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what layout? desktop is there, the task bar is there, the start menu is significantly enhanced but is still there, you don't have to use metro and its apps if don't want to, and if that is so the metro interface becomes an interactive start menu that takes no more time to open than the old start menu, and is much quicker to load programs as and when you need them
it DOES take a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it its great and much more efficient, I have nothing to gain from trying to show people that perhaps what they have read or experienced for 5 min isn't the be all and end all of Win 8.
If you choose not to open your mind to the possibility that win 8 is actually pretty efficient when you get the hang of it then its no skin off my nose. That would simply be your loss but if you have based your decision from nothing but the words of others and perhaps a 5 min or even a couple of days trial on your own then your decision is a fail and your opinion is worthless.
If you have used it for a good while then I would have thought that the other issues Win 8 has would be the first things you bring up against it, but these issues are rarely mentioned by those that have not used it much, probably because they never used it long enough to experience them, which is why we get fed up with pointless "metro" comments with no further substance
Using your analogy of a daft car reference, if I dropped you in to a Bugatti Veyron as it were your first experience in a car, you would need to learn to use the obscenely powerful car for a while, getting to know it before taking it for a spin around the Nurburg ring . Not learning to use it and spinning off and crashing every 5 min wouldn't be fun so unless you learnt to use it you would never enjoy it.
The simple answer is Windows 7.
Locklear308 said:
Basically. I'm only switching to W8 as long as I can get rid of that crappy start screen, add a start button, boot straight to the desktop so I can actually get stuff done quickly like I have for the...past 10 years
I've seen that you can add a start button, but is there anyway to remove any of the other crap?
Honestly I feel like I am better just using W7 till they get it right (hopefully) with W9. Or whatever they'll call it. But, I've heard it is faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A: Pin your desktop apps you use all the time to the task bar. Duh.
B: If you have ever launched an app from the desktop you have used the new "metro garbage". Most users don't even use the Start Menu but if you took away their full-screen launcher (the desktop) they would be lost.
C: Since it was introduced, the Start Menu has changed with EVERY release of Windows. Windows 7 Start Menu is not the Windows 95 Start Menu
Most people only multi-task between two applications and multiple studies (totally unrelated to Microsoft) have found that people are LESS productive when they multitask.
Don't even get me started about your claims of "get stuff done quickly" related to classic Windows, according to every study ever done on that matter, if you were worried about "getting stuff done quickly" you would be using a Mac. There has never been a study that shows people are more productive on Windows than on a Mac.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/pokki-brings-the-start-menu-back-to-windows-8/
Just install this and you'll be back to normal
Sent from my SCH-R530U using xda app-developers app
conmanxtreme said:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/pokki-brings-the-start-menu-back-to-windows-8/
Just install this and you'll be back to normal
Sent from my SCH-R530U using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
install that and .....have a seizure
each to their own I guess but I cant for the life of me work out why anyone would want to take a 3rd part app that looks like a malformed, limp bastardized love child of Win 98 and Metro over the efficient informative metro that is already there.
I must be getting too old to understand all this "living in the past" new age nonsense
Ways to avoid Metro:
Launch programs from Windows Explorer (hell, leave Explorer open to the Start Menu folders if you really want to).
Launch programs from the taskbar (after pinning them there).
Launch programs from the desktop (all too many programs still try put themselves there by default).
Launch programs using Run (Win+R, same as on basically every other Windows version).
Launch programs using the command line (cmd.exe or Powershell, yes, they're both present).
Launch programs using the Address toolbar for the taskbar.
Close your eyes, hit the Windows key, type the first few letters of a program name, and hit Enter, while pretending you're on Win7 (or even Vista, which added this feature).
I honestly don't get this fixation on "Metro" (in quotes because of Microsoft's stupid name-games). It's honestly almost irrelevant to my WIn8 experience; I use this OS in pretty much the same way I've used all other NT6.x versions, using Start as little more than an unusually large search box with a really handy one-click access. It got a bit bigger in this version, and accessing "Settings" or files now takes a couple more clicks than is used to, but otherwise it's functionally the same for me. I did find the Charms bar a little confusing, for the first 5 minutes. Now I simply know to use it for things like accessing the power controls, and it's no big deal at all.
Another windows millenium
arczangel said:
move on people! or stick to your current OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sticking with W7
conmanxtreme said:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/pokki-brings-the-start-menu-back-to-windows-8/
Just install this and you'll be back to normal
Sent from my SCH-R530U using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kinda like the look of it, don't think I'd ever use it on my Win 8 Install when I upgrade as it looks more confusing than Metro, I'll probably use Start8 in combination with Metro until I get used to Metro though.
As the video what I watche yesterday it looks a tad confusing finding certain things as they are tucked away in wierd places.
Roland
Windows 8 Controller lets you control your Windows 8 PC as if it is a tablet. Just using your Android phone, you can experience the Windows 8 gestures like pinch, stretch, rotate, swipe, side gestures etc.
Easily scroll through web pages, pinch to zoom in your photos, cycle through open apps...
It's fast and fluid! Give it a try, you'll love it!
Please search for Windows 8 Controller in Google Play or Youtube
Some features of Windows 8 Controller includes:
- Multitouch gestures (pinch, stretch, swipe, rotate)
- Natural Scrolling Experience (Scroll horizontally and vertically as you scroll on a tablet)
- Use as a mouse (move, left/right/middle/double click, drag)
- Side gestures (Swipe from left/right/bottom/top to switch to next open app, show charms, show app options, close app respectively)
- Tiles Screen (A tiles screen including most needed shortcuts like show start, show desktop, open computer and much more)
- Power Options (Don't you think it's not so easy to shut down the Windows 8? Not anymore. Windows 8 Controller includes power shortcuts. Shut down, restart, hibernate, sleep, lock, log off your computer with one tap)
- Volume Control (Do you need an easy way to adjust the volume of your Windows 8 PC? You've got it! Windows 8 Controller has a volume controller by which you can adjust/mute/unmute your computer's volume from your phone. Also you can use the hardware volume buttons of your phone)
- Virtual Keyboard (Type text by using your Android's keyboard. Take advantage of auto-complete feature of your keyboard or use swype keyboard. You can even type text to your computer by using voice-to-text feature of your Android phone's keyboard)
- Easily go back/forward (Tilt your phone left/right to go back/forward in your favourite web browser or file explorer)
- Four (or five) fingers pinch (to reveal start screen easily)
- With auto-connect and quick-connect features, it is very easy to connect your phone to your computer and start using Windows 8 Controller.
kerimka said:
Windows 8 Controller lets you control your Windows 8 PC as if it is a tablet. Just using your Android phone, you can experience the Windows 8 gestures like pinch, stretch, rotate, swipe, side gestures etc.
Easily scroll through web pages, pinch to zoom in your photos, cycle through open apps...
It's fast and fluid! Give it a try, you'll love it!
Please search for Windows 8 Controller in Google Play or Youtube
Some features of Windows 8 Controller includes:
- Multitouch gestures (pinch, stretch, swipe, rotate)
- Natural Scrolling Experience (Scroll horizontally and vertically as you scroll on a tablet)
- Use as a mouse (move, left/right/middle/double click, drag)
- Side gestures (Swipe from left/right/bottom/top to switch to next open app, show charms, show app options, close app respectively)
- Tiles Screen (A tiles screen including most needed shortcuts like show start, show desktop, open computer and much more)
- Power Options (Don't you think it's not so easy to shut down the Windows 8? Not anymore. Windows 8 Controller includes power shortcuts. Shut down, restart, hibernate, sleep, lock, log off your computer with one tap)
- Volume Control (Do you need an easy way to adjust the volume of your Windows 8 PC? You've got it! Windows 8 Controller has a volume controller by which you can adjust/mute/unmute your computer's volume from your phone. Also you can use the hardware volume buttons of your phone)
- Virtual Keyboard (Type text by using your Android's keyboard. Take advantage of auto-complete feature of your keyboard or use swype keyboard. You can even type text to your computer by using voice-to-text feature of your Android phone's keyboard)
- Easily go back/forward (Tilt your phone left/right to go back/forward in your favourite web browser or file explorer)
- Four (or five) fingers pinch (to reveal start screen easily)
- With auto-connect and quick-connect features, it is very easy to connect your phone to your computer and start using Windows 8 Controller.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
side stepping the paid/free differences
The problem with wifi for this is that TCP sucks big time! there is so much redundancy built in for error checking that for anything like this, the slightest hiccup can just make it feel laggy and generally crap compared to using the real thing., ive tried to use similar programs for years and they all just annoy the buggery out of me after a while
Bluetooth offers a better solution but would have limited range and still isn't perfect, also bare in mind that everything under the sun uses 2.4GHz meaning a next door neighbours cordless phone can give you a headache too.
its just food for thought, perhaps you may live in a faraday cage and have no issues with interference, dropped packets and don't mind the slight lag that cant be removed, but not everyone is in such a fortunate position.
a Bluetooth option would be cool and of course a WP version for the grown ups
something's to keep in mind for the masses
Tempting ....
I just gave the Free "try it out app" a whirl.
I have an older laptop with non-multi touch touchpad so I was really excited about this app.
I have to echo the request for a bluetooth version of the app as well, there was definitely some odd lag going on ...
... But I can't be sure the lag wasn't being caused by the cascade of "This feature is only available in the paid version" messages I was getting.
Look, I think this app could be awesome, and I would happily pay for it, if I thought that it would work well enough to use daily. However, the experience on the Free app is really bad due to the restrictions. I understand not wanting to give away your work for free, but I think that the Free app paints a very unflattering picture of what the Full Version might be.
You may want to consider re-vamping the Free version, allowing for fewer restrictions or going to a 30 day trial, or just look at the code for how it displays the nag-message.
I'm not trying to be mean or rude, I think its a great idea, but when I say "cascade" of nag-messages I am being literal. There was a backlog of messages after closing the app so that for the next minute and a half I had "This feature ..." flashing on my home screen even after closing the app.
Good luck and I look forward to trying this again in a month or two!
I just gave the paid version a try and I'm not having any lag. It's very smooth. I haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into it, but so far it's very nice.
Anyway, whatever you do, don't drop the ball on this. Routinely I buy a paid app from a dev here and the development goes stagnant. There's a ton of potential for this app, please keep going!
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium
Specter597 said:
I just gave the Free "try it out app" a whirl.
I have an older laptop with non-multi touch touchpad so I was really excited about this app.
I have to echo the request for a bluetooth version of the app as well, there was definitely some odd lag going on ...
... But I can't be sure the lag wasn't being caused by the cascade of "This feature is only available in the paid version" messages I was getting.
Look, I think this app could be awesome, and I would happily pay for it, if I thought that it would work well enough to use daily. However, the experience on the Free app is really bad due to the restrictions. I understand not wanting to give away your work for free, but I think that the Free app paints a very unflattering picture of what the Full Version might be.
You may want to consider re-vamping the Free version, allowing for fewer restrictions or going to a 30 day trial, or just look at the code for how it displays the nag-message.
I'm not trying to be mean or rude, I think its a great idea, but when I say "cascade" of nag-messages I am being literal. There was a backlog of messages after closing the app so that for the next minute and a half I had "This feature ..." flashing on my home screen even after closing the app.
Good luck and I look forward to trying this again in a month or two!
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