Well, it was a nightmare until a certain point.
In the beginning there was Windows 8 Developer Preview. Since I’m in the computer business since at least Win 3.11 (of course I had a Spectrum Z80 compatible in my childhood and played with it too, in our case these were
named HC-85 and HC-91) when I heard about the new Developer Preview for Windows 8 I was pleasantly surprised and installed it. And of course since I’m mainly using MS OS’es at work I’m somewhat if not a fan at least very well
accustomed to this kind of OS. And since Windows 7, which by the way is a very stable and robust OS MS has washed the bad image that they had since Vista or so.
The thing with the Developer Preview was that it worked very well for a semi-beta program, maybe too well. I really had no problem with that OS and used it for several months. Everything was working. On default drivers.
And now the RTM. Installed it and the fun began.First of all, my video adapter seemed to mysteriously fail once per two days or so. By failing, I mean that the screen went blank and nothing could bring the interface back, yet the computer was responding to pings from outside etc The solution was always reset. Have I mentioned that I never had problems with the video card(BFG NVIDIA 8800GTS) on any other os? After 2 or three weeks I ran out of patience and said: “Ok, maybe the default drivers are the problem, let’s install a driver from NVIDIA”. Said and done. Of course after installing the driver it looked like everything was going fine and no errors occurred. Until the next day. The same blank screen. The signed driver from NVIDIA. Waited for another month or so until a new driver was released. Installed it. Same thing. Blank screen once two days. So, if you want to play games on Windows 8 forget it for now. Half the games I’ve tried had problems with the video part and stability problems (were crashing very often).
And after countless more small harassments that doesn’t worth mentioning(the kind like: you can’t do this unless you do that. “But they’re not in any way related, I don’t understand why it’s like that.” We know better.) I was: “Ok, you’re done here.” Removed it and installed Windows 7 and happy since.
That’s my home experience.
Well, at work it’s a totally different story. Here it either works or it doesn’t. You can’t explain to an employee that something “almost” works. So the first laptop I bought after the RTM, had Windows 8 despite the bad experience I had at home.
Laptop was a Dell Inspiron with Windows 8. No paying attention to the version because I always buy the Pro version for work so I supposed that my sales contact would offer me only Pro versions of the OS. Got it, and wanted to join the domain…
Surprise! It was grayed out. So I try powershell:
PS C:\> Get-WindowsEdition -Online
And the message?
Get-WindowsEdition : The requested operation requires elevation.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-WindowsEdition -Online
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-WindowsEdition], COMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Dism.Commands.GetWindowsEditionCommand
This seems rather stupid, why would I need elevation just to see what OS is installed? It hurts my head to think of this. Finally after opening an elevated session of powershell I get Windows 8 Something. Not Pro. So I called my seller and asked about the license. He confirmed that it was a basic edition and he had mistaken so he offers me a OEM license with the price of an upgrade license so that everyone is happy.
I don’t have to wait until I get the license, I can install the OS and activate it later with the key I get from him. Started installing, no key requirement (I was surprised by that) and when I finally want to join the domain …
Same version of windows. No PRO. I looked at the computer and can’t believe my eyes. And no chance to add a key or something to activate as PRO for example. I thought I got something wrong, and started installing again. Happily, from an usb stick the installation takes 8-9 minutes so no hassle here. Again no serial number requirement and same edition of Windows 8. Not PRO.
At this moment I was certain that something was very wrong and called my seller. He begins to laugh and says that I probably didn’t format the previous installation and some residual info remained. Of course I always install clean especially when the computer is new, simply delete all the partitions, create a new one and start installing on it. Of course, what he said seemed stupid so I proposed to him to install the OS. Sent the laptop and waited. After a few hours he calls me and says to me still laughing: “Well, you were right that’s for sure, but we have a problem”. The problem was that the key was embedded in BIOS and at installation the OS automatically acquires the corresponding key and activates the version that is embedded in BIOS. “So now we can’t install the PRO version on this hardware”. And I go “What? I bought an computer with an OS and I can’t have another version even if I pay for it?” He says that “Yes. We were talking to Microsoft support and Dell support and requested a resolution for this. For example if you want to have two versions of Windows 8 that you pay for you should be able to install both of them. We’re waiting for the resolution”.
So now I was already in a world of pain. This has already going on for too long and who would understand that you can’t deliver an fully configured workstation in 4 hours or less?
Then the next business day he told me they solved it but no resolution came from MS of DELL on this issue. They simply mounted the HDD on a non-embedded serial number hardware, started installing, and afterwards moved back the drive to the laptop. This can’t get more stupid than this would you say don’t you? Just carry on 🙂
Finally I delivered the computer to the user with the necessary excuses for the waiting time and now I had an upgrade licence to Win 8 PRO.
My laptop has an Windows 7 Pro OEM license and I wanted to migrate to Windows 8.This time everything has gone very well until I wanted to install mRemoteNG … The message was that I don’t have NET Framework installed.
Yes but I have NET Framework 4. Anyways at Add/Remove Windows features you have the option to Add NET Framework 3.5 which includes
version 2 and 3. Check the button, click OK and it simply gives an error like 0x800F0906. “Well, this is new” . I search on the net and what I find out: “If your computer is WSUS client (mine is by GPO of course), you will need the install disk or the Sources\SXS folder from the install media to run: dism /online /enable-feature
/featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:e:\sxs /LimitAccess
. Whaaaaat?!?!!
So I can’t just download NET Framework 3.5 and install it?!! I need the windows install disk or files from sxs folder?!!!Microsoft you’re crazy?
Ok, I download the image from technet and finally get the Framework 3.5 installed to install mRemoteNG. 2-3 Hours of course, instead of 5 minutes.
We’re getting productive.
Now what would I need? Well RSAT of course. Download the package and install it. It took 10 seconds to install it. How nice! No errors!
Well, but were are the msc’s from RSAT? Searched even in %systemroot%\system32 and nothing. Well, this looks really interesting.
After a quick search on the net I find out that I can install RSAT ONLY if I have the EN-US Language Interface Pack installed.
Well I had EN-UK if you can imagine. So you Microsoft are telling me that only the EN-US users are interested in remotely administering servers??!?!
I didn’t even have vietnamese or something else. I had EN-UK for god sakes!?!? The solution? Simply download from technet the images with LIP’s and install from them.Now I was already so angry that at first I’ve downloaded the x86 image so I had to download again the x64. Namely mu_windows_8_language_pack_x64_dvd_917544.iso . Finally I had only to dism /online /add-package /packagepath:D:\langpacks\en-us or you can use RUN – lpksetup to install the EN-US language pack and the start the RSAT setup which took now at most 1 minute. So 2-3 hours instead of 1 minute. Greaaaaat!!!!
Now I am expecting some more nice surprises like those. Hopefully I’ve installed almost every tool I need.
Hope you didn’t had my experience with Windows 8 and simply laughed at my adventures.
Thank you Microsoft, you never let me get bored!
reiser's space or another BOFH's space 