Windows 8 Observation & info since 8.1 Update (8.1.1)

One thing (option) the Update offers is showing Store APPs on the Taskbar. Fair enough &...

Please, note: IF this is chosen, The Switcher Bar is, still, there, so they are, in effect, in 2 locations. However, the functionality is not identical @ each. Handy as it is having them on the Taskbar, there are some actions only in the Switcher Bar. Having them on the Taskbar does allow one to SEE them (all the time) & Open them without, having to 'pop out' the Switcher Bar; added convenience.

Also, notice, added functionality regarding manipulating APPs, from the Taskbar, in terms of Open, Minimize, Close & positioning. There is a wee bar @ the Top or Side of the APP. To the Right or Bottom is - & x. @ the other end, an icon for the APP which, gives maneuvering or positioning choices as per the Switcher Bar. This is part of the 'nicer for mousers' effort.

Speaking of the Switcher Bar... this may have existed, already, and I just hadn't noticed it. Found it whilst investigating things après the Update. Anyway, if you Left Clk & hold, you can 'pull' an APP off or from the Switcher Bar, it kind of 'floats', is large enough to view nicely on top of the desktop... won't, actually, 'pop' the APP until & unless you Clk on it.

Another piece of trivia going back to APPs on the Taskbar... Anything pinned to the Taskbar can be moved about, positioned wherever laterally as one wants. The same can be done w/ the APP 'icons' although, they & the 'others' don't mix together.

Hope I've said this such that it makes sense or is written so it is understandable.

Cheers,
Drew
.1

 

[whs]

There is one little difference - if cars change, I go where I like their models. If Windows changes, I have no practical alternative.

If you cover 90% of a certain market (PCs in this case), you have a civic responsibility. Everything you do has an impact on the lives of a lot of people, companies and the economy as a whole. This is not like change in other areas of technology or consumer goods where I have many choices.

 

[Drew]

I guess one can look @ it that way. Many suggest one of the cool things in Windows is the choices and the ability to personalise & customise. But, no, certainly, not like multiple brands of the same thing being available. Forgive, I think I was thinking on a larger scale, something sort of like steam locomotives & the diesel trains. I'm sure no matter what analogy I were to use, it wouldn't work.

No worries. Sorry, some have the choice to like Win8 & I, for one, made the choice to like it, I suppose. I never thought or felt like anything was "forced on me", just a new edition came along & I happened to like it & think well of it... my choice not, coercion, @ least, not in my (possibly warped) mind.

Nor would serve very well for me to sell it, service it, recommend things for it w/ my clients if, deep down, I didn't like it. I'm sure customers would likely sense that & (my) credibility would be gone. It's best if one believes in the product(s) shared by that person or company & clients or exudes some positive enthusiasm.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[whs]

Don't get me wrong. 8.1 is a good system. I have two of them. The problem is the whole direction. They are forcing things on the customer that that one may not want - e.g. OneDrive. It may look benign right now, but one day they will come and collect a fee. The same with those programs from the store. Some are free right now, but for how long. Anybody who has been in this business as long as me (for 53 years) can see the direction they are heading.

When I was system manager of the most popular operating system at the time, we did the same thing. Find ways to commit the customer to YOUR system and make it difficult for the customer to change. That's all that this is about - market share and hang on to it.

 

[Drew]

'whs',

Yes, I suppose that is a possibility. Maybe, it's a weakness or flaw on my part but, I'm not as prone to cynicism as I should be. I have been in IT for a few years, also... not as long as you but... I'm not convinced. Some things are now free & some are not. Will the free stuff become less or disappear? Maybe. But, I have a hard time to ignore all MS does give & has given for free that does not seem to change over time. Mail handlers, Media Players, Messenger & then Skype, OneNote, and many others for Consumers, for enterprise and for IT Pros (heaps of free 'tools' and utilities). Not to mention oodles of free training & courses. You mentioned OneDrive. It's free until one wants to have more space than what comes for free. That scenario exists all over the place... the basics for free & pay to go beyond that. But, that MS will eventually charge for everything, somehow I doubt it; partially history doesn't support this. Oh and how could I forget FREE security. W/out another debate about how good or bad WD is or not... it was Gate's desire since way back when that people should have FREE security & now, embedded in the OS; really doubt they will turn around & charge for WD.

Maybe, I just haven't had this career long enough to be jaded. Or I'm just weird enough to just take what there is & keep truckin'. I can't change it so I live w/ it & make the best of it. The Consumer end is one thing but, MS makes so much from enterprise a few things or level of things will stay free.

There is, certainly, a lot of bait-n-hook stuff in the world but, myself, I have a hard time seeing MS as that. Maybe, I'm blind.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[ussnorway]

The one-drive issue is the exact opposite of a windows that is security contentious… love it or hate it but you can't turn it off! That means when a hacker develops a virus | exploit for it then users will have little defence against it since they can't (even temporally) turn the application off.

p.s. the snap screen issue I was referring to earlier is explained in this post. http://windowsforum.com/threads/is-...creen-sortcut-back-in-8-1.185730/#post-596286

 

[Drew]

The one-drive issue is the exact opposite of a windows that is security contentious… love it or hate it but you can't turn it off! That means when a hacker develops a virus | exploit for it then users will have little defence against it since they can't (even temporally) turn the application off.

This ^ does not quite work because the data is not on an End User's machine but, in the cloud.

p.s. the snap screen issue I was referring to earlier is explained in this post. http://windowsforum.com/threads/is-there-a-way-to-put-the-snap-screen-sortcut-back-in-8-1.185730/#post-596286

Ok here's some info regarding "Snap"
The Keyboard shortcut is Win+period & then use <-- or --> (L or R dir. arrows) period = . (dot)

Use up to four apps side by side.
Notes:

• The Start screen can't be used side by side with another app.
• Your screen resolution must be at least 1024 x 768 to have multiple windows and apps on your screen at the same time. To check this setting, open the Settings charm, click Change PC settings, click PC and devices, and then click Display.

With a mouse
Drag your app from the top of the screen and place it on the left or right side. Then, go to the Start screen and click another app.
If you already have two apps open side by side, you can insert the app on the left, right, or middle, or replace one of the currently open apps.
You can also point to the upper-left corner and then move the pointer down to see a list of apps you've used recently. Click and drag the app to insert it.

With a keyboard
Windows logo key

+Period , then Left or Right Arrow

Qualifier: APPs must be on the Switcher Bar not, just on the Task Bar!


Cheers,
Drew

 

[davehc]

"love it or hate it but you can't turn it off!"
Hmm. I have mine turned off. No way I am putting data on the web.

 

[Drew]

"love it or hate it but you can't turn it off!"
Hmm. I have mine turned off. No way I am putting data on the web.

David, you are, certainly, welcome to feel that way, many do. I'll just mention 2 (intertwined) points...

1. Data stored in the Cloud is probably, often safer & more secure there, than on a home, office or mobile computer or HDD.
2. As IT Pros we have been pleading w/ clients, consumers & enterprise, not to backup & then store on premises. Saving data to externals, tape, disc, any media. helped if hardware failed. But, then if the building burnt down, all was lost, anyway. This concept, really, was driven home to us following things like Katrina & 9/11... data storage & recovery became a real revelation, more than ever before... and re-enforced the fact that on premise storage didn't cut it. Whereas Cloud storage does.

Cloud storage for enterprise is a god-send. Whether redundant or not it can, also, reduce the physical storage space usage or needs. We have come to see we need to be pro-active not reactive; data recovery is not a pretty proposition & happily avoided. It becomes preventive medicine. Even, End Users, if there is a natural disaster, fire, water damage, gas main explosion, break-in or robbery... again, precious, cherished, data is, still, not lost. Some environments w/ highly sensitive data will prefer not to have it on local machines or in house, @ all.

I know there is, still, paranoia regarding Cloud storage but, actually, there are good reasons to it/for it & good security, hard as that is for some to accept, @ least, @ this point in time but, that is changing... Cloud storage is becoming more understood & accepted and more used every day.

Just saying... but, not trying to argue the point or change anyone's mind.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[ussnorway]

You can tell it not to sink files but the application is still running;

To be clear; IMO the Microsoft one-drive is a nice program that MOST people will enjoy… as long as you don't put anything in it that you wouldn't want other people to see & lets be fair, it's not like Facebook is a champion of the peoples privacy.

 

[badrobot]

"love it or hate it but you can't turn it off!"
Hmm. I have mine turned off. No way I am putting data on the web.

It depends on the kind of data you store there. It's your responsibility to determine which you think is very private and confidential for you. For those kind of data, there is a USB flashdrive that you can use. For all other types of data, Onedrive should be ok to use. I've been a heavy Skydrive user before I setup my own cloud storage(Qnap system).

For paranoid people, personal cloud is a sweet investment. It has a Linux OS interface (with so many useful apps) that works in any web browsers to control your NAS remotely anywhere in the world.

 

[davehc]

Drew. Thank you for the lecture. I am aware of all of that. I was answering ussnorway-

Ussnorway. I can assure you that mine is turned off and is in no way synchronizing anything.fwiw. I have another service which I have used for many years. But I only use it to pass info and programs to others. It is then deleted.
I also found the associated synchronizing nuisance, another reason I disabled and removed it.

 

[ussnorway]

Yes davehc you would be forgiven for thinking that turning off the storage option means that Microsoft did in fact turn it off and didn't just go ahead and run the application in the background regardless.

Press [control] + [alt] + [Delete] and you will find the onedrive process is still there waiting for a hacker to take advantage of but you won't see it clearly listed in the "services" tab or the "start up" tab with the other windows apps because then the users could decide to turn it off.

Can you turn off onedrive without crashing the 8.1.1 system? Yes as long as you are happy to edit the registry which most people agree is beyond a reasonable skill set for a system user.

 

[Drew]

You can tell it not to sink files but the application is still running;

To be clear; IMO the Microsoft one-drive is a nice program that MOST people will enjoy… as long as you don't put anything in it that you wouldn't want other people to see & lets be fair, it's not like Facebook is a champion of the peoples privacy.

Personally, would never mention or discuss FB & OneDrive in the same sentence or paragraph; completely apples & oranges as far as I'm concerned. JMHO.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[davehc]

LOL.I forgive you, in turn. No reg hack. Just removed from Services;group policy and the settings

 

[ussnorway]

@davehc, It shows up as onedrive something in the "process" tab but I assume you are saying it has been removed on your system.

@Drew, a lot of my clients are surprised when they learn that the photos they placed on FB become the property of FB and can be used by FB without their permission. Imo the two services have a lot in common but I concede that I'd personally pick Onedrive other FB if I had a gun to my head and had to use one or the other.

To be clear again, If you like onedrive then use it & more power to you.

p.s. another (untested) way to stop it running without touching the registry would be to take ownership away from the trusted installer and rename the skydrive.exe in the system32 folder to something like skydrive_old.exe… that way you have it as a backup but of course, this would also generate an error id at the event manager level during login, which isn't a major stress I suppose.

 

[davehc]

I must admit that getting rid of it is not for the ordinary user. I was determined and, after disabling it, I did a search for any instances (including skydrive, which is still present and used as onedrive)). I deleted the lot. Nothing of significant interest in the event log.

 

[badrobot]

Onedrive is integrated with Win 8.1. You can turn it off but you will not be able to remove it completely (unless you force remove it as mentioned via registry). If you want to be sure that nothing is being synced on the cloud, go to Onedrive.com and Delete/Remove the backed-up device from there.

 

[strollin]

I don't find any SkyDrive or OneDrive references in Task Manager at all. Not under Processes, Details or Services. I didn't make any registry changes but I don't have OneDrive enabled on my machines since, in order to do that, OneDrive requires me to convert my machines from a local to an MS account which I do not wish to do.

I have a laptop, netbook and tablet all happily running Win 8.1.1 using a local account without OneDrive. When I sign in to my OneDrive account, it shows no devices are being backed up/synced.