It's official, I now hate Microsoft and windows

RANT, I guess

I have always used windows. Always liked windows. I still have a pc with XP and still love it. But tonight I really have had it up to,,,,,,,,,,

Windows 8 came out the same time the wife decided to buy me a new laptop. New system but it was easy enough to learn. Had a few issues with it (growing pains with a new system, you know, glitches) but all is well. Then they came out with the 8.1 "upgrade". No thanks.I am happy with 8.0. So here we are a year and a half later and for some reason my laptop will not print wirelessly. Call up geeksquad and they remote and fix it. Prints fine and dandy. Day later, we turn it on and we are informed 8.1 has been installed. What tha! Tech guy must have turned on the auto updates. Let's give it a try. Go to check emails. It opens up ok then just sits there. Get out of that and go to check the bank account. Put in pass word hit enter, it just sits there!! Do this several times . Everything I do it just sits there like it is working. But, accomplishes nothing.

So I take it in Friday. They downgrade to 8.0. Yayyyyyy. They turn off the auto update and so on. At least they say they did. Everything is cool . Pick it up on Tuesday. Load software back on and then spend 1 1\2hrs with remote help getting the email tile to work right. Get everything good , well for a few days. Here we are, Friday again. Guess what? Screen has a popup saying to finish updating to 8.1 I will have to restart my computer and gives me a choice of how many hours to wait to do it. So I call geeksquad. They are telling me I will eventually have to do it as microsoft is forcing the upgrades. WHAT? SO I call microsoft. Yep. It is mandatory. OK. I politely ask who is going to give me back my $1200.00? She asked why. Because I did not buy the computer for 8.1 or 8.2 or 8000.1. I bought it for 8.0.

Microsoft finally gets tired of hearing me talk and says I can downgrade back to 8.0 if I like it and it will be fine. I just will not be able to use the free stuff they offer. Um, do I use it now? No. Guess I don't need it then. Or I can upgrade and when I start having the issues mentioned before, I can call them back and they will help me with the issues.

Do not know about you but with "forced upgrades" I am not liking where computer technology is going at all.

With the constant need to stay one step ahead, or perhaps just one step behind, the viruses and malware its essential to keep your software up to date. Its a different world than when sat on an XP build for 10 years. .

I can understand updates for those reasons. But a complete "upgrade" that does not even work? I get updates all the time except on the XP as they stopped supporting it last year.

Why do you hate Win8.1? I think it's improved over Windows8 and I hated Windows8 and now I like Windows8 much better.

I would say learn Windows 8.1 for a few more months then Windows10 will be out and it's improved over Win8. I just can't use it as a daily OS because it's bad on battery life for laptops because it's only the technical release so it just pulls data for Microsoft all the time.

I would stay away from Geeksquad. They have no idea what they are doing. Someone I know brought their laptop there and they told them they needed a new HD and a new version of windows and a ton of money if they wanted to migrate their data. it was going to cost like $500 where I just bought a new HD then put in a Windows XP disk then use their factory CD of Windows XP (back when computers came with CDs) and got them up and running. Then gave them an old hard drive enclosure so they pull data when they want or copy it all at once.

Update/upgrade, a distintion with little difference. That it doesnt work is likely some issue unique to your setup.

Update is changing parameters in which something works. Like putting different fuel injectors in your car.
Upgrade is completely changing everything like taking out the four cylinder and swapping to a six cylinder.

RHChan84 wrote in post #17363198
Why do you hate Win8.1? I think it's improved over Windows8 and I hated Windows8 and now I like Windows8 much better.

I would say learn Windows 8.1 for a few more months then Windows10 will be out and it's improved over Win8. I just can't use it as a daily OS because it's bad on battery life for laptops because it's only the technical release so it just pulls data for Microsoft all the time.

I would stay away from Geeksquad. They have no idea what they are doing. Someone I know brought their laptop there and they told them they needed a new HD and a new version of windows and a ton of money if they wanted to migrate their data. it was going to cost like $500 where I just bought a new HD then put in a Windows XP disk then use their factory CD of Windows XP (back when computers came with CDs) and got them up and running. Then gave them an old hard drive enclosure so they pull data when they want or copy it all at once.

I/we do not like the layout of it at all. It is nothing like 8.0 which is what we bought the computer for in the first place. The screen is busy with all the open tabs showing whereas with 8.0 all the opens tabs are hidden off screen. You can then swipe to switch between the two. I know those couple reasons do not sound like much, but they are just two of several.

That you had to go outside of computing for your analogy proves my point. 8.1 is an update.

So I guess going by your standards, XP to 8.0 was an "update"? Get real They call 8.o and operating system for a reason. They also call 8.1 an operating system for a reason.

I use "outside of computing analogies" for a reason. So anyone can understand it

If you don't have anything helpful to contribute, how about just going to another thread?

PeteD wrote in post #17363226
Update is changing parameters in which something works. Like putting different fuel injectors in your car.
Upgrade is completely changing everything like taking out the four cylinder and swapping to a six cylinder.

Open up any thesaurus. Upgrade and update are synonyms. In any case you might want to consider a real OS update by moving to Apple's OS X. It's quite an upgrade.

I have a 2014 I Mac. They already want me to upgrade to Yosemite. But you got to give credit card info for a free upgrade. No thanks

Boy are you hung up on a digit. Its the same operating system with updates packaged. They've done it with most versions of Windows. But believe what you want, but its going to impede getting to the bottom of your problems if you hold on to that nonsensical distinction.

PeteD wrote in post #17363250
I have a 2014 I Mac. They already want me to upgrade to Yosemite. But you got to give credit card info for a free upgrade. No thanks

Ask anyone you know who runs Yosemite to create a bootable install partition for you on a USB drive. No credit card required. Problem solved.

PeteD wrote in post #17363233
I/we do not like the layout of it at all. It is nothing like 8.0 which is what we bought the computer for in the first place. The screen is busy with all the open tabs showing whereas with 8.0 all the opens tabs are hidden off screen. You can then swipe to switch between the two. I know those couple reasons do not sound like much, but they are just two of several.

I am not sure what you mean by open tabs but I am just going to assume on the desktop on the taskbar. I do find that "not clean" but that has always been part of windows.

I can still swipe to switch between programs on my Surface Pro with 8.1 so you should still be able to do it. Unless you do not have a touch screen and you are using your mouse which you have to turn on for that function to work.

I know this is going to be tedious but maybe we can work through it to see what is it that is causing you issues.

Sorry If i cannot be any more of help.

nqjudo wrote in post #17363258
Ask anyone you know who runs Yosemite to create a bootable install partition for you on a USB drive. No credit card required. Problem solved.

But why run a bootable install partition if an upgrade is free? If they list it as free then it should just be Download then install. No need to put in a credit card info. I would have to agree with OP on this one.