"If you're currently using Windows RT, you won't be able to uninstall Windows RT 8.1 Preview. You'll be able to upgrade to the final edition of Windows RT 8.1 when it becomes available."
The answer is yes and no. Actually, u CAN upgrade from preview to the release version but u will lost all ur apps (both store apps and desktop apps). It only keep ur documents and other files.
If you have your Windows 8 settings sync'd to skydrive (Installed Apps and App data), you should see that your store apps are automatically installed and configured as previously. So there shouldn't be any need to manually re-install all your store apps.
I didn't even know there was going to be a DX11.2. Does it require new GPUs for full support or is it software only and works with existing DX11.1 hardware?
All is software except tiled resources which is split into two parts. Tier 1 implementations which will work on existing hardware with new drivers, and tier 2 which requires new hardware. Certain functionality is not available on tier 1 devices.
Tier 2 will only work on a small subset of hardware, such as amd's newer 7000 cards (likely harnessing their support for partially resident textures). As far as I am aware other existing 11.1 cards will not work, and will require 11.2 hardware.
Well I believe the only other existing 11.1 hardware is haswell, so that should be easy to test. According to Dave from AMD, it should work though (I would post the link from b3d, but apparently anand thinks I'm a spammer). Perhaps he meant all AMD cards that support 11.1 support tier 2? The whole situation is pretty ambiguous.
This would make sense, since AMD's newer cards (7900, not sure if the other 7000 cards do) supports partially resident textures already, and thus it seems logical that this hardware can be leveraged for tier 2 support. I'm unaware of any other 11 or 11.1 grade hardware that supports it (the GTX700 series is also 11.1)
If I query a kepler card (titan, gtx 7xx, etc), it'll return feature level 11.0. Nvidia supports some optional features but they don't support feature level 11.1 (they lack the hardware support for target independent rasterization iirc). It's confusing because Nvidia doesn't like to openly admit they don't support the latest feature level. ;)
So the big question is, does haswell (and generic d3d 11.1 cards) support tier 2?
"If I query a kepler card (titan, gtx 7xx, etc), it'll return feature level 11.0" Correct, it features some 11.1 features but because it is not compliant it is still reported as FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
"So the big question is, does haswell (and generic d3d 11.1 cards) support tier 2?" No, it does not.
"Windows 8.1 will ship with support for Intel’s Connected Standby technology for Haswell"
Connected Standby is a Windows 8/RT feature, and Intel are simply supporting it. You make it sound like it's the other way around.
I hope you guys have a detailed article on the new features. I already know most stuff so would be nice if you went in to detail because thats the stuff thats hard to find. Maybe also talk about the new DX 11.2 features and what they could mean? Also run some quick benchmarks too (i know it's just a preview but it's interesting), i hear battery life is slightly improved and RAM usage is further reduced (8 already reduced it over 7).
FWIW, the 8.1 preview defaulted to 150% scaling on my 1920x1080 screen here. Everything looked fine except Chrome which figures since it had the same issue on the Retina MacBook Pros.
the main two applications I use already advertise to windows that they are dpi aware but they do a terrible job at it. Sounds like this will continue to be an issue. I wonder if there is a way to force them into virtualization
Okay, I admit I didn´t read through all of the document but the only changes I see are a bunch of changes related to higher-dpi displays and multiple displays having different dpi:s, and how programmers can now easier adapt to those situations. I don´t see anything about getting existing apps (dpi-unaware) to look decent in high DPI settings, which for me has always been the big issue since once you turn up the dpi basically everything in desktop mode just looks awful. In what way does 8.1 improve in how it handles existing apps on single high-dpi displays? Those of you that have tried it does existing (not dpi-aware) apps look better in 8.1 than they did in win7 at high-dpi settings?
DPI-Unaware Applications DPI-unaware applications are applications thatalways render at 96 DPI, which is the lowest destop DPI plateau. This class of applications are unaware of different system DPIs. The Desktop Window Manager (DWM) virtualizes and scales these applications to account for high DPI.
Perhaps this answers your question. Can anyone with the preview verify?
Yeah, I hope that´s what it means but then I took a look at the table on p4 which lists what features have been available in different versions of windows from XP through 8.1 and there I found "DPI virtualization of DPI-unaware applications" and it´s listed as being there in Vista, 7 and 8 as well as 8.1 so nothing new. Also on p7 they say the scaling and virtualization of these was introduced in Vista and since I´ve seen how appaling Vista and 7 handles this I was hoping for something dramatically different in 8.1.
I do hope you´re right but can anybody confirm that DPI-unaware apps in fact look good (or at least much better than in 7) at higher DPI settings in 8.1? This alone would indeed be a reason for me personally to switch to 8.1 from 7...
that document states that this happens in windows vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 So I don't think this has changed in 8.1. The only thing they appear to have changed is multi monitor independent DPI and automatic DPI selection.
That was my interpretation, but I was hoping to be proven wrong since that makes the dpi setting just as useless as before for me as a one-monitor guy, and many others with me I suppose.
I think they improved the windows applications handling of DPI so they no longer look blurry (like explorer for example), and hopefully the renewed interest in DPI will force application makers to improve their scaling. Especially with the new Microsoft examples and documentation
Tricking the apps that are DPI-unaware and render all bitmap items at a much higher res (pixel-doubling or such) and then scale it down using some clever techniques (anti-aliasing?) while rendering native windows components such as borders and fonts at native res directly. Something similar to what apple does in ios. Not magic but obviously apple does unfortunately do a much better job at the moment (in win7 at least)
I fail to see how rendering bitmaps at a higher res then scaling them down helps at all. The problem is not about the images, it is about layout. Old desktops apps don't use any kind of layout machanisms, many of the controls are just placed in the window at "pos=x,y size=w,h" and windows has to conform to that. You cannot scale this in any direction or it breaks the app.
Best case scenario might be that you take these apps and simply scale everything by currentDpi/96, but there's no guarantee that that's what the user actually wants. To some degree I may desire the system DPI to scale to 125% but I may value the realestate provided by the app more than having it scale to be the same. An example of this might be in visual studio where I would rather just have more room to display code than to scale the contents of the text by 125%.
Tried it on my Yoga 13. Killed my Startisback, using a test version that still alpha. Really annoying as metro is just ridiculous to use for real work. IE11 seems broken, DPI scaling and text looks awful, FF and Chome are ok. Scrolling with the touchpad is choppy and terrible, touch is still good like IE10. FF and Chrome has really smooth touchpad scrolling bad choppy touch scrolling. IE10 was pretty good at both, excelling of coarse in touch, but IE11 is just broken now (both desktop and metro versions). Libraries are GONE! :O (Whether that's sarcastic or not depends if you ever used it). Now I see an annoying Bluetooth FTP in my drives menu in "This PC" (replacing My Computer). On Screen Keyboard still broken on my Yoga (more of a Yoga issue)
Still missing are touch gestures like maybe a back swipe or at least give us a few programmable ones like touchpads give us. A back swipe would be awesome. Unification of personalization functions would help also, they are pretty hard to find when control panel is missing the "PC Settings" options (only found in metro and hard to get to).
Overall i had higher hopes for 8.1, maybe final will be better. But overall i feel 8 has just too many bags of bugs over the incredibly solid 7. I'm already getting weird errors on a Haswell build for a friend, and was planning to move all my PCs to 8.1 as I had down my Sandy to upgrade to Haswell. I have 4 PCs with all 4 Gens of i7 and will have a long debate whether to put 7 or 8.1 on them.
Be fair it is a beta so a certain amount of bugginess is to be expected.
I use w8 on my HTPC and sitting 8-10 ft from screen, I have warmed to the start screen. For an HTPC libraries are an excellent feature. But why MS made it so difficult to include folders stored on a NAS within a library is beyond me.
For proper work desktops I would not go anywhere near w8. I do not use touch on my work desktop - heck I can barely reach my screen without incurring back ache, to go to touch screen would mean I needed longer arms
File Explorer > Right in left pane > Show Libraries.
And i don't have have most of the issues you do. DPI scaling and IE11 work fine for me. The only problems with DPI scaling are crappy 3rd party sortware that don't support it (Chrome for example).
Your touch input problems might be from not installing the latest Yoga drivers and just using the default basic ones that come with 8.1.
BTW it's stupid to make serious judgements from a BETA.
I have 5 PCs with W8Pro - it does have annoying bugs, and I do not like some aspects of the app GUI, but for home use works. I upgraded from W7Pro on all of the PCs. I would recommend W8 to you, because it handles networks, accounts and file transferring better than W7. Then it depends on price - if W8 is same money as W7 licenses - get it. If W7 is cheaper, get that one. W8 is definitely not worth any price premium. If you have to pay full license price aka $100ish for W8 - better go Ubuntu, Mint or Hackintosh for anything but designated gaming PC.
So if I have a window running fullscreen on my desktop and I rotate the screen from landscape to portrait then back to landscape, will it now remain maximized or will the window be "clipped"?
So the Start Button is back... *slow clap*, and the new fonts and tiles look slightly less ugly, but it still looks like a Fisher Price toy unfortunately.
the start button isnt really "back". It is just a shortcut to the modern interface. It accomplishes the same thing that simply hitting start does already
For anyone struggling with problem where your PC wouldn't wake up after the monitors went to standby mode using an AMD 7xxx card and Win 8, I'm super happy to report that it's completely fixed in the 8.1 preview using AMD's new 8.1 preview drivers.
Does anyone know if the 3.5 gig download is just a big ISO patch or a full clean install? I'm going to install a new 256g SSD and video card on my current decktop thats win 7x64 and then make a clean install of the Win 8 that I purchased late jan but never used. Can I just use this new ISO I'm downloading now and the CD key from my 8.0 or do I have to install 8.0 and then update to 8.1?
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ExodusC - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
So will we be able to upgrade from the preview to the release version?PEPCK - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
No, a fresh install will be required upon release.andrewaggb - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Do you have an official source for that? I've been trying to find a conclusive answer for x86 machines and haven't seen anything.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
So far I've only seen it confirmed for RT."If you're currently using Windows RT, you won't be able to uninstall Windows RT 8.1 Preview. You'll be able to upgrade to the final edition of Windows RT 8.1 when it becomes available."
mikeztm - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
The answer is yes and no. Actually, u CAN upgrade from preview to the release version but u will lost all ur apps (both store apps and desktop apps). It only keep ur documents and other files.dilmonen - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/previ...When you install subsequent editions of Windows 8.1 you'll be able to keep your personal files, but you'll need to reinstall your apps.
OoklaTheMok - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
If you have your Windows 8 settings sync'd to skydrive (Installed Apps and App data), you should see that your store apps are automatically installed and configured as previously. So there shouldn't be any need to manually re-install all your store apps.Willardjuice - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Ryan do you have details about d3d 11.2/wddm 1.3?codedivine - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Some docs here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/ap...ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
I didn't even know there was going to be a DX11.2. Does it require new GPUs for full support or is it software only and works with existing DX11.1 hardware?inighthawki - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
All is software except tiled resources which is split into two parts. Tier 1 implementations which will work on existing hardware with new drivers, and tier 2 which requires new hardware. Certain functionality is not available on tier 1 devices.Willardjuice - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Where is this information?Willardjuice - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
seems tier 1 = d3d 11 and tier 2 = 11.1inighthawki - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Tier 2 will only work on a small subset of hardware, such as amd's newer 7000 cards (likely harnessing their support for partially resident textures). As far as I am aware other existing 11.1 cards will not work, and will require 11.2 hardware.Willardjuice - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Well I believe the only other existing 11.1 hardware is haswell, so that should be easy to test. According to Dave from AMD, it should work though (I would post the link from b3d, but apparently anand thinks I'm a spammer). Perhaps he meant all AMD cards that support 11.1 support tier 2? The whole situation is pretty ambiguous.inighthawki - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
This would make sense, since AMD's newer cards (7900, not sure if the other 7000 cards do) supports partially resident textures already, and thus it seems logical that this hardware can be leveraged for tier 2 support. I'm unaware of any other 11 or 11.1 grade hardware that supports it (the GTX700 series is also 11.1)Willardjuice - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
No Nvidia products are 11.1. They only support feature level 11.0.inighthawki - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
It actually seems like it's a bit confusing. They do support 11.1, but not 100% compliant:http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/nvidia_kepler_not...
Willardjuice - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
If I query a kepler card (titan, gtx 7xx, etc), it'll return feature level 11.0. Nvidia supports some optional features but they don't support feature level 11.1 (they lack the hardware support for target independent rasterization iirc). It's confusing because Nvidia doesn't like to openly admit they don't support the latest feature level. ;)So the big question is, does haswell (and generic d3d 11.1 cards) support tier 2?
inighthawki - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
"If I query a kepler card (titan, gtx 7xx, etc), it'll return feature level 11.0"Correct, it features some 11.1 features but because it is not compliant it is still reported as FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
"So the big question is, does haswell (and generic d3d 11.1 cards) support tier 2?"
No, it does not.
B3an - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
"Windows 8.1 will ship with support for Intel’s Connected Standby technology for Haswell"Connected Standby is a Windows 8/RT feature, and Intel are simply supporting it. You make it sound like it's the other way around.
I hope you guys have a detailed article on the new features. I already know most stuff so would be nice if you went in to detail because thats the stuff thats hard to find. Maybe also talk about the new DX 11.2 features and what they could mean? Also run some quick benchmarks too (i know it's just a preview but it's interesting), i hear battery life is slightly improved and RAM usage is further reduced (8 already reduced it over 7).
Kirwan Computer - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Just installed Windows 8.1 on my laptop (EFI BIOS) as it failed 5 or 6 times on my desktop (non-EFI).After the first boot I come to find that it broke the Windows Home Server 2011 Alert Viewer and Launchpad functionality. I'm very impressed!
http://i.imgur.com/9aheCjq.jpg
gamefreak85 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Its a beta, what do you expect. :/skiboysteve - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Brian, where do you see that it includes new DPI scaling features? I don't see any Microsoft information about thisaicom - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
There's a blurb written about it in the developer guide - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/apps/bg184...There's also a document about the high-DPI changes in Win 8.1 (linked from the previous page) - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=307061
FWIW, the 8.1 preview defaulted to 150% scaling on my 1920x1080 screen here. Everything looked fine except Chrome which figures since it had the same issue on the Retina MacBook Pros.
skiboysteve - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
That second link is awesome. Thanks for sharing.the main two applications I use already advertise to windows that they are dpi aware but they do a terrible job at it. Sounds like this will continue to be an issue. I wonder if there is a way to force them into virtualization
thylboy - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Okay, I admit I didn´t read through all of the document but the only changes I see are a bunch of changes related to higher-dpi displays and multiple displays having different dpi:s, and how programmers can now easier adapt to those situations. I don´t see anything about getting existing apps (dpi-unaware) to look decent in high DPI settings, which for me has always been the big issue since once you turn up the dpi basically everything in desktop mode just looks awful. In what way does 8.1 improve in how it handles existing apps on single high-dpi displays? Those of you that have tried it does existing (not dpi-aware) apps look better in 8.1 than they did in win7 at high-dpi settings?JPForums - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
From p.5 of the document linked above:DPI-Unaware Applications
DPI-unaware applications are applications thatalways render at 96 DPI, which is the lowest destop DPI plateau. This class of applications are unaware of different system DPIs. The Desktop Window Manager (DWM) virtualizes and scales these applications to account for high DPI.
Perhaps this answers your question.
Can anyone with the preview verify?
thylboy - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Yeah, I hope that´s what it means but then I took a look at the table on p4 which lists what features have been available in different versions of windows from XP through 8.1 and there I found "DPI virtualization of DPI-unaware applications" and it´s listed as being there in Vista, 7 and 8 as well as 8.1 so nothing new. Also on p7 they say the scaling and virtualization of these was introduced in Vista and since I´ve seen how appaling Vista and 7 handles this I was hoping for something dramatically different in 8.1.I do hope you´re right but can anybody confirm that DPI-unaware apps in fact look good (or at least much better than in 7) at higher DPI settings in 8.1? This alone would indeed be a reason for me personally to switch to 8.1 from 7...
skiboysteve - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
that document states that this happens in windows vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 So I don't think this has changed in 8.1. The only thing they appear to have changed is multi monitor independent DPI and automatic DPI selection.thylboy - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
That was my interpretation, but I was hoping to be proven wrong since that makes the dpi setting just as useless as before for me as a one-monitor guy, and many others with me I suppose.skiboysteve - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
I think they improved the windows applications handling of DPI so they no longer look blurry (like explorer for example), and hopefully the renewed interest in DPI will force application makers to improve their scaling. Especially with the new Microsoft examples and documentationthylboy - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
So they fixed the windows apps but did nothing to improve how other apps are handled then... I hope you´re wrong on that one...inighthawki - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
And how exactly do you propose they make third party dpi-unaware apps magically scale better?thylboy - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
Tricking the apps that are DPI-unaware and render all bitmap items at a much higher res (pixel-doubling or such) and then scale it down using some clever techniques (anti-aliasing?) while rendering native windows components such as borders and fonts at native res directly. Something similar to what apple does in ios. Not magic but obviously apple does unfortunately do a much better job at the moment (in win7 at least)inighthawki - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
I fail to see how rendering bitmaps at a higher res then scaling them down helps at all. The problem is not about the images, it is about layout. Old desktops apps don't use any kind of layout machanisms, many of the controls are just placed in the window at "pos=x,y size=w,h" and windows has to conform to that. You cannot scale this in any direction or it breaks the app.Best case scenario might be that you take these apps and simply scale everything by currentDpi/96, but there's no guarantee that that's what the user actually wants. To some degree I may desire the system DPI to scale to 125% but I may value the realestate provided by the app more than having it scale to be the same. An example of this might be in visual studio where I would rather just have more room to display code than to scale the contents of the text by 125%.
skiboysteve - Saturday, June 29, 2013 - link
Read the document. That is exactly what it does. DPI unaware apps are virtualized and scaled automaticallyaicom - Saturday, June 29, 2013 - link
They also added a 200% scaling option similar to how OS X scales on the Retina MacBook Pros.skiboysteve - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Brian, where do you see that it includes new DPI scaling features? I don't see any Microsoft information about thisHexiumVII - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Tried it on my Yoga 13. Killed my Startisback, using a test version that still alpha. Really annoying as metro is just ridiculous to use for real work. IE11 seems broken, DPI scaling and text looks awful, FF and Chome are ok. Scrolling with the touchpad is choppy and terrible, touch is still good like IE10. FF and Chrome has really smooth touchpad scrolling bad choppy touch scrolling. IE10 was pretty good at both, excelling of coarse in touch, but IE11 is just broken now (both desktop and metro versions). Libraries are GONE! :O (Whether that's sarcastic or not depends if you ever used it). Now I see an annoying Bluetooth FTP in my drives menu in "This PC" (replacing My Computer). On Screen Keyboard still broken on my Yoga (more of a Yoga issue)Still missing are touch gestures like maybe a back swipe or at least give us a few programmable ones like touchpads give us. A back swipe would be awesome. Unification of personalization functions would help also, they are pretty hard to find when control panel is missing the "PC Settings" options (only found in metro and hard to get to).
Overall i had higher hopes for 8.1, maybe final will be better. But overall i feel 8 has just too many bags of bugs over the incredibly solid 7. I'm already getting weird errors on a Haswell build for a friend, and was planning to move all my PCs to 8.1 as I had down my Sandy to upgrade to Haswell. I have 4 PCs with all 4 Gens of i7 and will have a long debate whether to put 7 or 8.1 on them.
cjs150 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Be fair it is a beta so a certain amount of bugginess is to be expected.I use w8 on my HTPC and sitting 8-10 ft from screen, I have warmed to the start screen. For an HTPC libraries are an excellent feature. But why MS made it so difficult to include folders stored on a NAS within a library is beyond me.
For proper work desktops I would not go anywhere near w8. I do not use touch on my work desktop - heck I can barely reach my screen without incurring back ache, to go to touch screen would mean I needed longer arms
B3an - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
File Explorer > Right in left pane > Show Libraries.And i don't have have most of the issues you do. DPI scaling and IE11 work fine for me. The only problems with DPI scaling are crappy 3rd party sortware that don't support it (Chrome for example).
Your touch input problems might be from not installing the latest Yoga drivers and just using the default basic ones that come with 8.1.
BTW it's stupid to make serious judgements from a BETA.
Ananke - Thursday, July 11, 2013 - link
I have 5 PCs with W8Pro - it does have annoying bugs, and I do not like some aspects of the app GUI, but for home use works. I upgraded from W7Pro on all of the PCs. I would recommend W8 to you, because it handles networks, accounts and file transferring better than W7. Then it depends on price - if W8 is same money as W7 licenses - get it. If W7 is cheaper, get that one. W8 is definitely not worth any price premium.If you have to pay full license price aka $100ish for W8 - better go Ubuntu, Mint or Hackintosh for anything but designated gaming PC.
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
So if I have a window running fullscreen on my desktop and I rotate the screen from landscape to portrait then back to landscape, will it now remain maximized or will the window be "clipped"?HardwareDufus - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Can we get rid of all of the gay tile colors? I have no use for bright yellow, purple, magenta, cyan squares on my desktop.powerarmour - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
So the Start Button is back... *slow clap*, and the new fonts and tiles look slightly less ugly, but it still looks like a Fisher Price toy unfortunately.thesavvymage - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
the start button isnt really "back". It is just a shortcut to the modern interface. It accomplishes the same thing that simply hitting start does alreadysnajk138 - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
It is back, what isn't back is the start menu.inighthawki - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
So how does this make it not a start button?mscrivo - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
For anyone struggling with problem where your PC wouldn't wake up after the monitors went to standby mode using an AMD 7xxx card and Win 8, I'm super happy to report that it's completely fixed in the 8.1 preview using AMD's new 8.1 preview drivers.HideOut - Monday, July 1, 2013 - link
Does anyone know if the 3.5 gig download is just a big ISO patch or a full clean install? I'm going to install a new 256g SSD and video card on my current decktop thats win 7x64 and then make a clean install of the Win 8 that I purchased late jan but never used. Can I just use this new ISO I'm downloading now and the CD key from my 8.0 or do I have to install 8.0 and then update to 8.1?peter589 - Thursday, February 13, 2014 - link
You can get an amazing activation experience by just searching for ^^^win8.1 key sale^^^ from google,