Windows 8.1: Update (Follow-Up: Apps Not Working)

I haven't posted in a while because I been pretty busy at work, plus the holidays, and our family vacation, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Anyway, I ran into a little problem recently when I noticed that some of my Windows 8 apps weren't working. I realized that I hadn't used some of them since before upgrading to Windows 8.1.

The apps that I've noticed not working (so far) include:

• Windows Media Player
• iHeartRadio
• Netflix
• Xbox 360 SmartGlass
• Games

I did a Google search and realized this was very common. Certain apps that came preinstalled in Windows 8 stopped working when people installed the 8.1 upgrade.

It seemed the best course of action was to uninstall and reinstall the apps. This is a simple process and only took a couple minutes for each app.

To uninstall the affected app, go to your Start screen and right click the app. You'll see something like this:

Click on "Uninstall" in the bottom ribbon and you'll see a confirmation pop-up like this:

Simply left click on "Uninstall" to confirm and Windows will remove the app.

To reinstall the app, simply open the Store app, search for the app in question and click the "Install" button:

Once the app is installed, you may need to edit the settings to use it. For example, for the Netflix app, I had to reenter the username and password to access our account. Once that was done, the app worked without issue.

Quick update, 01 Jan 14. I spent a good part of the day today identifying all my non-working Windows apps, uninstalling them, then re-installing them. Most of them were silly and frivolous, but for the sake of experimentation, I went ahead and did it. Almost all of the standard Windows 8 apps, as seen on this Microsoft page (Windows 8.1 in detail), had issues related to the upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1.

Windows 8.1: Update

I just installed the Windows 8.1 update. The most important thing I can tell you is DO NOT start it after 6 PM. It took over 3 hours to install on my laptop this evening. It took about 2 hours to download and pre-install the update, then the reboot / configuration took another 45 minutes.

Before you get started, I recommend you read this review from The Verge. It's pretty thorough and informative and tells you what you will and won't get from the update (e.g. still no Start button in desktop. Anyway, here's the article: Windows 8.1 review.

To get the update started, log into your computer like you normally would, then navigate to the Store, as explained in my 12 Oct article.

When you open the Store, you'll see a link / button to install the Windows 8.1 Update. Click on it and the download / install process will begin.

Like I said, for my laptop, it took about 2 hours to download and run the pre-install process before letting me know it was time to reboot. During this timeframe, you can do whatever you want - I was surfing Facebook, chatting with friends, playing games, etc.

The reboot / configuration process took about 45 minutes and appeared to actually perform as many as 3 partial reboots between phases. As this process is running, you'll see these phases:

• Applying changes (no idea what's actually happening here)
• Preparing devices (downloading, installing, and configuring the appropriate device drivers)
• Applying PC settings (more vagueness)
• Setting up a few more things (WHAT THINGS?)

Each of these will be accompanied by a percentage meter that gives you an indication of the progress. No more "progress meter" bar like in previous version of Windows. And, you may see vague phases in between these that say "Getting ready".

Once the reboot / config process completes, you'll need to sign in again with your user account and accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). That's followed by several basic configuration tasks such as do you want to use Bing to search in Internet Explorer? Do you want to have your computer automatically download and install important updates? Do you want to Defender to report suspicious files back to MS for evaluation as possible malware? Etc.

Once that completes, you'll go through several more configuration phases:

• Taking care of a few things
• Installing your app

During this process you'll be advised not to turn off your computer. Duh.

Once everything finally finishes, you'll end up on your Start screen. I've read and heard that a lot of people are noticing that their computer is noticeably faster. I haven't noticed that yet.

I did notice some things, though:

• As soon as the update completed, Toshiba update was telling me to install certain driver and application updates so that everything would be compatible with Windows 8.1. (I'm installing them now.)
• As soon as the update completed, I had errors opening certain items that I didn't have issues with before. (Maybe another reboot will resolve this.)

Before the update, when you moved your mouse to the lower left corner, you'd see a preview of the Start screen. Now you see the new Windows logo and you can click on it to toggle between the Start screen and the Desktop.

Rumors of the return of the Star button have been greatly exaggerated. If you need the Start button / Start menu THAT badly, there are freeware apps to give you that feature. I use Classic Shell, as addressed in my 23 Sep post. I certainly don't NEED it, but it's a nice option.


Windows 8.1 doesn't appear to be a major departure from Windows 8. It really seems more like a Service Pack to resolve several issues. Anyway, I'll drive on with the blog as before and address topics as they relate to both versions of the OS.

I'll also try to throw in some Windows 7 topics once I finally finish these first few Window 8 posts.

As always, constrictive criticism is welcome, so feel free to comment.

Windows 8: Initial Boot Up and Configuration, Part 2

Hi. I'm back. I've been kind of busy lately and had some personal stuff to focus on.
 
The short draft I made a couple weeks ago for this post listed only two items:

• Installing games
• Installing 3rd-party software such as Chrome.

 A couple weeks ago, I had some ideas of what I wanted to show you, but I seem to have forgotten any "important" points. So, I'll just wing it.

BTW, in case you haven't caught on, as an IT Geek, I admittedly have a weird sense of humor. You might want to learn to deal with it 'cause it ain't goin' away. And if you're a spelling / grammar Nazi, get over that, too. I'm not writing a graded term paper for Lit or shootin' for a Pulitzer. I'm trying to make these posts informative AND fun. I know some people find this stuff really dry and I want to avoid that.

So, on with the show.

Installing games can be done several ways, depending what type of media you're installing from. If you're installing from a CD or DVD, you put the drive in the drive and follow the normal steps. Autorun will probably present you with a pop-up menu asking what you want to do with the disc. You can select the setup or install option, as appropriate. I installed most of my games this way since I have the optical discs. I did it from the desktop as if I were still using Win7.

If you've already installed the game, and need the CD / DVD to run the game, you'll probably see the same autorun pop-up asking what you'd like to do. Usually, if you select the setup option, it'll boot to the same menu as when you originally installed the game, but will now have the option to play instead of install. I usually click the "X" in the upper right corner to close the autorun pop-ups and launch the game from my Start menu.

Installing Windows games from the Windows 8 Start screen is a little different. Let me back up a minute. Installing 3rd party games from optical media on the Win8 Start screen is very similar to the Desktop process. installing games from the Windows Store is the difference process that I'm referring to.

On your Win8 Start screen, you may see a section called "Games". I don't remember if I set that up myself or not. Either way, you'll see a tile with a silhouette of an Xbox controller that says "Games".

Click on that tile, and you'll see something similar to this. If you scroll all the way to the left, it'll also show any Xbox account you may have set up. If you scroll all the way to the right, you'll see something like this:

Click on the "windows games store" hyperlink and that's exactly where you'll go next.

As you can see in the screenshot, you can sort by new releases or genres. Just like most of the Win8 tiles menu screens, you can scroll left and right and check out games. Clicking on a tile will give you information about the game and offer you the option to install it. Some of the games are free and some are "for pay".

This is where I installed Solitaire, Minesweeper, Pac Man, etc, from. No, Solitaire and Minesweeper are no longer installed as basic apps in Win8. You have to download them from the store.

BTW, Win8 has something new. Some of the games can supposedly run on a Win8 PC AND on an Xbox console. I'm not sure how that works since I haven't tried it. Maybe I'll try it this week let you know how it goes. One thing I do know is this . . . I read in several places about how Win8 would supposedly let you play Xbox games. Not entirely true. Games made for Xbox will NOT play natively in Win8. There are supposedly emulator apps that allow that, but I haven't tried it . . . . hmmm . . . . sounds like another possible future post . . . .

Installing other non-games apps is a similar process. You'll see a tile on your Win8 Start simply called "Store". I think that's supposed to be a shopping bag on the tile.

Click on the Store tile, and you'll see (dah dah dah) Store.

There are numerous genres from which you can select apps. They come up in my laptop in the following order:

• Spotlight
• Games
• Social
• Entertainment
• Photo
• Music & Video
• Sports
• Books & Reference
• News & Weather
• Health & Fitness
• Food & Dining
• Lifestyle
• Shopping
• Travel
• Finance
• Productivity
• Tool
• Security
• Business
• Education
• Government

I don't recall which genre contains apps like Chrome. But, you can click on the "Top Paid", "Top Free", and "New & Rising" tiles to see what's available in each genre. As with the games, if you find something that interests you, you can click on the tile for more information and decide if you want to install it or not. Also just like with the games, some apps are free and some aren't.

 

 

It's really THAT simple.

 

Buuuuuut, if you're like me and still in "transition mode", you can do what I did . . . . I opened the Desktop, launched Internet Explorer, navigated to http://www.google.com/ and selected the option to install Chrome. It'll detect your OS and install the appropriate version. This'll allow you to launch the "normal" Chrome from your desktop, or launch the app from your Win8 Start screen.

 

My next post will cover how to modify your Win8 Start screen. You may have noticed from my screenshots that I've already modified mine a bit. I found a couple existing web pages that explain the process. I'll paraphrase them and share those URLs.

 

As always, I'm open to questions and constructive comments.

 

Windows 8: Initial Boot Up and Configuration, Part 1

Before I get started with tonight's post, I want to share a page with you. The page is from an organization called Goodwill Community Foundation, Inc. This particular page is a free Windows 8 tutorial: Windows 8. It has some REALLY good info on it. They also have section on Windows 98, XP, and 7, as well as MS Office apps. Hmm. They skipped ME and Vista. I wonder why?

Right. Off we go. I apologize that this post is quite long, but I'm trying to catch up.

It took a little hunting to figure out how to take screen shots of my Start screen so I can show you what I'm talking about on some of these items. Snipping Tool works in Desktop, but not the tiles Start screen. For that I had to use the Print Screen (FN + PRTSC on my laptop) button and paste the image into Paint. Bear in mind I've already done some personalizing, so my Start screen and Desktop look different than yours will at initial boot up.

During initial boot-up, I opted to use my Hotmail account as my username. You don’t have to, but I decided to. You can do this with any of the "Hotmail", “Live”, "MSN", or “Outlook” family of email accounts. The initial boot-up and configuration took maybe 15 minutes at the most. Because I entered my Hotmail email address and password, Windows logged me in as it was booting. Once Windows started, the Start Screen connected to my Hotmail account, pulled my contacts, calendar, emails, etc. If you don't have one of these email addresses, you have the option to create one during this process, or you can create whatever username you want as a local username. You'll also have the option to set a login password. or login without a password.

Windows 8 identified all Wi-Fi networks within range and I was able to easily and quickly join ours - all I had to do was select our network and enter the encryption password. Word of advice: ALWAYS encrypt your Wi-Fi networks, preferably with something strong(er) like WPA-2. Don't use WEP because any 2-bit hacker can crack your encryption key.

Here's a screen capture of the Start screen (already personalized to some degree; I'll cover that in another post soon.):

Once I figured out how to get to the Desktop, I added the key icons / shortcuts that will allow me to hit the most important stuff:

• Right-click on your desktop and choose "Personalize".
• Click the "Change Desktop Icons" link.
• Check these boxes: Computer, User’s Files, Network, Recycle Bin, and Control Panel.
• Click Apply.

This is also where you can select any of the digital images you may have to set them as your Desktop background, set your screen saver and power options, etc.:

One things that's glaringly omitted from Windows 8 is the Start Menu. I've read about this for a year and I decided to install Classic Shell right away so that I'd have a Windows 7-ish Start menu. It's free and pretty versatile.
 

 

On the Control Panel, I selected "View by: Small Icons". I prefer this view because I can see the icons for the major Control Panel applets.

When I double-clicked “Computer” on the Desktop to open “File Explorer”, I clicked on "Options", then "View" and chose the following options:

• Show the status bar.
• Always show menus.
• Display the full path.
• I unchecked the options to hide empty drives and hide file extensions.
• I left the option selected to show hidden files because I'm still importing stuff from the HDD from my old laptop. I'll deselect this later to minimize the risk of accidentally deleting something important.

New PCs are notorious for "bloatware" (aka "crapware") - apps that are installed by the manufacturer. Most PC manufacturers put these 3rd party apps in their OEM OSs because they're paid to do so. It keeps our costs down some. One of the first things most of us do when we get a new PC is remove that garbage. To do that, I downloaded and installed the latest version of CCleaner from Piriform. In case you're not familiar with it, CCleaner is a cleanup utility that allows you to remove old restore points, find and fix Registry errors, uninstall software, and cleanup other garbage like Internet browsing history, Windows Update temp files, etc. I also downloaded and installed CCleaner Enhancer from Singular Labs to add more options to CCleaner. CAUTION: Be very careful so you don't remove anything critical to your PC's operation. Defraggler is a defragmentation tool from Piriform that's better than the one built into Windows. Nowadays, though, defragging your system isn't as critical as it used to be to keep your system up-to-speed. CAUTION: Don't defrag solid state drives (SSD).

I uninstalled the MS Office 2013 trial and installed my licensed version of MS Office 2010 Professional Plus. If you don't have a licensed productivity suite, try Apache OpenOffice. It's free and the later versions are fully compatible with MS Office. You can open and edit Office files, and you can even select the option to save your files in MS Office formats.

I uninstalled the trial versions of Norton Internet Security Suite, Norton on-line back-up, and some other Norton service (I forgot what it was). I enabled and updated Windows Defender (f.n.a. MS Security Essentials, f.n.a. Windows Defender). It’s a pretty decent anti-malware suite and it's fully integrated with the Windows OS and Windows Firewall. I used it as Microsoft Security Essentials a few years ago and never had a malware infection.

I installed the Amazon Kindle app for Windows 8 and was disappointed that it only pulls from the cloud and doesn't recognize the e-books I imported from my old HDD. I have a first-generation Kindle with “collections” to sort my e-books and the Windows 8 app doesn't recognize that. Instead it lists all the Kindle e-books on our account from the cloud with no sorting. We have three active Kindles in our home, so, it can make for some confusion if the app pulls from the entire collection on the cloud. I uninstalled the Windows 8 app and installed Kindle for PC for Windows 7. It works perfectly. I sees the e-books locally on my laptop, and it allows me to synch with my Kindle so I can read on either device and not lose my place.

The Netflix app that comes pre-installed doesn't recognize the new feature of Netflix that allows multiple lists under the same account - it only sees the main watch list. Lately I've been watching Netflix streaming movies in my browser so I can access my personalized watch list. You can do this in Internet Explorer or Chrome, your choice, but I'm not sure about Firefox (I'm not a real fan of FF, even though I have to use it at work).

Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player are gone from Windows 8. I used WMC on my Windows 7 laptop to watch DVDs, TV and Netflix, and I used WMP to listen to MP3s and CDs. There are Windows 8 apps called “Music”, “Videos”, etc., in place of WMC and WMP. To get WMC and WMP, you have to install an add-in called “Windows 8 Media Center Pack” that includes both . . . if you first pay for the Windows 8 Pro Pack ($99.99) . . . then pay for the Windows 8 Media Center Pack ($9.99). I have a free MSDN license for Windows 8 Pro, so I entered that to install the additional features, and then paid for the Media Center Pack. It was pretty straightforward to import my MP3 library to WMP and set-up my TV tuner in WMC. I had to run through the TV tuner set-up in WMC twice - the first time it set it up as a digital tuner and showed channels that I didn't have access to. Once I installed it again, everything was fine.

Let me back up a moment. In order to install the Windows 8 Pro Pack, I followed the directions from this page: Get more from Windows 8. I went to the Control Panel, selected "Add features to Windows 8" and followed the directions. You can enter a code if you already have one, or you can select the option to pay by credit card. Once that was installed, I followed the same process to install the Windows 8 Media Center Pack, with the exception that I had to pay for it.

I like the iHeartRadio app. It's free and I can listen to my local radio stations, plus a couple from Ohio that air Indians, Browns, and Buckeyes games. I even found a station that plays all 80s music. You can sign up for a free iHeartRadio account even if you don't have Windows 8. And, how's this for awesome? I learned how to create a custom station with music from one of my all-time favorite bands: the Michael Stanley Band from Cleveland. The odd thing about this is that it mixes MSB music in with other similar bands from the 80's, like Loverboy, Eddie Money, etc. *shrug* I guess that's okay. I like them, too.

One of the major issues I had was uninstalling the WildTangent games app. I navigated to the Control Panel, selected Programs and Features, and uninstalled the WindTangent app. Unfortunately it left behind a lot of residual shortcuts on the Start screen and in the Start Menu. It took me a while to determine that the only way to remove them was to edit the Registry. I had to open the Registry and search for all entries for "WindTangent". I deleted or edited them as appropriate and the tiles eventually disappeared. DO NOT muck with your PC's Registry unless you have a pretty good idea what you're doing. I do it at work on a regular basis and still get twitchy nervous every time. Accidentally editing or deleting the wrong entry can "brick" your computer and it'll be a pain to recover.

I guess that about it for now. I'll cover some of the other configuration topics in a later post. As soon as I finish configuring the system the way I want, I'll start focusing on day-to-day issues (like your printer driver issue, Jamie.)

As usual, please feel free to leave comments. Most of all, please let me know if I'm giving you worthwhile information.

Windows 8: My First Impressions

I've been living with my new Windows 8 laptop for a little over a week now. It's an ongoing process to learn the new OS and configure everything the way I want. Here's my impression so far . . . .

Short version: Not hatin' it.

Longer version:

In the words of Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway, “You adapt. You overcome. You improvise.” Adaptation is necessary for survival. If we fail to adapt we become irrelevant and eventually extinct. This also applies, to a degree, to adapting to new computer technology. In order to remain technologically relevant and adept, we must adapt.

My previous laptop was an Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 with an AMD motherboard and CPU, and 3 GB of SDRAM running Windows 7.  It was a pretty decent budget laptop that I purchased while attending Capital Area Technical College. I upgraded the CPU, RAM, hard drive (HDD), and OS while I had it (I may address that in later posts - how to do it, that is). It recently died after 35 months of faithful service. I started a malware scan one night before bed and it wouldn’t boot the next morning. I determined that the power supply unit on the motherboard was fried. I pulled the hard drive and pitched the rest.

I spent a couple hours researching laptops on Amazon and found a reasonably-priced, well-equipped Toshiba Satellite C55T-A5247 laptop. I went with an Intel system this time. Intel motherboards and CPUs seem to me to be faster than AMD. I was torn between another Acer with Windows 7 or the Toshiba with Windows 8 and a touchscreen. Acers are pretty decent budget laptops, but the price and features of the Toshiba got my attention.

I'm not an early adopter by any means. I toyed with the idea of Windows 8 for about a year before I finally decided to take the plunge. Besides, as an IT geek I figured that I'd have to learn the new desktop OS soon, anyway. And, since the interface is similar to Windows Server 2012, it seemed even more logical from a professional development standpoint.

Windows 8 was developed to be lighter weight, so to speak and use less of a CPU and RAM resource hog. MS originally expressed the intent to develop a single Windows OS that could be used on the full spectrum of computing devices from smart phones to tablets to laptops to desktops to servers. They sorta kinda maybe almost came close with Windows 8, but not quite. But, that's why Windows 8 is less resource-intensive than it's more recent predecessors.

My first impression of Windows 8 is that it’s FAST compared to Windows Vista and 7. Granted, it's running on a brand new laptop with 4 GB of RAM and an Intel i3 2.4 GHz dual-core CPU, but everything runs faster – even when I imported my documents, photos, music, etc, from the USB-connected HDD from my previous laptop.

The new tile interface (tile; metro; whatever the name du jour is) will definitely take some getting used to, but any shortcomings I’ve seen so far are fairly easily overcome. One of the first things I did was learn to open the Desktop and installed the Classic Shell start menu. I'll talk about that more in my next post.

The surface, or façade if you will, of Windows 8 is a major overhaul that resembles the Windows Phone OS; however, there are more similarities to Windows Vista and 7 than you might think. I'm taking advantage of that as I learn and adapt to the new OS - and more important, adapt the OS to me.

If you prefer the Desktop environment like many of us are accustomed to, you can install and configure Classic Shell to skip the Start screen and boot into the Desktop. If you like certain icons on your Desktop, you can configure it just like in Windows Vista and 7. In other words, don't let the tile Start screen scare you away - you can either learn to love it, or bypass it altogether.

By the way, rumor has it that when the Windows 8.1 update is released, it'll have the Start menu again: Windows 8.1: The Start button, half-fulfilled.

There is a wealth of tech info available on-line to guide us through the process of learning Windows 8. I'll try to bring that information to you as I work though learning Windows 8 myself.

My next post will address some of the issues (for lack of a better word) that I encountered during my initial boot up and configuration.

Please feel free to post comments.

Knowledge is Power

I was talking with a co-worked this evening as we were leaving work. I made a comment to him to the effect that knowledge is power, but knowledge is most powerful when it's shared so that other people can have it, use it, and share it. If we share our knowledge, we're collectively more powerful than if one person - or a small group of people - horde that knowledge.

That's why I'm making this blog. Not to feed any personal ego, but to share knowledge. It's a throwback to my days as a Senior Noncommissioned Officer in the Army. A major part of my job was training Troops. Training is sharing knowledge in hopes that someone can use it to do well or do better.

I just wanted to share that. Please feel free to leave a comment.

How to Become a Blogger

I just started this blog last night and one of the first things I was asked is to explain how to blog.

Wow. Okay. I'm new to this, but here goes.

I posted on Facebook telling my friends that I was thinking about starting a blog giving advice on PCs, mainly Windows 7 and 8. I asked if they thought it was a good idea and, if so, what was a good, free blogging service. Several said they thought it's a cool idea and to go for it (paraphrased).

One friend said that he uses Blogger, which I found out is the Google blogging service. His blog focuses on his hobby of painting miniatures. Here's his page, by the way: Sergeant Crunch. (If anyone else has a blog, send me the link, or share it in a comment below.)

When I figured out that Blogger is a Google service, I used my Gmail account to create a Blogger account. It was pretty simple, really. I opted to go with the basic blogger account account instead of upgrading to Google+. After I chose the basic option, I was presented with the option to create a blog. I had options to name the blog, create a unique URL, and select a template style. Then the blog shell was created and I was taken to the "dashboard" where I was able to edit my profile. I updated some of the basic information and settings and saved it.

Back to the dashboard - I think it looked a little different this time, because I was able to select the options to create a new blog or create a new post in the blog I just created. I decided to create my initial post introducing myself, explaining my background, and the intent of my new blog. I had initially created a Word documented that I was going to share on Facebook, so I had it already started. I copied and pasted in the part I wanted, selected the font style and size, made the edits I wanted, etc.

There's a button that allows you to save the post as a draft so you don't lose anything (it also autosaves periodically). You can close Blogger and come back later to edit your post. You can also preview the post and publish, of course, it when you're done.

There's a toolbar with buttons that allow you to enter URL hyperlinks by highlighting text and insert the link, and you can upload photos and videos, change the font type / size / color, etc.

Most of the features and functions are pretty straightforward. If you hover your mouse cursor over a button in the toolbar that has a symbol instead of a printed name, you'll see a pop-up that tells you what that button does.

That's about it, really. Feel free to post any comments or questions.

Getting Started - My First Blog Post

Hi. I'm Tim. I'm a System Technician at a data center in Baton Rouge, LA. I've worked there almost 2 years. A co-worker and I manage about 250 servers running mainly MS Windows Server 2003 and MS Windows Server 2008.

I retired from the US Army shortly before starting my IT career.

I have a BS in Computer Information System from Saint Leo University in Tampa, FL; an AAS in Communications Information Technology from Capital Area Technical College in Baton Rouge; and, an AA in General Studies from Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD.

I hold the CompTIA A+, Security+, and Network+ certifications. I also have several MS certifications and I'm still working on the MSCA for Server 2008.

My PC experience goes back to January 1992 when my wife and I bought our first "IBM compatible" PC with MS-DOS v5.0 and MS Windows v3.0. Over the years I've owned or worked on computers running Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and now Windows 8.

Why does that matter?

Each time MS comes out with a major revision of the Windows OS, people - including me - have to adapt and learn the new interface.

I'm creating this blog to share my experiences mainly with Windows 7 and Windows 8. Whenever I run into something that other users might be interested in, I'll share the details of the problem and resolution. I certainly won't plagiarize anyone else's work, but I'll link to the sites where I found my resolution(s).

I think this will help me get to know the OS better and I can share my knowledge in the process.

I'm still working on configuring my laptop the way I want it and I'm drafting a Win8 "First Impressions" that I'll post in a couple days.

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Also, if you have a problem you'd like me to look into, please feel free to leave a comment or email the details and I'll get back with you ASAP.