Windows 8 goes RTM, have some neat shortcuts

**Whir** · August 1st, 2012, 09:36 PM

Been using 8 on my tablet-top since the first developer preview. I only knew two of these.

Keep in mind you can access all of these things via mouse too, once you understand the interface.

Some of the stuff though, I'm still not sure how it will work on a non-pointer/keyboard tablet...

The 10 Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts you need to remember | TechRepublic

**Interrupt** · August 1st, 2012, 09:57 PM

Nice post, very useful. I'm messing around with it in VMware and that sort of stuff is really good to have, especially since I primarily use a mouse and keyboard for navigation.

Looks like an interesting OS. At first I sort of blew it off and didn't like that it was so drastically different from XP/Vista/7 but it is certainly innovative and different.

**Whir** · August 1st, 2012, 10:22 PM

It's really not especially different. At least at the desktop level. Sure, there's no start menu and all that, but...

Some of the apps are a little underpowered for me, but I suppose when you're OS has to double-duty as a phone OS...

I haven't gotten to it yet, but I'll definitely be installing foobar on mine for instance. The music player has zero options that I could find (EQ what?). Though the computer OS does at least come with WMP10 or 11, or whatever version it is.

Which isn't to say all of the apps are useless, they're just designed to only do what they need to and nothing more in my opinion. For instance, the W8 video player works great so far, but you can't do anything special with it other than play video. Perfect for a phone, not so much for a power user on a computer.

Of course now that it's gone RTM, we may see some more powerful apps come out in the near future.

Too, all the media apps tie in through Xbox Live, which I do have an account for, but I have no desire to see all that crap on my media apps when I only use them to play local content. So, some good things and some bad so far for me.

**Interrupt** · August 1st, 2012, 10:37 PM

The media apps tie in to XBL? Dude, I didn't even know that. I guess I haven't really played with that part of it yet. In fact, I haven't even tried playing media on it. I'm kind of ticked off now, I would have expected it would have. You're right, it does sound a little under powered.

I do use XBL regularly but I hear you. I wouldn't want to see my media content streaming/uploading/whatever to my X-Box. I almost don't even like it some apps do that by themselves.

But yeah hopefully they'll be showing off some goodies come soon.

**Whir** · August 1st, 2012, 10:42 PM

Well, the apps as far as I can tell, just allow you to get stuff from Xbox Live, like TV-shows and music you can already buy via the service. I set up my video and music media libraries (ie dumped the files in the appropriate directories) and the came up in the apps ready to play. I don't think it streams anything anywhere or tells anyone else what you have. Though I could be wrong. I should log into my account I guess and see what's up. XD

**ShyguyXPC** · August 1st, 2012, 11:20 PM

A bit off topic, but still related to 8, I haven't read much lately on 8, but hows its optimization with AMD's latest FX series CPU's? I know supposedly they weren't properly supported with Windows 7, with all the extra cores and the way AMD's new CPU's process threads and such, but wondering, since AMD's newer, hopefully better replacement "Piledrivers" are slated to be released in the next 2 or 3 months, as well.

**Whir** · August 1st, 2012, 11:28 PM

I have no idea. I just caught that 8 went RTM from the trending tags on google+ and read this particular article since it was relevant to my usage of said OS.

My tablet-top DOES have an AMD chip, but it's an older Z82. Seems to run fine on it, but I suspect that's not the info you're looking for.

**ShyguyXPC** · August 1st, 2012, 11:36 PM

yeah, the Z82 is one of the older mobile chips. oh well, figured I'd ask, thought maybe you were really into the 8 stuff and might have an idea, I haven't really delved into it, since I first heard about it mainly being catered to mobile setups, and lacking start button and a ton of other stuff, was turned off by all that.

**Whir** · August 2nd, 2012, 01:07 AM

It does lack a familiar start button and the start menu itself has been replaced by the metro UI. Personally, I'm a little leery on that as the tiles are large and if you get a decent number of apps installed, it's going to be a lot of by-hand shuffling to get programs to be withing quick access. But, the desktop does still support icons and the desktop taskbar does still support quicklinks and even file/shortcut links like 7 does as far as I know.

However, the Metro UI-come-start-menu has an advantage or two for me. For one, you don't have to go digging through folders in the start menu to get to a program shortcut. It's just there on the UI when you hit the start key or bring up the Metro UI in one of the nineteen ways possible via mouse or touchscreen. Another is that you CAN reposition app tiles so that they are quickly accessible via mouse or touch. You can leave or even remove all the un- or lightly-used apps on the far side of the UI (where you have to scroll sideways to get to them).

**ShyguyXPC** · August 2nd, 2012, 01:21 AM

I may give it a try down the road here, at least try out the interface see how "bad" it really is. If they released 8 with a "7" mode that mimicked the 7 interface I might be more willing to use or jump to it.

Honestly I don't use the start menu that often anymore, aside from apps I don't have on my desktop or quick launch, and then there are Windows Control Panel and a few other Windows programs that I use via Start, but for most of the stuff Start is not used, so may not be as bad as it sounds.