$39.95 Win8 Upgrade Deal Ends 1/31/13 when Prices Go Up

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 2:25 pm

Classic Shell gives you back the start menu, bypasses metro and takes you straight to the classic desktop on boot. It also disables the metro menu hotspot in the lower left corner. That's what I use.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:07 pm

Do you have to worry about metro apps taking over and doing stuff you don't want them doing? Or will it never go into metro mode?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:27 pm

Mine never goes into Metro. If you don't launch a Metro app, it's not going to run on it's own.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:26 am

Well then 8 is starting to not sound bad.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:55 pm

Yeah I can't believe how fast 8 boots once the bios screen goes away. On my test setup, it less than 6 seconds.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:48 pm

Executioner wrote:Yeah I can't believe how fast 8 boots once the bios screen goes away. On my test setup, it less than 6 seconds.

Here's one speed, perf. test review comparing Win7 to Win8:

http://www.techspot.com/review/561-wind ... -windows7/

More here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Win8 ++ ... =firefox-a

I'll have to hash through it all myself as I'm debating if I should still nab a $40 copy or 2 for later.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:29 pm

Not a major overall performance difference - amounts to a few FPS in games, but the desktop is much smoother and boot times are very nice.

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:22 am

Have you tried disabling visual themes for the Black Ops II exe file?
Use Windows Explorer to go to your Black Ops II folder in your steam directory
Right click on the t6mp.exe file and select properties
In the Compatibility Tab select Disable Visual themes and Disable Desktop Composition
This should turn off Aero for Black Ops II multiplayer when you run it through steam.

FlyingPenguin wrote: I recently have run into an issue with Win7 on my gaming system that is tempting me to upgrade to Win8. Aero is so intimately tied into the desktop in Win7 that if you disable it (change the theme to Windows Basic) you actually have a crippled desktop. Dragging a window lags the display (at least in dual monitor mode), and any 3D games that run in a window (Minecraft for instance runs in a window even in full screen) suffers a serious performance loss. I go from 120 fps to 40 fps in Minecraft, which is unacceptable.

The reason I would like to run in the Windows Basic theme is that Win7 has an annoying feature that when it THINKS you're in the desktop and the 3D video processor is being maxed out, a notification window pops up informing you of this and recommending you disable Aero to improve performance.

This message pops up randomly when I play Black Ops II. It shouldn't, and no other game does it. It usually happens when I'm in a heavy firefight and then it kicks me to the desktop to display the pop up, which of course gets me killed. Most annoying is that there is absolutely no way of turning this feature off. I've Googled it a lot. There are many people complaining about it. It's apparently tied to a service that can't be disabled, and there is no way to selectively disable that feature.

The only solution is to either switch to the Windows Basic theme all the time (not practical because of the performance hit in Minecraft I mentioned above) or configure the compatibility settings for the Steam launcher to "Disable desktop composition" which is a fancy way of saying "Switch to Windows Basic Theme" while this app is running.

This is also not acceptable because I like to play Minecraft with Steam open so people can chat with me, or often I'm waiting 8 minutes for an opening in a Black Ops II server my friends are playing on and want to kill some time in Minecraft while waiting.

Microsoft threw out all the fluff in Win8 and went back to a lean and clean desktop GUI because Win8 needs to be able to run on low power tablets, and it needs to conserve battery power (and all that eye candy in XP and Win7 drains the battery faster).

So yeah, in a year or less I may upgrade this desktop to Win8 when the OS matures. So far I'm seeing no major compatibility issues with games or apps I use. Win8 really is more like Win7.5 with all the eye candy and superflous services yanked out. Anything that runs in Win7 that's not something like a disk utility seems to run fine on Win8.

Ironically, I can see Win8 (with a Start Menu hack) actually becoming the favored OS for power users and gamers in the long run.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 11:01 pm

Doesn't work, Nuby. Only way is to change the compatibility setting on the Steam.exe launcher app.