No, it's very easy to set up local, rather than roaming profiles. It's the sort of thing that I expect would be covered in a "for Dummies" type of book. You have the choice of using a Windows Live account or a local one. I suspect there are far greater security risks in using Facebook, Twitter, etc. than this.

Anyway, enough of Windows 8. I like it and appreciate its new features and it is of no matter to me whether others like it or not. I don't have shares in Microsoft!

In reply to a post by AEP:

An example would be an eBook reader. You are reading a book on your laptop and the application knows what page you were last reading. (That happens already with a single computer.) On the train to work you open that application on your phone or tablet. It opens at the page you were last reading on your laptop.

There's nothing particularly clever or revolutionary about that though. Web based applications have been doing that for ages because they run off a central server (Amazon will maintain the contents of your basket across many computers). But even standard applications can do it - MS Outlook can remember what you've read if it's talking to Exchange and not in offline mode. I often use Outlook at home and work and the web client and applications on my two workstations are always in sync.

So with Win8 they have perhaps implemented an application agnostic synchronisation service and maybe linked it to Windows Live. But it's only a feature of Win8 because they are choosing not to back port it. It's typical of so many 'inventions' these days. Very few of these new features couldn't be implemented on existing hardware or older OSes. It's just that companies are choosing not to so as to drum up trade for new products.

I guarantee that given enough time you could write applications and services for XP that made it do everything that Windows 8 does. A tablet is just a laptop without a keyboard. It worries me sometimes that people seem to be taken by the idea that such things indicate technological progress.

In reply to a post by AEP:

I'm not talking about updating. I'm talking about a new install on a different machine.

When I installed 8 on my laptop it picked up the mail settings (for the same user account) that I had configured on my desktop machine. That is not correcting an error; it is behaviour that has not existed in the past on any Windows machine unless you are using Roaming Profiles on a Windows network. Some of the advantages of enterprise Windows is now trickling down to home users.

Not entirely true

I work with Exchange and there's this thing called 'Auto Discover' which has been present since Exchange 2007(*). You need an email client that can use it but that's also been available for many years. I got a new machine at work last month and all I did to set up Outlook was run it and click 'yes - I want to configure' and 'It's an Exchange server'. It did everything else for me including getting my inbox sync'd. That was on Windows 7. It would have done the same on Windows XP.

Exchange also now has Outlook Anywhere so you can access your server from anywhere.

It's nice if the OS is now providing synchronisation as a service to every application to avoid re-inventing the wheel but it's still a wheel. We've had data synchronisation for years. So..nice. But no cigar from me

(*)http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/exchange-autodiscover.html

I particularly know about it right now because that's the project I'm working on. Updating our software to support Exchange 2013 which mandates the use of A/D.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 29-Nov-12 13:54:33)

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Camie - none of that applies to desktop apps, therefore not affecting your multiple FF tabs and what not. I would have expected you to have known better!

That's true but the message from Microsoft appears to be that Desktop apps are 'legacy'. The desktop already feels like an unwanted step child. A bit like the way DOS applications felt/feel. I can almost imagine Windows 8 cringing and thinking 'Oh gawd, no. Not another one'.

It remains to be seen and of course there's too much money invested in the Windows desktop to kill it off overnight but I do think the writing is on the wall. I'm not sure how much longer Microsoft will be prepared to keep both 'Metro' and 'Desktop' going.

In reply to a post by DavidFinbarr:

Whoever decided to remove "Start" should no longer have a job

Undeniably. It's even worse on Server 2012. It ignores presses of the button on the front of the computer so you have to shut down using 'software'. I resorted to opening an elevated command prompt and typing 'shutdown'.

But the really silly thing about WS2012 is that everything is launched from 'Metro' but everything runs as a desktop app. Although half of it is inside the browser anyway. To be honest it feels like the GUI is just an afterthought bolted on at the last minute.

BTW: To shut down WS2012 move the cursor to bottom right. Click on the settings 'cogwheel' icon. Select Shutdown. Obvious, huh?

Edited by Andrue (Thu 29-Nov-12 14:04:28)

In reply to a post by AEP:

Even if you don't see the value of preserving the state of an application (and I'm sure you could if you tried), it adds to the capabilities of the OS rather than detracting from them.

But it can be done in any OS. It's not something only Win8 can do. Merely something they have only written for Win8.

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

The problem goes away next year as BBC has all the races thankfully.

It had all the races this year, it just wasn't allowed to show all of them in full as Sky bought the full TV rights.

I guarantee that given enough time you could write applications and services for XP that made it do everything that Windows 8 does.

It's been done. It's called Windows 8.

In reply to a post by AEP:

I guarantee that given enough time you could write applications and services for XP that made it do everything that Windows 8 does.

It's been done. It's called Windows 8.

Hehe ! Nice.

In reply to a post by CurlyWhirly:

In reply to a post by GeeTee:

The problem goes away next year as BBC has all the races thankfully.

It had all the races this year, it just wasn't allowed to show all of them in full as Sky bought the full TV rights.

Yup. And then showed in them in full, without ad breaks for no extra cost to anyone with an HD subscription. At a higher bitrate which was quite noticeable.

I didn't watch any of the build or post-race stuff but the race coverage was very good. PQ-wise better than the BBC. It'll be interesting to see if it's free again next season but this season I think Sky stepped in and did a good job. My only complaint is they way they had a single series link set up. That pulled down every qualifying session as well as the two main events.