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#206362 - 2012-12-04 12:32 AM The Joy of Windows 8
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	Well, I'm in the process of switching to Windows 8. I thought I would pass along my experiences with it as it pertains to kix. However, to start I thought I would mention my first experiences... On my new computer (with SSD) it absolutely screams. I can hit restart, and have the start menu up and running again within 10 seconds. I dislike the Start Menu less than I did in the beta's, but it is only because I figured out why I hated it so much. For some people, I don't guess losing the start menu to the start screen is all that big of a deal. But for me, I used the original like crazy. After quite a bit of work I have come to this as my start screen. The first grouped icons reproduces the second column on the original start menu. The second grouped column of icons is my most frequently used. The real work was figuring out how to make some of the icons in the first grouped column. Shutdown, Restart, and Run icons can be recreated by creating a new shortcut and using the following commands: shutdown - shutdown /s /t 0 restart - shutdown /r /t 0 run - %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{2559a1f3-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0} I guess I need to load up some scripts and see how kix behaves now.
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#206364 - 2012-12-04 07:12 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
mole mole Getting the hang of it Registered: 2003-01-01 Posts: 77 Loc: Indian Head, Maryland, USA	Allen, Thanks for your post on Windows 8. I recall your posts about Windows 7, when it first appeared, were very helpful. I concur that windows 8 is very quick to reboot. Like most I find the GUI somewhat challenged. Classic Shell restored some GUI utility for me though it may not be approved for many large networks, it does bridge some end-user training, at least on my part. Many of my Kix scripts are of the maintenance kind and run in the system context or admin account. I noticed the @userid macro returns the computername followed by a $ when run as the system from a GPO. Prior versions of windows running scripts the same way return SYSTEM from @userid. If you use the macro to determine the account your scripts run in you might need to make a few tweaks if one of them is from a system context or GPO such as mine. _________________________ mole Who is John Galt?
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#206365 - 2012-12-04 11:21 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: mole]
It_took_my_meds It_took_my_meds Hey THIS is FUN Registered: 2003-05-07 Posts: 273 Loc: Sydney, Australia	Quote: I noticed the @userid macro returns the computername followed by a $ when run as the system from a GPO. Prior versions of windows running scripts the same way return SYSTEM from @userid Thanks for the tip, these are the types of things that trip us up and that the community need to know about and remediate. I couple of my scripts would fall victim to this.
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#206366 - 2012-12-04 11:26 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: It_took_my_meds]
Robdutoit Robdutoit Hey THIS is FUN Registered: 2012-03-27 Posts: 363 Loc: London, England	I will be trialling out windows 8 over xmas. Apart from the speed of booting and the concept of having all your icons on the desktop, which I am not keen on as I like to use my desktop to save work that I am currently working on. What would you consider to be the benefit of windows 8 over windows 7? Is it quicker to deploy, easier for twits to use?
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#206367 - 2012-12-04 01:44 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: It_took_my_meds]
Lonkero Lonkero KiX Master Guru Registered: 2001-06-05 Posts: 22346 Loc: OK	Originally Posted By: It_took_my_meds Quote: I noticed the @userid macro returns the computername followed by a $ when run as the system from a GPO. Prior versions of windows running scripts the same way return SYSTEM from @userid Thanks for the tip, these are the types of things that trip us up and that the community need to know about and remediate. I couple of my scripts would fall victim to this. is this also the case if the computer is not joined to a domain? _________________________ ! download KiXnet
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#206368 - 2012-12-04 01:48 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Robdutoit]
Lonkero Lonkero KiX Master Guru Registered: 2001-06-05 Posts: 22346 Loc: OK	Originally Posted By: Robdutoit I will be trialling out windows 8 over xmas. Apart from the speed of booting and the concept of having all your icons on the desktop, which I am not keen on as I like to use my desktop to save work that I am currently working on. What would you consider to be the benefit of windows 8 over windows 7? Is it quicker to deploy, easier for twits to use? harder for users to use anything else than what you have deployed to their start screen. what I want to know is there actually any difference with the community preview that one of my laptops have been running for 6+ months and the release? if the GUI is as awful, it just isn't worth it. _________________________ ! download KiXnet
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#206369 - 2012-12-04 03:37 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Lonkero]
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	Speaking of the Shell changers, like Classic and Start8, I so wanted to give in and use Start8, but the thought of buying that for every computer I touch was not very satisfying, nor do I like have to bolt on something to the OS. Those types of programs can so easily be broken by MS, or one of their updates/service packs, that I just hate to go down that road. The thing that stuck in my mind was how much I disliked the original start menu (XP), until I forced myself to use it. Not long after I made the switch, I couldn't stand to use the classic menus anymore. So, here I am using the new Start screen, and we shall see if I have a similar experience. One negative I've found already is, I use the right click shortcut menus on many icons/shortcuts, which do not work on the new Start Screen. Windows 7 is prettier than Windows 8. 8 has the flat colors and the big ugly close, minimize buttons. Now I can live this, but I'm just saying... it is a step backwards. As Lonk mentions, training is going to be an issue. While not impossible, it is not obvious how to put icons on your start menu or on the taskbar. However putting icons on the desktop is way too complicated if you want to use the new Start Screen. So lets say you want to put cmd.exe on the desktop. This icon will not appear on the start screen by default. So, you either have to just know to type in cmd on the start screen and it will appear, or you have to go to the opposite side of the screen and pull up the search charm and either type or search through all the icons to find it. Then, you have to right click on it, which brings up a menu across the bottom of the screen, which has pin to Start and Taskbar, but no option to pin to desktop. So, then you have click on "Open File Location", which opens an explorer window where the short cut is stored. Next, you have to tell your users to make sure to not drag and drop the shortcut to the desktop or it will be removed from it's proper location. Of course you could always right click on the desktop, new, shortcut, but I have not had much luck training people to use this as it requires more knowledge about the programs real file name to really work. Mole, would you submit your bug to the Beta section so that Ruud see's it. I don't think he reads anything but that forum.
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#206370 - 2012-12-04 08:42 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
Glenn Barnas Glenn Barnas KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-01-28 Posts: 4396 Loc: New Jersey	We've had a Windows 8 and Server 2012 up for testing for about 2 months.. So far, I haven't encountered any issues with the Kix-based scripts that we use. tsAdm 3.2 (based on Schedtsks.exe) works, as does our login script. Our Log Maintenance utility works on Server, both as a service and as a command-line tool (we don't use log maintenance on workstations). tsAdm uses Kixforms for a GUI, and the Log Maint service uses Kixforms for advanced capabilties unrelated to any GUI, so KF seems to work as well on both platforms. Glenn _________________________ Actually I am a Rocket Scientist! $\:D$
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#206372 - 2012-12-04 10:28 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Glenn Barnas]
Mart Mart KiX Supporter Registered: 2002-03-27 Posts: 4673 Loc: The Netherlands	Hmmmm....might be worth the effort of setting up a test system. Thanks for the insights so far. _________________________ Mart - Chuck Norris once sold ebay to ebay on ebay.
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#206373 - 2012-12-04 11:33 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Mart]
Robdutoit Robdutoit Hey THIS is FUN Registered: 2012-03-27 Posts: 363 Loc: London, England	Thanks for the feedback Allen. I will give Windows 8 a go and see what I think. I noticed that you are using my favourite PDF viewer program. You have just gone up a notch in my esteem my good man. And you are are a Firefox fan. Cool. But I think you need to do something about that horrible blue e next to it ha ha.
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#206374 - 2012-12-05 12:20 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
mole mole Getting the hang of it Registered: 2003-01-01 Posts: 77 Loc: Indian Head, Maryland, USA	Quote: Mole, would you submit your bug to the Beta section ... Bug? I thought it was a Win 8 "feature". $\:\)$ Sure, I'll post it there. While you are testing Win 8, why not test drive MS Office 2013? _________________________ mole Who is John Galt?
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#206376 - 2012-12-05 12:51 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Lonkero]
mole mole Getting the hang of it Registered: 2003-01-01 Posts: 77 Loc: Indian Head, Maryland, USA	Quote: is this also the case if the computer is not joined to a domain? Have not tested that. Would not surprise me if it was different though. _________________________ mole Who is John Galt?
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#206377 - 2012-12-05 02:11 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: mole]
Lonkero Lonkero KiX Master Guru Registered: 2001-06-05 Posts: 22346 Loc: OK	SYSTEM and @wksta$ are two different accounts, as far as I know. so local system account showing as the domain computer account most likely is a bug in win8 itself. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680595.aspx Quote: The Local System account does not have any rights to access the network. When network access is necessary, Local System uses the account Domain\computername$. _________________________ ! download KiXnet
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#206379 - 2012-12-05 01:53 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Lonkero]
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	So I'm no fan of the UAC, especially on my own computer, and it is usually one of the first things I turn off. Well I did that, but I kept getting prompts here and there, and I would go check the UAC settings and it was indeed off. Finally, I noticed that whenever I attempted to write to the Program Files directory the prompt was coming even though I had told it not to. A little googling produced a Local Policy setting that needed to be changed that REALLY REALLY (/sarcasm) gives you admin privs... Local Policies\Security Options\User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin approval mode. Disable this and all is well OR NOT! Click on any Metro app and this is what happens... OMG! Seriously?
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#206380 - 2012-12-05 02:48 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	It seems there is a fix for this, but I'm not sure I want to go down this road... sigh http://www.alltechtalk.net/forum/thread-bypass-windows-8-uac-while-keeping-metro
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#206381 - 2012-12-05 04:26 PM

Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]

ShaneEP Offline

MM club member

Registered: 2002-11-29
Posts: 2125
Loc: Tulsa, OK

Allen, since you're in the process of testing Windows 8, you might want this script for macros. If you haven't already created similar. Had it from testing KiX.Net.

Code:

"adress: "+@address ?
"build: "+@build ?		
"color: "+@color ?		
"comment: "+@comment ?		
"cpu: "+@cpu ?			
"crlf: "+@crlf ?		
"csd: "+@csd ?			
"curdir: "+@curdir ?		
"date: "+@date ?		
"day: "+@day ?			
"domain: "+@domain ?		
"dos: "+@dos ?			
"error: "+@error ?		
"fullname: "+@fullname ?	
"homedir: "+@homedir ?		
"homedrive: "+@homedrive ?	
"homeshr: "+@homeshr ?		
"hostname: "+@hostname ?	
"inwin: "+@inwin ?		
"ipaddress0: "+@ipaddress0 ?	
"ipaddress1: "+@ipaddress1 ?	
"ipaddress2: "+@ipaddress2 ?	
"ipaddress3: "+@ipaddress3 ?	
"kix: "+@kix ?			
"lanroot: "+@lanroot ?		
"ldomain: "+@ldomain ?		
"ldrive: "+@ldrive ?		
"lm: "+@lm ?			
"logonmode: "+@logonmode ?
"longhomedir: "+@longhomedir ?	
"lserver: "+@lserver ?		
"maxpwage: "+@maxpwage ?	
"mdayno: "+@mdayno ?		
"mhz: "+@mhz ?			
"monthno: "+@monthno ?		
"month: "+@month ?		
"msecs: "+@msecs ?		
"onwow64: "+@onwow64 ?		
"pid: "+@pid ?			
"primarygroup: "+@primarygroup ?
"priv: "+@priv ?		
"productsuite: "+@productsuite ?
"producttype: "+@producttype ?	
"programfilesx86: "+@programfilesx86 ?	
"pwage: "+@pwage ?		
"ras: "+@ras ?
"result: "+@result ?		
"rserver: "+@rserver ?		
"scriptdir: "+@scriptdir ?	
"scriptexe: "+@scriptexe ?	
"scriptname: "+@scriptname ?
"serror: "+@serror ?		
"sid: "+@sid ?			
"site: "+@site ?		
"startdir: "+@startdir ?	
"syslang: "+@syslang ?		
"ticks: "+@ticks ?		
"time: "+@time ?		
"tssession: "+@tssession ?	
"userid: "+@userid ?		
"userlang: "+@userlang ?	
"wdayno: "+@wdayno ?		
"wksta: "+@wksta ?		
"wuserid: "+@wuserid ?		
"ydayno: "+@ydayno ?		
"year: "+@year ?		

get $

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#206383 - 2012-12-05 04:56 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: ShaneEP]
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	I only ran this locally as my home pc is not connected to a domain. With a quick glance I would say that it looks good.
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#206403 - 2012-12-08 12:01 AM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
mole mole Getting the hang of it Registered: 2003-01-01 Posts: 77 Loc: Indian Head, Maryland, USA	Did anyone get any more "joy" out of Windows 8? This is what I got when I set up a new VM not joined to any domain: Quote: As User named "Bogus": ...... Domain: WORKGROUP Userid: Bogus Wksta: WIN-AHUV794OT77 Build: 9200 Producttype: Windows 8 Enterprise Edition Date: 2012/12/07 Time 17:49:56 Kix: 4.63 ...... As SYSTEM account: ...... Domain: WORKGROUP Userid: WIN-AHUV794OT77$ Wksta: WIN-AHUV794OT77 Build: 9200 Producttype: Windows 8 Enterprise Edition Date: 2012/12/07 Time 17:50:37 Kix: 4.63 ...... The top set of data I ran as a user named "Bogus" and the bottom as the system via a on-demand scheduled task. As I posted before on a VM joined to an AD the GPO gave a similar return for the @wksta macro. I also tested as the system via a scheduled task as system account on the VM joined to an AD and it gave the same result. On prior versions of Windows I got SYSTEM returned from the @userid macro when sun from GPO or scheduled task as SYSTEM. Can anyone confirm this behavior? I'll update the beta thread if so. Thanks. _________________________ mole Who is John Galt?
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#206443 - 2012-12-11 07:35 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: mole]
Allen Allen KiX Supporter Registered: 2003-04-19 Posts: 4548 Loc: USA	Windows 8 no longer asks "Are you sure?" when you delete a file. To turn this back on... http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-enable-delete-confirmation-dialog-in-windows-8/
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#206547 - 2013-01-09 11:15 PM Re: The Joy of Windows 8 [Re: Allen]
Robdutoit Robdutoit Hey THIS is FUN Registered: 2012-03-27 Posts: 363 Loc: London, England	Well you have had windows 8 for a month now Allen. Is it still giving you joy? I heard that Microsoft got broken into and the only thing the thieves stole were Ipads. Now that's just embarrassing for Microsoft.
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