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Windows 8


double000

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Thinking about a new PC. I was wondering how windows 8 is working out with S3 and DMX. Any issue? Hard to use?.I hate a big change, I have XP now. Should a guy stay with windons 7 or is windows 8 about the same as 7 in the LOR world

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Last weekend I decided to buy a new computer and demote the old to the garage.

I had a hard time finding one that had Windows 7. With only a few options I ended up spending about $300 more than I planned.

Not that I mind having a 2 Terabyte hard drive and a 3d gaming video card, but it was overkill for an everyday desktop.

Scott

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No need to send it back, just call Dell and tell them you want Windows 7 or you sending it back. They will ship it to you and you can wipe out Windows 8.

BTW, Windows 7 is a build option and will be for many years. Business IT departments hate it and are telling MS so.

I have a 5 day old Dell Inspiron 15z with Win 8 on it. It's got LOR 3.8.0 loaded and it works fine controlling an E681 using E1.31. Now for the bad news. Windows 8 sucks bilge water. They took it for granted that the world wants computers to look and feel like those crappy Windows phones, and guess what? They're wrong. I've decided to box it up and eat the 15% restocking fee. Going to Sam's club to find something that still has Windows 7 on it.

The new Win 8 operating system is meant to run on a machine that has a touch screen. There are only a few choices for that available. I'd suggest you visit a store with a machine available to try Win 8 before you aquire a new laptop. If you're comfortable with Win 7, be prepared for a major change. This was a really bad move for Microsoft IMHO. They should leave the iPad feel to Apple...

Jeff

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Jeff, 80% sure that in win8, the option is built in to revert back to the look and feel of 7 with the features of 8 still available

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This may have changed, since the result is from a quick google search, but it looks like the options for getting the start button back include a $5 piece of software, or an open source tool available from SourceForge. Apparently nothing directly built in, nor supported by Microsoft...

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Apparently Windows 8 is the new Vista ^_^ Why fix it if 7 Is not broken?

I think what happened with Microsoft is they designed a mobile operating system with the anticipation of their new tablet launch, and thought it was so good, they can use it for all their computers, and called it Windows 8.

To answer your question, Windows 8 has access a very similar user interface as Windows 7, so installing content and going through your system is just the same. Almost everything that runs on 7 will run on 8.

That being said, your coming from XP I suggest you go to Windows 7. Its a great Operating System.

Get one of your family members who knows about computers and build one by parts, you can customize your needs and it can be around 30% cheaper than a similar desktop/laptop with the same specs. Search around Newegg & Amazon for the best prices on CPU's, Motherboards, Hard drives, ect. You can build a blazing fast PC for around $600/$700 or a simple Internet/music/video/S3/DMX PC for around $300 (without the software). Tip: If your not looking to do heavy gaming, or heavy video/ music editing... go for a cheaper AMD processor.

Edited by Arteom
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IMHO I think that anyone who even THINKS about upgrading either their PC's OS or their copy of LOR between now and the end of the season ought to have their head examined.

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I did MS $40 upgrade deal to win 8. Only lasted less than 12 hrs before I had to format HDD and reinstall Win 7. There is no way to easily revert back to 7 after an upgrade. S3 did work, but navigating 8 to get to it blue chunks! If you get something new stay with 7.

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IMHO I think that anyone who even THINKS about upgrading either their PC's OS or their copy of LOR between now and the end of the season ought to have their head examined.

I think you are 100% right,I should see a head specialist. Do you know a good specialist? I dont deal with change very good. I dont have a choice . I ran my Halloween show and I had sit there and baby sit my PC. Every time I would leave it would go down right in the middle of the song on runtime error or crash. Had it looked at twice can seem to fix it. Iam afraid some going to get pissed and throw rocks at my house or somthing. I did get a new PC, Dell- Windows 7 .Still sitting here, I know if I chage it out something wont work right,LOR or the DMX .Look at me know? I flunked out of muisic ,typting and computer class. I should of paid more attention in class instead of the girls.
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Good news and bad news. I now have a retail boxed Windows 7 Ultimate and a new 1TB hard drive to eliminate Windoze Ate from my new computer.

Just curious, was the new hard drive required to eliminate W8 or an upgrade?

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I've had the displeasure of remoting someone's computer to look at an S3 problem that had Win 8 -- not the person, he was great. The OS.

He already had the desktop set up and it was STILL a pain in the butt.

I have several mobile devices. Would I think about running Vista or 7 on them? No way. I need a mobile touch-screen oriented OS for them. Conversely, why would I want to run a mobile touch-screen oriented OS on a computer that is NOT mobile nor touch screen?

8 is bad not because it's bad, but because it's the wrong tool for the job. It's a hammer when what you need is a screw driver. Sure....You'll get the screw in eventually, but you won't like how it works!

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I was browsing through the computer section at Fry's intent on finding a computer without Windows 8. My wife and son were playing with different computers trying to start "MS Paint". She's a Mac user so she had a really, really hard time navigating through the OS.

Anyway, she was able to get two different W8 machines to have an "unexpected error" and have to restart.

She was able to do this without even able to run any programs. When I ask the salesman about this his reply was

"The computers are set to demo mode when they are on the floor."

Needless to say, I continued my search for Windows 7

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That's code for "I have no idea what is wrong. I made it up so I wouldn't have to answer your technical questions. Last week, I was a used car salesman."

My mother always said if I couldn't say something nice, not to say anything at all. But she didn't say I couldn't laugh and shake my head as I walk away.

P.S. You gave him more credit than I did, I said he was flipping burgers last week.

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My old computer that I used to run LOR starting freezing up for no reason, it was running Win7. I had to borrow an OLD Gateway from my MIL that she was not using anymore, It was still runing XP and its running LOR now with no problems. On another note, I have a laser engraving businsess and that computer just flat died. I had to have one ASAP so I went to Best Buy, everything was running 8, bummer. I finally did score a Alenware with Win7 and grabbed it. Sales lady showed me you could take Win8 and change the desktop to look in Win7, but I did not want to deal with the printer problems that others have had with Win8 and the Epilog laser.

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  • 1 year later...

Just tried to install S3 on a brand new HP laptop with Windows 8.1.  What a mess.  It creates an icon for each LOR program in the "all apps" view of the Start window (when you press the arrow in a circle at the bottom left of the tile screen.  I found the icon for the LOR Control Panel but when I try to start it, I get an error that "The feature you ae trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable", then prompts me to find the file  c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\{9BBBFB01-4FCA-45F1-AD67-A8F97D5F62B2}\  Apparently, it's looking for the "Light-O-Rama.msi" installation package.  

 

I'm not a Windows person so any help on this would be appreciated.  I also read that all of the LOR programs have to be "pinned" for LOR to work properly.  "Pinned" to the Start window or the Taskbar?  Thanks.

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I suggest downloading the Light-O-Rama software again and reinstalling it.  

 

Start at http://www1.lightorama.com/sequencing-software-download/.  The latest version of the software is at the top of the page and previous versions are at the bottom.  It's a big file and could take several minutes to download so be patient.

 

When downloading, if you're asked, make sure to "save to disk" rather than "run from here".  When the download is complete, locate the file on your computer, double click on it and the install process will begin.

 

There are a many other suggestions in the following Light-O-Rama forum topic.  Scan it all because the topic title doesn't cover what really is in the thread.  http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/7728-installer-problem-the-feature-you-are-trying-to-use-is-on-a-network-resource-that-is-unavailable/

 

If you are still having problems, please open a trouble ticket and we will get you going.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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