Complete Windows 8 Newb

Might be because of the Fast Shutdown feature of Windows 8 that actually goes into a partial Hibernation state instead of a full Shutdown.

 

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Just wanted to thank you for this thread. Helped clear up some confusion I had. Should be able to get my SSD up and running with Windows 8.1 x64 Update WMC this weekend. Good basic info on setup choices for WMC.

Also wanted to thank S1ave77 & PaulDesmond for his MSDN JukeBox & all others that helped in this thread.

Thanks S1ave77 for the info. Before installing any version of Windows 8.1 Updated x64 WMC on a new SSD I wanted to make sure to disable anything that disables the ATA Security Mode feature set using WinReducer. Tried a bunch of different WMC versions I found around & also some AIO's too. But WinReducer did not seem to like them. So now I plan to start from the MSDN Windows 8.1 Pro x64 version and do the edits thru WinReducer & then upgrade to WMC manually after first install.

I do wonder if the WMC upgrade & other hotfix & updates might reset the DisableEncryptedDiskProvisioning, TCGSecurityActivationDisabled & PreventDeviceEncryption options on WinReducer & other security tweaks ? Have you ever read about the WMC & other upgrades/updates resetting any registry edits one does at instal thru unattended.xml ???

Was also wondering what is the major differences between WinReducer 8.1 vs. MSMG ToolKit. Seem the main one I see is that you can make a Windows 8.1 update with WMC already baked into an .ISO with MSMG's ToolKit.

 

Nope, never heard .

Don't nknow much about WinReducer, as it aimes at slimming down Installs, what makes no sense to me. MSGMs tool mostly automates integration via DISM, as working with the console isn't very comfort, when doing things on a regular base.

 

You should be aware of what reducing an image actually does and does not do.
If you are not using a service in Windows, it does not use memory or cpu time.
So if you are concerned with increasing your system's speed, you have to deal with services that are running, not in cutting out things you are not even using.

There are very few services you can disable that will even affect your system speed.
Some of them are safe to disable, and others should not be modified because they might cause future BSODs.

The Windows Defender is the only significant speed reducing service in Windows 8.x, and it isn't very significant at all.
The rest of the sluggishness just comes from the way Windows works. It reads and modifies over 25000 registry keys every time you reboot. It also likes to start services in a way that's often not well optimized. There's not really any good way to optimize it either because Windows caters to almost all hardware types and loves to catalog everything.

IMO x64 versions of Windows are very sloppy. If it was designed to only emulate 32-bit programs rather than also run them natively, it would be a much better design.
If you look in the syswow64 and system32 folders you'll notice that they have mostly the same programs, just 32-bit and 64-bit variants. I don't know if Win9 is going to man up and make an x64-only version, but I know that when it happens, it will be a lot faster and cleaner.

 

Guess will have to test it out. But I guess if that was the case you or Murphy78 would of heard about it &/or there would be some threads about that.

I am not so much interested on slimming down the Install. But I am just making sure Windows 8.1 will not cripple my virgin SSD automatically.

I am also interested on disabling some of the phone home parts of Windows 8.1. Like Mr. X posted under his KMSAuto Net 2014 release.

Microsoft still has ways to go to really create a truly fast & great x64 environment. Guess they took the easy way out for cross x86 x64 app compatibility. Maybe the new guy in charge will force full innovation instead of rushed sort of innovation. We should have a good idea by the end of the year when W9 gets out to more testers. Hopefully W9 innovation wont just be an updated W7 Start Menu.

Like stated above the main reason I want to use something like WinReducer is to stop @ install phone home parts & specially eDrive's automatic crippling of SSD's. Since we don't control it's trigger as to when it will occur. I would rather take care of it at install. I also doubt I'll want to use BitLocker so might get rid of that. Will just look for a 3rd party alternative.

I actually like to have Windows components like Windows Defender as backups in case something happens to my 3rd party choice. Not really looking on the space saving side of it. Will be using a 120GB SSD so that would be enough to have at leas a 3 Multi-Boot setup. I just plan to run the WMC version. So more then enough space.

 

You can make 64bit only Windows, but it wouldn't run any faster than the hybrid variant, just be smaller and you'd lose all 32bit compatibility.

When you boot 64bit Windows there isn't a single 32bit file loaded, none, zero.
The main reason everything may feel slower is because 64bit files are simply bigger so they need longer to load, we are talking about hundreds of extra MB that need to be read on boot time of course that's going to be slower, especially on a crappy HDD, on a modern SSD you will hardly see a difference as it's fast enough. 64bit drivers, 64bit software and so on just adds up noticeably more than 32bit stuff... basic s**t i would expect people here to know.

 

That's just not true.
Look in the registry. Do you see references to only 64-bit programs? because the entire registry gets loaded very often.
Every time you call a Windows program, it runs the 32-bit version first and then bounces it to a 64-bit version if applicable.
It's not just a 64-bit OS with 32-bit support. It's a 32-bit OS with 64-bit support.

 

1. Registry is loaded on boot into memory (once).
2. Bulls**t, all of it.

 

Load is a bad way to phrase it.
Registry is not a set size. It expands. You can load it once during boot but it will allocate more memory when you make new keys and it won't reduce the size unless you recreate the files.
The size of the registry is not as important as how often it's accessed, and with a 64-bit OS, it's accessed nearly twice as much.

I only had two points, so I'll assume that you're referring to my 2nd one when claiming my post was "Bulls**t, all of it."
Dism calls x64 version when you run the x86 one when accessing a 64-bit image. It does this on demand.
Regedit does the same thing. Basically all the windows programs do this. I don't understand how you could think it's BS. It's not a political statement or opinion statement. It's fact.

 

always consider that a machine is an idiot and does not make stupid things by itself. Redo things you did prior to deactivation and you'll know

 

how are (were) you activated?

 

Provide output for (in admin command prompt):

Code:

cscript slmgr.vbs /dlv