Two Win 8 questions

[Hersheydmd]

1) Anybody upgrade Win 8 to 8.1? How is it working with OD?
2) I backup to a USB stick that is encrypted with TruCrypt. I usually do my backups on my frontdesk Win XP workstation without any problem. I am gradually upgrading my workstations to Win 8, but OD won't back up on my Win 8 workstation. Interestingly Quickbooks will back up on both. OD hangs on "Preparing to copy database". Anyone have any idea why?

[jsalmon]

1) Anybody upgrade Win 8 to 8.1? How is it working with OD?

I did at home with dreams of having my start button back that they promised... But it was a great let down. Open Dental runs like it did for me in Win 8. Keep in mind I typically use the development version.

...OD hangs on "Preparing to copy database". Anyone have any idea why?

Right after showing that message, OD starts talking to windows for directory information (size of files, locations, etc). My best guess is the infamous windows permissions / UAC. Keep in mind OD's permissions to folders and files are based on who launches it. Hence we typically tell users to launch OD as Administrator.

[JLM]

Windows 8.1 on my desk computer since it went live.
I backup OD (using Manage->backup) to a folder on the disk, compress it and encrypt it (second copy) and move it to dropbox where my home server grabs it and moves it to a different disk.
Nothing changed for me with the upgrade.

JLM

[Jay]

Maybe this is off-topic but here goes:

1. OD has no issues with 8.1 in my experience. I had a few Direct X re-installs but nothing major.

2. Windows 8.1 however is not a straightforward install:

--Can only be installed from STORE so needs UAC re-activated for STORE app to work. Remember to deactivate it again.

-- Windows 8.1 x64 has greater Processor requirements than Windows 8 x64 so if Win 8 x64 works no guarantee you can install Windows 8.1 x64. Workaround is to downgrade to 32-bit Windows 8 and then upgrade to Windows 8.1 32 bit. This sucks because you cannot opt to stay with Windows 8 x64 indefinitely.

--Sometimes Windows 8.1 will not show up in STORE because a required update did not install properly. No universal workaround.

3. 8.1 has huge issues with AMD/ATI drivers so be careful. Sometimes downgrading drivers may help you.

4. 8.1 has NVIDIA GEFORCE driver color issues with SILVERLIGHT. Press Ctrl-T in fullscreen mode to toggle 3-D and fix issues.

5. Internet Explorer gets upgraded to Ver 11 with no downgrade path so if your bank needs IE9 or IE10 (for example) you might get stuck. Solution is compatibility mode but not for all situations.

6. New START button sucks but right clicking it is quite satisfying.

Hope this helps someone.

[Hersheydmd]

Thanks for the replies.
Are there any advantages to upgrading or I am just as well off staying with Win 8 which is working fine for me?

[Jay]

Despite everything I wrote 8.1 does work well if you manage to install it completely. Mainstream support for Windows 8 ends in Jan 2018 so in a sense you have two years (EDIT: 4-5 years, DUH) to play with. Unfortunately the only way to find out is to try.

I think MS mishandled the Windows 8/8.1 releases and a lot of people will be annoyed by the processor issue alone. Imagine if you have a reasonably powerful PC running XP that you upgraded to Windows 8 x64 with extra RAM and now cannot upgrade to Windows 8.1 x64 because the processor does not support PAE or CMPXCHG16b . You thought you were giving it a new lease of life by installing Windows 8 and new RAM and now you are faced with downgrading to 32-bit or losing mainstream support in 2 years. Some people even went from Windows 7 x64 to Windows 8 x64 and now have to go to Windows 8.1 x32.

[Hersheydmd]

I think I'll just stick with Win 8 on this workstation. It is working fine, and I have 5 years (2018) to worry about it.

[Tom Zaccaria]

I finally got my Windows tablet working with 8.0 and upgraded to 8.1. Everything was a challenge. Took a couple of weeks.
Nice display but the interface is so radically different than the XP and Win7 machines I would hesitate to take it to the office for fear of physical harm, mine.

I literally sit here with the tablet and desktop trying to figure out 'how to do' things. Very frustrating. Even the supposed new start button doesn't start anything.

Personally, I think it will end up being too small for office use.
But that's just my .02¢.

drtmz

[Jay]

Honestly when Windows 8 came out it was cheap and we used it to upgrade out of XP whose support is ending in April 2014 and according to MS is 21 times more hack-able than Windows 8. Upgrading to Windows 7 would have been much more expensive since Windows 8 had introductory pricing at the time. Also we added RAM and switched to 64-bit.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows- ... 0240.shtml

Now with Windows 8.1 we have two machines that wont upgrade because of lack of PAE support and this breaks the continuity of the interface across rooms if we leave them as Windows 8 64-bit. The alternative is to downgrade to Windows 8 32 bit and then upgrade to Windows 8.1 32-bit.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058683/ ... ows-8.html

[Tom Zaccaria]

IT guy advised against Win8.0, 8.1 for now because of similar compatibility issues.
We went to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

drtmz

[Hersheydmd]

I have Win 8 on one of my frontdesk machines (upgraded from Win XP). Stable and quick as lightening. Love it.
I only use it in Desktop mode. I created a folder of shortcuts and pinned it to the left of the taskbar in lieu of a Start button. Also made a shortcut to Shut Down the computer & pinned it to the taskbar. So I'm very happy with the way it is working. I think I will stick with it. No one's given me a good reason to upgrade to 8.1.
Now I want to create the exact same setup on my second frontdesk machine which is still Win XP. Is there anyway to clone my machine and copy it to the other machine?

[drtech]

install classic shell with it's new windows 7 like start menu on windows 8 or 8.1. It is the best of all worlds in my opinion. You get the lightning fast startup and shutdown of windows 8 over windows 7 and you bypass all the windows 8 "metro" start screen that nobody likes!

classicshell.net

[Tom Zaccaria]

Figured it out over the weekend that if you unlock the Taskbar and drag it to the right, or left I guess, margin of the screen, OpenDental will have enough screen real estate to properly perform on a Microsoft Surface tablet running Windows 8.1.

With the Taksbar in its normal position at the bottom of the screen you couldn't properly do chart notes because the 'OK' button was hidden. With the repositioning of the Taskbar this is no longer an issue.
Actually OD looks very spiffy on this small screen. Not what I expected.

drtmz

[Hersheydmd]

Upgraded my second front desk workstation from XP Pro to Win 8.0 Pro last night. Ran all the updates and configured all the software. Created a shortcuts folder which I pinned to the left side of the taskbar. It contains all the shortcuts I would miss from not having a Start Menu. Even put in shortcuts for logoff, restart, and shut down.

[Hersheydmd]

Figured out the answer to my initial question.
OD wouldn't back up to the thumb drive because I didn't "Run As Administrator". Problem solved.

[Arna]

Sneaky 'Run as Admin'. You need to do it to almost everything in Windows 8...
To those of you who don't know, we recommend always running Open Dental as administrator. To set this up, right click on the Open Dental icon, select Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab, check the box that says 'Run this program as an administrator' (at the bottom of the screen).