Windows 8 is the worst piece of shit I've ever used in my life.

[Wolf333]

@drewp29

So, it’s 2015, and Windows 8/8.1 still sucks. Changes to the UI aside, it is impossible to troubleshoot this damn OS. The only way to fix the stupid piece of crap is to ‘refresh’ or ‘restore’ and reinstall every non approved by M$ program. I have now had the displeasure of attempting to fix 3 different laptops that have botched OS issues due to the inability of M$ to design a working operating system. And God forbid you ever have to reinstall the OS, cause if you didn’t have the foresight to create a restore disk (which is the stupidest move ever Microsoft) you’ll never be able to install a clean copy because the product key is now embedded in the OS. Since the OS is now broken, there is no way to get at it. All in the name of combating piracy by screwing their paying customers.

They took the simplest tasks and buried them so you either cannot find them or have to go through 3 more commands to find them. I’m all for change if it is an improvement, but absolutely nothing in this OS is an improvement, just a move sideways to make it look like they are accomplishing something.

Some advice for Microsoft with the next iteration of Windows:

Return the user interface to the Windows 7 version, give us functionality for DirectX 12, and put the windows key back on a sticker on the DVD or laptop. If you can do that and reduce background processes by 50%, then you’ll have a winner.

Let’s see…

The recovery disks and key label are on the computer manufacturers, not Microsoft. Most manufacturers moved to a recovery partition years ago.

Direct X 12 is not officially released yet. Direct X 11 is supported.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I have a recovery partition. If the hard drive is failing though, it will be of limited use.

My newish Win8 installation gives this message if I want to create a recovery drive.

“The drive must be able to hold at least 16gb and everything on the drive will be deleted.”

So that rules out a DVD (only 4.5gb). External hard drives can’t be used, unless you want to wipe their contents entirely. So I guess I’ll have to purchase a large capacity USB. Better go for 32gb for future use. About $15. (Where am I going to store this thing? Better get a larger one. And attach a string to it.)
The workaround is to make a full disk image of the OS and put it in an external hard drive. I’ve done that. Only 20.7gb. You need non-MS software though: I’ve been using Paragon’s Disk Manager, though I’ve used Macrium in the past. More generally, perhaps disk imaging should become standard practice for the intermediate user.